Subject and State. The History of an Episteme
Can the indvidual be said to have a history? Can it be said to be part of an episteme? And if so, what is it? These questions will be addressed by Professor Ove Kaj Pedersen from Copenhagen Business School on September 17.
The individual is rarely described as an institution with its own history. In this lecture Ove K. Pedersen presents the close relation between the invention of the individual and a modern state.
In his latest publication – “The Market State” (Markedsstaten, 2014) – he traces how kings and councils, lawmakers and parliaments over more than 300 years of Danish history created a subject and a modern state, but also how this process is narrated by academic historians and legal theory.
His empirical focus is on the creation of the free laborer and the labor market and how the invention of the individual is related to the establishment of a certain episteme, i.e. a world view in which qualified individuals are equipped with legal rights and opportunities to act on and to appropriate a certain world pre-established through laws and their formal interpretation.
Ove Kaj Pedersen is Professor in comparative political economy at Copenhagen Business School, where he is the founder of Department of Business and Politics.
Read more about “The Market State”.
Humanomics Open Research Seminars
Humanomics Research Centre aims at gathering colleagues, PhD students, and advanced students for discussions of new trends and theories in the humanities - ranging from current research projects to theoretical debates about the past, present and future of humanities scholarship.
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