[SydPhil] Critical Antiquities Workshop – Andrew Poe

[Callista Sheridan]

Dear all,
 
At the next Critical Antiquities Workshop, we are very excited to host Andrew Poe (Australian Catholic University) for his paper, ‘Amongst Wolves: On the Origin of Police.’ 
 
The event will take place on Zoom on Thursday, June 13, 09:30-11:00am (Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane time). 
 
The event will be in a hybrid format broadcast from the School of Humanities Common Room (Rm 822, Brennan-MacCallum Building, University of Sydney). 
 
Here is the time in other locations:
 
•       Los Angeles/Vancouver: Wednesday, June 12, 4:30-6pm
•       Mexico City: Wednesday, June 12, 5:30-7pm 
•       Chicago: Wednesday, June 12, 6:30-8pm
•       New York: Wednesday, June 12, 7:30-9pm
•       Santiago/Buenos Aires/Rio de Janeiro: Wednesday, June 12, 8:30-10pm
•       Dublin/Belfast/London: Thursday, June 13, 12:30-2am
•       Paris/Berlin/Rome: Thursday, June 13, 1:30-3am
•       Johannesburg/Athens/Cairo: Thursday, June 13, 2:30-4am
•       Beijing/Singapore/Perth: Thursday, June 13, 7:30-9am
•       Tokyo: Thursday, June 13, 8:30-10am
•       Darwin/Adelaide: Thursday, June 13, 9:00-10:30am
  
To register, please sign up for the Critical Antiquities Network mailing list to receive Zoom links and CAN announcements: https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/MTnYCBNqjlCPz6Ol2uz7XWi?domain=signup.e2ma.net
 
Here is the abstract:
 
Wolves once triggered a crucial anxiety in early domesticated human life. It is perhaps no surprise that many pre-modern myths problematize wolves as a fundamental danger, both to flocks, and to the human communities that rely on them. As herds of sheep and goats proved crucial resources for meat, milk, cheese, clothing, and tools, shepherding communities sought protection from such an existential threat. Security, it seems, was once synonymous with protection from wolves. This essay maps some of the origins of that desire for security by tracing the beginning of the concept of police. As I hope to show, the “wolf” is such a crucial character in the dialectic origin story of the police because it provides an exterior force to counteract and develop against. Ancient iterations of police – always included in the security forces of the state – had the maintenance of the boundary of the state as a crucial function. This boundary was both the perimeter of the civil order, and the perimeter of the human world (the human world safe from wolves). I argue that, as police power transforms, so too does the problem of the wolf. From religious figurations of the wolf as evil to bourgeois lessons in moral psychology and the growth of civil administration, the figure of the wolf continues to occupy a significant place in the psychic space of civil society. And, as police develop from a segment of security forces to civil administration and then an independent political institution, the contrast to wolves remains constant. I offer a portrait of a world before police, and the ways that “before” has found itself continuing in justifications of both the constitution of the police as a security force, as well as the continuation and expansion of the powers of that force. Read this way, fear of specific manifestations of disorder (“wolves”) can help explain the beginning of a developmental logic of policing.
 
We hope to see you there, 
 
Callista, on behalf of Tristan and Ben. 
 
Callista Sheridan 
Critical Antiquities Network 
criticalantiquities.org 
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