Past Events
- IoI Forum
- Postgraduate Forum
- Date: Series finished
The Institute of Ideas Postgraduate Forum provides an opportunity for students in the arts, humanities and social sciences to present their work in a context that encourages reflection on how the social and political trends shaping the contemporary world interact and cut across disciplinary boundaries.
The forum is committed to academic freedom, both the freedom to pursue specialised knowledge within distinct subject areas and the freedom to speak out on wider issues of public concern. It poses the question of what it means to be a postgraduate student at a time when academia faces the challenge of at once avoiding obscurantism whilst resisting demands for immediate policy relevance.
For the current series of the Postgrad Forum, click here.
Archive: 2007/08 series / 2006/07 series
2007/08
Sunday 15 June 2008 - Oxford PGF
George Hoare, doctoral candidate in sociology, University of Oxford, presented The End of "The Grand Dichotomy"? Left and Right in Europe Since 1989
The division between Left and Right has been the major dividing line for political actors, parties and attitudes for over two centuries. Indeed, the Left/Right divide has been called the "grand dichotomy" of European politics. Recently, though, many theorists have claimed that the end of a plausible systemic alternative to liberal democracy with the demise of "really existing socialism" has meant that the centrality of the politics of Left and Right "fell with the wall". This paper defends a politics based on the legitimised conflict inherent in ideas of Left and Right, arguing that we must pay careful attention to mass publics' understandings and uses of the political categories of Left and Right.
Wednesday 11 June 2008
James Gledhill, co-convenor of the forum and PhD candidate, LSE, will present The Idealism of Ideal Theory
John Rawls's A Theory of Justice set the agenda for Anglo-American political philosophy since its publication in 1971, but now stands accused of representing a style of theorizing that is irrelevant to the real world. A particular focus of criticism is Rawls's assumption that unanimous agreement on principles of justice is possible. Critics argue that rather than designing a blueprint of social institutions for an ideal world we should start from where we are; that political philosophers should take social constraints more seriously and focus on how philosophical theory can be applied to real social policy issues. In this paper, I contest this view and argue that it fails to appreciate the way in which Rawls's approach calls into question the distinction between an ideal world of theory and a real world of political practice. However, while I defend the idealistic impulse driving Rawls's approach, I draw on Habermas's critique of Rawls to raise some concerns about its philosophical idealism. Habermas's position suggests that if philosophy is to truly inform practice and help us understand where we are today, then it needs both greater theoretical abstraction and a more reflexive sense of its place in the contemporary world.
Wednesday 14 May 2008
Professor Raymond Tallis will present The First Blessing of Our Nature: A Defence of Human Freedom
The Enlightenment belief in progress and our optimism about the future of humanity is predicated on the assumption that human beings are individually and collectively capable of free acts. The sense that we are free also lies at the heart of the humanist vision. In recent decades, increasing numbers of thinkers have claimed that science now shows that our sense of freedom is an illusion and that our apparently free acts are physically, or neurobiologically, determined. The lecture will defend our intuition that we our free.
Wednesday 2 April 2008
Nathan Coombs, Masters student in International Politics at SOAS and an independent filmmaker/producer, presented Why a Stone Can't Turn into a Chicken, but how a Chicken brought down the Ivory Tower
What the Foucault? That's the Facebook Group name for the Michael Foucault fan club, appropriate since Foucault has been blamed for everything from the oppression of women in Iran, to cultural relativism, to the degradation of academia and the tag-team dismantling of the Western Enlightenment project, with partner-in-crime Jacques Derrida. But do the critics know their enemy? When old-school Marxists, the Daily Mail, the Christian Fundamentalist right and humanist ideologues are all in agreement in lumping society's problems at the feet of postmodernism, we must know that they are talking about very different things. To understand what postmodernists are really getting at, we go all the way back to Socrates and his discourse with the sophists. Here we find the desire of the New French philosophers to take up the sophist's cause and take Socrates down. In this maneuver, we find the critique of Hegel's foundational system of Western rationality.
There is also another postmodernist hiding in history's wings that we will have to deal with. When Mao declared in 1937 than a "stone cannot turn into a chicken" he shook the foundations of Western belief in universal progress. Nowadays the Culture Wars fight over the same opposing identities. Pro-lifers, pro-choicers; fox hunters, fox lovers; Christians, atheists; carnivores, vegans. What is decried as cultural relativism, is rather a symptom of the inability to reduce any of these identities to a unified truth. Only three strands of thought truly understand the profundity of the situation. Habermas and his attempt to construct a new communicative base for normative agreements on truth, the neo-conservative movement of Leo Strauss in which the persuasive lie is the founding act of truth and Alain Badiou's ontology of the revolutionary event. However, there is no going back to the peaks of the ivory tower, these routes only allow us to structure the ashes.
Wednesday 20 February 2008
Andrea Wang, doctoral candidate in International Relations (University of Oxford), will present Constructing Global Health Governance: The revision of the International Health Regulations
The International Health Regulations (IHR) were revised in 2005, replacing an old law that had been outdated for decades. The Regulations are a set of legally binding rules governing the global community's management of infectious disease. The revision introduced several changes: it increased the scope of the regulations by expanding the number of notifiable diseases from three to all potential public health emergencies of international concern; and it enhanced the legal framework's surveillance mechanism by allowing WHO to gather information from informal sources rather than relying solely on the reports of governments. The purpose of the paper is to explain the IHR's peculiar path toward legal revision, and the role of policy entrepreneurs within WHO's Secretariat in this process. I employ Goldstein et al.'s concept of legalization, which defines the phenomenon as high levels of three dimensions - obligation, precision, and delegation. I find that the IHR's path to legalization occurred in three largely successive steps: during the 1990s, new responsibilities were delegated to WHO without the consent of or through the acquiescence of Member States; disease reporting became a de facto obligation (albeit not yet a legal one) during the SARS crisis of 2003; and finally this new governance platform acquired greater precision during the inter-governmental negotiations of 2004 and 2005. This path toward legalization demonstrates the power of policy entrepreneurs and international institutions - at times acting outside their delegated authority - to bring together diverging national interests and to capture policy windows, creating new tools for global governance.
Thursday 24 January 2008
Simon Cooke, doctoral student in Literary and Cultural Studies at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture at Justus-Liebig University, Giessen, Germany, and regular contributor to Culture Wars (www.culturewars.org.uk) will present:
The Two Cultures? Britain, 'Europe' and the Internationalisation of Postgraduate Study in the Humanities
In 1999 the European Commission saw in the new millennium by setting in motion the 'Bologna Process' with the aim of standardising the Bachelors / Masters / Doctorate system across the continent to create a 'European Education Area' by 2010. Signs of such an 'education area' developing in the humanities in Europe are clear in the recent emergence of international and interdisciplinary 'graduate centres' and numerous international collaborations (such as the Hermes, the European Summer School in Cultural Studies, the ACUME network). While one of the factors contributing to the circulation of research (and researchers) in the humanities in mainland Europe has been the emergence of English as a 'first second language', it is striking that the involvement of British institutions in these networks remains comparatively low, as does the number of British graduates pursuing graduate study on the 'continent'. Taking "English Studies" as a particularly striking case in point, does this suggest that the English Channel is becoming the locus of a "two cultures" divide between the studies of culture in Britain and Europe? Should there be closer collaboration between British universities and those in the rest of Europe? What are the implications of an 'international' approach, and experience, in the study of culture in the humanities? And most specifically, what - alluding to the well-worn British graduate traveller's track of Teaching English as a Foreign Language - might be gained by studying 'English as a Foreign Literature'?
Wednesday 12 December 2007
Thomas Ogg, who recently completed his Masters in Sociology at Nuffield College, University of Oxford presented:
Private Schools and University Admissions
University admissions, I shall argue, should formally vary by school type, such that admissions requirements are higher for private school students than for state school students. It is private school students, not state school students, that should be put at a disadvantage as a result of the distortion introduced into the education system by the existence of private schools. I will further argue that unfair access - or discrimination - is higher at non-Oxbridge Russell Group universities. I believe this is partly because - contrary to public perceptions surrounding cases like Laura Spence - the Oxbridge interview is 'class biased' against private school students. The interview, a somewhat erratic selection device, should be replaced by varying admissions requirements by school type.
In the wake of these arguments, based upon research undertaken by myself and colleagues at Oxford University, I hope to reflect upon the nature of private education, and its place in the national education system. Does a private education buy better grades only, or a humanistic education? Should varying admissions requirements be castigated as a second best solution- if so, then what should be done? I hope, finally, to touch upon the dilemmas social scientists face when undertaking controversial work in policy relevant areas. How does a postgraduate student navigate the twin demands of academe and politics, remaining loyal to both? Who can you trust, and when should you publish?
Wednesday 21 November 2007
Dr Shirley Dent, co-author of Radical Blake: Afterlife and Influence and Guardian Unlimited books blogger, will use the experience of returning to an academic conference and the arguments between 'gradgrind' archivists and post-modern relativists at that conference to explore what role facts have to play in history, why historical research matters, what we mean by history and what any of this has to do with making history today, in her presentation:
Buried in the archive or making history?:
How not to endear yourself to an academic conference on William Blake: encourage the delegates to "have some balls". Why, you may ask, was I going round urging profs and poets to get hold of their strong opinions? The fact is that, as well as hearing some excellent papers at York's Blake 250 conference, I became embroiled in a battle of ideas. My idea: it kind of helps if you know some stuff about history when tackling literature. It helps even more if you have a sense of what history is. Oh - and a good dollop of critical judgment, coupled with the courage to tell people they are wrong, never goes amiss.
Wednesday 17 October 2007
In the first seminar in the new 2007/8 series, Dr Dennis Hayes, founder of Academics for Academic Freedom, will introduce Cranks, Racists and Radicals: Is defending their freedom of speech part of academic freedom?
Understanding the importance of free speech is a necessary prerequisite to an understanding of academic freedom. Looking at the historical approaches to the relationship between them reveals how the discussion has degenerated into one about whether or not to support individual victims whose ‘academic freedom’ has been challenged.
Traditionally, the left criticised the special privilege of ‘academic freedom’ claimed by academics and defended it as an expression of a universal value. Now even academics are unable or unwilling to defend their special privilege or even support colleagues whose academic freedom is threatened. What is to be done?
2006/07
Wednesday 6 June 2007
In the sixth forum of the series June McLaughlin-Cheng from Queen Mary’s presented Resolving Anarchy: Arbitration in Emerging African Economies
Arbitration is used to resolve business disputes in the US and UK financial markets; particularly stock exchange disputes. Indeed, the World Federation of Stock Exchanges requires members to have a functioning dispute resolution system and Stock Exchanges are heavily regulated in an attempt to bolster investor confidence. They are also frequently understood as national institutions, influenced by economic, political and legal traditions. As the global economy contracts and expands, emerging exchanges are faced with increasing competition in obtaining global capital financing. They need this capital investment to grow. Establishing credible dispute resolution processes, can assist exchanges in this endeavour. But what should these systems look like?
The focus of my paper will be on Africa, which has over a dozen stock exchanges in various stages of development; most are located in countries without the banking and legal infrastructure needed to support a viable stock exchange. My paper considers the implications of global financial developments for emerging African economies. These developments include the increased use of Anglo-American style dispute resolution methods, the growing burden on public companies caused by the global adoption of ill-defined concepts of corporate social responsibility, as well as the absence of African influence on any of these processes.
Wednesday 9 May 2007
In the fifth forum of the series Philip Cunliffe from King’s College presented:
The Responsibility to Protect: A Critique
Following the controversy over humanitarian interventions during the 1990s, the doctrine of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ offered in the 2001 Responsibility to Protect Report has been widely ratified and lauded as a means of reconciling the rights of sovereign states with the human rights of individuals. If states are unable to guarantee a certain level of human rights for their citizens, the Report sets out criteria by which the sovereignty of states can be suspended in favour of the international community.
This paper criticizes the reconciliation offered in the new doctrine, suggesting that the doctrine extends the rights of war-making available to powerful states. These new rights of war do not constitute a formalized new hierarchy, nor do they explicitly encroach on the rights of states. Instead, the rights of war are extended under the terms of humanitarian emergency. I argue that this minimal attempt to formalize extreme or emergency scenarios nonetheless warps the whole structure of international law. I conclude that the extension of ‘emergency politics’ strengthens existing relations of power, because the invocation of emergency obviates the need to positively justify power relations, effectively making power its own justification. By enshrining the unaccountable exercise of power, the perverse consequence of the new doctrine is to make the exercise of power less responsible.
Wednesday 11 April 2007
In the fourth forum in the series Maxine Newlands presented:
Activist or Terrorist? Environmental Direct Action (EDA) and Media Representation.
When ‘Google-ing’ the term ecoterrorist, you get 37,900 results. Today grassroots environmental activists are increasingly represented as eco/terrorists- through both media representation and legislative measures. This paper will attempt to examine - via a genealogical study - the link between 'Environmental Direct Action’ (EDA) and ‘eco/terrorism’. Using a comparative study between the role of the media in representing environmental direct action in both the USA and UK – and legislative measures of the Patriot Act and Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005; the paper will analyse how the term eco/ terrorism has became part of contemporary media and political rhetoric.
It will also examine the political status of such institutional ‘moves’ and counter-movements, by exploring: first, the status of these media representations; EDA as (if) terroristic; second, the media conflating of ecological politics with terrorism, as signalled by the headlines such as ‘Feds announce arrest in Ecoterrorism attacks’ (FoxNews.com, accessed 06.12.05); and third, the question of the representation of ‘radical’ political movements in relation to the dominant hegemony.
Wednesday 7 March 2007
In the third forum in the series John Pearson from the London School of Economics (LSE) presented:
Two Dogmas of Cosmopolitanism
The main force of cosmopolitanism in recent political theory has been moral. In particular, the priority of contemporary cosmopolitans has been to establish standards of global justice and to suggest institutional mechanisms that might realise these. However, it can be argued that cosmopolitans have overlooked some aspects of the structure of international politics that might serve as obstacles to their project. It might also be argued that this shortcoming leads to a further problem: that they overlook some of the existing institutions and structures that might serve the interests of a cosmopolitan project that focuses on justice.
These problems form the basis of the two dogmas that I want to explore here. The first dogma is the cosmopolitan belief that state boundaries are morally irrelevant. I present two moral arguments for the division of the world into states here. Firstly, that a system of states prevents global despotism. Secondly, that a system of separate states allows citizens to migrate in cases where they face oppression or political persecution. The second dogma is the cosmopolitan emphasis on rights over obligations which has left cosmopolitans open to accusations of utopianism in two senses. Firstly, in the sense that they fail to specify how global justice might be brought about. Secondly, in the sense that the institutional arrangements they have proposed would be dangerous and oppressive if put into practice.
Wednesday 7 February 2007
At the second seminar in the new series Hugh Ortega Breton from Roehampton University presented:
The British Political Elite: Paranoid Style: War on Others.
Paranoid style is the expression of a historically specific style of politics that achieves credibility through the emotional expression of processes that manage, communicate and off load emotions onto the electorate, encouraging engagement. Political communication becomes a process of forging meaning and creating legitimacy. Whilst there is an extensive canon of work on political rhetoric, the social study of the emotional aspects of social processes and in particular emotion in news discourse has only recently begun. In order to make sense of the representation of emotion in discourse, specifically anxieties, it is necessary to make use of a conceptual model designed especially for understanding emotional expression and the relationships that map out those emotions, object relations theory.
This paper suggests a hypothesis that broadcast journalists and the British political and cultural elites use a paranoid mode of expression: a method for coping with their crisis and constituting one in others. It occurs because its representations mirror the public’s own sense of uncertainty and anxiety, thus creating identifications. The elites’ communication with the public is influenced by this generalised anxiety as well as by their own crisis of legitimacy. The main social problem with political paranoia is that this form of political representation is uncritically presented, and effected through mainstream media, unlike previous political ideologies, perhaps because this form of politics is communicated not as an ideology but through a subjective register of emotion employing rational discourses. The political problem is critically engaging with the hegemonic position of this form of signification.
Wednesday 22 November 2006
After an introduction to the aims of the forum, George Hoare of Nuffield College, University of Oxford presented:
Consumption Choices and the Demands of Justice
One of the key questions in contemporary political philosophy concerns the scope of distributive justice: does it apply to our personal decisions, as Jerry Cohen argues, or is it restricted to a Rawlsian idea of the “basic structure” of society (properly defined)? I will maintain that justice does apply to our personal decisions of what to consume and how to consume it; in short, we must begin to recognise the ways in which our political philosophy is applicable to our personal behaviour.
