Refusing to Be Silent : Engaged Conversations with Leading Intellectuals

from populism, the pandemic, and the rise of conspiracy theories to new forms of resistance – these essays show a refusal to lapse into rigid and reductive oppositions, instead providing critically nuanced interpretations of contemporary events and struggles.

How can we approach the world and guide our thinking in the face of profound, myriad challenges? This is the ambitious question that animates the current volume. The book seeks to formulate these challenges and develop ways to tackle them through a set of wide-ranging interviews with leading intellectuals of our times, including Nancy Fraser, Seyla Benhabib, Michael Walzer and Etienne Balibar. Contributing fresh perspectives on current events – from the liberation of women’s voices to the crisis of secularism; from populism, the pandemic, and the rise of conspiracy theories to new forms of resistance – these essays show a refusal to lapse into rigid and reductive oppositions, instead providing critically nuanced interpretations of contemporary events and struggles. The collection brings together original and accessible points of view, selected by researchers from the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory at the University of Belgrade, in the pursuit of and safeguarding intellectual freedom.