Thursday 21 March 2024, 11am-4:30pm GMT
This is an in-person event in Cambridge, with the option to join online.
Academic freedom is under threat now more than ever. During genocide, academics are targeted and killed, and their voices are being silenced. This symposium raises for discussion threats to academic freedom and the need for ethical scholarship as key to tackling injustices.
The symposium will begin with a keynote address by Professor Adam Habib, Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), who has been actively involved in debates about academic freedom and the role and responsibility of universities, through his current role as well as former position as the Vice Chancellor at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. This will be followed by a panel discussion with experts from academic professional associations and universities who have been at the forefront of these debates. Panellists include Professor Neve Gordon, Chair of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES)’ Committee on Academic Freedom, and Dr Bashir Abu-Manneh and Dr Kelli Rudolph from the University of Kent.
The symposium will end with the speakers, together with government and academic trade union representatives, identifying actions that university leaders, academic professional associations, researchers and others need to take to address academic freedom deliberations emerging during the symposium.
The event is co-organised by the University of Cambridge Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL Centre) and Centre for Lebanese Studies. It builds on their seminar series focused on the need to tackle multiple and interrelated injustices in the Global South, which manifest in war and genocide, and the implications of this for education. Professor Pauline Rose, Professor Maha Shuayb and Professor Yusuf Sayed will act as facilitators for the discussion throughout the day.
You can read the blog written by the facilitators in collaboration with other academic colleagues: What does ethical solidarity look like for academic professional bodies in times of unfolding genocide?