Critical Thought and Global Social Inquiry, AB
Advisor: Paul E. Nahme
Thesis: How Do We Make a World? Hannah Arendt, the Khoi-San, and the Problems of Alterity and Humanism
Thesis Advisors: Michael P. Steinberg, Nancy Jacobs, Robert Preucel
My independent concentration has one foot firmly planted in the philosophical tradition of critical theory and the other in rigorous investigations of a global society through existing disciplines across the humanities and humanistic social sciences. I use these tools to interrogate questions of postcolonialism, nationalism, and global justice with an eye to imaginative, insightful, and different modes of thought.
My thesis follows parallel concerns with what the world is (a question of alterity) and how the world should be (a question of freedom). I develop resources to think through the category of the world by focusing on Hannah Arendt, a twentieth-century German-Jewish political philosopher, and the Khoi-San, an indigenous people of South Africa. This project offers resources that can help us make a better world: One that affirms the dignity of politics as a human activity, that similarly recognizes the fundamental power of art, and that bears a responsible attitude towards the intertwined histories of humanism and colonialism.
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"Congratulations, Aliosha, on your graduation and on a superb thesis: the first of many anticipated works that will have your name on them." --Michael Steinberg
"Congratulations, Aliosha! It was such a pleasure to get to know you via your work on the CCC. Your work-ethic, intellectual curiosity, ethics, honesty, sense of justice, broad knowledge base and good humor brought so much energy and joy to our work and to mine, in particular. Thank you!!" --Besenia Rodriguez
