CCG Special Seminars
During 2012, CCG will present a series of special public seminars on a range of topics. These special seminars will compliment our regular Lunchtime Seminar Series. For more information about CCG events and to express your interest in attending or presenting, contact us.
| March | Prof. Philomena Essed | Racism in Europe: Humiliation and Homgenisation |
| May | Dr David Pritchard | Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens |
| June | Prof. Tariq Modood | Multiculturalism and Interculturalism: the new European debate |
| July | Dr Mia Fuller | TBA |
| August | Prof. Roland Axtmann | Democracy without demos |
Multiculturalism and Interculturalism: the new European debate
with Tariq Modood
June 15 2012 12pm, C2.05
Abstract
TBA
Tariq Modood - Professional Background
Tariq Modood is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, and the founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol, UK. He has led many research projects on ethnic minorities and Muslims in the UK and in Europe and has published extensively on these topics, especially on the theory and politics of multiculturalism. His latest books include Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea (2007), Still Not Easy Being British (2010); and as co-editor Secularism, Religion and Multicultural Citizenship (2009), Global Migration, Ethnicity and Britishness (2011) and European Multiculturalisms (2012). He is a regular contributor to the media and to policy discussions in Britain and was a member of the Commisson on the Future of the Multi-Ethnic Britain (the Parekh Report, 2000). He was awarded an MBE for services to social science and ethnic relations in 2001 and elected to the Academy of Social Sciences in 2004.
Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens
with David Pritchard
May 10 2012 12pm, C2.05 (Burwood Campus)
Abstract
This paper addresses the neglected problem of elite sport in classical Athens. Democracy may have opened up politics to every citizen but it had no impact on sporting participation. The city’s sportsmen continued to be drawn from the elite. Thus it comes as a surprise that non-elite citizens judged sport to be a very good thing, rewarded victorious sportsmen lavishly and created an unrivalled program of local sporting festivals, on which they spent a staggering sum. They also shielded sportsmen from the public criticism which was otherwise normally directed towards the elite and its conspicuous activities. The work of social scientists suggests that the explanation of this problem lies in the close relationship which non-elite Athenians perceived between sporting contests and their own waging of war. The disturbing conclusion of this paper is that it was the democracy’s opening up of war to non-elite citizens which legitimised elite sport.
David Pritchard - Professional Background
Dr David M. Pritchard is Senior Lecturer in the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics at the University of Queensland and a member of the University’s Cultural History Project. He has held research fellowships at Macquarie University, the University of Copenhagen and the University of Sydney. He has authored Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens (Cambridge University Press: 2013 [in press]), edited War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens (Cambridge University Press: 2010) and co-edited Sport and Festival in the Ancient Greek World (Classical Press of Wales: 2003). He is currently finishing for Oxford University Press a co-authored book on public finance in ancient Athens.
Racism in Europe: Humiliation and Homogenisation
with Philomena Essed
March 7 2012 12pm, The Blue Room
Abstract
The European unification has been foremost a project of whiteness. Notions of tolerance, multiculturalism and anti racism, somewhat popular in the 1980s, have all but disappeared from political agendas. The turn of the century has been witness to the emergence of what I call entitlement racism: the idea that majority populations have the right to offend and to humiliate the ‘Other’. Expressions of this form of racism vary according to racial, ethnic and religious group attributions and can range from assimilative paternalism to extreme cultural humiliation. The Netherlands is a case in point.
Philomena Essed - Professional Background
Philomena Essed has a PhD from the University of Amsterdam and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Pretoria. At Antioch University, she is a professor of Critical Race, Gender and Leadership studies in the PhD in Leadership and Change Program. She is also an affiliated researcher at Utrecht University (The Netherlands) Graduate Gender Program.
Her research and teaching transcends national, cultural and disciplinary boundaries.
Well known for introducing the concepts of everyday racism and gendered racism in the Netherlands and internationally, her work has been adopted and applied in a range of countries, including the US, Canada, South Africa, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the UK, Switzerland and Australia.
She has lectured in many countries - from Germany to Brazil; from South-Africa to Canada - and published numerous articles in English and in Dutch, some of which have been translated into French, German, Italian, Swedish and Portuguese.
Her books include Everyday Racism; Understanding Everyday Racism and Diversity; Gender, Color and Culture. Co-edited Volumes: Race Critical Theories: Refugees and the Transformation of Societies and A Companion to Gender Studies ('outstanding' 2005 CHOICE award). A volume on Dutch Racism is in progress and another volume Clones, Fakes and Posthumans: Cultures of Replication is in press. Her current research focuses on social justice and dignity as experience and practice in leading change.
In addition to her academic work Philomena has been advisor to governmental and non-governmental organizations, nationally and internationally. Since 2004 she is Deputy Member of the Dutch Equal Treatment Commission where she serves as a panel member in hearings and investigations about structural discrimination, including race, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation and disability.
As an expert witness on race, gender and racism in Europe she addressed among others The European Parliament (Brussels, 1984); The United Nations Economic and Social Council (New York, 2001); The House of Representatives of the States-General (The Hague, the Netherlands, 2004) and the United States Helsinki Commission (Capitol Hill, Washington, 2008).
In April 2011 The Queen of the Netherlands honored Philomena with a Knighthood.
