The 'Other' Hay Festival

How The Light Gets In is the UK's first philosophy and music festival in Hay on-Wye which runs over the same ten days, 22-31 May, as the Hay Literary Festival. For the first time ever in the UK, music and philosophy collide as top thinkers, leading musicians and pioneering artists explore the issues that matter through debate, music and live performance. With the overall theme: ‘Crunch. Values and Belief in a new era’ the Philosophy Sessions examine where we are and where we might go from here. The festival brings together a celebrated cast of speakers including philosophers Simon Blackburn, Susan Neiman, AC Grayling, sociologists, Steve Fuller, Zygmunt Bauman, and political theorists Will Hutton, Phillip Blond, Geoff Mulgan. Evenings are host to musical sets from performers including Michael Nyman, Baka Beyond, Stephen Fretwell and many more; and daily comedy sketches come courtesy of the likes of Ed Aczel and Robin Ince.

Excellent Buddhist Podcast

Taken from http://www.cbs.columbia.edu/weblog/2009/05/cbss-podcast-fredrick-m-smith.html :

"Fredrick M. Smith from the University of Iowa presented his talk on "Indian Buddhist Sociolinguistics and Buddhist Notions of Possession: A Fragment from the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa" on April 30, 2009 as part of the Columbia University Buddhist Studies Seminar series."

The podcast is at http://www.cbs.columbia.edu/files/cbss_podcast_smith.mp3

The Centre for Buddhist Studies at Columbia University (New York) has some excellent material online - start at its blog at http://www.cbs.columbia.edu/weblog/

enjoy..
d.

Baggini's Philosophy Monthly

Julian Baggini, editor of The Philosopher's Magazine and previous speaker at our University, has launched a new monthly podcast which is available on iTunes. Episode 1 featured a talk with the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks and Julian's visit to the Hobbes festival in that sweet little Cotswold town of Malmesbury. The second edition has just come out and features an interview with the former Bishop of Oxford Richard Harries on whether Christianity is a force for good.

...oh, and while you're at it, check out the Bristol Festival of Ideas podcast!

Buddhist Art

The Telegraph reviews a new Gallery at the Victoria and Albert museum, devoted to Buddhist art.
The review [click HERE] raises some issues about detachment, and the nature of the images, and whether the gallery actively promotes Buddhist values - so may well be of interest...

Also see http://www.rhfamilyfoundation.org/manyfaces for the Many Faces of Buddhism webpages, for events in London at present..

D.

Blogging Nietzsche

The Guardian online has an excellent site where various experts provide infomed comment on philosophy texts. Giles Fraser has written comments on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, Julian Baggini on Hume's views on religion, and currently Mary Midgeley is commenting on Hobbes' Leviathan. Check this out.

Islam Conference next week - Shi'ism: Past and Present

Just a reminder about next week's event - students (and others) are all welcome - but do register first - some details should be HERE, or contact Patricia Downes for details on attending. The programme for the day is:

SHI’ISM, PAST AND PRESENT

Programme
10.15 – 10.45 Registration and Coffee
10.45 Welcome: Dr Shelley Saguaro, Head of Department of Humanities, University of Gloucestershire

10.50 – 11.35 Rt. Rev. Prof. Kenneth Cragg (Oxford),
Why the Early Emergence of the Shi’a from within Sunni Islam?

11.40 – 12.25 Dr Arzina Lalani (Ismaili Institute, London),
The Shi’i Tradition in Islam

12.35 – 1.10 Shazim Hussayn (al Mahdi Institute, Birmingham),
The concept of the Mahdi in Shi’ism

OR

Dr Simonetta Calderini, (Roehampton University,)
Women, Wealth and Inheritance under the Fatimids

1.10 – 2.00 Lunch

2.05 – 2.50 Dr Moojan Momen (Wixamtree),
Undercurrents in Shi`i Esotericism from the Thirteenth to the Nineteenth Century
OR
Dr Theodore Gabriel, (University of Gloucestershire),
Shi’ism and Christianity

3.00 – 3.45 Saleem Khan (Pakistan & London Metropolitan University)
Accommodating Sectarian Diversity in Pakistan

3.45 Vote of thanks: Dr Theodore Gabriel

Tea

FEES: £16 (£8 for students and the unwaged; £5.00 for students of University of Gloucestershire). Tea/Coffee will be served morning and afternoon.
A sandwich lunch (to include sandwiches, crisps, cookies, fruit and coffee/tea) will be available if ordered when your booking is made. The cost for this is £5.50 and should be sent with your conference fee (or email Patricia to arrange)

Ted Honderich to speak in Cheltenham on War and Terrorism

Gloucestershire Philosophical Society, Summer Term.

Talk on Wednesday22nd. April, 2009, 7.30.p.m. FCH HC203 University of Gloucestershire
Map HERE.

Professor Ted Honderich, UCL

"Terrorisms, Terrorist Wars: A philosophical perspective."

Professor Honderich is an internationally renowned political philosopher; editor of the Oxford Companion to Philosophy, and Chair of the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

All welcome.

Artificial Intelligence debate

Some details of an interesting local event:

Café Scientifique Finale

Tuesday 12th May: (Last Debate in the current Café Scientifique Series) On Artificial Intelligence

Arrivals: from 7:15pm for 7.30pm kick off, finish around 9:30ish

Location: The Pavillion (in the gardens of The Royal Oak pub) 42, The Burgage, Prestbury, Cheltenham GL52 3DL

(plenty of parking opposite and in street)

Dr David Biggs, the University of Gloucestershire's Post Grad Director in Occupational Psychology will be discussing amid other things, the pending release of Terminator 4 which in turns sparks debate about the varying forms of artificial intelligence and expert systems writing out psychometric profile reports for people from ethnic minorities... More information to follow, but for now, please pencil this date in your diaries!

• Open to all — bring a friend/neighbour!
• Admission is free
• Bar food available
• First drink is kindly sponsored by The University of Gloucestershire.

Café Scientifique has become a regular event in the county as part of the University’s commitment to public engagement and all age learning.

To find out more about the Café Scientifique network visit www.cafescientifique.org or to join us online for regular updates and reminders join The Café Scientifique Cheltenham group on Facebook,
or for more information email Emma Heathcote-James

Philosophy Society Update

We will not meet on the first Thursday of May, but will meet on the first Thursday of June, the 4th. Gallery Room. Park Campus. 7pm.

We will be reading The Brothers Karamazov, a personal favourite. But not to fear, not the full 832 pages, only the Chapters "Rebellion" and "The Grand Inquisitor", probably about 20 pages. The link for "Rebellion": http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/dostoyevsky/d72b/chapter35.html and the link for "The Grand Inquisitor": http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/dostoyevsky/d72b/chapter36.html. If you are alert and lively you may like to read D. H. Lawrence's "The Legend of The Grand Inquisitor"; it is available in the learning centre

Look forward to seeing you in June,

Shelley

Easter reflections

Thought our readers might be interested in reading the following reflections on Easter from a Buddhist perspective:

http://www.xploreheartlinks.com/buddhism.htm#A%20Buddhist%20View%20of%20Easter

God edition..

New Statesman at http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/richard-dawkins-hitchens has an issue focused around God and the relationship between politics and religion..
Might be of interest..
d.

Philosophy Society Update

Despite the end of lectures for 2008/2009, hopefully some students are still around for The Philosophy Society meeting when we will be discussing Civil Disobedience by Thoreau.

As always, we are meeting in The Gallery Room at Park Campus at 7pm. The date is this Thursday, 2nd April.

Civil Disobedience is a short essay and can be easily read between now and Thursday. If you do not have the link: http://eserver.org/thoreau/civil.html

I am looking forward to a lively discussion,

Shelley Campbell

Cordoba Field Trip...

see http://www.flickr.com/photos/58244916@N00/ for trip photos...

In March the successor to Nigel Scotland’s long-standing Rome trip took place. This involved Roy, Shelley and myself taking 21 students (5 of them 2^nd years, the rest level 1 – all RPE students) to Cordoba in Andalucía, Spain. This trip was to explore the period of Islamic rule, the philosophers who emerged from it, the relation of faiths in that period (and the claims of a Golden age of religious tolerance that surround the period), the route of Greek ideas (such as those of Aristotle) into Europe, and the Christian re-conquest of the area.

Wednesday – a mid afternoon coach whisks us to Birmingham airport for a glamorous, jet-set flight with RyanAir to Malaga.. We are (much to my relief) met at the airport by another coach and driven to Cordoba, where we are dropped only a 5 minute walk from the hotel.

We arrive at Los Patios (http://www.lospatios.net/ ) around midnight – relieved that despite only having one star the hotel is friendly, clean and incredibly well-situated (it turns out to be a great place – with nice staff, night porters to let late students in, good food, and more – we hope to use it again next year).

Thursday – after a lie in – we have an orientation walk to Plaza de las Tendillas, so that students can find non-tourist shops, supermarkets, and the like. We then have lunch and cross the newly restored Roman Bridge to the new Torre de la Calahorra museum: this tower features a history of Andalucian life in the Islamic period – with models, speaking statues, and wireless headphones.

Here we began to understand the situation that prevailed in Cordoba during the Andalusian Umayyad dynasty, which lasted from 756 to 1031: often referred to as a ‘Golden Age’ of religious tolerance. While this is a simplification, the idea of an accommodation that allowed Muslim, Jews and Christians to live in relative peace, within part of Europe, is a compelling area to study – and this proved a good place to start.

More at http://www.torrecalahorra.com/

Some felt the museum might be a rather smoothed out account of the history – but it was good as an introduction to the relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the region. Many of us were glad to get out onto the roof terrace of the museum..

This museum also had a model of the large Mosque in Cordoba – now a Cathedral – which we were to visit the next day – as it would have been in its heyday, rather than as it is now (where there is now a huge Cathedral sticking out the middle of it – a very striking image if you are able to view it from above).

Following this we went to Cordoba’s archaeological museum – where much of the city’s Roman heritage is on show – which is significant and very visible around the city. There is also material here from the Visigoth period that came before the arrival and dominance of Moorish culture.

Friday was a busy day – dominated, as is the city, by the Mezquita – the grand Mosque that is now a Cathedral. Our guide, Imma, took us round the Jewish quarter and a Synagogue before we entered the hugely impressive Cathedral/Mosque.

The building still inspires strong feelings, and there was a lot to reflect on after and during this visit. The Catholic Church offers a very particular view in the leaflet that you collect as you enter – which implies that the place was a Christian place of worship (due to the presence of a Basilica prior to the Mosque) and that the re-conquest and consequent building of the Cathedral was merely a reclaiming. This seems, at the least, a simplification.

The building itself left us all with some sense of awe, but also perhaps with more troubling feelings regarding its history and claims made about it. We were also told that Muslims have often requested that Catholic authorities allow them to pray in the Mezquita/Cathedral – but that they are always turned down.

Some info HERE might be of interest..

On Friday evening we all went to the Plaza de la Corredera for a drink, followed by a meal at the Hotel – and an early night before Saturday.

Saturday began with a 6.30am alarm call… As is that was not enough of a shock for students, we then walked 25 minutes to Cordoba train station for the early morning train to Seville. Arriving at 8.30, and after a breakfast, we set off to find the Alcazar (Alcázares Reales de Sevilla) – which is a fortress with the most amazing, extensive gardens.

The place looks Moorish in style, and was mostly made by Moorish workers, but despite smaller earlier buildings, much of this Alcazar was built in the 1360s for King Pedro (the Cruel). Some argue that the Islamic buildings here were even built on the site of Visigoth buildings. However, this mix of claim and confusion over historical buildings seems not uncommon in a region where what may seem a matter of dusty history still has the power to cause passionate disagreement and dispute.

This was followed by the Cathedral in Seville – also on the site of a Mosque – the spire contains much that was a minaret and there are small parts of the arches of the mosque still intact if you look hard enough. You can climb the spire to get stunning views of the city – as we did, but this was another to chance to reflect on the purpose of the trip, in coming to an understanding of the way in which religions in this region have interacted.

Some students (and staff) also managed to find Flaherty’s bar and catch a Liverpool victory over Man Utd….

After a late night back, Sunday began with the Cordoba Alcazar – the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos (Spanish for "Alcázar of the Christian Monarchs"), – with huge Roman mosaics, and yet more elaborate gardens, – and then coach-plane-coach journey to Cheltenham, arriving at FCH in the early hours of Monday morning….

While formal student evaluations are a matter for exciting places like Course Boards – early informal reports suggest that this was a great way for students to learn, to get to know each other and to acquire more general life-skills and confidence. We hope to repeat it next year – and hope that more Humanities students will opt for the module (to be known as RPE136 in future) – or to attend as part of an Independent Study module.

Dave.

Oh- a prize (coffee from the refectory?) for anyone (not on the trip) who can tell me what these fine gentlemen are doing… (and yes, it is religious)

Week 12 RPE 103 Lecture

Next week in the RPE 103 lecture slot I will be giving a lecture on philosophical/argumentative essay-writing. I would highly recommend that ALL students taking RPE 103 and RPE 107 with me attend this lecture. You should all want to improve the way you write; ergo you should all be there.

Back from Spain...

Well - as we got back to Cheltenham about 1.45am, a proper update may have to wait a day or two - but after our adventures in Cordoba and Seville - with Cathedrals, Alcazars, Mosques, Synagogues, Spanish trains, and more - I'm glad to repeat that all were counted out and counted back - much to my relief...

click the picture to the right to enlarge it...