Papers by Alison Scott-Baumann
Springer briefs in education, Dec 31, 2022
This chapter explores some of the key issues that have beset English universities in the twenty f... more This chapter explores some of the key issues that have beset English universities in the twenty first century with a summary of some key areas in Ricoeur's early philosophy and interventions in the 1960s. Comparisons and contrasts are made from the 1960s with current debates about free speech on campus in England: complaints from 2017 to 2022 from outside the university about both more and less free speech have multiplied, whilst there has been increasingly less discussion inside the university about how to converse well. Equality, diversity and inclusion are policy labels that are in conflict with Prevent, the UK's counterterror programme targeted at 'extremist' ideas that are nonetheless lawful. Keywords EDI • Habermas • Hallaq • Prevent • 'Woke' 2.1 The University as Marketplace In his 1968 preface to Conceptions de l'université (Designing the University), Paul Ricoeur quoted with approval Karl Jaspers' assertion that the university must be a place where teachers and their students can search for the truth together without constraint (Ricoeur 1968a, 10); but Ricoeur wondered if this idea was becoming problematic. He further mused that even if we decided this idea was not being upheld in good faith by European governments, it would still be necessary to retain the university, in order for us to be able to interrogate the possibility of free thought. He was optimistic that everyone should have access to university to discuss ideas openly. Fifty years on we are compelled to ask whether the university is still recognisable as a place for ideas and varieties of truth: 'the pursuit of truth,' Abdal Hakim Murad reflects, 'now seems set at the margins, thanks to the monetizing of the academy, or because of hyper specialisation and weak interdisciplinarity, or because of the ambient post-modernising culture in which the pursuit of truth is simply dismissed as a fool's errand' (Murad 2020, 237). There are many instructive contrasts between Ricoeur's dually idealistic and pragmatic understanding of the liberal university campus in 1968, and its realities in
Management for professionals, 2019
Management for professionals, 2019
This chapter outlines some of the findings and conclusions of a project that aimed to capture and... more This chapter outlines some of the findings and conclusions of a project that aimed to capture and disseminate good practice in the area of equality, diversity and inclusion (diversity) within the British Council and to influence others through a study of the stories that local and international staff tell. The approach was one of co-production of the research by the British Council’s Diversity Unit, the academic research team and the British Council’s Education and Society commissioning team. It used the research method chosen in the previous section to better understand the nature of actual practice within two British Council regions. The two objectives informed the fieldwork undertaken in the regions of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The findings illustrate the difficulties of central delivery of policy implementation within diverse geographical locations and the value of storytelling as a way to reveal actual diversity practice.
Islam has a long and rich intellectual tradition that is embedded in its religious texts and in i... more Islam has a long and rich intellectual tradition that is embedded in its religious texts and in its history as a world religion, and which together with confessional approaches to the study of religion encompasses a diverse range of what we today understand as modern academic disciplines, including poetry and literature studies, sociology and lived religion, philosophy and liberal critiques of dogmatic theology and indeed, the physical sciences. As we shall discuss later in this chapter, Islam has made undeniable contributions in the shaping of Western academic thought, the preservation and transmission of Greek and Roman philosophy and has played a foundational role in the development of university campuses as we know them today. Yet, and despite the enduring signifi cance of its historical intellectual tradition, contemporary debates about the role of Islam in academia are mired in two antagonistic but also interconnected debates. Firstly, there is a gradual devaluing of ‘secular’ traditions from within Islamic education and an overemphasis on confessional approaches that has emanated from within diverse Muslim communities, which started around the 18 th century. Secondly, there is, the much more recent agenda of ‘preventing violent extremism’, an anti-terror ‘lens’ through which much policy discourse seeks to examine Islam in the West. In Britain, this entire discussion is further problematized by rapidly changing understandings of what the function of universities should be – are they institutions of learning that produce scholars, thinkers, conscientious citizens and loyal dissenters, or are these institutions that produce effi cient but unquestioning employees to staff global conglomerates that satisfy our collective capitalist, materialist demands?
International Journal of Research & Method in Education, Apr 1, 2006
This work is about the ethics of education, and about philosophy as a discipline that can help us... more This work is about the ethics of education, and about philosophy as a discipline that can help us to help children look at ethics afresh. The study and practice of ethics is about morals and uncertainties and, as such, poses problems for the research community. The philosopher Ricoeur challenges research as only one way to find meaning in the world, and invites us to reconsider the value of textual analysis so that we can understand narrative as ethical and find guidance for how we wish to act. He combines explaining (positivist accuracy) and understanding (ethical conjecture). Ricoeur's philosophy suggests ways in which teachers and their pupils can learn to be actively involved in understanding how to be ethical, by using a variety of techniques, including narrative text. Story telling, this age‐old pedagogy, whereby both process and content have regard for the person, is complex and so important for teacher educators that it requires frequent refreshing. The dominant methodology here is that of applying philosophy to educational research in order to invite pupils to become researchers into their own ethical beliefs. The ideas are illustrated by the Hawkwood project, a TTA funded research programme for teacher educators on ethical teaching. In the long term it is hoped to develop these materials for student teachers, to broaden the idea of what it is to be an ethical teacher beyond the premises of the new Principles, Values and Practices Standards for ITE.
Journal of Muslims in Europe, Jun 26, 2018
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC license at ... more This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC license at the time of publication.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 22, 2020
This book explores how Islam is represented, perceived and lived within higher education in Brita... more This book explores how Islam is represented, perceived and lived within higher education in Britain. It is a book about the changing nature of university life, and the place of religion within it. Even while many universities maintain ambiguous or affirming orientations to religious institutions for reasons to do with history and ethos, much western scholarship has presumed higher education to be a strongly secularizing force. This framing has resulted in religion often being marginalized or ignored as a cultural irrelevance by the university sector. However, recent times have seen higher education increasingly drawn into political discourses that problematize religion in general, and Islam in particular, as an object of risk. Using the largest data set yet collected in the UK (2015–18) this book explores university life and the ways in which ideas about Islam and Muslim identities are produced, experienced, perceived, appropriated, and objectified. We ask what role universities and Muslim higher education institutions play in the production, reinforcement and contestation of emerging narratives about religious difference. This is a culturally nuanced treatment of universities as sites of knowledge production, and contexts for the negotiation of perspectives on culture and religion among an emerging generation. We demonstrate the urgent need to release Islam from its official role as the othered, the feared. When universities achieve this we will be able to help students of all affiliations and of none to be citizens of the campus in preparation for being citizens of the world.
Routledge eBooks, Oct 9, 2018
Modern Theology, Jun 23, 2015
Continuum eBooks, 2009
... Adorno's Concept of Life, Alastair Morgan Adorno's Poetics of Criti... more ... Adorno's Concept of Life, Alastair Morgan Adorno's Poetics of Critique, Steven Helmling Badiou, Marion and St Paul, Adam Miller Being and Number in Heidegger's Thought, Michael Roubach The Crisis in Continental ... Gregg Lambert Žižek and Heidegger, Thomas Brockelman ...
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc eBooks, 2013
Ricœur lectured and wrote for over twenty years on negation ('Do I understand something bette... more Ricœur lectured and wrote for over twenty years on negation ('Do I understand something better if I know what it is not, and what is not-ness?') and never published his extensive writings on this subject. Ricœur concluded that there are multiple forms of negation; it can, for example, be the other person (Plato), the not knowable nature of our world (Kant), the included opposite (Hegel), apophatic spirituality (Plotinus on not being able to know God) and existential nothingness (Sartre). Ricœur, working on Kant, Hegel and Sartre, decided that all these forms of negation are incompatible and also fatally flawed because they fail to resolve false binaries of negative: positive. Alison Scott-Baumann demonstrates how Ricœur subsequently incorporated negation into his linguistic turn, using dialectics, metaphor, narrative, parable and translation in order to show how negation is in us, not outside us: language both creates and clarifies false binaries. He bestows upon negation a strong and central role in the human condition, and its inevitability is reflected in his writings, if we look carefully. Ricœur and the Negation of Happiness draws on Ricœur's published works, previously unavailable archival material and many other sources.Alison Scott-Baumann argues that thinking positively is necessary but not sufficient for aspiring to happiness - what is also required is affirmation of negative impulses: we know we are split by contradictions and still try to overcome them. She also demonstrates the urgency of analysing current socio-cultural debates about wellbeing, education and equality, which rest insecurely upon our loose use of the negative as a category mistake.
Theory, Culture & Society, Sep 1, 2010
... note, above all, the corollary of this right to visit, that of 'proposing oneself as... more ... note, above all, the corollary of this right to visit, that of 'proposing oneself as a ... The stranger still has his original human right which takes precedence over all legal contracts and ... to presuppose that they may enter into a lawful relationship with him through contractual means. ...
Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 22, 2020
Discussions about Islam and gender on campus have generally focused on Muslim women’s dress and s... more Discussions about Islam and gender on campus have generally focused on Muslim women’s dress and status in Islam. However, the processes that make Muslim women’s dress on campus so salient have received little attention. This chapter explores gender and Islam on campus, contextualizing it within the politics of dress, with a particular focus on Muslim women’s negotiations of how to dress. We argue that gendered stereotypes about the headscarf or niqab contribute to the construction of Muslim women as extremists or oppressed. We show that Muslims sometimes faced scrutiny or hostility from students and lecturers who read particular dress choices as symbolic threats. Taking an intersectional perspective, the chapter illuminates how some Muslims modify their dress in different contexts to increase a sense of belonging or reduce stigma. We also explore how some Muslims challenge misconceptions about Islam and gender.
Critical Hermeneutics, Aug 10, 2018
The time is out of joint; O curs'd spite, That ever I was born to set it right.
Both documents stand independently, yet are best understood and used as complementary to each oth... more Both documents stand independently, yet are best understood and used as complementary to each other. The report includes far more analysis of our national survey of students, and addresses policy recommendations more directly; the book includes a more multi-faceted account of our findings, covering a wider range of themes in much more depth. We are extremely grateful to these two research councils for supporting this work: the grant has made it possible for us to collect, analyse and curate the two largest set sets available on this topic in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales at the time of writing. 1. A more substantial treatment of the findings emerging from this project will appear in Scott-Baumann et al, Islam on Campus: Contested Identities and the Cultures of Higher Education in Britain, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2020. Recommendations: 2a. University managers should prioritise consultation with students in building programmes intended to promote understanding and respect of religious and cultural differences. 2b. Inter-faith activities are important as sources of campus cohesion, especially within religiously and culturally diverse contexts. Organisers need to be mindful of how practical decisions (e.g. concerning representation on discussion panels or use of language in promotional material) may inadvertently reaffirm shared stereotypes about different faith traditions. 2c. There should be Muslim student and staff representation on university equality and diversity committees and at chaplaincies wherever possible, as well as increased consultation with Muslims about faith-based provision, e.g. prayer spaces and dietary requirements. 18. This reinforces the case made elsewhere for the importance of Religious Education (RE) in UK schools (e.g. Clarke and Woodhead 2015; Commission on Religious Education 2018), as it appears to play a major role in influencing the religious literacy of young people. 19. According to figures collected by the UK Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), in 2017-18, those taking degrees in Theology and Religious Studies or Modern Middle Eastern Studies made up well under 1% of the total number of students.
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Papers by Alison Scott-Baumann