Dear Participants,

The next Beyond Contract? Seminar is taking place on 18th July at Leicester University. This seminar focuses on particular theoretical and conceptual understandings of the contract and we have invite two keynote speakers, Charles Mills and Norman Geras to open the debate. Charles Mills is Professor in Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His main research interests are in oppositional political theory, particularly around issues of class, gender and race. He has written extensively on race and in 'The Racial Contract' (1997), Mills explores how the 'racial contract' and the 'racial state' it engenders rests in "securing the privileges and advantages of the full white citizens and maintaining the subordination of nonwhites" (1997:14). His paper will draw on his work in the Racial Contract to highlight the centrality of racism in contractual theory and how his radical work has impacted on contractual debates on race, gender and class. Norman Geras is a political theorist from Manchester University and his research interests include Marxism, the moral philosophy of socialism and the holocaust. Geras will be exploring the idea of contract by drawing on arguments that he developed in his book 'The Contract of Mutual Indifference' (1997) which is a troubling and provocative piece of work. He will talk about why he used the idea of contract and thought it was a useful framework for talking about bystanding, victimhood with reference to the holocaust. We thought that these issues would be interesting to consider in relation to phenomena such as prostitution.

The seminar will start at 11.30am and end around 3.30pm, a full seminar programme and reading material will be sent out to participants a week before the seminar. Please confirm your attendance by emailing Frances at the address below.