Event Detail

This talk is part of a larger project outlining the value of and basis for a theory of inheritance. Nearly all discussions of inheritance—economic, biological, anthropological, etc.—focus on the things that inheritance transfers rather than the unique features of inheritance by which such generational transfers are possible. One of these features is the ability of inheritance to endow, in addition to goods, certain capacities or rights to a subject independent of their consent. Tracing Kant’s brief discussion of this transfer of “belongingness” that, unlike inherited “belongings,” cannot be discarded by the inheritor, I consider how belongingness to groups or kinds exists in virtue of inherited endowments that may obtain despite feelings or claims of not belonging. Through the example of sexuality, I offer that experiences of non-belonging regularly signify inheritable belongingness rather than testify against it.