‘Meet the Thinker: Elsa Dorlin’

Elsa Dorlin is a renowned French philosopher.  In 2017, her book Self-Defence: A Philosophy of Violence (first published by La Découverte), attracted considerable attention, winning the Fanon Prize in 2018 and the Prix de l’Écrit social the following year. The author traces the history of political self-defence and analyses the use of violence, legitimised by the dominant society for its own defence, but forbidden for minorities and the oppressed. We find the same commitment to equality in the re-edition of Sexe, genre et sexualités (published by PUF), which revisits the feminist philosophies of the last fifty years and sheds light on contemporary debates on gender. She will be in conversation with Safia Kessas, journalist, author and documentary director, specialising in gender issues.