Visiting U.K. Scholar to Discuss Gandhi’s Legacy on April 12
Contact: Doug Allen, 581-3860
George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — “Gandhi’s Legacy: Is Mahatma Gandhi’s Philosophy Still Relevant?” is the subject of a lecture on April 12 by Bhikhu Parekh, a professor of political philosophy and the University of Maine 2007 Philosophy Distinguished Visiting Scholar.
The talk is free and open to the public. It will be held at 7 p.m. in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union on the Orono campus. The lecture is sponsored by the UMaine departments of Philosophy, History and the Peace Studies Program.
Parekh also will deliver a lecture, “Mahatma Gandhi and Karl Marx,” in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union, earlier in the day, at 12:30 p.m.
Parekh is professor of political philosophy at the University of Westminster, emeritus professor of political theory at the University of Hull, U.K., and was until recently Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics. He has been a visiting professor at several universities, including McGill, Harvard, the Institute of Advanced Study in Vienna, the University of Pennsylvania and Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He delivered Litowitz Lecture at Yale University in 2003, and was recently invited as distinguished visitor by the Cardozo Law School in New York. He is a former vice-chancellor of the University of Baroda in India.
Parekh was educated in India and is a world-renowned author of numerous books on philosophy. A member of the British House of Lords, he also is an influential public figure working on issues of multi-ethnic relations, violence and mutual understanding.
In the U.K., he has been deputy chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality and chaired the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, whose report (called the Parekh Report) was published in 2000. Parekh received the BBC’s Special Lifetime Achievement Award for Asians in November 1999, and was appointed to the House of Lords in March 2000. Last year, he received the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for Lifetime Contribution to Political Philosophy and the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman from the president of India. He is a fellow of the British Academy, president of the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences, and he has received nine Honorary Doctorates from British Universities.
Parekh’s appearance at UMaine is part of the 2006-2007 Philosophy Colloquium Series, which is funded in part by a grant from the Cultural Affairs/DLS Committee. For additional information, contact Professor Doug Allen, Philosophy Colloquium Coordinator, at douglas.allen@umit.maine.edu or at 581-3860.