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The Clash of Civilisations and of Ignorance
27 May 2016, 12:00 am
Event Information
Open to
- All
27 May 2016
This panel is an ambitious and timely attempt to reformulate a
challenge to the popular thesis that we have entered an era of clashing
civilisations, in which the globe's primary source of conflict is
between cultural and religious identities.
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The 'Clash' of our title refers to the thesis that was
first formulated by Samuel Huntington some twenty years ago and has
reemerged very recently as a favoured catchphrase of popular political
debate. 'Ignorance' invokes Edward Said's rejoinder that such a thesis
is dangerously oblivious to different humanisms that have not been the
exclusive property of Western liberalism. The renewed use of 'the clash
of civilisations' is built upon a fantasy of return to
nineteenth-century certainties about the value of Western universalism
and to a belief in the civilising effects of a Western imperium. But, as
our keynote speaker Pankaj Mishra will suggest, 'The thin sound of
cracking is heard from many more parts of the world as exhausted
authority surrenders to nihilism'.
No registration required. All welcome!