May 28, 2020 EPS seminar (the question of universalism)

The Education-Politics-Society seminar on the morning of May 28 will focus on the issue of universalism. Two presentations are scheduled:

Tommy Terraz, associate member of the laboratory and researcher in philosophy of education, proposes to(Re)interrogate the universal in Educationin the light of the Anthropocene.

"The growing number of crises facing humanity (pandemics, climate disruption, etc.) is making us more aware than ever that humanity is one, interdependent and interconnected. Yet the universal itself seems to be in crisis, caught between the twin traps of nihilistic relativism (indifferentiation leading to violence) and dogmatism (identitarianism leading to violence). If the etymology of the word crisis, "krisis" in Greek, means judgment, decision, it is important to make choices and to have "universalizable" reference points (Drouin-Hans, 2004) for education. Not to mention the fact that education, a living and necessary human relationship, cannot do without conditions, but also values and goals, which must be constantly postulated and reinterrogated. This proposal will therefore consist in asking ourselves, together, from a radical questioning of the philosophy of education, about the universal in education. Why question educational universals again and again? And how can we go about it? We'll also try to clear up certain confusions, paradoxes and points of tension: between universality and singularity, and between republican principles (liberty, equality, fraternity, secularity, respect for diversity, etc.).
An initial bibliographical reference: Alain Policar : L'inquiétante familiarité de la race, Décolonialisme, Intersectionnalité et Universalisme, ed. Le bord de l'eau, chuchotementshttps://www.editionsbdl.com/produit/linquietante-familiarite-de-la-race-decolonialisme-intersectionnalite-et-universalisme/ "

Geneviève Zoïa, CEPEL Laboratory and Faculty of Education, will empirically illustrate the question of universalism in educational research. She will present the book Educationand Diversity, edited by Françoise Lorcerie, and her contribution to this work on the relationship between diversity and universalism(http://www.pur-editions.fr/couvertures/1611134525_doc.pdf).