(Forum for the Study of Crisis in the 21st century)

September 11, the prospect of war over Iraq, floods in Central Europe and Russia, drought and starvation in southern Africa, the break-up of Antarctic ice sheets, the collapse of fish stocks in the oceans, massive pollution as SE Asian rainforest burns, AIDS,  BSE, the threat of nuclear war in the Indian sub-continent, the possibility of economic melt-down:  the horror headlines bombard us practically every day and from every conceivable angle.

But the big question is to what extent, if at all, are these things related and thus, as far as academic research is concerned subjects which require careful scrutiny in separate compartments. Or should we rather be seeing them as symptoms or by-products of some much bigger, deeper and all-pervading malaise?

 

The answer to the question may depend heavily on where one is coming from. Indeed posing the question in this way at all might be considered heavily loaded.  To propose that what we are really dealing with is a series of epiphenomena which point towards some inherent dysfunction in our global political economy is a serious charge. To go one stage further and to insist that unless we can find ways out of that dysfunction we are going to be in serious trouble as a species is hardly the sort of pronouncement likely to have anybody cheering to the rafters.

 

So, how can people make a judgement? And what role can academics provide in getting us nearer to that goal?  This is what a series of linked public lectures at the university this coming academic year proposes to consider. It is the product of the Crisis Forum, shorthand for the Forum for Study of Crisis in the 21st century, an initiative by two Southampton academics  who do  believe that the world is in serious crisis and that universities have a rather important role not only in providing a more broad cross-disciplinary analysis of its manifestations but also in providing lateral ways of thinking to help us meet its manifold challenges.

 

Needless to say not everybody in the university is going to agree with these ideas. Academics, almost by definition, have trenchant opinions. So, it's very unlikely that even invited speakers are going to arrive at any consensus. On the other hand getting people from entirely different disciplines talking across boundaries may be a valuable start. The big paradox about Southampton is it is  brimming over with experts:  climate change is high on the Oceanography, Environmental Sciences and Geography agendas, we have researchers in Politics and Economics on globalisation, nuclear proliferation and Aids, a whole raft of people working on potential palliatives in Engineering, Medicine and Maths, not to forget many more committed academics in the Humanities whose work on the political, social and cultural implications of crisis is often keenly comparative and historically grounded. Certainly, if the issues at stake are as urgent as the organisers claim, breaking down specialist barriers and getting disciplines and departments to talk a common language with one another may be a singular achievement.

 

That still, of course, begs the question about ways forward. If humanity is in crisis, is the right response to leave it to the experts to  provide us with some big  technocratic fixes or is the road to sustainability and survival  founded on forms of social and cultural as well as economic and political self-liberation?  There¹s certainly all sorts of challenges here and something the Crisis Forum proposes to engage in through a  series of interdisciplinary projects on specific aspects or symptoms of the problem. In the interim, the Forum seminars are an opportunity for anybody and everybody who cares about our planet to come along, listen and participate:

 

Public Lecture series:  'Is Humanity in Crisis?'

Venue: Murray Lecture Theatre

 (each event a  Monday beginning at 5. 30)

 

21 October: Aubrey Meyer, (Global Commons Institute. London), "Climate Crisis: - Contraction and Convergence - A Synthesis for Survival"

 

II November:  to be announced

 

2 December:  Caroline Thomas (Prof. of Global Politics. Southampton)  and members of the International Relations Group.  roundtable discussion on ' The Crisis of Globalisation and Inequality'

 

10 February:  Peter Middleton (English, Southampton)  'Writing the Disaster: Can novels about crises help us plan for the future?'

 

3 March. Prof. David Coggon (MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit,

Southampton) "Health Risks From New Technology: How Precautionary Should We Be?"

 

28 April. to be announced..

 

Further details:

Dr Mark Levene, ml1@soton.ac.uk, ext: 24867 Dr David Cromwell, ddc@soc.soton.ac.uk, ext: 26411

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