PAST EVENTS 2011-2012
Enter the category for this item: SEPT 2011
Maarten Jansen
Leiden University, Faculty of Archeology
Indigenous Heritage and Cultural Rights: the Case of the Mixtec Pictorial Manuscripts
With Maarten Jansen’s lecture on indigenous heritage and cultural rights, LUC offers you an exciting opportunity to hear about cultural rights from an archaeological perspective--something many of us may not (yet) be familiar with.
Maarten Jansen is professor of Mesoamerican archaeology and history (nominated by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences).
Besides his work on the Mayan Codices and Mixtec language, Professor Jansen is a committed activist. He recently drafted and submitted documents regarding the preservation of indigenous culture in Latin America to the United Nations. Professor Jansen works on how the political situation of indigenous communities in Mexico (and indeed other parts of Latin America) has affected, and has been affected by, peace and stability building efforts in the region on the part of government officials.
[poster in pdf]
[preparatory reading]
Narendra Subramanian
McGill University Faculty of Political Science
Personal Law and Gendered Citizenship in South Asia
Narendra Subramanian’s talk at the LUCRC brings India into critical focus for the evening. Discussing issues pertaining to ‘Gender Inequality and Personal Law’, Professor Subramanian’s talk will allow students of the LUC and members of the community to come together to inquire into how the largest democracy in the world has negotiated legal, cultural and personal laws since its independence from colonial rule.
Narendra Subramanian is Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University. He studies the politics of ethnicity, nationalism, religion, gender and race, primarily in India. Subramanian’s work explores the role of identity politics in political mobilization, electoral competition, public culture, and public policy; the functioning of democracies amidst social inequalities with long histories; and different ways in which policy-makers and citizens attempt to resolve the tensions between official secularism and the significant presence of religion in public life. His book, Ethnicity and Populist Mobilization: Political Parties, Citizens and Democracy in South India (Oxford University Press, 1999), explored how mobilization behind language and caste banners strengthened democracy in parts of India. Another current project of his compares the changes in caste relations in India and race relations in the United States since the sustained enfranchisement of the lower castes and African-Americans, focusing on two regions of particularly high ascriptive inequalities and, until recently, agrarian bondage – the Kaveri delta in southern India and the Mississippi delta in the southern United States. Subramanian received his B.A. in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[poster in pdf]
Enter the category for this item: OCT 2011
Duncan Bell
University of Cambridge
Dreamworld of Empire: Citizenship, Patriotism, and Race, c.1900
In this paper, Duncan Bell explores a range of ideas about patriotism and citizenship that circulated in British and American political debates during the opening years of the twentieth century. In particular, he focuses on ideas about 'isopolitan citizenship' and 'race patriotism'. Moreover, he argues that the much of this racial-imperial discourse was distinctly utopian in form, suggesting that if the Anglo-Saxon 'race' could unite politically it would dominate the twentieth century, bringing peace and to the earth.
Duncan Bell is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies.
Duncan's primary research interests are in contemporary (international) political theory and modern intellectual history. He is currently working on a number of projects, including a co-edited collection entitled The Cold War in Pieces (with Joel Isaac) and a book on the political thought and intellectual history of Anglo-American relations during the twentieth century. He is also working on essays about the intellectual history of the British empire, utopianism and modernism in political thought, and the character of liberal political philosophy, past and present.
His publications include The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860-1900 (Princeton University Press, 2007) and Ethics and World Politics (Oxford University Press, 2010).
[poster in pdf]
Patricio Bernal
Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative (IUCN)
One Planet, One Ocean
Producing half of the oxygen we respire, storing 93.4% of the extra heat generated by climate change and providing a myriad of services to humankind, the Ocean plays a fundamental role in maintaining life on the planet. This role will be briefly analyzed and explained.
Compared to land, where laws and institutions operate under national states, on the Ocean there is a clear deficit of governance, control and enforcement of established rules. Enforcement of laws and rules up to 200 miles from the coast are the responsibility of coastal states. Beyond 200 miles of the coast becomes the joint responsibility of the international community under the United Nations. In this lecture a brief review of the last 50 years of law of the sea will be conducted together with a brief analysis of ongoing processes attempting to fill the many gaps and loopholes that exist.
Patricio A. Bernal is the former Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, where for 11 years lead the development of the Global Ocean Observing System and built the extension of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System to the whole world. With an extensive academic career, he holds a Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD). Dr. Bernal has served as Under-Secretary of State for Fisheries and Director of the National Fisheries Institute in his native Chile and is currently the Coordinator of the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative (IUCN).
Detailed biography of Patricio Bernal.
[poster in pdf]
Don van Luijn
OXFAM novib, campaign advisor for the Horn of Africa
What is Economic Justice - an 'OXFAM' perspective
Mr. van Luyn is heavily involved in clean water programs for the African continent. His work in Africa centres on providing clean water, sustainable farming and access to education among young children In addition to Africa. He has also worked extensively in the south of India.
Enter the category for this item: NOV 2011
FEBR 2012
Enter the category for this item:
16 September 2011
Series: Philosophy in the World
Raymond Geuss
University of Cambridge
The Authority of Democracy and Human Rights
LUC is delighted to start its new season of visiting speakers with the eminent Raymond Geuss, Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, who is a political philosopher and scholar of 19th and 20th century European philosophy. This lecture is the second in our series, ‘Philosophy in the World,’ which was inaugurated by Simon Blackburn last year.
Geuss took both his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Columbia University. He taught at Princeton University, Columbia University, and University of Chicago in the United States and at Heidelberg and Freiburg in Germany before taking up a lecturing post at Cambridge in 1993.
To date Geuss has published eight books of philosophy, of which three are collections of essays. They are: The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School; Morality, Culture, and History; Public Goods, Private Goods; History and Illusion in Politics; Glueck und Politik; Outside Ethics, Philosophy and Real Politics, and Politics and the Imagination, which has just appeared from Princeton University Press. He has also co-edited two critical editions of works of Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and Writings from the Early Notebooks. Together with Quentin Skinner, Geuss co-edits the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought series of books. Geuss has also published two collections of translations/adaptations of poetry from Ancient Greek, Latin and Old High German texts.
[poster in pdf]
21 September 2011
Karlijn van der Voort
Independent Legal Consultant
Profile of an International Lawyer: Working as Defence Counsel for the Cambodia Tribunal
Ms Karlijn van der Voort works as a Legal Consultant for one of the defence teams at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
As many as 2.2 million people are believed to have died during the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge, which was then followed by a protracted period of civil war in the impoverished country.
Under an agreement signed by the UN and the Cambodian government, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) was set up as an independent court using a mixture of Cambodian staff and judges and foreign personnel. It is designated to try those deemed most responsible for crimes and serious violations of Cambodian and international law between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979. It is a Cambodian court with international participation that will apply international standards. It will provide a new role model for court operations in Cambodia.
In her talk Karlijn van der Voort will give us a critical and insightful look not so much into the actual trials itself but more, and equally interesting, into the demands of international law firms, as well as the differences between working in The Netherlands and Cambodia independent of them.
[poster in pdf]
For background information about the Cambodia Tribunal, please visit www.cambodiatribunal.org
29 September 2011
LUC Dies Natalis
John Dunn
Emeritus Professor University of Cambridge
Cutting Democracy Down to Size
LUC is honoured to have Professor John Dunn as a guest speaker at its Dies Natalis on Thursday 29 September.
Lecture abstract:
The last year has proved once again and unforgettably the power of democracy as an idea across the world in de-authorizing the power of incumbent rulers. It remains both important and difficult to understand quite what makes it so potent in that guise. It is natural for us to be gratified by the demonstration of that potency in an idea which we identify with our own political institutions; but it is also in some respects dangerous for us to be so, unless we recognize where its power really lies. What democracy can authorize in a modern state, insofar as it credibly authorizes anything at all, is the identity of those who give commands and attempt to get them obeyed. It does nothing to authorize any particular decisions and it gives no guarantee of any merit whatever in those decisions: neither their justice, their decency, their prudence, nor even their elementary good sense. In the increasingly evident disarray of so many of our economic, social and political institutions, we need with some urgency to learn to think and speak together more clearly and realistically about the predicaments which we face and the resources we have with which to confront them; and we need to ensure that democracy as an idea aids rather than impedes us in doing so.
John Dunn studied history at King’s College,Cambridge and as Harkness Fellow at Harvard. He has been a Fellow of King’s since 1966 and was Professor of Political Theory in Cambridge University from 1987 to 2007.
Fascinated and dismayed by the vagaries of political fate across the modern world since childhood experiences in Occupied Germany, Iran, and India, his recent publications include Rethinking Modern Political Theory (1985), Interpreting Political Responsibility(1990), The History of Political Theory (1996), The Cunning of Unreason:making sense of politics(2000) and Setting the People Free(2005).
John Dunn has taught at universities around the world, he is a Fellow of the British Academy, chairing its Political Studies Section from 1994 to 1997, and serving on its Council for three years, an Academician of the Academy of the Social Sciences, and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Series: Philosophy in the World
Raymond Geuss
University of Cambridge
The Authority of Democracy and Human Rights
LUC is delighted to start its new season of visiting speakers with the eminent Raymond Geuss, Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, who is a political philosopher and scholar of 19th and 20th century European philosophy. This lecture is the second in our series, ‘Philosophy in the World,’ which was inaugurated by Simon Blackburn last year.
Geuss took both his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Columbia University. He taught at Princeton University, Columbia University, and University of Chicago in the United States and at Heidelberg and Freiburg in Germany before taking up a lecturing post at Cambridge in 1993.
To date Geuss has published eight books of philosophy, of which three are collections of essays. They are: The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School; Morality, Culture, and History; Public Goods, Private Goods; History and Illusion in Politics; Glueck und Politik; Outside Ethics, Philosophy and Real Politics, and Politics and the Imagination, which has just appeared from Princeton University Press. He has also co-edited two critical editions of works of Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and Writings from the Early Notebooks. Together with Quentin Skinner, Geuss co-edits the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought series of books. Geuss has also published two collections of translations/adaptations of poetry from Ancient Greek, Latin and Old High German texts.
[poster in pdf]
Karlijn van der Voort
Independent Legal Consultant
Profile of an International Lawyer: Working as Defence Counsel for the Cambodia Tribunal
Ms Karlijn van der Voort works as a Legal Consultant for one of the defence teams at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
As many as 2.2 million people are believed to have died during the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge, which was then followed by a protracted period of civil war in the impoverished country.
Under an agreement signed by the UN and the Cambodian government, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) was set up as an independent court using a mixture of Cambodian staff and judges and foreign personnel. It is designated to try those deemed most responsible for crimes and serious violations of Cambodian and international law between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979. It is a Cambodian court with international participation that will apply international standards. It will provide a new role model for court operations in Cambodia.
In her talk Karlijn van der Voort will give us a critical and insightful look not so much into the actual trials itself but more, and equally interesting, into the demands of international law firms, as well as the differences between working in The Netherlands and Cambodia independent of them.
[poster in pdf]
For background information about the Cambodia Tribunal, please visit www.cambodiatribunal.org
LUC Dies Natalis
John Dunn
Emeritus Professor University of Cambridge
Cutting Democracy Down to Size
LUC is honoured to have Professor John Dunn as a guest speaker at its Dies Natalis on Thursday 29 September.
Lecture abstract:
The last year has proved once again and unforgettably the power of democracy as an idea across the world in de-authorizing the power of incumbent rulers. It remains both important and difficult to understand quite what makes it so potent in that guise. It is natural for us to be gratified by the demonstration of that potency in an idea which we identify with our own political institutions; but it is also in some respects dangerous for us to be so, unless we recognize where its power really lies. What democracy can authorize in a modern state, insofar as it credibly authorizes anything at all, is the identity of those who give commands and attempt to get them obeyed. It does nothing to authorize any particular decisions and it gives no guarantee of any merit whatever in those decisions: neither their justice, their decency, their prudence, nor even their elementary good sense. In the increasingly evident disarray of so many of our economic, social and political institutions, we need with some urgency to learn to think and speak together more clearly and realistically about the predicaments which we face and the resources we have with which to confront them; and we need to ensure that democracy as an idea aids rather than impedes us in doing so.
John Dunn studied history at King’s College,Cambridge and as Harkness Fellow at Harvard. He has been a Fellow of King’s since 1966 and was Professor of Political Theory in Cambridge University from 1987 to 2007.
Fascinated and dismayed by the vagaries of political fate across the modern world since childhood experiences in Occupied Germany, Iran, and India, his recent publications include Rethinking Modern Political Theory (1985), Interpreting Political Responsibility(1990), The History of Political Theory (1996), The Cunning of Unreason:making sense of politics(2000) and Setting the People Free(2005).
John Dunn has taught at universities around the world, he is a Fellow of the British Academy, chairing its Political Studies Section from 1994 to 1997, and serving on its Council for three years, an Academician of the Academy of the Social Sciences, and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Nick Vaughan-Williams
University of Warwick
Europe’s Border Wars: Down-Loading, Out-Sourcing, and Off-Shoring the Security of Mobility
The aim of this paper is to critically examine the EU’s response to migration, particularly in the aftermath of the political unrest across North Africa in 2011, and to explore the impact – existing and potential – on migrants’ lives. Drawing upon recent fieldwork conducted in Brussels, Dr. Vaughan-Williams argues that the response to the perceived threat of population movement from Libya and Tunisia has intensified a longer-term quasi-militarization of Europe’s southern – particularly southeastern – margins. In this context the paper investigates Europe’s ‘border wars’ via three interrelated lenses: 1) the current and future use of new technologies (including the use of UAVs) to secure regimes of mobility and immobility; 2) the role of private enterprise in developing and implementing these technologies; and 3) the preemptive outward projection of the border beyond the territory of EU member states to the so-called ‘pre-border frontier area’. The paper investigates the impact of these practices on migrants’ lives by drawing on research commissioned by various humanitarian NGOs. It argues that while Critical Migration Studies has focused on the juridical-political status of detainees as ‘bare life’ the material conditions in which they are held are better viewed as a product of the sovereign abandonment from critical infrastructure. The discussion concludes with an evaluation of the prospects for critical engagement with these practices in the light of the humanitarian aims of the Commission’s renewed ‘Global Approach to Migration and Mobility’ (GAMM) released on 18 November 2011. Ultimately, he argues that military-style responses to the perceived threat of migration is neither likely to enhance the EU’s nor migrants’ security in the long run as both enter into a lethal game of cat and mouse.
Nick Vaughan-Williams is Associate Professor of International Security, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick. His book Border Politics: The Limits of Sovereign Power (2009, 2012) was the 2011 Gold Winner of the Association for Borderlands Studies Past Presidents’ Book Award. He is currently working on a project called Marginal Lives: European Border-Making and Its Challengers.
