by Sunil Agnani
Department of English and Department of History,
University of Illinois at Chicago
University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Thursday, October 1
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Place: 710 Social Sciences
But, you will ask, in what does this general will [volonté générale] reside? Where can I consult it?… In the principles of written law of all the civilized nations [les nations policées]; in the social practices of savage and barbarous peoples… and even in those two passions—indignation and resentment [l'indignation & le ressentiment]—which nature seems to have extended as far as animals to compensate for social laws and public retribution.
—Diderot, “Natural Law” / Droit Naturel (1755) from Encyclopédie
What might Diderot have meant in proposing that two passions, indignation and ressentiment, were the repositories for a general will, akin to written law (for civilized peoples) or social practices (for peuples sauvages)? This talk aims to trace one term which arises in some eighteenth-century writings on empire and slavery, namely that of ressentiment (in contrast with studies of sympathy, with which it is of course tied).
Sponsored by: Consortium for the Study of the Asias, Consortium for the Study of the Premodern World, Institute for Global Studies
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