[eccr] Ideas, Intellectuals and the Public

>Dear Colleague,
>
>I hope this is of interest.
>
>Regards,
>Dolan Cummings
>Institute of Ideas
>
>
>Goodenough College and the Institute of Ideas present
>Ideas, Intellectuals and the Public
>a three-day conference
>Goodenough College, London
>Date: 20-22 June, 2003 Tickets:
>
>
>*       Standard rate: £30 per day (£20 concessions)
>
>*       £75 for three days (£50 concessions)
>
>*       Institutional rate: £50 per day
>
>*       £125 for three days
>
>*       IoI Associates rate: £25 per day (£15 concessions)
>
>*       £65 for three days (£45 concessions)
>
>
>Booking: To order, call 020 7269 9220/9230
>Alternatively, cheques should be made payable to Academy of Ideas Ltd and
>sent to Academy of Ideas, Signet House, 49-51 Farringdon Road, London EC1M
>3JP
>Media sponsor: Times Higher Educational Supplement
>Supported by: The Gatsby Foundation
>
>Introduction
>
>Ideas can define and transform society, but how healthy is intellectual life
>today? Human beings have a unique capacity to use reason to act on the
>world, but we don't always make the most of that capacity. It is crucial for
>those of us who value ideas to assess rigorously and honestly the state of
>contemporary ideas, the role of intellectuals and the audience for their
>ideas. In a period when Big Brother refers not to George Orwell but to a
>reality TV show, and when bright young things are developing gameshow
>formats rather than scribbling essays; when thinkers join thinktanks to
>design short-term government policy rather than reflecting on and
>challenging the status quo, and when the ever growing number of graduates
>seem more interested in job prospects than academic endeavour, is
>intellectual life in terminal decline?
>
>This three-day conference will look at the debates about knowledge, the
>university system and new arenas for ideas, bringing together academics,
>journalists, novelists, scientists, artists and activists in a public arena
>to look at where new ideas are coming from, who is their audience and
>whether they match up to the tasks facing humanity.
>
>Claire Fox and Dolan Cummings
>Institute of Ideas
>
>   _____
>
>Friday
>
>11.00am - 12.30pm
>Opening plenary:
>The decline of the intellectual in public life
>
>Intellectuals are historically associated with public life, and there is
>little doubt that the critical voice of the intellectual has been crucial to
>the evolution of modern Western culture. From the salons of the 18th
>century, and the Dreyfus affair onwards, intellectuals have regularly
>intervened in the public sphere to put forward their point of view on the
>important questions of the day. More recently there has been some
>discussion, initiated by Russell Jacoby's The Last Intellectuals, about the
>declining influence of public intellectuals. Even their existence is in
>doubt.
>
>Today's academics appear hesitant about embracing the broader role of the
>intellectual, preferring to stick to their own narrow specialisms. Journals
>and papers written in dense academic jargon seem only suited to the narrow
>world of academia, and are inaccessible to a general public. Intellectuals
>seem conspicuous by their absence from public life, where indeed
>'intellectual' is often used as a term of derision.
>
>Has the role of the intellectual diminished? How much does the situation
>vary between Britain, Continental Europe, North America and beyond? Are the
>barbarians at the gate or are we simply suffering a bout of cultural
>pessimism?
>
>Russell Jacoby history professor at UCLA, and of author of The Last
>Intellectuals
>
>
>
>Respondents:
>Alan Hudson Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford
>Jeremy Jennings Professor of Political Theory, University of Birmingham, and
>editor of Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century France and Intellectuals in
>Politics
>Sabine Reul Frankfurt-based writer and journalist
>Chair: Claire Fox director, Institute of Ideas
>
>The fate of knowledge
>
>We are told that we live in a knowledge economy and that knowledge is the
>key to the future. Yet nobody seems sure what knowledge means any more. Not
>just on the internet, but in education too, the distinction between
>knowledge and information has become blurred. Academics shrink from the
>canonical body of knowledge, and flirt instead with relativism. New
>knowledge is often feared for its potential to create new problems, from
>designer babies to genetically modified monstrosities. So - what is the fate
>of knowledge today?
>
>2.00 - 3.30pm
>The legacy of relativism
>
>Over recent years there has been a stark loss of faith in the Enlightenment
>idea of knowledge with a capital K. Those who believe in humanity's capacity
>to grasp objective reality are dismissed as arrogant and elitist. The more
>modest proposition that all knowledge is particular and contingent is now
>rarely challenged.
>
>Partisans of identity politics reject the supposedly universal body of
>knowledge as a mask for hegemonic interests. History, for example, is
>decried as a socially constructed grand narrative. In place of the
>universal, we see the proliferation of many 'knowledges', many 'histories'.
>At the same time, insights gained from experience and emotion are often
>privileged over supposedly absolute truths. The earlier Culture Wars saw
>vigorous attacks on Western culture and the literary canon, and in the name
>of anti-elitism, equal value has been given to the views of professors and
>their students.
>
>How has this relative attitude to knowledge affected the way society views
>ideas and intellectual endeavour? Can we ever strive to know the world while
>relativism decries knowledge as artifice? How can we make the quest for
>knowledge an open-ended exploration - instead of either a rigid defense of
>absolutes or a vacuous embrace of everything?
>
>Simon Blackburn Professor of Philosophy, Cambridge University
>Robert Eaglestone Lecturer in Twentieth Century Literature, Royal Holloway,
>University of London, author of Ethical Criticism and Doing English; Series
>Editor, Routledge Critical Thinkers
>Kenan Malik writer, lecturer and broadcaster; author of The Meaning of Race
>and Man, Beast and Zombie
>Steve Woolgar Professor of Marketing at the Saïd Business School of the
>University of Oxford, and director of the Virtual Society programme
>Chair: Claire Fox director, Institute of Ideas
>
>4.00 - 5.15pm
>A knowledge revolution?
>Information overload and the crisis of judgement
>
>With the rise of the electronic media, many have noted the huge amount of
>information that is now available to the public. We all have access to raw
>data and information without gatekeepers to filter what we know.
>
>Contemporary pedagogy now suggests that the internet can replace much of
>formal education. We are offered the e-university, surfing is compared to
>research, ICT is said to put learners in the driving seat. Many celebrate
>the fact that ordinary people can become information producers as well as
>consumers; everyone can publish their work without the need for peer review,
>expert approval or editorial control. Universities face competition from
>alternative Knowledge Creating Institutions (KCIs).
>
>Is the information revolution creating new ideas and opening up intellectual
>life to more people? Are we in danger of confusing information with
>knowledge? How is raw data transformed into knowledge, by whom and by what
>means?
>
>Ron Barnett Professor of Higher Education, Institute of Education
>James Woudhuysen forecaster and Professor of Innovation, De Montford
>University
>Michelle Selinger education specialist, Cisco Systems
>Chair: Dolan Cummings Institute of Ideas
>
>5.30 - 6.45pm
>Ethics and knowledge
>
>Are there any ideas intellectuals should not examine? Some areas of
>knowledge are deemed so problematic, we rein in investigation and stifle
>debate. In the case of anthropology, a whole discipline is tarnished by
>association with colonial oppression, and its practitioners struggle to find
>ethically acceptable methods. In science, the field of genetics has been
>subject to unprecedented external scrutiny. Ethical regulations and ethics
>committees rather than the demands of the field of study, for example in
>therapeutic cloning, now determine the degree and conduct of research. Media
>concerns and public opinion are cited to justify limits on what can be
>acceptably pursued.
>
>How can ideas develop if they are hemmed in by ethical concerns, interest
>group lobbying and public opinion? What effect does this climate have on
>intellectual life in general?
>
>Peter Lipton Professor of Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University;
>member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics
>Catherine Scott, School of Education, University of New England, New South
>Wales, Australia
>Richard Shweder cultural anthropologist and Professor of Human Development,
>University of Chicago
>John Torpey Associate Professor of Sociology and European Studies,
>University of British Columbia, author Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent
>Chair: Dolan Cummings Institute of Ideas
>   _____
>
>
>Saturday
>
>Ivory Towers and Ideas
>
>The university is the traditional source of new ideas. But the ideal of
>institutions dedicated to expanding the sum total of human knowledge through
>research, committed to passing on the best which has been thought and said
>to new generations, seems increasingly quaint. Many critics of the 'ivory
>towers' even refute the possibility that we might arrive at truth through
>the application of reason.
>
>Many argue that universities must find a 'Third Mission', on top of teaching
>and research, to justify their claims on society. Under pressure from
>government-led initiatives then, dons are as likely to mould their work
>around external criteria as the demands of their disciplines. Changes in
>funding mean private bodies increasingly pay for - and possibly influence -
>research projects. The demand that universities act as agents of social
>change means non-educational criteria influence the recruitment, retention
>and assessment of students. The development of ideas has apparently become a
>sideline.
>
>Can academia still provide intellectual breakthroughs?
>
>   _____
>
>13.00 - 11.30am
>Crisis in the academy
>the Culture Wars re-examined
>
>In recent years, universities have become mired in controversy, whether
>about political correctness, postmodernism, academic freedom or affirmative
>action. Two academics, from either side of the Atlantic, assess these
>Culture Wars and ask whether academia, in its present crisis-ridden state,
>can recapture a pivotal role in intellectual life.
>
>Frank Furedi Professor of Sociology, University of Kent at Canterbury
>John Agresto Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, Wabash College, Indiana;
>President Emeritus of St. John's College, Santa Fe, and author of Liberty
>and Equality Under the Constitution
>Chair: Cheryl Hudson Assistant Director of the Academic Programme at the
>Rothermere American Institute, Oxford
>
>11.45am - 1.00pm
>The ideal university re-examined
>
>How useful is John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University for modern times?
>Do universities hold up as the embodiment of freedom of enquiry, sites for
>the disinterested pursuit of knowledge for its own sake? How important is
>autonomy to intellectual development? Should universities be entirely free
>from external pressures, whether political, economic or social? Should the
>demands of the disciplines be the only pressure on academic endeavour, or
>should academics be subject to the same auditing checks and balances as
>other public institutions? Is the present relationship between government,
>industry and academia qualitatively new, or has academic freedom always been
>more myth than reality? Is the idea of the university as a space to reflect
>away from the concerns of society a self-indulgent luxury? What makes
>universities different from other educational establishments and 'Knowledge
>Creating Institutions'?
>
>Ron Barnett Professor of Higher Education, Institute of Education
>Gordon Graham Professor of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, and author of
>Universities: The Recovery of an Idea
>Ellie Lee sociologist at the University of Southampton and overall editor of
>the Institute of Ideas'  <http://www.instituteofideas.com/publications/dm/>
>Debating Matters series
>Chair: John OLeary editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement
>
>2.15 - 3.30pm
>The ideal don re-examined
>
>How relevant is the academic to contemporary life? Are academics too distant
>from the world outside the ivory towers? Are academics now so specialised
>that they cannot act as public intellectuals addressing a broader audience?
>Are they too concerned with research rather than teaching future
>generations? Are they too concerned with teaching and neglecting the
>research, which will expand the world of knowledge? Is the solution a
>two-tier system of teachers and researchers? Must academics choose between
>immersing themselves in their discipline, and communicating it to their
>students and the public? Is the master-pupil relationship the relic of an
>era of deference, or a valuable model for initiating novices into the
>intellectual world? Is the reinvention of academics as 'facilitators' of
>knowledge a victory for student-centred democracy, or an abdication of
>intellectual leadership ?
>
>Vaneeta D'Andrea Carnegie Scholar and Director of the Educational
>Development Centre at City University, London
>Dennis Hayes editor The McDonaldisation of Education
>Diane Middlebrook Professor of English Emerita at Stanford University
>Chair: Claire Fox director, Institute of Ideas
>
>3.45 - 5.00pm
>The ideal student re-examined
>
>Why do students go to university today? Has the shift to mass higher
>education altered the way society views students and students view
>themselves? If students are encouraged to see themselves as customers, are
>they more interested in purchasing pre-packaged degrees than in working hard
>to attain knowledge? As HE is reorganised around political ends such as
>access, social inclusion and employability, how is the curriculum being
>redrafted to make it more relevant to the intellectually diverse student
>base? With the emergence of student-centred assessment, pedagogy and
>curricula, are students having their self-esteem boosted rather than having
>their ideas challenged? And what happened to the 'revolting students' - are
>universities discouraging critical thinking and the questioning of
>orthodoxies?
>
>Bob Brecher Campaign for the Future of Higher Education; Reader in Moral
>Philosophy, University of Brighton
>James Panton Lecturer in Political Theory at Exeter College, and Carlyle
>Scholar in the History of Ideas in the Department of Politics and
>International Relations, University of Oxford
>Mandy Telford President, National Union of Students
>Alison Wolf Professor and Director of the International Centre for Research
>on Assessment at the Institute of Education
>Chair: Dolan Cummings Institute of Ideas
>
>5.30 - 7.00pm
>Keynote plenary
>The audience for ideas: dumbing down or wising up?
>
>More bookshops than ever before, more graduates than at any time in history,
>newspapers bulging with more articles and supplements, the Tate Modern
>teeming with visitors, an economy that values brain rather than brawn.
>Surely intellectual life has never been healthier, and the audience for
>ideas never larger.
>
>And yet, contemporary society seems deeply hostile to claims of excellence,
>a canonical body of knowledge or high culture. High art, from opera to
>museums, and academic excellence, from A Levels to Oxbridge, are regarded as
>elitist, and deemed to exclude mass audiences. We seem to doubt people's
>ability to cope with difficult ideas. Frequently broadcasters sideline
>documentaries, current affairs and 'ideas programming' to make way for TV
>shows more 'accessible' to viewers. Academics who push their students too
>hard are accused of bullying, and handouts have replaced books as staple
>reading for most undergraduates.
>
>Are we witnessing a vast expansion in audiences for ideas, or has there in
>fact been a loss of faith in the 'general reader'? Has the ideal of a
>self-selecting intellectual public been lost in an indiscriminate
>marketplace of ideas? Does appealing to the public mean sinking to the
>lowest common denominator?
>
>Stefan Collini Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at
>the University of Cambridge and author of Public Moralists
>Frank Furedi Professor of Sociology, University of Kent at Canterbury
>Russell Jacoby history professor at UCLA, and of author of The Last
>Intellectuals
>Jonathan Rose author of The Intellectual Life of the British Working Class
>Chair: Claire Fox director, Institute of Ideas
>   _____
>
>
>Sunday
>
>The New Intellectuals
>
>Many contend that traditional academia has lost its intellectual monopoly to
>a diverse range of alternative arenas. New media, from digital TV to online
>'blogs', offer endless outlets for thinkers to reach the public. Thinktanks
>gather creative minds from academia and public life to develop new
>initiatives, to second-guess future trends and think the unthinkable.
>Non-expert 'stakeholders' such as consumers and activists are given equal
>status to traditional experts in consensus committees and public inquiries.
>Are the new intellectuals a new source of ideas, or is all this an assault
>on disinterested enquiry and a move away from 'real' expertise?
>
>   _____
>
>11.00am - 12.15pm
>Media punditry
>
>In recent years the media seem to have grown in both size and importance.
>With a proliferation of outlets from digital television to the internet,
>there is more space to discuss ideas than ever, and with party politics
>seemingly in decline, journalists have acquired greater stature, not just as
>celebrities but even as public figures. Meanwhile, young academics can carve
>out careers as 'media dons', starring in their own popular science and
>history series on peak-time TV.
>
>While the space for ephemeral punditry has grown, with 24-hour news and talk
>shows, is there a danger of marginalising the outlets for serious debate?
>Are the ratings wars consigning challenging content to ghetto slots? Are the
>new media commentators accessible scholars, who explain research clearly and
>intelligently, or are they reducing complex ideas to unsubtle soundbites?
>Have the media generated a new cadre of public intellectuals, or do the
>sheer numbers of commentators add up to a public sphere in which everyone
>speaks but no-one listens?
>
>Abigail Appleton Head of Speech Programming, BBC Radio 3
>Andrew Billen The Times, TV critic New Statesman
>Janet Daley columnist, the Daily Telegraph
>Frank Furedi Professor of Sociology, University of Kent at Canterbury
>Chair: Tiffany Jenkins Institute of Ideas
>
>1.30 - 2.45pm
>The rise of thinktanks
>
>In our post-ideological age, many bright thinkers see a career in politics
>as a practical one, less ideological, more technocratic. Policy is all. The
>job of policy advisor is one of the most powerful among the political elite.
>Thinktanks are the new hubs for ideas, attracting the smartest talents to
>the world of policy papers, lobbying, advocacy research and public
>influence. Elsewhere, there are increasing demands that university research
>should have direct consequences for public policy. The new public policy don
>enrolls on a media training course, presents lectures in PowerPoint, sits on
>public policy committees and initiates partnerships with community groups.
>
>In this atmosphere, ideas without policy implications are often dismissed as
>irrelevant. This calculating, instrumental approach is antithetical to the
>concept of 'knowledge for its own sake'.
>
>Are thinktanks replacing academia as the new arenas for thinking the
>unthinkable? If practical ends determine the value of ideas, what becomes of
>the free-ranging, open-ended approach so necessary for intellectual life to
>flourish? Does their hostility to ideology mean thinktanks take a fresh
>approach to intellectual endeavour, or does it simply make them
>insubstantial? Can today's socially-aware academics be any more than
>apologists for the status quo, designing eye-catching initiatives for an
>intellectually staid establishment?
>
>Nick Gillespie editor of Reason magazine
>Mick Hume editor of  <http://www.spiked-online.com/> spiked and columnist
>for The Times
>Gregor McLennan Professor of Sociology, University of Bristol
>David Triesman General Secretary of the Labour Party
>Chair: Tiffany Jenkins Institute of Ideas
>
>3.00 - 4.15pm
>The demise of peer review and the rise of public experts
>
>It is rare for scientists to bring out a report, whether on BSE or mobile
>phones, without it receiving widespread scepticism, despite evidence which
>has been endorsed by peer review. But while society seems frequently to
>distrust traditional experts, new voices are now endowed with authority.
>Medical opinion is seen as one-sided, masking the vested interests of the
>medical profession, but patients and relatives are invited onto medical
>bodies and treated with reverence. Consumers are consulted on matters
>normally resolved in the lab or through experimentation. Public
>participation in scientific decision-making is becoming the norm.
>Environmental activists and NGOs are given equal status to scientists on
>consensus panels. Advocates claiming to give voice to particular sections of
>the community, from the disabled to ethnic groups, are deemed more
>trustworthy than ostensibly disinterested intellectuals and their peers.
>
>If non-expert participants are free from the rules of evidence given by a
>discipline, how useful can they be in difficult scientific discussions? Is
>academic peer review just another set of opinions, or should it retain a
>privileged status? Is intellectual expertise incompatible with democracy?
>
>Dr Michael Fitzpatrick London GP and author of The Tyranny of Health
>Brian Wynne Professor of Science Studies, Research Director of the Centre
>for the Study of Environmental Change and Chair of the Centre for Science
>Studies at Lancaster University
>Chair: Tony Gilland Institute of Ideas
>
>4.45 - 6.00pm
>Final plenary:
>The dissenting intellectual: challenging new orthodoxies
>
>One crucial role that intellectuals have always played is to force us to
>question the status quo by picking apart conventional wisdom and received
>opinion. Today, the idea of dissent is paid due reverence, and 'critical
>thinking' is regarded as a key skill for students to acquire. But what does
>this mean at a time when consensus is valued as a supreme good, and
>confrontation, intellectual or otherwise, is frowned on? Certain new
>orthodoxies are not so open to question. Ideas like environmentalism and
>multiculturalism seem to have become morally if not intellectually
>indisputable.
>
>Those critical of the state of universities are frequently dismissed as
>purveyors of elitist nostalgia, 'the forces of conservatism'. Preferring a
>quiet life, most academics have learned to avoid issues that might offend
>their students or their colleagues. How will 'critical thinking' keep its
>edge if the demand for consensus prevails? If we accept the notion that
>ideas should be inoffensive, how will we hold new orthodoxies up to
>scrutiny? Does the dissenting intellectual have a future?
>
>Sondra Farganis director, the Rose and Erwin Wolfson Center for National
>Affairs, New School University, New York
>John Fitzpatrick solicitor and director of the Kent Law Clinic
>Ziauddin Sardar author Why Do People Hate America?
>Chair: Claire Fox director, Institute of Ideas

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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University Brussels
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Centre for Media Sociology (CeMeSO)
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
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