The Department of Philosophy will host the 87th Aquinas Lecture on Friday, Oct. 2, at 3 p.m. in the Centennial Room (AMU 227). This year’s lecture, “Oppression and the Politics of the Human,” will be delivered by Dr. Serene J. Khader, Jay Newman Chair in Philosophy of Culture at Brooklyn College and professor of philosophy and women’s and gender studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.
In her lecture, Khader will examine the idea of “the human” as a moral and political category, exploring its role in shaping concepts of rights, inclusion and shared responsibility. Drawing on the history of human rights and contemporary debates about oppression, she will consider both the promise and the challenges of appeals to our common humanity.
Khader is a writer, philosopher and feminist theorist whose research spans ethics, moral psychology, political philosophy and feminist philosophy. She also works in the interdisciplinary fields of development ethics and global, decolonial and postcolonial feminist philosophy. Her most recent book, “Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop” (Beacon Press, 2024), received the North American Society for Social Philosophy’s 2025 Book Award.
The Aquinas Lecture is free and open to the public.
For more information, contact the Department of Philosophy at muphilosophy@marquette.edu.
