Pristupačnost
Jerónimo Rilla, PhD
Friday 21 February, 15:00, Lecture hall B
Early modernity witnessed the emergence of a transformative concept: the state. This notion had to fulfill vital and potentially conflicting functions. Its primary objective was to serve as an abstract locus of power, distinct from both the people who composed it and the sovereign who acted on its behalf. Additionally, it needed to operate as an independent agent in global politics while simultaneously representing the people and garnering their support. Scholars have argued that this concept was achieved through its construction as a juridical or moral person. However, I propose that the state should instead be understood as the product of personification—a rhetorical or graphic device that translates an abstraction into a concrete form. My talk will explore how personification helped Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau articulate their innovative ideas of the state.
About the speaker:
Jerónimo Rilla, PhD, is a historian of political thought currently based at University College London as part of a British Academy International Fellowship. He earned his doctorate in 2018 at the University of Buenos Aires with a thesis examining the role of personification in Thomas Hobbes’s theory of the state.
