The Department of Philosophy is pleased to present

Patti Tamara Lenard, Professor of Public & International Affairs, University of Ottawa

“Cultural Appropriation and Freedom of Expression"

Thursday, February 26, 2026
4-6pm
Dunning Hall, Room 10

This talks centres “cultural appropriation” – and how democracies, committed to freedom of expression, should respond to acts of cultural appropriation. In the first half of the talk, I offer an account of cultural appropriation, crafted with Peter Balint, that is central to our forthcoming book Cultural Appropriation (MIT Press, 2026). This
account highlights what makes acts of cultural appropriation wrongful, and argues that many acts of cultural appropriation, while perhaps wrong in some sense, are only trivially so. In the second half of the talk, I offer an extension of the argument we make in our final chapter, which highlights what can and should be done, and by whom, to remedy the, possibly alleged, harms of cultural appropriation in diverse democratic states.

EVERYONE WELCOME