Castillo and Ziarek will speak to the transatlantic dialogue that spawned the critical theory movement of the 60s and 70s. Buffalo has a special place in this story as it hosted leading French academics like Michel Foucault, Rene Girard and Helene Cixous at pivotal points in their careers.

Questions we expect to discuss with our guest speakers include: What is Critical Theory and how has it remained relevant? How did Buffalo come to feature in its development? How do we ensure that a broad set of social movement stakeholders—communities, workers, students—share the task of building a critical analysis? What’s the relationship between Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory?