MONOCULTURE | A Recent History

Title: How to envisage cultural diversity from an agonistic perspective

Mouffe will examine the conditions of a non-essentialist and pluralist approach in the field of culture. She will argue that, contrary to what is often believed, a universalist cosmopolitan perspective does not provide an adequate alternative to the idea of monoculture understood as the homogeneous expression of the culture of a single social or ethnic group. Taking her bearings from Claude Levi-Strauss and his insistence on the importance of preserving the diversity of cultures in a world threatened by homogeneity and uniformity, and making reference to some debates in the field of artistic practices, she will enquire about the conditions of an agonistic dialogue among a diversity of cultures.

Bio: Chantal Mouffe is Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in London. She has taught and researched in many universities in Europe, North America and South America and she is a corresponding member of the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris. She is the editor of Gramsci and Marxist Theory (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1979), Dimensions of Radical Democracy. Pluralism, Citizenship, Community (Verso, London, 1992), Deconstruction and Pragmatism (Routledge, 1996) and The Challenge of Carl Schmitt (Verso, London, 1999); the co-author with Ernesto Laclau of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (Verso, London, 1985) and the author of The Return of the Political (Verso, London, 1993), The Democratic Paradox (Verso, London, 2000), On the Political (Routledge. London, 2005), Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (Verso, 2013), with Inigo Errejon, Podemos. In the Name of the People (Lawrence & Wishart, 2016) and For a Left Populism (Verso 2019).