Description:

The Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs hosts running colloquia for graduate students to present their research to globally engaged faculty and fellow students. In this colloquium, Comparative Literary Studies and Philosophy PhD candidate Micol Bez will present on her project, “The Case for Epistemic Reparations for Sexual Violence.” Q&A and discussion will follow, and lunch will be provided. 

Micol's research in this talk aims to develop a framework for epistemic reparations — i.e. “intentionally reparative actions in the form of epistemic goods given to those epistemically wronged by parties who acknowledge these wrongs and whose reparative actions are intended to redress them” (Lackey, 2022, 70) — for sexual violence, hoping to (i) expand the limited scholarship on reparations for sexual violence; (ii) address the distinctly epistemic harms engendered by sexual violations and the possibility of repairing them; and (iii) argue that the framework of epistemic reparations (ER), and the notion of “imperfect epistemic duties” in particular, can promote “transformative reparations” (Gready 2022) that go beyond strictly individual redress, and that can address some of the systemic aspects of SV. 

Learn more about the Buffett Institute's programming for graduate students >>