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Indigenous Heritage and Human Rights by Maarten Jansen
Friday 18 Nov 2011 06:03 PM
| Visiting Speakers, Cultural Heritage, Indigenous Rights
A few weeks ago, some of us had the privilege to listen to Professor Maarten Jansen speak as part of the visiting Lecture series. His lecture on indigenous heritage and human rights was highly interesting, however it provoked some questions.
To give a short summary of his talk, Professor Jansen started his lecture by investigating what exactly was meant by the term “indigenous peoples” before moving on to looking at the various stereotypes that have typified representations of Indigenous groups throughout Central America (i.e. ‘Cannibals’, ‘Human Sacrifice’ and ‘the Noble Savage’). After this introduction, Professor Jansen used these historical points to introduce his opinions on the current situation of indigenous groups and their struggles for rights and recognition in Mesoamerica. He stated that the importance of indigenous ‘participation’ in larger society rather than ‘integration’ was a vital change in policy needed in the struggle for indigenous rights and mentions examples of the changing status of indigenous rights throughout the world (e.g. The 2007 UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples). Moving on to the idea of the ‘endangered heritage’ of indigenous people, Jansen mentions the fact that it is estimated that of the 7000 languages currently spoken in the world, six thousand will most likely be lost by the end of the century. Not only that but, most of those six thousand are actually already considered ‘extinct’, or to rephrase Maarten Jansen, it is like a species of animal who, though the last specimen is still alive, has lost the ability to reproduce and is as such ‘extinct’.
Jansen further outlined how since the Spaniards ‘discovered’ the Americas, Ancient artifacts belonging to the Indigenous peoples have been brought to Europe and the ‘western’ world (naming as an example the famous ‘Crown of Moctezuma’ which currently resides in a museum in Vienna). He stated that the indigenous peoples whose culture these artifacts belong to contend that “Why should ‘they’ have all the benefits while it is the work of ‘our’ ancestors?”
Professor Jansen then moved on to his personal work in the field with indigenous communities, using both the returning of artifacts to indigenous groups and the risk of the loss, or ‘extinction’ of culture to validate one project he has been working on, namely the ‘teaching’ of Mixtec culture and language to Mixtec Indigenous peoples. Using his background in Archaeology and in particular, his expertise on the interpretation of Mixtec pictorial manuscripts, Professor Jansen goes to Mixtec Indigenous communities and works together with the people there to ‘interpret’ artifacts of Ancient Mixtec culture in order to maintain the culture and language of the area. Here I must critique his method as serious issues arrive when considering the ‘teaching’ of culture.
Professor Jansen stated that ‘we’, here he meant of course western society and in particular himself, are able to understand, and thus teach about, Mixtec pictorial manuscripts as accurate ‘dictionaries’ exist which provide translations of the pictorial manuscripts. These dictionaries however were written by the Spanish conquerors of the area and as such provide only an interpretation of what the Spanish conquerors thought the meaning of the pictographs were. This of course means that the very translations which Jansen is basing his teachings on are simply the ‘western’ perspective of the meaning of those manuscripts. Thus Jansen is in fact not maintaining the Mixtec culture by instructing Mixtec people about the manuscripts but he is fact influencing their culture by teaching it to them from a western perspective. When I brought up this issue with Professor Jansen, he admitted that this was a cause for concern and his counter argument was that he worked together with the local people in his work in order to improve the accuracy of the translations.
Though I personally believe in the fact that culture must be preserved it must also be taken into consideration that the culture that Jansen instructs about in fact no longer exists because the ancient Mixtec culture of 500 years ago has developed since colonisation to become what it is today. Jansen seem to imply in his lecture that he was ‘reviving’ a culture and language --however he is teaching the history of a culture to its descendants. That is of course a valuable thing to do as knowledge of the history of one’s ancestry is important, but I think that the work that Jansen does in Mixtec communities cannot be seen as the ‘revival’ of a culture, simply the investigation of the history of a culture.
The lecture by Professor Jansen thus brought up a variety of interesting questions in us as an audience. In particular the question as to whether the ‘teaching’ of an indigenous culture to its descendants is useful was an interesting point to contemplate as the question of western involvement in indigenous communities is of course one of great contention.
Jori Nanninga
BA 1
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To give a short summary of his talk, Professor Jansen started his lecture by investigating what exactly was meant by the term “indigenous peoples” before moving on to looking at the various stereotypes that have typified representations of Indigenous groups throughout Central America (i.e. ‘Cannibals’, ‘Human Sacrifice’ and ‘the Noble Savage’). After this introduction, Professor Jansen used these historical points to introduce his opinions on the current situation of indigenous groups and their struggles for rights and recognition in Mesoamerica. He stated that the importance of indigenous ‘participation’ in larger society rather than ‘integration’ was a vital change in policy needed in the struggle for indigenous rights and mentions examples of the changing status of indigenous rights throughout the world (e.g. The 2007 UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples). Moving on to the idea of the ‘endangered heritage’ of indigenous people, Jansen mentions the fact that it is estimated that of the 7000 languages currently spoken in the world, six thousand will most likely be lost by the end of the century. Not only that but, most of those six thousand are actually already considered ‘extinct’, or to rephrase Maarten Jansen, it is like a species of animal who, though the last specimen is still alive, has lost the ability to reproduce and is as such ‘extinct’.
Jansen further outlined how since the Spaniards ‘discovered’ the Americas, Ancient artifacts belonging to the Indigenous peoples have been brought to Europe and the ‘western’ world (naming as an example the famous ‘Crown of Moctezuma’ which currently resides in a museum in Vienna). He stated that the indigenous peoples whose culture these artifacts belong to contend that “Why should ‘they’ have all the benefits while it is the work of ‘our’ ancestors?”
Professor Jansen then moved on to his personal work in the field with indigenous communities, using both the returning of artifacts to indigenous groups and the risk of the loss, or ‘extinction’ of culture to validate one project he has been working on, namely the ‘teaching’ of Mixtec culture and language to Mixtec Indigenous peoples. Using his background in Archaeology and in particular, his expertise on the interpretation of Mixtec pictorial manuscripts, Professor Jansen goes to Mixtec Indigenous communities and works together with the people there to ‘interpret’ artifacts of Ancient Mixtec culture in order to maintain the culture and language of the area. Here I must critique his method as serious issues arrive when considering the ‘teaching’ of culture.
Professor Jansen stated that ‘we’, here he meant of course western society and in particular himself, are able to understand, and thus teach about, Mixtec pictorial manuscripts as accurate ‘dictionaries’ exist which provide translations of the pictorial manuscripts. These dictionaries however were written by the Spanish conquerors of the area and as such provide only an interpretation of what the Spanish conquerors thought the meaning of the pictographs were. This of course means that the very translations which Jansen is basing his teachings on are simply the ‘western’ perspective of the meaning of those manuscripts. Thus Jansen is in fact not maintaining the Mixtec culture by instructing Mixtec people about the manuscripts but he is fact influencing their culture by teaching it to them from a western perspective. When I brought up this issue with Professor Jansen, he admitted that this was a cause for concern and his counter argument was that he worked together with the local people in his work in order to improve the accuracy of the translations.
Though I personally believe in the fact that culture must be preserved it must also be taken into consideration that the culture that Jansen instructs about in fact no longer exists because the ancient Mixtec culture of 500 years ago has developed since colonisation to become what it is today. Jansen seem to imply in his lecture that he was ‘reviving’ a culture and language --however he is teaching the history of a culture to its descendants. That is of course a valuable thing to do as knowledge of the history of one’s ancestry is important, but I think that the work that Jansen does in Mixtec communities cannot be seen as the ‘revival’ of a culture, simply the investigation of the history of a culture.
The lecture by Professor Jansen thus brought up a variety of interesting questions in us as an audience. In particular the question as to whether the ‘teaching’ of an indigenous culture to its descendants is useful was an interesting point to contemplate as the question of western involvement in indigenous communities is of course one of great contention.
Jori Nanninga
BA 1
Comments
Raymond Geuss: "The Ambiguities of Democracy and Human Rights"
Friday 07 Oct 2011 04:35 PM
| Democracy, Raymond Geuss, human rights
The Ambiguities of Democracy and Human Rights
(On the occasion of Prof. Raymond Geuss' lecture 'The Authority of Democracy and Human Rights' and a research seminar in which he discussed his paper “Does criticism always have to be constructive?” the next morning)
We live in a really threatening, unsurveyable and infinitely complex world. It is a world in which many different individuals who value and aspire many different things have somehow found a way to live together; it is a world in which we continue to be baffled by forces of nature and the intricate web of human relations: it is a difficult world to make sense of. As such, it is natural for us to simplify it in terms of abstract schemata that allow us to somehow order the world. These schemata, stresses the Cambridge professor of philosophy Raymond Geuss, once in place, often take the form of dogmas. This is not a problem, as long as we realise that they are ultimately human constructs with limited applicability. It is especially important that we realise that this is also the case with two of the central dogmas of Western political thought: the belief in the inherent value and universal applicability of democracy and human rights. “It is natural to structure the world such that what you are best in appears pivotal,” explains Geuss, “[but] we ought to resist fetishizing good working schemata by abstracting them and projecting them on other structures.” Vividly illustrating why it is a mistake to take these dogmas for somehow deeply, inherently justified ideas with universal aspirations, professor Geuss then sets out to expose the ambiguities and incompatibility of the terms ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights.’
When we speak of democracy, he warns, we are not speaking of a uniquely specified phenomenon. Numerous models of democracy have been proposed and enacted throughout history, each different from the other. The direct democracy practised in the Ancient Greek poleis, for example, is vastly different from the representative democracies we now know in for example The Netherlands, yet both forms of government carry the same name. However, that two different interpretations of a particular concept appropriate the same name does not necessarily imply that either one of them is wrong, or, in this case, undemocratic. It is important here, states Geuss, to distinguish between two fundamentally different senses in which the term democracy is typically used. Usually, it is taken to be a descriptive empirical term describing a particular organisation of society and its institutions. When I contrasted the Ancient Greek democracy with the contemporary Dutch one, I used the term in a descriptive manner. However, if I were to criticise either one of the regimes I mentioned above by contrasting them with a non-existent ideal type of democracy, I am using the word in an altogether different sense as a “highly theoretical interpretation of what ought to be going on.” Used this way, the word has a strong normative connotation. When someone speaks of democracy, therefore, we ought to ask ourselves whether he or she is using the term in a descriptive or normative manner: we ought to remember that it is an ambiguous concept that can be interpreted in numerous ways.
Although the two senses of democracy under discussion are analytically different, explains Geuss, they are often used in conjunction and sometimes conflated with each other. Over the course of the last decades, particularly since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, the term democracy has undeniably come to be regarded as normatively positive by the Western public. Somehow, we get the impression that when someone speaks of democracy, it is clear that he or she is speaking of an inherently valuable and deeply justified form of government with universal aspirations. Yet, as we have seen, the term 'democracy' may denote many different things. Therefore, if we attach the label 'democracy' to our own institutional arrangement of society and take this as sufficient justification for spreading it as a state model, we are conflating the descriptive and normative element of the term democracy. This is problematic, because, as Geuss argues, the fact that democracy works well for us does not necessarily imply that it works well elsewhere. Moreover, he points out, it is likely that 'true democracy' does not exist if we take it to mean a form of government in which the 'people' exercise power. Firstly, because this notion posits a unitary people somehow capable of exercising power, while in reality societies are composed of numerous individuals with often conflicting interests. Secondly, because in most modern democracies the power to rule is not vested in the people, but in separate structures that operate beyond the direct control of a state's citizens. In fact, the modern state's reason of being seems to be the institutionalisation of power and, as such, they are by definition undemocratic. “Democracy, then,” Geuss concludes, “is not a good conceptual tool to analyse contemporary politics.”
The second and equally problematic central dogma of Western political thought that Geuss discusses in his lecture is that of human rights. Like democracy, the term human rights is widely regarded as an undeniably valuable concept with universal aspirations. They are thought to be rights that every human being possesses on account of his or her humanity. Hence, they are not rights assigned to individuals through political processes, but they are rights that exist independently of human interference. That is, they are natural rights. This notion becomes problematic when we subject the term 'rights' to closer evaluation. The concept of 'rights' is only useful if these rights can be enforced. Otherwise, they lose their meaning. For human rights to be a meaningful concept, therefore, there must be someone or something capable of enforcing them. In Locke's theory of natural rights, there was a deity to take care of this job. However, if we do not believe in the presence of a God, it is also difficult to think of natural rights as a useful concept. As soon as we, humans, start taking the role of enforcing them, they are no longer independent of human interference and hence lose their status as somehow transcendental rights. Furthermore, it is very ambiguous what natural rights are in the first place. “The context-given interpretation of natural rights,” states Geuss, “is very important.” Though we now all agree that holding slaves is a direct violation of human rights, this was not a problem for the Founding Fathers who signed the U.S. Constitution in which they proclaimed that every man is born equal. What is and is not a human right, then, is a highly political matter that somehow depends on personal interpretation. Which personal interpretations we take to be most accurate in describing human rights depends on who we believe to be in the right authority to evaluate them and is therefore highly subjective. The concept of human rights, by consequence, is not a clear “cognitive tool to assess modern societies.”
If, taken on their own, the concepts of human rights and democracies are problematic, they are even more so taken together. Much of modern political theory, Geuss points out, is devoted to showing that both concepts are somehow compatible. Yet, he maintains, this is an impossible task: while democracy “vests final power, legitimacy and authority in the 'people',” the concept of human rights “posits the individual bearer of such rights as the final origin and locus of authority.” Hence, we may have to re-think the way we think about democracy and human rights. They are dogmas among other dogmas, and we should not overgeneralise them. If we accept this, it is no problem that democracy and human rights are incompatible concepts, for they are not the somehow “deep, inherently justified ideas” that we sometimes perceive them to be. Accepting this, moreover, implies that we have come one step closer to “resisting fetishizing good working schemata by abstracting them and projecting them on other structures.” Even if the he terms democracy and human rights worked well for us to think about society (a contention that we may have to reconsider after Prof. Geuss' talk), they would not for that reason be equally useful elsewhere. At any rate, we should not aspire to export our state model throughout the world. For, as we have seen, we live in an infinitely complex world, and the world view that appeals to us most likely does not appeal to everyone.
Barend de Rooij (LUC, 2nd year student)
5-10-2011
BACK TO TOP
(On the occasion of Prof. Raymond Geuss' lecture 'The Authority of Democracy and Human Rights' and a research seminar in which he discussed his paper “Does criticism always have to be constructive?” the next morning)
We live in a really threatening, unsurveyable and infinitely complex world. It is a world in which many different individuals who value and aspire many different things have somehow found a way to live together; it is a world in which we continue to be baffled by forces of nature and the intricate web of human relations: it is a difficult world to make sense of. As such, it is natural for us to simplify it in terms of abstract schemata that allow us to somehow order the world. These schemata, stresses the Cambridge professor of philosophy Raymond Geuss, once in place, often take the form of dogmas. This is not a problem, as long as we realise that they are ultimately human constructs with limited applicability. It is especially important that we realise that this is also the case with two of the central dogmas of Western political thought: the belief in the inherent value and universal applicability of democracy and human rights. “It is natural to structure the world such that what you are best in appears pivotal,” explains Geuss, “[but] we ought to resist fetishizing good working schemata by abstracting them and projecting them on other structures.” Vividly illustrating why it is a mistake to take these dogmas for somehow deeply, inherently justified ideas with universal aspirations, professor Geuss then sets out to expose the ambiguities and incompatibility of the terms ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights.’
When we speak of democracy, he warns, we are not speaking of a uniquely specified phenomenon. Numerous models of democracy have been proposed and enacted throughout history, each different from the other. The direct democracy practised in the Ancient Greek poleis, for example, is vastly different from the representative democracies we now know in for example The Netherlands, yet both forms of government carry the same name. However, that two different interpretations of a particular concept appropriate the same name does not necessarily imply that either one of them is wrong, or, in this case, undemocratic. It is important here, states Geuss, to distinguish between two fundamentally different senses in which the term democracy is typically used. Usually, it is taken to be a descriptive empirical term describing a particular organisation of society and its institutions. When I contrasted the Ancient Greek democracy with the contemporary Dutch one, I used the term in a descriptive manner. However, if I were to criticise either one of the regimes I mentioned above by contrasting them with a non-existent ideal type of democracy, I am using the word in an altogether different sense as a “highly theoretical interpretation of what ought to be going on.” Used this way, the word has a strong normative connotation. When someone speaks of democracy, therefore, we ought to ask ourselves whether he or she is using the term in a descriptive or normative manner: we ought to remember that it is an ambiguous concept that can be interpreted in numerous ways.
Although the two senses of democracy under discussion are analytically different, explains Geuss, they are often used in conjunction and sometimes conflated with each other. Over the course of the last decades, particularly since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, the term democracy has undeniably come to be regarded as normatively positive by the Western public. Somehow, we get the impression that when someone speaks of democracy, it is clear that he or she is speaking of an inherently valuable and deeply justified form of government with universal aspirations. Yet, as we have seen, the term 'democracy' may denote many different things. Therefore, if we attach the label 'democracy' to our own institutional arrangement of society and take this as sufficient justification for spreading it as a state model, we are conflating the descriptive and normative element of the term democracy. This is problematic, because, as Geuss argues, the fact that democracy works well for us does not necessarily imply that it works well elsewhere. Moreover, he points out, it is likely that 'true democracy' does not exist if we take it to mean a form of government in which the 'people' exercise power. Firstly, because this notion posits a unitary people somehow capable of exercising power, while in reality societies are composed of numerous individuals with often conflicting interests. Secondly, because in most modern democracies the power to rule is not vested in the people, but in separate structures that operate beyond the direct control of a state's citizens. In fact, the modern state's reason of being seems to be the institutionalisation of power and, as such, they are by definition undemocratic. “Democracy, then,” Geuss concludes, “is not a good conceptual tool to analyse contemporary politics.”
The second and equally problematic central dogma of Western political thought that Geuss discusses in his lecture is that of human rights. Like democracy, the term human rights is widely regarded as an undeniably valuable concept with universal aspirations. They are thought to be rights that every human being possesses on account of his or her humanity. Hence, they are not rights assigned to individuals through political processes, but they are rights that exist independently of human interference. That is, they are natural rights. This notion becomes problematic when we subject the term 'rights' to closer evaluation. The concept of 'rights' is only useful if these rights can be enforced. Otherwise, they lose their meaning. For human rights to be a meaningful concept, therefore, there must be someone or something capable of enforcing them. In Locke's theory of natural rights, there was a deity to take care of this job. However, if we do not believe in the presence of a God, it is also difficult to think of natural rights as a useful concept. As soon as we, humans, start taking the role of enforcing them, they are no longer independent of human interference and hence lose their status as somehow transcendental rights. Furthermore, it is very ambiguous what natural rights are in the first place. “The context-given interpretation of natural rights,” states Geuss, “is very important.” Though we now all agree that holding slaves is a direct violation of human rights, this was not a problem for the Founding Fathers who signed the U.S. Constitution in which they proclaimed that every man is born equal. What is and is not a human right, then, is a highly political matter that somehow depends on personal interpretation. Which personal interpretations we take to be most accurate in describing human rights depends on who we believe to be in the right authority to evaluate them and is therefore highly subjective. The concept of human rights, by consequence, is not a clear “cognitive tool to assess modern societies.”
If, taken on their own, the concepts of human rights and democracies are problematic, they are even more so taken together. Much of modern political theory, Geuss points out, is devoted to showing that both concepts are somehow compatible. Yet, he maintains, this is an impossible task: while democracy “vests final power, legitimacy and authority in the 'people',” the concept of human rights “posits the individual bearer of such rights as the final origin and locus of authority.” Hence, we may have to re-think the way we think about democracy and human rights. They are dogmas among other dogmas, and we should not overgeneralise them. If we accept this, it is no problem that democracy and human rights are incompatible concepts, for they are not the somehow “deep, inherently justified ideas” that we sometimes perceive them to be. Accepting this, moreover, implies that we have come one step closer to “resisting fetishizing good working schemata by abstracting them and projecting them on other structures.” Even if the he terms democracy and human rights worked well for us to think about society (a contention that we may have to reconsider after Prof. Geuss' talk), they would not for that reason be equally useful elsewhere. At any rate, we should not aspire to export our state model throughout the world. For, as we have seen, we live in an infinitely complex world, and the world view that appeals to us most likely does not appeal to everyone.
Barend de Rooij (LUC, 2nd year student)
5-10-2011
Study Trip Funding & Call for Applications Mini Interviews
Friday 16 Sep 2011 10:36 AM
| Study Abroad, Visiting Speakers, Interviews, Financing
Interested in Study Abroad? Need to find extra funding? LUF might be able to help!
The Leiden University Funds (LUF) is designed to fund students at all levels in order to help them pursue their academic goals.
The LISF is a fund set up specifically for students who are planning a study trip abroad. They offer up to 2,000 euro for one trip.
Students who want to apply must fill out the application form (in the LUF link below), and have a clear idea of exactly what/where they want to study abroad, how this trip fits into their academic goals, and why they deserve to be funded in the first place.
There are two more deadlines in 2011:
Monday, October 10
Monday, November 14
There will be more deadlines starting again in February 2012. However, if you are a student who has a strong GPA and CV and already has a firm idea of where and what you would like to study abroad, you should not hesitate to apply this fall.
For more information please check:
http://www.luf.nl/default.asp?paginaID=199
For those of you interested in applying, please
1. go through the LUF website (listed above) and double check the application form/requirements
2. speak to your tutor about your application for the LISF--the application requires a recommendation from your 'study co-ordinator' --your tutor would be the best person to write such a recommendation.
3. contact the Research Centre--we would be only too happy to help you compile your application and make sure it gets off to the LUF committee in time.
Good luck!
II. ACADEMIC SOUNDBYTES: CALL FOR APPLICATIONS FOR MINI-INTERVIEWS
As announced earlier, the LUCRC would like to have students interview (for 5-10 mins) our guest speakers and put the interviews up on our blog. Students are urged to check the LUCRC website for mini-bios of our confirmed speakers for this semester. When you have chosen a speaker who you are interested in, please write to us, in 100 words or less, a question or the motivation behind why you would be the right student to choose. We will notify you a week before the interview--except in the case of Karlijn van der Voort, who is speaking on Wednesday (we apologize for the short notice). If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at the LUCRC.
BACK TO TOP
The Leiden University Funds (LUF) is designed to fund students at all levels in order to help them pursue their academic goals.
The LISF is a fund set up specifically for students who are planning a study trip abroad. They offer up to 2,000 euro for one trip.
Students who want to apply must fill out the application form (in the LUF link below), and have a clear idea of exactly what/where they want to study abroad, how this trip fits into their academic goals, and why they deserve to be funded in the first place.
There are two more deadlines in 2011:
Monday, October 10
Monday, November 14
There will be more deadlines starting again in February 2012. However, if you are a student who has a strong GPA and CV and already has a firm idea of where and what you would like to study abroad, you should not hesitate to apply this fall.
For more information please check:
http://www.luf.nl/default.asp?paginaID=199
For those of you interested in applying, please
1. go through the LUF website (listed above) and double check the application form/requirements
2. speak to your tutor about your application for the LISF--the application requires a recommendation from your 'study co-ordinator' --your tutor would be the best person to write such a recommendation.
3. contact the Research Centre--we would be only too happy to help you compile your application and make sure it gets off to the LUF committee in time.
Good luck!
II. ACADEMIC SOUNDBYTES: CALL FOR APPLICATIONS FOR MINI-INTERVIEWS
As announced earlier, the LUCRC would like to have students interview (for 5-10 mins) our guest speakers and put the interviews up on our blog. Students are urged to check the LUCRC website for mini-bios of our confirmed speakers for this semester. When you have chosen a speaker who you are interested in, please write to us, in 100 words or less, a question or the motivation behind why you would be the right student to choose. We will notify you a week before the interview--except in the case of Karlijn van der Voort, who is speaking on Wednesday (we apologize for the short notice). If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at the LUCRC.
Raymond Geuss opens Visiting Speaker Series 2011/2012
Saturday 03 Sep 2011 08:28 PM
| Announcements
Dear students and staff,
The LUC Research Centre is delighted to start its new season of visiting speakers on 16 September 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 in March 2011.
Professor Geuss will talk about 'The Authority of Democracy and Human Rights'.
For more details please go to LUCRC's 'events' page and download the poster for this exciting lecture there.
Because of the special nature of this event, it will be held in our Stichthage building, on the first floor of the The Hague Central Station main hall from 19.00 hrs onwards.
Registration is recommended: events@lucresearch.nl
I hope to see many of you there!
Esther
(LUCRC research officer)
BACK TO TOP
The LUC Research Centre is delighted to start its new season of visiting speakers on 16 September 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 in March 2011.
Professor Geuss will talk about 'The Authority of Democracy and Human Rights'.
For more details please go to LUCRC's 'events' page and download the poster for this exciting lecture there.
Because of the special nature of this event, it will be held in our Stichthage building, on the first floor of the The Hague Central Station main hall from 19.00 hrs onwards.
Registration is recommended: events@lucresearch.nl
I hope to see many of you there!
Esther
(LUCRC research officer)