Category Recorded Lectures
8 February 2023 online Lucy Burke This talk will explore the complex entanglement of new reproductive technologies, genetics, health economics, rights-based discourses and ethical considerations of the value of human life with particular reference to representations of Down’s syndrome and… Continue Reading →
18 January 2023 online It has been over 30 years since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed, but it has only been within the last decade that disabled Latinxs are becoming more visible and demanding disability justice. According… Continue Reading →
14 December 2022 online Ellen Clifford Disabled people in the UK have been subjected to brutal, targeted attacks by government since 2010, largely concealed from the public through spin, lies and strategic U-turns. In 2016 the UN found the UK… Continue Reading →
Aaron Bastani, Novara Media 14 January 2020 Luxury Communism vs Scarcity Nativism The politics of the last 12 years have been increasingly defined by crisis. A crisis of the old geopolitical order, as American Empire crumbles; a crisis of free… Continue Reading →
Michael Heinrich, Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft, Berlin 19 November 2019 There is no doubt that communism was Karl Marx’s political goal. Nonetheless, he never published a book or an article with a clear and extensive demonstration of what communism… Continue Reading →
Gavan Titley, Maynooth University 6 March 2018 Racism, in public culture, is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. The very mention of race serves as an invitation to disprove its salience, the mention of racism as an invitation to refute its relevance…. Continue Reading →
Stella Sandford, Kingston University, London 20th Feb 2018 This lecture addresses the controversial issue of what recent student movements have called the ‘decolonisation of the syllabus’, specifically in Philosophy. It will focus on the example of Immanuel Kant. Kant’s critical… Continue Reading →
Gurminder Bhambra, University of Warwick 5 December 2017 ‘Brexit’ has been less focused on the pros and cons of EU membership than a proxy for discussions about race and migration; specifically, who belongs and has rights (or should have rights)… Continue Reading →
John Narayan, University of Warwick 21 November 2017 The history of the US Black Power movement and its constituent groups such as the Black Panther Party has recently gone through a process of historical reappraisal, which challenges the characterisation of… Continue Reading →
Cathy Bergin, University of Brighton 24 October 2017 The Russian revolution of 1917 is rarely thought about in relation to the black radical tradition yet the impact of Bolshevism on African American and Afro-Caribbean activists was significant. This paper looks… Continue Reading →
19-21 June 2017 Keynote speakers: Adriana Cavarero, Judith Butler, Bonnie Honig Adriana Cavarero has been at the forefront of continental feminist philosophy for the past four decades, working in the interstices of sexual difference theory, post-structuralism, political philosophy, literature and… Continue Reading →
Tom Claes (University of Gent) 7 February 2017 The post WWII era has seen the emergence of a widely embraced human rights discourse and activism. Human rights were later on applied to specific groups and specific sectors, such as… Continue Reading →
Vicky Margree, University of Brighton 22 November 2016 Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex burst onto the feminist scene in 1970 and proved immediately controversial. The book’s key thesis is that the origins of women’s oppression lie in biology: specifically,… Continue Reading →
Paul Reynolds (Edge Hill University) 15 November 2016 Much research that intersections sexual violence, sexual politics and sexual ethics sits on the cornerstone of sexual consent – the ethical ‘golden mean’ of sex. Consent is at the centre of… Continue Reading →
Heather Brunskell-Evans (King’s College, London) 25 October 2016 The narrative of radical sexual politics is that pornography has the potential to liberate individuals from traditional mores and values which repress sexuality. In this view pornographic sex is ‘sex-in-the-raw’ stripped of… Continue Reading →
Stefan Collini, University of Cambridge 1 March 2016 Abstract: The long tradition of writing on ‘the idea of the university’ functions as a form of cultural criticism: current practices and policies are read symptomatically as evidence of deeper failings in… Continue Reading →
David Eastwood, Birmingham University Question Time 19 January 2016 Speaker: Professor Sir David Eastwood became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham in April 2009. Previously, he was Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), a post… Continue Reading →
Jo Williams 5 January 2016 Abstract: Once, scholars demanded academic freedom to critique existing knowledge and to pursue new truths. Today, while fondness for the rhetoric of academic freedom remains, the concept itself is increasingly criticised as outdated and elitist…. Continue Reading →
David Salomon 8 December 2015 Abstract: The idea of the university in Germany is closely connected to Wilhelm von Humboldt’s “Neuhumanismus” and his conception of “Bildung”. According to this classical idea of the university, the freedom of “Wissenschaft” implies political… Continue Reading →
Bob Brecher, University of Brighton 10 November 2015 Abstract: I argue that to understand the neo-liberals’ ideological agenda for our universities, we need to try to get clear about some of its realities, and in particular two: its ideological commitment… Continue Reading →
David Willetts 13 October 2015 Abstract: David Willetts will analyse the different roles of the modern university and the different types of benefits they bring. He will argue that universities do bring substantial economic benefits but that these are… Continue Reading →
Miriam David 27 October 2015 Abstract: I discuss recent developments in HE and those in feminist critiques of the disciplines and their pedagogies and practices, particularly in the social sciences with a focus on sociology and education. I will also… Continue Reading →
Higher Education – What it is for, and how to defend it? Towards a Charter for Higher Education in the UK Friday 24 and Saturday 25 May 2013 Edited highlights of the speeches can be viewed, see below. Organised by… Continue Reading →
