CISRUL events planned for 2011-12
Plans for CISRUL events
CISRUL lunchtime seminars (Autumn 2011-12)
Our CISRUL lunchtime seminars which will be held this semester (with sandwiches) at 12-2 pm on Wednesdays of weeks 4, 8, 10 and 12 in Macrobert MR303.
Two of the seminars are reading groups on the topic of rights (partly in preparation for the 6th Century course on What Gives Us Rights? that some of us will deliver next semester). The other two are research seminars presented by CISRUL regulars Nigel Dower and Tamas Gyorfi which will help us to carry forward the discussion of topics that we have broached in the last two years.
Wednesday 19th October (week 4): First reading group on rights
We will discuss the following three readings (which will also be texts for the 6th Century course next semester). Please email t.stack@abdn.ac.uk to request a copy.
- selection of Enlightenment texts on rights, from Grotius to Kant, which Michael Brown will help us to contextualise
- 'New Foundations of Rights' by the anthropologist James Holston, who asked his informants in Brazilian urban peripheries what they thought gave them rights
- the political theorist Joel Feinberg's classic essay 'The Nature and Value of Rights', which will be introduced by Matyas Bodig and Tamas Gyorfi
Wednesday 16th November (week 8): Research seminar by Prof Nigel Dower (Philosophy, CISRUL) 'Global Citizenship and Patriotism'
Wednesday 30th November (week 10): Second reading group on rights
The readings will focus on rights in the context of food and development, health, and the environment and will include:
- Ted Schrecker, Audrey Chapman, Ronald Labonte, Roberto De Vogli 'Advancing Health Equity in the Global Marketplace: How Human Rights Can Help'
- Christopher Stone 'Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects'
Wednesday 14th
December (week 12): Research seminar by Tamas Gyorfi 'The Constitutional Definition of Religion'
One particularly timely theme that cuts across the work of CISRUL members is the question of religion. Older debates about the place of religion in civil society, the way citizens should express their religion, and the status of religious law have been revived in controversies over 'political Islam', the US Christian Right, and the use of laicite against immigrants in France. CISRUL members are addressing these controversies, for example by exploring how 'religion' becomes distinguished from 'secular' in the first place, asking what happens for example when schools consider the hijab to be 'cultural' rather than 'religious'. Tamas Gyorfi is developing a project on ideas of religious freedom and will focus his presentation on how 'religion' has been defined in European constitutions.
CISRUL workshops, 2011-12
We're also planning two workshops for this year:
- our annual workshop and PhD summer school will be on 'What Civil? What Society?' and will take place on 25-28 June, with speakers including the eminent sociologist Jeffrey Alexander
- a conference on 'Citizenship in Oil-Producing Societies', for which we will have a preparatory workshop in late January.
08 November 2011