What should universities be?
The Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics & Ethics (CAPPE) at the University of Brighton is hosting a series of talks about what universities should be. These talks form the David Watson Memorial Lecture Series, 2015-2016.
All talks take place in the Old Courtroom Lecture Theatre , Church Street, Brighton, 6-30 – 8.00 pm.
19 January 2016
John Holmwood
The
University, Democracy and the Public Interest
Professor of Sociology, Nottingham University
Co-Founder, Campaign for the Public University
The ‘provoking cause’ of this lecture is the neo-liberal reconstruction of the university that is occurring across different national contexts, but perhaps especially in the UK and US. Whereas the university was previously understood as fulfilling multiple functions, public policy now addresses only its contribution to economic growth and human capital. Moreover, these are now associated with widening inequalities and inheritance of wealth and social position that has returned to levels last seen at the end of the nineteenth century. The lecture will suggest that the university has shifted from being at the service of democracy to being at the service of markets such that the university is now part of a democratic deficit at the heart of neo-liberalism.
2 February 2016
Howard Hotson Educating homo sapiens
Professor of Early Modern Intellectual History, University of Oxford.
For over two thousand years, the Western intellectual tradition has been sustained by aspirations, assumptions, ideas, and values ultimately grounded in widely shared conceptions of the human condition. The dilemma of the modern university derives partly from the fact that these conceptions have been swept away by the evolutionary account of human origins, and insufficient attention has been paid to putting something in their place. The resulting conceptual vacuum has been filled in recent decades by the simplistic conception of human nature as homo economicus – perfectly rational, selfish, and materialistic – becausethis abstraction suits the needs of dominant economic actors. If modern higher education policy is to be placed on a more adequate footing, it needs to be founded on a more adequate account of the human condition.
16 February 2016
David Eastwood Question Time
Vice-Chancellor, Birmingham University
Member, Browne Review
CEO Higher Education Funding Council, 2006-9
1 March 2016
Stefan Collini Reading the Ruins; imagining the future of Universities
Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature, University of Cambridge
8 March 2016
Julia Goodfellow Universities as Shapeshifters
Vice-Chancellor, University of Kent
Chair, Universities UK