Geophilosophy Lecture Series: Patricia Hill Collins at Casa dei Tre Oci

In April, Berggruen Institute Europe hosted 2023 Berggruen Prize Laureate, Dr. Patricia Hill Collins, for an evening lecture as part of the Geophilosophy lecture series at Casa dei Tre Oci.

An esteemed academic, Dr. Collins’s contributions to the fields of critical social theory, feminism, and more cannot be understated. Yet beyond Dr. Collins’s pursuit to provide the language to describe our current condition, what she calls “words of power,” she is fervently committed to building upon the ideas to improve it; her work intertwines theory with praxis. Since the release of her first book, Black Feminist Thought, and throughout her career, Dr. Collins has consistently contoured, and often unsettled, contemporary sociological thought. She continues to remind us that knowledge is not neutral, but epistemically embedded in structures of power.

After opening remarks from the Scientific Director at Berggruen Institute Europe, Niccolo Milanese, Dr. Collins offered the audience a guiding topic for the evening, and one central to her work: intersectionality. Intersectionality, she specified, describes the manner in which overlapping social categories (race, sex, class, and more) intersect to form distinct relations of oppression and privilege. In this way, the notion of intersectionality challenges the often reductive nature of ‘us vs. them’ outlooks, instead constructing “interpretive space” among an array of people. Indeed, it was this interpretive space – expansive and alive – that Dr. Collins spent the evening inviting the audience to inhabit.

Over the course of her lecture, Dr. Collins used powerful examples from her body of work – namely drawing on Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory, Intersectionality, and Lethal Intersections – as discursive conduits. You can watch the full lecture here.