Lunchtime Talk: Moving Parts: Paradoxes of Vagueness and Questions of Identity

With Riccardo Strobino, Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor, Department of Classics at Tufts University and Chiara Pidatella, Research Curator, Tufts University Art Galleries

As part of new ongoing lunchtime series, Riccardo Strobino, Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor, Department of Classics, and Chiara Pidatella, Research Curator, Tufts University Art Galleries address philosophical paradoxes and notions of the self in a short talk titled Moving Parts: Paradoxes of Vagueness, Borderline Cases, and Questions of Identity. Using the Ship of Theseus parable as its starting point, this talk delves into the questions at the core of the exhibition States of Freedom: The Figure in Flux, II. The exhibition begins with the ancient paradox of the Ship of Theseus—presented in a 16th-century edition of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives—which ponders the nature of identity through an object whose parts have been progressively replaced, asking whether the recreation can be the thing itself. From there, the galleries feature works that celebrate the human form as an unstable amalgamation of histories, technologies, and cultures.