GC Associated Guest Lecture Series

Intercultural Interaction supports a wide range of research-related projects that examine the causes, features and consequences of diversity in contemporary societies and governance. Under this remit, it covers topics as diverse as transnational historical perspectives on the economic crisis, the accommodation of religious practices in liberal secular states, the aesthetics and ethics of globalization, or the effect of research evidence on EU asylum law.

In order to highlight the range of intellectual and political concerns involved, the programme runs an associated guest lecture series, with one event taking place per term. Each event of which is held in conjunction with a UCL department or centre.

Programme for the academic year 2009-2010

Infrapolitical literature: Hispanism and the Border

8 June 2010

Professor Alberto Moreiras

The event was co-hosted by UCL Spanish and Latin American Studies

Alberto Moreiras is Sixth Century Professor of Modern Thought and Hispanic Studies at the University of Aberdeen.

In the last decades, Prof. Moreiras has been one of the leading and most original theorists on Latin American, Hispanic and global political and cultural thought.

At the Centre for Modern Thought at Aberdeen his research projects have involved tracing the evolution of ideas in the humanities, from the linguistic turn to the current 'political turn'.

Professor Moreiras's articles on issues from transculturation, reactionary literature, religion, to 'infinite decolonisation' have appeared in leading journals like Social Text and South Atlantic Quarterly.

His books include The Exhaustion of Difference: The Politics of Latin American Cultural Studies (Duke University Press, 2001), Línea de sombra: el no-sujeto de lo político (Palinodia, 2006), and Third Space: Literary Mourning in Latin America (1999).

Accommodating Religious Diversity in a Secular Society

9 February 2010

Professor Lord Bhikhu Parekh

The event was hosted in conjunction with the UCL School of Public Policy

Lord Bhikhu Parekh is an Emeritus Professor at the Universities of Hull and Westminster.

He is the author of several books, including Rethinking Multiculturalism (2000) and A New Politics of Identity (2008).

From 1997 to 2000 Prof. Parekh was also chair of the Runnymede Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. A Fellow of the British Academy, he is the recipient of the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for Lifetime Contribution to Political Philosophy.

In the 2nd UCL Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interaction Guest Lecture, co-hosted by the UCL School of Public Policy, he explored the current debate on the nature of secularism and whether it can be hospitable to religion.

For a video recording of the lecture, please click here.

Action to end Genocide

24 November 2009

Dr James Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust

The event was hosted in conjunction with the UCL Institute for Human Rights

James Smith spoke about the work of The Aegis Trust, a UK-based genocide prevention organisation, which he co-founded.

Aegis undertakes research and policy advice with regard to genocide prevention. It runs genocide education programmes and provides support for survivors and communities where genocide has happened.

Based at the UK Holocaust Centre, it is responsible for the Kigali Memorial Centre, Rwanda. In 2001, Aegis convened the first-ever international conference on genocide prevention, in partnership with the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

The lecture was accompanied by an exhibition of drawings by Darfurian and Chadian children, collected by London-based NGO Article 1, which describe tattacks on their villages, and which have in 2007 been accepted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague as contextual evidence for war crimes committed.

For a selection of images, please see: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/darfur

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