On Kevin Duong's "The Virtues of Violence"

Session Submission Type: In-Person Author meet critics

Session Description

This “author-meets-critics” panel brings together a group of scholars to discuss Kevin Duong’s
“The Virtues of Violence: Democracy Against Disintegration in Modern France” (Oxford
University Press, 2020).

Duong’s book studies the recurring role that popular regenerative violence played in nineteenth
century French thought. It argues that such violence commanded widespread appeal, because it
answered a fundamental dilemma of political modernity: how to replace the severed bonds of the
old regime with a superior democratic social bond. In making its argument, the book challenges
traditional views of regenerative violence as an antidemocratic pathology. It urges theorists to
appreciate the central role of such violence in the momentous development of modern republican
democracy.

Discussing the book are critical historians, scholars of European political thought, and specialists on political violence. Together, the panelists can debate the book’s implications for discussions in democratic theory and the history of political thought.

Chair: Jennie Ikuta
Presenters: Massimiliano Tomba, Ayten Gündoğdu, Nancy Luxon, Kevin Duong

Sub Unit

• Division 2: Foundations of Political Theory

Chair

• Jennie Choi Ikuta University of Missouri-Columbia

Presenters

• Nancy Luxon University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

• Ayten Gundogdu Barnard College-Columbia University

• Massimiliano Tomba University of California

• Kevin Duong University of Virginia