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The Myth of Racist Kids

 

Mondy 11 October 2010 - Leeds Civic Hall, Millennium Square, in Committee Rooms 6 & 7 

 

Myth of Racist KidsAdrian HartLeeds Salon has invited filmmaker and anti-racist campaigner, Adrian Hart, to talk about his book The Myth of Racist Kids (Manifesto Club, 2009), as part of the satellite of events leading up to the Battle of Ideas 2010 festival to be held in London at the last weekend in October.

 

Many of the 'racist incidents' reported by schools involve very young children and include cases of name-calling in the playground and arguments between friends. A growing 'race relations industry' has moved into the daily life of schools and even nurseries, with the aim of combating prejudice in children as young as three.

 

In The Myth of Racist Kids Adrian Hart argues that well-meaning policies have led to a growing regulation of children's peer relationships, and the undermining of teacher's ability to deal with everyday classroom incidents. The growing myth of racist kids can actually create ethnic tensions, stifling the trend towards increasing oppenness and intermixing.

 

 

Readings & Reviews  

 

This isn't racism. It's just kids being kids, by Helene Guldberg, Spiked Review of Books, Issue no.32, February 2010 

 

The myth of racist kids?, by Sean Bell, Culture Wars, 17 November 2009 

  

Schools reporting 40,000 cases of racism a year, by Martin Beckford, Daily Telegraph, 29 October 2009

 

Number of racist incidents reported in schools tells us more about the mindset of officials than children, by Josie Appleton, Daiily Telegraph, 29 October 2009  

  

  

About the Author 

 

Adrian Hart is an award winning community film-maker and founder of Coyote Films.He is a lecturer to special needs students, an author and an anti-racism campaigner. Adrian Hart's film work includes: 'Safe' (winner LWTs Whose London? 2002), Moving Here' (awarded beacon status 2006) and 'Only Human' (2006 broadcast on Teachers TV in 2009). Adrian is also a member of The Brighton Salon.

 

Time and possibly other speakers to be confirmed.

 


 

Ferraris for All?  

 

Monday 15 November 2010

 

Ferraris for All

Daniel Ben-AmiLeeds Salon welcome economics writer Daniel Ben-Ami to discuss his provocative new book Ferraris for All: In Defence of Economic Progress (Policy Press, 2010).

 

The growth of the economy and the spread of prosperity are increasingly seen as problematic rather than positive - a trend Daniel Ben-Ami has termed 'growth scepticism'. Prosperity is accused of encouraging greed, damaging the environment, causing unhappiness and widening social inequalities. Ferraris for all is a rejoinder to the growth sceptics. Using examples from a range of countries, including the US, the author argues that society as a whole benefits from greater affluence. Action is needed - but to increase prosperity and spread it worldwide, not to limit prosperity, as the sceptics would have it. Lively and provocative, this timely book will trigger debate and dissent in equal measure and will be essential reading for everyone who cares about the impact of western policy on developing countries.

 

  

Readings & Reviews

 

Growth sceptics selling the economy short, by Daniel Ben-Ami, The Australian, 26 July 2010 

 

'More for less' deficit policy is mixed up, by Daniel Ben-Ami, Guardian Comment is Free, 24 July 2010

 

An economics blind to human ingenuity, by Daniel Ben-Ami, Guardian Comment is Free, 16 July 2010

 

Why more is really more, by Sean Collins, Spiked Review of Books, Issue no.35, June 2010

  

  

About the Author 

 

Daniel Ben-Ami has worked as a journalist for over 20 years, during which he has contributed to numerous national and specialist publications. His previous book, Cowardly Capitalism (Wiley, 2001) , was recommended by the Baker Library of Harvard Business School. He is a regular contributor to Spiked-online and his work has appeared in many other newspapers and magazines, including: The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent, Novo (Germany), Propect, The Sunday Telegraph and The Sunday Time., Visit his website here

 

Venue, time and possibly other speakers to be confirmed.

 


 

The 'Two Cultures' Debate Fifty Years On 

  

Monday 13 December 2010  

  

Ray Tallis

In a famous lecture given over half a century ago, C.P. Snow raised concerns about the increasing alienation of humanist intellectuals from science. Professor Ray Tallis will argue that this problem is more complex than Snow thought, and addressing it may be even more challaenging than he imagined.

 

 

 

 

 

The Snow/Leavis Controversy

 

FR LeavisCP SnowIn 1959, C.P. Snow delivered the annual Rede Lecture in Cambridge under the title of 'The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution'. Snow warned of a gap that had opened up between scientists and the 'literary intellectuals' that made it almost impossible for the two groups to communicate. Snow complained that literary intellectuals were not only ignorant of science but contemptuous of it, as if scientific knowledge were unnecessary for a good education. Snow believed that improvements in the teachnig of science were required in order to address the world's greatest problems, and to complete with the USA and USSR. Snow spoke with the authority of a man with a foot in both camps, as a trained research scientist and a successful novelist, and his lecture provoked worldwide coverage. However, in 1962 it received an extraordinary response from the influential literary critic F.R. Leavis, who delivered an attack on Snow of unprecedented ferocity. The Snow/Leavis controversy has provoked debate ever since between supporters of both men's positions as to the real purpose of education.

 

 

Readings

 

"The Two Cultures" today, by Roger Kimball, The New Criterion, February 1994 (This is reproduced as a chapter in  From Two Cultures to No Culture: C.P. Snow's Two Cultures Lecture Fifty Years On (Civitas, 2009), for which Ray Tallis also conributed a chapter).

 

"Two Cultures" Today, by Phillip Griffiths, address given at Rice University, 13 September 1995.

 

The Third Culture, by John Brockman, Edge, 1991.

 

 

About the Speaker

 

 

Raymond Tallis has been listed as one of the world's top 20 living polymaths by The Economist's Intelligent Life Magazine. He was Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester from 1988 to 2006. He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for his research into stroke, epilepsy and neurological rehabilitation. He has honorary degrees from the Universities of Hull (1998) and Manchester (2002) for his writings on philosophy, literature and cultural criticism. His most recent books are: The Kingdom of Infinite Space (Atlantic, 2008); Hungar (Acumen, 2008); and Michelangelo's Finger (2009). He is a novelist and the author of two volumes of poetry. Visit his website here.

 

 

Venue and time to be confirmed.