Introduction to the special issue ‘A politics of receptivity’

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Notes

1. Just before I wrote these words, I read a letter written by Nathan Brown, an untenured assistant professor at the University of California, Davis, demanding in the strongest terms the resignation of the Chancellor of UC Davis for authorizing the use of police violence on non-violent protesters. This would count, I believe, as a pretty fine example of parresia in the context of academic and democratic politics: http://ucdfa.org/2011/11/18/open-letter-to-chancellor-linda-p-b-katehi/ Of course, there are many other examples of parresia where the risk involved includes a risk to one's own life. The events that spread after the Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set light to himself can, as Norval argues, be seen as another example, albeit a violent one, of such parresia.