University of Cambridge > Talks.cam > Thinking Society: Is our university a place of free thinking?

Thinking Society: Is our university a place of free thinking?

Add to your list(s) Send you e-mail reminders Further detail
Subscribe using ical/vcal (Help)

Cambridge University is increasingly influenced by the world of business, both through direct contact and funding, and through the all pervasive spirit of profit-loss calculation. This raises serious challenges to the place of free, independent and critical thinking in the University: Are academics compelled to serve profit rather than truth in their research? Has undergraduate education become a mere production line, generating consultants for the private sector, rather than thinkers for society? Have we lost the ability to justify thinking outside of economic grounds?

We cordially invite you to our 5th lecture series that tries to shed a critical light on the current developments within our institution, and, more generally, to ask if there is any free space of thinking left which has not yet been taken over by economic rationality. It seeks to ask how, in an age when the university’s activities are predominantly judged and legitimised in terms of utility and profit, can we, both students and academics, act to secure freedom from this crude and unforgiving rationality and maintain the critical distance necessary to question its place as a dominant rationality of our time.

Tell a friend about this list:

If you have a question about this list, please contact: Lloyd West. If you have a question about a specific talk, click on that talk to find its organiser.

0 upcoming talks and 6 talks in the archive.

Student Papers and Grand Discussion

Is our university a place of free thinking?

UserMishko Hansen, Karin Doolan, Antoine Panaïoti.

HouseLloyd Room, Christ’s College.

ClockMonday 10 March 2008, 19:30-20:30

Are academics intellectuals?: a reading of Edward Said

Is our university a place of free thinking?

UserDr. Priyamvada Gopal (Lecturer in Postcolonial Studies, University of Cambridge).

HouseLloyd Room, Christ’s College.

ClockThursday 06 March 2008, 19:30-20:30

Socrates and the invention of philosophical conversation

Is our university a place of free thinking?

UserProfessor Malcolm Schofield (Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge).

HouseLloyd Room, Christ’s College.

ClockMonday 03 March 2008, 17:30-18:30

The thought of poetry and its institutional discontents

Is our university a place of free thinking?

UserDr Drew Milne (Lecturer in Drama and Poetry, University of Cambridge).

HouseLloyd Room, Christ’s College.

ClockThursday 28 February 2008, 19:30-20:30

Freedom, Technology and Terror

Is our university a place of free thinking?

UserProfessor Ross Anderson (Security Engineering).

HouseLloyd Room, Christ’s College.

ClockWednesday 27 February 2008, 18:00-19:00

What use is a college education?

Is our university still a place for free thinking?

UserDr Don MacDonald.

HouseLloyd Room, Christ’s College.

ClockTuesday 26 February 2008, 19:30-20:30

Please see above for contact details for this list.

 

© 2006-2024 Talks.cam, University of Cambridge. Contact Us | Help and Documentation | Privacy and Publicity