Jeremy Bentham, The London University (a.k.a. UCL), and other stories

About the lecture

Oft-repeated ‘facts’ are that Jeremy Bentham, the utilitarian philosopher and reformer, was the founder of UCL, that he left his body (the auto-icon) to UCL, and that the auto-icon attends meetings of UCL Council, where he is said to be ‘present, but not voting’. In this lecture, Philp Schofield will attempt to separate myth from reality, while suggesting that in some cases truth is stranger than fiction. Consideration will also be given to the claim that Bentham’s educational ideas, put forward in his treatise Chrestomathia, was the intellectual inspiration for the founding of The London University in 1826.

About the speaker

Philip Schofield is Professor of the History of Legal and Political Thought, Director of the Bentham Project and General Editor of the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. He is Secretary of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies, which organises major international conferences.

For more details see the Bentham Project website: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/research/research-projects/bentham-project.

About the chair

Samuel Garrett Zeitlin is a Lecturer in Modern Intellectual History at University College London.

Sam studies and teaches the history of political thought, the history of international relations, political philosophy, and intellectual history. His translation and edition (co-edited with R.A. Berman) of Land and Sea won an award in the “Religion” category at the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2016. He is currently working on monographs on Bacon and Schmitt as well as articles and edited volumes on Hobbes and Nietzsche as well as on constitutions in the history of political thought.