Professor David Chandler, Professor of International Relations at the University of Westminster, was invited to give the keynote speech at the University of Oxford’s Human Sciences Symposium 2024.
The symposium took place on 2 March and saw a range of speakers take to the stage to speak on this year’s theme of hope. Professor Chandler’s talk, titled Hope after the End of Man: Constructing New Genres of the Human, embraced this year’s theme by raising the question of how hope becomes a central concept in the shift from world as a noun to world-making or worlding as an ethical and political practice. During the talk he explained that hope is a crucial construct enabling a novel combination of critique and affirmation, both affirming this world and opening possibilities beyond it.
Professor Chandler has published widely on this topic and is constantly delving into research on humanitarianism, the promotion of resilience and the Anthropocene – the time where humans have made a substantial impact on the planet.
About the event Professor Chandler said: “It was a really nice experience to present on hope in the Anthropocene and to engage with a diverse, multi-disciplinary audience. I was really pleased with the level of interest and engagement there was in the work that hope does both within and without a modernist scaffolding.”
Find out more about Politics and International Relations courses at the University of Westminster
Related articles
