Tuesday 6 May 2008:
Global Cultural Studies
and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society
present a colloquium:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND THE DECLINE OF THE HUMANITIES
Kellogg Center
1501 International Affairs Building, Columbia University
420 West 119th Street
[Click here for directions to the International Affairs Building]
What is academic freedom?
How is the issue changed if we think internationally?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of thinking of it in national legal terms?
What are "the humanities?"
Can the participants take on board the idea that the humanities can teach the practice of freedom?
How does this relate to the teaching of the pratice of unfreeom in the economic, political and religious spheres?
How can the teaching of the humanities be used as a resource from the perspective of the long-term practice of human rights?
Does academic freedom conflict with what are believed to be "cultural traditions?"
Do we have to make concessions to the degree of academic freedom that we want in varying political systems?
Can it be an absolute freedom?
What is the relationship between the right to education, the freedom of speech, and academic freedom?
Do the humanities play a role in clarifying these distinctions?
Moderators:
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
University Professor
and Director of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society,
Columbia University
Emily Apter
Professor of French
New York University
Panelists:
Kofi Anyidoho
University of Ghana -- Legon
Paul Bové
University of Pittsburgh
Aniket Jaaware
University of Pune
Samia Mehrez
American University of Cairo
Esmail al Nashif
Bir Zeit University, Palestine
Romila Thapar
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
University of California, Irvine
For more information, contact 212-851-0231 or sk2534 at columbia.edu
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