In Conversation with Dr Jessica Whyte (Book Launch)

Join Sundhya Pahuja, Claerwen O'Hara and Valeria Vazquez Guevara in conversation with Jessica Whyte, on a discussion of Jessica's latest book 'The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism'. In this recording, Jessica explores why the neoliberal age has also been the age of human rights. Drawing on detailed archival research, she explores the place of human rights in an attempts to develop a moral framework for a market society. The book helps us to understand why coming to terms with these origins is so crucial. As we emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, now more than ever, we need to be think carefully about the languages and justifications which sustain inequality, and what we can do to challenge them. Jessica Whyte is Scientia Fellow and Associate Professor at the School of Humanities and Languages (Philosophy) and the School of Law at the University of New South Wales, and is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow. She is a political theorist whose work integrates political philosophy, intellectual history and political economy to analyse contemporary forms of sovereignty, human rights, humanitarianism and militarism.