The Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS) is working at
the same rigorous intellectual level as the world's foremost universities and research
centres. Differently from these, SCIS is however not bound to prevailing
paradigms of social and political discourse. SCIS will shift paradigms.
SCIS is independent of the University of Sussex, but
the founding members of SCIS – and many of our Research Associates – were and
are doctoral candidates and young researchers at the University.
Our distinguished International Advisory Board and
Senior Research Associates have been known to include world-renowned senior
scholars and full professors from universities such as Harvard, Berkeley, UCLA,
British Columbia, Essex, Northwestern, and Chicago, representing a wide array
of academic disciplines.
Our excellence in research has been acknowledged by
invitations to speak at institutions as austere and diverse as the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, the London School of Economics, Sciences Po/The
Institute for Political Studies in Paris, the Russian Academy of Sciences in
Moscow, the European University Institute in Florence, the European Science
Foundation, the European Consortium for Political Research and the American
Political Science Association.
We aim to create a worldwide inter- and
transdisciplinary network of highly original researchers, particularly in the
social sciences and humanities, and artists – a network of people who feel that
the current higher education system stifles their abilities and potential.
While our focus is on "the individual and
society" we believe that a vast variety of daring and unusual research projects
can be carried out under this heading (there are no restrictions) and that the
personality and way of thinking of the individual researcher are what is all
important.
About SCIS
It is surprising that a concept used as frequently as "the individual
and society" should not have led to as many research institutes and
programmes at universities all over the world. In fact, there appears to be no
research centre at any university in the world that applies itself to looking
at the individual and society in breadth and depth and from a variety of
angles.
In creating a research centre dedicated to "the individual and
society" we filled this academic gap. However, as we also wish to retain
our individuality as researchers, the research centre is entirely independent
of the University of Sussex and its administrative structures.
SCIS is working interdisciplinary within the social sciences, humanities
and arts as well as related disciplines in natural and life sciences and
technology (such as Social Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Artificial
Intelligence). We aim to work more interdisciplinary than is common (or
commonly possible) at universities. In the process, we will overcome
linguistic, disciplinary, sectoral, conceptual, ideological and cultural boundaries
and transcend even interdisciplinarity.
We wish to apply different perspectives, various angles, and the
methodological apparatuses of many disciplines to a more thorough study of the
interaction of the individual and society than has ever been attempted.
SCIS was set up in 2006 in an historic cottage (right at the entrance of
Falmer campus) that we got to rent from the University. The University of
Sussex is situated in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Media coverage on SCIS includes:
The Guardian: http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,,1861193,00.html
The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/who-needs-state-funding-anyway-415813.html
Times Higher Education: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=204947
BBC: Research students 'go it alone', 30 August 2006
(also in Chinese)
Intute: http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/cgi-bin/fullrecord.pl?handle=20060906-121423
The individual and society
The terms "individual" and "society" have given rise
to many definitions and conceptualisations. Manifold are the proposed
interconnections and causal relationships between the two.
Most relevant courses taught in degree programmes at universities and
colleges focus on "the individual in society" and concern
themselves with issues such as nationalism and fascism. Speaking of "the
individual and
society" does not narrow down possibilities as much. The individual in
society makes a number of assumptions and prioritises certain theoretical bases
– i.e. that the individual can only be
conceptualised as an integral part of society and the product of historical and
social conditioning by way of beliefs, customs, and attitudes –, whereas and
provides greater scope for change and moving to a different world view and
praxis. Using and
does not deny a social context but it problematises the priority given to
either the individual or society. It rejects in equal measure the other extreme
which claims that society does not exist and only individuals should be studied
("methodological
individualism"). That both society and the
individual can find manifold definitions requires suitable research into how
they might be separate rather than the unthinking assumptions that the use of in
brings.
Questions to be addressed by us include the very nature of what
qualifies as a "society", and what distinguishes society from other
categories such as "community", the "state", a
"nation" or a "tribe"; then, what may be summarised as the
individual in society: ideological
collectivisms, modes of social and political organisation, mechanisms of power
and coercion, and psychological and evolutionary studies into the perceived
"herd" mentality of human beings; furthermore, individualism in its
various manifestations, such as classic liberalism, anarchist individualism,
the professed mass individualism of consumerist society, and evidence of
"great", or superior, individuals; collectivisms of all kind (such as
religion, economy, labour, communitarianism, and collectivist anarchism); the formation
or pre-existence of individual and collective identity and identities;
education and the individual, education and society (a preferred way of
aligning the individual with society's demands and needs, but also aiding the
acquisition of critical faculties); deviant behaviour (for example,
"crime", medical deviations from the "norm",
"outsiders"); resistance and modes of resistance; utopia and
dystopia; the individual and society in social and economic development, and
comparative and cross-cultural research into these and related concepts.
Independence
SCIS is positively elitist and meritocratic. We wish to re-create the
academic ethos that got lost in today's mass universities.
We know where our strengths lie and we do not wish to waste our time
doing anything but what we do best. We resist the process of Foucauldian
"normalisation" and induction into a discourse that we believe to be
largely irrelevant. We refuse to waste our potential and we know that we can do
our best work now and in the years lying immediately ahead of us. Being able to
spend our time productively researching and writing is the most important
reason why SCIS has been set up as an independent centre dedicated purely to
research and research-related activities. SCIS enables its members and
associates to circumvent the intellectual pretentiousness of today's higher
education system and work on research projects that due to ideological and/or
other restrictions could not easily be undertaken in a university.
SCIS provides an intellectual space where men and women who identify
with our objectives can meet and interact and find relief in the company of
others with a similar mindset. We want to break free, comprehend,
reconceptualise and reorientate the world and structures that impinge potential
and achievement rather than facilitate or encourage it. Individuals involved in
SCIS will preserve and develop challenging and in fact threatening ideas. We
will create the thoughts of the future. Against a world that refuses to make
value judgements, we will propose political, social and educational
alternatives that hold up the values of freedom, tolerance and charity without
leading to mediocrity.
SCIS will alter the application of knowledge. Against its prevailing
application in pursuit of certain narrow goals, such as increases in the
accumulation of capital and possessions and the stability and fixity of systems
of consumption and labour, we will set flux, the application of knowledge for
diverse ends, and a change of language, attitudes and actions. We do wish SCIS
to have an impact in the world.
We enjoy the ambiguity of being, at the same time, independent of the
University of Sussex and on campus, of being research students but also student
leaders and researchers of our own making.
We believe that the higher education system, in different ways and at
different levels, on the one hand obstructs but on the other hand aids
individuals who resist "normalisation" and being told what to do. It
can still be turned into a powerful tool that assists the development of truly
critical and creative thought. While weak individuals are being absorbed by the
system, strong individualists will fight against it – and win.
Legal form
SCIS has been registered as a Company Limited by Guarantee and Not
Having a Share Capital (that is, not for profit) under the Companies Act 1985. SCIS
is registered in England and Wales under the Company No. 5850511. No shares
have been given out and no dividends will be paid to members. Any profits, or
other income, are to be spent in promoting the company's objects. The liability
of members is limited.
The Managing Director and company secretary is Erich Kofmel.
History
March 2006: Foundation of the Sussex Centre for the Individual and
Society (SCIS)
19 June 2006: Incorporation as a Company Limited by Guarantee
21-23 July 2006: Inaugural International Symposium
11 August 2006: SCIS' website, www.scis-calibrate.org, goes live
9 November 2006: Incorporation of SCIS Technology Ltd
22 December 2006: Alex Higgins resigns from SCIS for personal reasons
4 August 2007: Erich Kofmel moves temporarily to Paris, France
Members
Current and
past members of SCIS include:
Erich Kofmel 
The founding Managing Director of SCIS is Erich Kofmel, Master of
Management in Public and Development Management, with specialisation in
Governance and Public Policy (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg),
and Master of Philosophy in Theology (St Augustine College of South Africa). He
holds a Commercial Certificate of Ability (Switzerland) and a Postgraduate
Certificate in Comparative and Cross-Cultural Research Methods (University of
Sussex) and is a part-time European Doctorate candidate in Social and Political
Thought at the University of Sussex and Sciences Po/The Institute for Political
Studies (IEP) in Paris. He served, among other things, as Chairman of the
Postgraduate Association of the University of Sussex (PGA) and a member of the
University's Research Degrees and Professional
Doctorates Committee and has been Coordinator of the "Career
Development" workgroup of the European council of doctoral candidates and
young researchers (Eurodoc) since 2007.
Alexander W. Higgins 
Also a founding member of SCIS was Alexander W. Higgins. He held the
position of Researcher in SCIS and served as a Director. At the end of 2006, he
decided to leave university and SCIS for personal reasons. Without Alex
Higgins, SCIS would not exist. He worked tirelessly to make it a success. You
will always be welcome back! HAPPY WEDNESDAY, dear Alex.
Senior Research Associate
Prof Joseph V. Femia
Professor of Political Theory at the
University of Liverpool. He is a leading expert on anti-democratic thought and
also interested in Marxism and Italian political philosophy.
Research Associates
The founders and members of SCIS will do whatever it takes to identify
the kind of person we are keen to work with – people, all over the world, who
will produce original research at the cutting edge of the study of "the
individual and society" in any discipline.
Dr Dylan Evans
One of our more than twenty Research Associates. Former Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Autonomous Systems, with an MA in Psychoanalytic Studies and a PhD in Philosophy. He left university in 2007 to run his own project, the "Utopia Experiment", in Scotland.
Interns / work experience
SCIS offers unpaid internships or work experience (full-time or part-time)
to students at the University of Sussex, in Paris and elsewhere. More than a
dozen students (undergraduates, postgraduates and recent graduates) as well as
young professionals have made use of this exciting opportunity. Here's what you
could be doing: assistance with research projects and publications; assistance
with fundraising; event organisation; general office work; and so on.
International Advisory Board
Current and past members of SCIS' distinguished International Advisory Board include:
Prof Ernesto Laclau
World-renowned Professor of Political
Theory at the University of Essex, also linked to Northwestern University.
Prof Michael J. Watts
Chancellor’s Professor of Geography and Development Studies and Director of the Institute of International Studies at Berkeley. His many interests (mainly interdisciplinary) include political economy and political ecology, rural development, and social and cultural theory.
Prof Francis Schüssler Fiorenza
Stillman Professor of Roman-Catholic
Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School. He has published widely on
systematic theology, with a particularly interest in political theology.
Prof John
Friedmann
One of the world's foremost urban planners. Honorary Professor at the University of British Columbia and Professor Emeritus at UCLA.
Prof Iris
Marion Young (1949-2006)
Late Professor of Political Science at the University
of Chicago. A member of our Board for only a few weeks when she passed away in
2006, she will be remembered for her writings on justice, democratic theory
(particularly democracy and difference, democracy and inclusion), feminist
social theory, political philosophy, international affairs, and public policy.
Research
Research in SCIS is guided by our conviction that both "the
individual" and "society" should be studied from a social,
political and theoretical angle first of all, and that even empirical research
must be based on sound theoretical considerations.
Other than that, research in SCIS – be it part of our core research
programme or carried out individually by our Research Associates – follows
three main lines of inquiry:
1. Study of the
individual
2. Study of collectivisms
3. Comparative and cross-cultural studies
Research Associates of SCIS currently work on projects to do with "the
individual and society" in disciplines
as diverse as Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Social Psychology, Informatics,
American Studies, Media and Film, Intellectual History, English Literature,
Migration Research, Politics, Education, International Relations and
Development Studies.
Research programme
The core research programme of SCIS centres around four broad, though
interrelated areas:
1. Anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic thought and
practice
2. New political forms and theory emerging in the 21st
century
3. The anti-liberal project of political theologies
4. Development studies and failure of democratization
This core research programme can and will be extended in line with
available funds. Here we present an initial programme only. Most individual
research projects will go across areas of interest.
In an historical and cross-cultural perspective the fact
cannot be denied that most democracies failed. Many formerly democratic
countries do not have a democratic government now. Many countries have never
known democracy. Only western democracies for a short while – maybe to be dated
from the fall of Soviet communism to the rise of radical Islam – believed
themselves invincible. It does therefore seem expedient to think about
political alternatives once more and to study threats to democracy from within
and without as well as common modes of failure of democracy across times and
cultures. Will people’s disillusion with democratic practices (such as the
impact money has on campaigning), mass politics, and the equal inconsequence of
everyone’s vote ultimately terminate democracy? Oswald Spengler, in The Decline of the West, said: "As
then sceptre and crown, so now peoples' rights are paraded for the multitude,
and all the more punctiliously the less they really signify".
Anti-democratic
thinking is one of the most important factors impinging on the success or
failure of social and economic development efforts in developing countries.
Terms like "good governance" and "political development"
are often used, in the development discourse, synonymously with
"democracy" and "democratization". At the same time, modes
of anti-democratic thought are seldom studied seriously in either Development
Studies or Political Science and International Relations.
Still, all known political alternatives
may have discredited themselves. The competing political systems of the
twentieth century lost their struggle for world domination. This raises the
question whether anti-egalitarian thought whose time had not come in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries will provide the basis for a post-postmodern
political theory? And will the technological innovations of recent decades, and
those to come, make possible political forms that never existed (nor could be
imagined) in history – or will we have to fall back, post democracy, into the
abyss of authoritarian despotism, as envisaged by Plato and Aristotle?
Spengler argued that democracy and capitalism are inextricably linked
and that democracy will come to an end sooner rather than later (as did any
earlier attempt at democracy). He said that money would finally lose its value,
its meaning, and politics would reclaim its rightful place. That is the
challenge of our time: reclaiming politics. Creating a post-postmodern world in
which values and morals will once more have attained meaning. In our society
this may mean to create real values for the first time.
Post 1989 and, with increased urgency, post 2001, political
theology has come to reappraise the value of Christianity for a politico-theological
project that could at once sustain or replace discredited Marxism, challenge
liberalism for political hegemony, and hold its own opposite radical Islam.
Numerous publications on political theology have appeared in the past few years
or are in preparation. Many contributors to this new debate seem particularly
drawn to Carl Schmitt’s straight-forward "friend/enemy" distinction.
"Comparative
Political Theology" – a concept Erich Kofmel introduced at the General
Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) in
September 2007 – proposes to gain valuable insights into the theoretical
foundations of the interplay between religion and politics by comparing
political theologies to each other across religious and cultural boundaries. As
a result of comparative study of radical Islam and Christian political and
liberation theologies, we came to suggest that the single most important factor
underlying all political theologies is anti-liberalism. The particular
expression of anti-liberalism is of course always contextualized. Political
theology’s being anti-liberal means that it is at least potentially
anti-democratic too.
Surprisingly,
radical Islam shares many of the concerns of Christian political theologies,
such as an opposition to “neo-colonialism” and, more recently, “neo-liberalism”
and “globalization”. Radical Islam claims that in Islam theology cannot be
separated from or replaced by politics and is hostile to the spread of liberal
western values such as secularization, capitalism and democracy. Although
radical Islam need not be violent, militants use arguments of radical Islam to
justify acts of terrorism.
http://www.political-theology.org
Developmental research will enable us to further study the inherent
linkage between democracy and capitalism and its consequences for understanding
the failure of democracies in not-yet-capitalist societies as well as for
politics of resistance. Engagement in Development Studies will also allow us to
find inroads into countries that do not have a western liberal democratic
tradition and may therefore offer us the opportunity to try new social and
political ideas in practice.
Furthermore, we have an ongoing concern with changes to science policy
and the massification, vocationalisation and commodification of higher
education.
Publications
We wish SCIS' name and remit to be well known and to be recognised for
the quality, originality, importance and impact of our published research.
As an independent research centre, SCIS supports researchers who do not
wish to publish in peer-reviewed journals as the need to be acceptable to one's
peers may lead to mediocre efforts, results, or presentation of findings and
theories. At the same time, Erich Kofmel has accepted the invitation to serve
as referee for the renowned journal "Political Studies".
SCIS solicites book proposals
for a possible SCIS series to be published by Imprint Academic.
Erich Kofmel's publications for SCIS include:
Books
(Editor) "Anti-Democratic Thought", Exeter and Charlottesville: Imprint
Academic, forthcoming (December 2008)
http://www.imprint.co.uk/books/9781845401245.html
(Editor) "Anti-Liberalism and Political Theology", Exeter and Charlottesville:
Imprint Academic, forthcoming (summer 2009)
Chapters
"Re-Introducing
Anti-Democratic Thought", in Kofmel, E. (Ed.), "Anti-Democratic
Thought", Exeter and Charlottesville: Imprint Academic, forthcoming
(December 2008)
"Fighting Capitalism and
Democracy", in Kofmel, E. (Ed.), "Anti-Democratic Thought",
Exeter and Charlottesville: Imprint Academic, forthcoming (December 2008)
"The Age of Political
Theology", in Kofmel, E. (Ed.), "Anti-Liberalism and Political
Theology", Exeter and Charlottesville: Imprint Academic, forthcoming
(summer 2009)
"Comparative Political
Theology", in Kofmel, E. (Ed.), "Anti-Liberalism and Political
Theology", Exeter and Charlottesville: Imprint Academic, forthcoming
(summer 2009)
Bylined encyclopedia entries
"Development,
Economic", core article at 3,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press,
published with the assistance of the American Political Science Association
(APSA), forthcoming (2009)
"Religion and
Politics", core article at 3,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press,
forthcoming (2009)
"Political
Theology", long interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press,
forthcoming (2009)
"Jihad", long
interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.), International
Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press, forthcoming (2009)
"Anti-Democratic
Thought", long interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press,
forthcoming (2009)
"Capitalism and
Democracy", long interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T.
(Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ
Press, forthcoming (2009)
"Individual and
Society", long interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press,
forthcoming (2009)
"Leadership", long
interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.), International
Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press, forthcoming (2009)
"Statecraft", long
interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.), International
Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press, forthcoming (2009)
"Science Policy",
long interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.), International
Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press, forthcoming (2009)
"Higher Education
Policy", long interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press,
forthcoming (2009)
"Anti- and
Alter-Globalization Movements", long interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in
Kurian, G. T. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Political Science,
Washington, DC: CQ Press, forthcoming (2009)
"African Political
Economy", long interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press,
forthcoming (2009)
"African Political
Thought", long interpretive essay at 1,000 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.),
International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press,
forthcoming (2009)
"Decisionism",
breakout article at 500 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.), International
Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press, forthcoming (2009)
"Caesarism",
breakout article at 500 words, in Kurian, G. T. (Ed.), International
Encyclopedia of Political Science, Washington, DC: CQ Press, forthcoming (2009)
Articles
"Cross-Dimensional
Mobility in European Doctoral Careers", in research*eu: the magazine of
the European Research Area, published in four languages by the European
Commission, Directorate-General for Research, and read by one million people,
forthcoming (no. 56, 2008)
"European Doctoral
Careers: Global, Transsectoral, Interdisciplinary", in International
Journal of Graduate Education, forthcoming (2008)
Events
Academic conferences, seminars and workshops organised by SCIS are the most important means for us to set and advance our own research and policy agenda. They allow large numbers of doctoral candidates and young researchers as well as more senior academics and people outside of academia, and from all over the world, to participate in SCIS' activities and interests and to explore jointly topics that are not studied elsewhere.
Papers thus initiated by us and presented at SCIS events have
subsequently been published by the authors either as part of volumes edited by
ourselves, or in a number of other ways: namely, in print or open-access
journals, as working or policy papers, and in contributed volumes edited by
others.
SCIS events since 2006 include:
21-23 July 2006: Inaugural International Symposium of SCIS "The
Individual and Society in the 21st Century", at the Institute of
Development Studies (IDS) and the University of Sussex. Keynote speakers: Prof
Calestous Juma (Professor of the Practice of International Development at
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government) and Sharif Horthy (President of the
Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace).
"It's an
area that is not really very well studied … I couldn't think of a serious
body of theory
around which you could organise an analytical framework on this."
(Calestous
Juma, on the individual and society)
2006-2007: Biweekly SCIS Graduate Seminars, at the University of Sussex.
Speakers included Prof Ernesto Laclau (Political Theory, Essex and
Northwestern), Prof Ben Fine (Economics, SOAS), Prof Simon Blackburn
(Philosophy, Cambridge), Prof Joseph V. Femia (Political Theory, Liverpool),
Prof Alexander García Düttmann (Philosophy and Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths),
Rick Poynor (writer and design critic, London) and Jami Chandio (political
consultant and journalist, Pakistan), among others. Screening of the films "The
Ister" and "The Fountainhead".
14 June 2007: Workshop "European Doctoral Careers: Global,
Transsectoral, Interdisciplinary" of the European council of doctoral
candidates and young researchers (Eurodoc), Institute of Development Studies
(IDS) at the University of Sussex. Speakers included Prof Chris Park (Senior
Associate, UK Higher Education Academy) and Dr Janet Metcalfe (Director, UK
GRAD).
3-4 September 2007: Workshop "Anti-Democratic Thought", at the
Fourth Annual Conference "Workshops in Political Theory", Manchester
Metropolitan University, England. Participants came from as far as Israel, the
United States and Lesotho (Southern Africa).
6 September 2007: Section "Political Theology as Political
Theory", at the Fourth General Conference of the European Consortium for
Political Research (ECPR), University of Pisa, Italy. Participants in this
highly prestigious event came from four continents (including Australia), among
them Prof Graham Ward (Contextual Theology and Ethics, University of
Manchester) and Prof David Ricci (Political Science, The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem).
7-8 September 2007: Second
Annual International Symposium of SCIS "The Resurgence of Political
Theology", held in a former convent, the Hotel Santa Croce in Fossabanda,
Pisa, Italy. Keynote speakers: Prof Kenneth Surin (Professor of Literature and
Professor of Religion and Critical Theory at Duke University) and Prof Jürgen
Manemann (Professor of Christian Weltanschauung, Religious and Cultural Theory
at the University of Erfurt, Germany).
"Thanks
indeed for organising such a splendid symposium. This was one of the most
enjoyable
meetings I've had for a decade at least. Your congenial method of chairing
helped us a
lot, and somehow we found a way to listen to each other. Grazie!"
(Ken Surin, in
an e-mail after the event)
3 April 2008: Workshop
"Massification of Higher Education and Research Excellence in
Europe", at the Eight Annual Conference of the European council of
doctoral candidates and young researchers (Eurodoc), University of Fribourg,
Switzerland. Speakers included Dr Katrien Maes (Office Director and Policy
Officer, League of European Research Universities).
23 May 2008: Section "Political Decisionism and Statecraft in
Africa", at the Eleventh Conference of Africanists "Africa's
Development: Possibilities and Constraints" of the Academic Council on
Problems of Africa and the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy
of Sciences, Moscow.
Upcoming events
9-11 July 2008: Third Annual International Symposium of SCIS "Anti-Liberalism and Political Theology", at Sciences Po/The Institute for Political Studies (IEP) in Paris, France.
23-24 July 2008: Panels
"Comparative Political Theology I" and "Comparative Political
Theology II", at the Second Global International Studies Conference of the
World International Studies Committee (WISC), University of Ljubljana,
Slovenia.
27 August 2008: Short Course "Democracy and Its Critics: Re-Introducing
Anti-Democratic Thought into the Syllabus", at the 104th Annual Meeting of
the American Political Science Association (APSA), Sheraton Boston Hotel,
Boston, MA/USA.
10-12 September 2008: Workshop "Spengler Revisited: The Decline of the West,
2000-2200", at the Fifth Annual Conference "Workshops in Political
Theory", Manchester Metropolitan University, England.
8 November 2008: Panel "Anti-Democratic Development", at the Annual
Conference "Development's Invisible Hands" of the Development Studies
Association (DSA), Church House, London, England.
19
November 2008: Workshop "The Valorisation of the Doctorate" of the
European council of doctoral candidates and young researchers (Eurodoc), in
Rennes, France.
20-22
July 2009: Fourth Annual International Symposium of SCIS "Political
Implications of 'Social Phobia', 'Asperger Syndrome' and 'Antisocial
Personality Disorder'", in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Early September 2009: Workshop "Political Theology and Failure of
Democratization", at the Sixth Annual Conference "Workshops in
Political Theory", Manchester Metropolitan University, England.
10-12
September 2009: Section "Anti-Democratic Thought and Practice", at
the Fifth General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research
(ECPR), University of Potsdam, Germany. For the second time running SCIS has
been awarded a section at the most important political science event in Europe.
This time we will have at least six panels.
Chairing of events organised by others
Erich Kofmel
28-31 August 2008: Panel "Political Liberalism in Christian and
Muslim Thought", at the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Political
Science Association (APSA), Boston, MA/USA, by invitation, part of the "Religion and
Politics" Division.
Papers, talks and presentations
Dissemination of our research
findings and policy recommendations happens by way of publication, but just as
importantly through academic papers and talks given and presentations made at
conferences, seminars and workshops all over the world:
Alexander
W. Higgins
12 May 2006: "Modalities of the Mind and the Horizon of the
Individual", Seventh Essex Graduate Conference in
Political Theory "The Many and the One", University of Essex,
England.
3 July 2006: "Education in the UK: Purpose and
Performance", Third Vittachi
International Conference "Rethinking Educational Change", Al Akhawayn
University, Ifrane, Morocco.
22 July 2006: "The Original Impetus", Inaugural International Symposium of SCIS "The
Individual and Society in the 21st Century", University of Sussex.
22 September 2006: "An Outline for the Application of a 'New'
Paradigm – Gehlen/Luhmann/ Arendt and Production Techniques", Fourth
Graduate Conference in Social and Political Thought, University of Sussex.
Erich Kofmel
12 May 2006: "Fight Against the System", Seventh Essex Graduate Conference in Political Theory
"The Many and the One", University of Essex, England.
10 June 2006: "The Sussex Centre for the Individual and
Society", Ordinary General Meeting of the
National Postgraduate Committee of the United Kingdom (NPC), University of
Birmingham, England.
23 July 2006: "Creators and Secondhanders", Inaugural International Symposium of SCIS "The
Individual and Society in the 21st Century", University of Sussex.
22 September 2006: "The Politico-Theological Analysis of Radical
Islam", Fourth Graduate Conference in Social and Political Thought,
University of Sussex.
4 September 2007: "Anti-Democratic Thought of the Future", Fourth Annual Conference "Workshops in Political
Theory", Manchester Metropolitan University, England.
6 September 2007: "Comparative
Political Theology", Fourth General Conference of the European Consortium
for Political Research (ECPR), University of Pisa, Italy.
http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/generalconference/pisa/papers/PP1206.pdf
8 September 2007:
"Fighting Capitalism and Democracy", Fourth General Conference of the
European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), University of Pisa, Italy.
http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/generalconference/pisa/papers/PP1174.pdf
17 September 2007: &qu