The Department of Global Studies' Colloquium Series is a lecture series, which has been made possible by the generosity of the Orfalea Endowment for the Master's Program in Global Studies.  The Colloquium Series strives to open and explore a wide range of interdisciplinary debates and their interaction and engagement with the global, hosting new guest speakers each quarter from UCSB and beyond.  The upcoming event will be hosted via Zoom on Wednesday, March 16th at 12:30pm. Zoom link is https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/84246564996 (Meeting ID: 842 4656 4996). Please see below for the featured talk:

Bhikhu Parekh, Global Ethics

Almost all societies today are bound into a system of interdependence. They face common problems which they cannot tackle on their own. The current wave of the corona virus proves the point with abundant clarity. The question therefore is how societies should cooperate and develop the necessary spirit of global solidarity. This is only way human beings can avoid being reduced to playthings of the forces they have themselves created and charter them in the service of common purposes. Human solidarity in turn presupposes a set of common moral and political principles to guide collective action, in short, a global ethics grounded in a universal consensus. Global ethics is not just a new name for the traditional discussion of universal morality, but rather a set of normative principles addressed to and guiding institutions. That raises the question of how such an ethics can be developed and institutionally articulated. This lecture addresses three important and interrelated questions raised by globalization. First, the dialectic of globalization and the ways in which it both negates and reinforces national identity and consciousness. Second, global solidarity and how it is possible in the face of class division and national conflicts. Third, global ethics and especially how it is arrived at, validated and translated into appropriate policies.

Bhikhu Parekh is Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Hull and a Centennial Professor in the London School of Economics. Author of several books in political philosophy such as Rethinking Multiculturalism (Harvard), Debating India (Oxford), Ethnocentric Political Theory (Palgrave Macmillan), A New Politics of Identity (Palgrave Macmillan). Visiting Professor at McGill, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Vienna and Florence. Has received many awards including BBC’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Isaiah Berlin Prize for Lifetime Contribution toPolitical Philosophy, and Distinguished Global Thinker by India International Centre.

For more information about the Colloquium Series, please contact Professor Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Global Studies Colloquium Director:
jnp@global.ucsb.edu