Can non­vi­o­lence be an aggressive political tool? What does it mean to argue for non­vi­o­lence in the current political sit­u­ation?  In her recent book, Judith Butler ana­lyzes the philo­sophical con­fig­u­ra­tions of non­vi­o­lence, engaging with the works of Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, Frantz Fanon and Walter Ben­jamin. From this inter­section of political phi­losophy, psy­cho­analysis and social theory, Butler stresses that non­vi­o­lence is a nec­essary ethical position in order to pre­serve lives.” Stefan Lessmann will conduct this session of the Workshop for Theory and Con­tem­porary Critical Thought, on Judith But­ler’s The Force of Non­vi­o­lence: An Ethico-Political Bind (2020).