Faculty Colloquium
Presents:
Annelise Riles
Northwestern University
Zombie Wilderness: Field Guide for a World Without a Centre
Thursday September 7, 2023
12:30pm – 2pm
Falconer Hall, 84 Queens Park
Room: Michael J. Trebilcock Solarium FH103 / FA2
Abstract: For over a century, the solution to just about every problem has been institutions. From the International Atomic Energy Agency to the modern research university, from global challenges like human rights to sustainability to our personal mental health, we are constantly turning to institutions, creating new ones, or seeking to expand, bolster or fix the problems with the ones we have. But these institutions are increasingly zombie institutions: they are still there, occupying space in the landscape, but their efficacy is fading, and with it is fading our confidence in them. Indeed, most of us spend most of our time finding ways to work around these zombies. Whether we fully recognize it or not, we increasingly find ourselves going off road, in a kind of new wilderness. This is true at every level—global, regional, national, local, even the personal. This book is a field guide to that wilderness. I don’t pretend to tell you where to go or why. But I do want to share some tools you may want to pack for the trip. The book presents key moves I have learned from some remarkable explorers I have met over a lifetime of research and leadership. Some are relational and some are technical. Some you will surely recognize from your own experience wrangling zombies. Others may be new, counterintuitive and even troubling. My goal is for us to help one another find a way through this wilderness and also to together begin to create the new cowpaths that will some day turn into different kinds of roads and superhighways—to begin to create the new world that will replace those zombies.The reading for this session is an early draft of the introduction to the book and one section on one move—Gaps. I hope to learn from you in this session about your experience of these zombie institutions and how you navigate them. Rather than a traditional seminar I hope we can approach this session as more of a sharing opportunity. With that in mind, I hope everyone can think about two key questions in advance:1. What examples of zombie institutions—at any level— do you encounter in your world, and how do these impact you? 2. How do you already Mind the Gap? How else could you put his move into practice?
Annelise Riles is the Executive Director of the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Studies at Northwestern University, enhancing Northwestern’s reputation for cutting-edge, interdisciplinary programs and research on globally relevant topics. Riles will also be the Associate Provost for Global Affairs and a professor of law and anthropology. Her scholarship spans a wide range of substantive areas including human rights, managing and accommodating cultural differences, and the regulation of the global financial markets.Key areas in legal studies include comparative law, the conflict of laws, financial regulation, socio-legal studies and international law. In anthropology, her work is known for its methodological contributions as well as for its contributions to the study of international institutions and expertise.
For further workshop information contact events.law@utoronto.ca
In 2023-24, the University of Toronto Faculty of Law is combining its Legal Theory, Law & Economics, and Critical Analysis of Law workshops into the new Faculty Colloquium, which will meet weekly on Thursdays at 1230pm and will feature speakers in all these different areas. You’re receiving this message because you were on one of the lists for the previous workshop.
