JHI Undergraduate Fellow
Odessa Hewitt-Bernhard is a fourth-year student studying philosophy and ethics, society, and law at the University of Toronto. She is especially interested in ethics, phenomenology, and philosophy of religion. Outside of school, Odessa has spent the past five years working at a harm reduction centre in Parkdale. After her undergraduate degree, Odessa hopes to pursue graduate studies in philosophy.
Fellowship Research Project—The Politics of Grief: Disenfranchised Loss and Formulating the Political Subject
The absence of another person causes a rupture in our social relationships that can act as a starting point for investigating the meanings that these relationships have in our lives and in our society. Ongoing and widespread loss exposes the way that our political relationships are formed. While grieving is traditionally seen as a private matter, and the loss of a loved one is often considered to take place on a micro-scale, grief both manifests itself on a political level, and informs the way that political relationships appear. Through an investigation of these questions, I will explore the various relationships between power and grief – both the way that power shapes who we grieve and how we grieve, and how grief exposes and informs relations of power.