Jan 29
What's in a Document? Birth Certificates and the Construction of Identity in American Law and History
Wed, January 29, 2025
• 5:00pm
- 6:30pm (1h 30m) • Athenaeum

From the “birther” controversy and the crackdown on trans rights to the line at the DMV, birth certificates are used by both governments and individuals to fix basic identity categories: nationality, citizenship, gender, age and, historically, race. Why do we accord these pieces of paper such evidentiary power? This talk explores both how birth certificates came to have a special epistemological status in the modern United States, as well as how they have been used to help the state construct basic identity categories in order to distribute (and deny) rights and protections.
from Philosophy
Event Contact: Daniel Groll
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