Socrates On Trial

Named by Rowan Williams as one of his Books of the Year (2021) in the New Statesman. Socrates On Trial tells of Socrates’s return to a modern city that is plagued by prejudice, privilege and populism.On resuming his questioning in the agora he is arrested, interrogated by his prosecutors, questioned by his Judge, and confessed to by his inquisitor.On a Festival Day, he explores a new model for the just city --a city based not on mastery but on learning --before offering a new apology to the court that will, once again, decide his fate. This new/old Socrates offers the city a renewed vision of justice by reconceptualizing the meaning and significance of thinking and education.From the force of Socratic questioning, he unfolds a different logic of truth, freedom, and justice.His conversations exert a gravitational force that draws key cultural elements of the city -- property, wealth, money, family, essence, gendered and racialized identities, production, distribution and consumption --