You are cordially invited to the third lecture in the Lecture Series on Invisible Work, organized by the Aesop Chair in collaboration with the Centre de recherche en éthique. For this third lecture, we are pleased to welcome Lisa Herzog (University of Groningen) for a presentation titled “Against Careers.”
Abstract: This paper argues against work being organized in “careers,” with individuals being expected, over the years, to climb up a ladder of increasing income, power, and status in one specific area of paid work. This organization of work creates an “ideal biography norm” that disadvantages many groups who cannot fulfil it, e.g. active parents and other groups doing “invisible” work. After defining what I mean by “careers” and what kind of critique I raise against the concept, I briefly set out the historical background of how today’s understanding of careers developed. This shows that many arguments that spoke in favor of careers in the past no longer hold. Today, work being organized as careers threatens at least two sets of values: equality of opportunity, understood across people’s whole life, and value pluralism. As an alternative, and to rescue what still stands from the historical arguments in favor of careers, I suggest a model of “merit without careers,” in which certain functional requirements for jobs remain in place, while giving up the assumption of linearity, leaving behind the “ideal biography norm” as the “normal” case. This would better align the organization of work with the values of equality of opportunity and value pluralism.
The event will take place on May 19th, 2026, at noon in room 422 of the Department of Philosophy at the Université de Montréal (2910 Boulevard Édouard-Montpetit, Montreal, QC) in hybrid format.
Please register via the following link. To participate via Zoom, click here (Meeting ID: 704 532 7051; passcode: 9Me2EW).
The Lecture Series on Invisible Work is an initiative by Denise Celentano (University of Montreal), holder of the Aesop Chair, in collaboration with the Centre de recherche en éthique. For more information, please contact Denise Celentano (UdeM) denise.celentano@umontreal.ca or Dominic Martin (UQAM) martin.dominic@uqam.ca.
General information about the Lecture Series: The concept of invisible work describes the forms of work that fall outside the traditional model of waged employment and are not recognized, in a monetary and/or symbolic sense, to the point that even their nature as “work” is often disputed. Invisible work takes place behind the scenes of more recognized and valued work. Given its liminal nature with respect to long-established categories, it serves as a prism for exploring a number of issues, from recognition to social segregation to the critical questioning of the normative assumptions behind what is supposed to count as “work.” The notion of invisible work promises to shed light, as it were, on the mechanisms of valorization that operate behind social cooperation. This series of lectures, open to the public, explores the subject from both a philosophical and interdisciplinary perspective.
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