For the opening-day talk for Baby Marx, artist Pedro Reyes, political philosopher/literary theorist Michael Hardt, and Lauren Berlant, George M. Pullman Professor of English at the University of Chicago, discussed some of the ideas broached by Reyes’ exhibition and the project’s complicated relationship to the current economic crisis. Hardt is coauthor of Empire, heralded as one of the most important explorations of the geopolitical climate at the dawn of the 21st century. Berlant’s work on political emotion includes The Queen of America Goes to Washington City, The Female Complaint: the Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture, and Cruel Optimism.
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