The AKC Course in 2023/4
The AKC programme is comprised of two separate lecture series. This year all of the AKC lectures will first be delivered in-person on the dates listed below in the Safra Lecture Theatre on the Strand Campus. However, if you wish to follow the AKC programme online then you can access the course material via our KEATS page. Each lecture will be released on the KEATS page one week after it is delivered in person. For example, Lecture 1, which will be delivered at 12:00 midday on Monday 2 October on campus, will be released at 12:00 midday (UK time) on Monday 9 October on our KEATS page. The KEATS quizzes will open on the day of the live lecture and will close at 12:00 midday three weeks later. For example, the quiz for Lecture 1 will open at 12:00 midday on Monday 2 October and will close at 12:00 midday (UK time) on Monday 23 October.
Below you can find the outline of the 2023/4 AKC lecture series.
Semester 1: 2023/4
Free Speech and Offence: Where Do You Draw the Line? curated by Dr Nicole Graham
Debates about free speech can be polarising. Do we have a right to say whatever we want, whenever we want, to whoever we want? Or must we define clear limits to prevent real harm to others? While free speech sometimes seems like a pawn in the culture wars, it is also an issue that affects us all – in the classroom or workplace, online or in-person. This AKC series engages academics from a variety of disciplines to examine legal, practical, and ethical attitudes towards free speech and offence, asking where – and how – we should the draw the line.
Semester 1 Lecture Titles
Monday 2 Oct 2023 – Professor David Ruebain, University of Sussex, Free Speech and Offence: Can We Draw a Line?
Monday 9 Oct 2023 – Professor Arif Ahmed, Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom (Office for Students), Free Speech and the University
Monday 16 Oct 2023 – Professor Bobby Duffy, Director of King’s Policy Institute, The State of Free Speech in UK Universities: What Students and the Public Think
Monday 23 Oct 2023 – Professor Satvinder Juss, King’s College London, Free Speech Against a Faith—When the Faith is Not Ours
Monday 30 Oct 2023 – READING WEEK (No live lecture)
Monday 6 Nov 2023 – Dr Nicole Graham, King’s College London, A Blonde Enters a Lecture Hall…and Offers a Feminist Examination of Sexist Humour
Monday 13 Nov 2023 – Dr Edward Ademolu, King’s College London, Visualising Africa: The Offence of Misrepresentation
Monday 20 Nov 2023 – Dr Shuangyu Li, King’s College London, Too Important to Be Offended—the Doctor Has to Ask
Monday 27 Nov 2023 – Professor Linda Woodhead, King’s College London, Are We Too Easily Offended Nowadays? Findings and Reflections on Changing Ethical Sensibilities
Monday 4 Dec 2023 – Professor Shitij Kapur, Vice-Chancellor & President of King’s College London, Universities at the Crossroads of a Changing Society—A View from the Vice Chancellor's Office (or, What Should a Vice Chancellor Do?)
Semester 2: 2023/4
Self and World: Exploring Indian Philosophies, curated by Dr Karen O'Brien-Kop.
Through its long history India has nurtured many rich philosophical and spiritual traditions. Drawing on these traditions as well as on present-day debates, this AKC series explores the dynamic relation of self and world in a range of contexts – from metaphysics to politics, from ethics to law. Experts will share their research in the diverse philosophies of South Asia, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Jainism. Lectures will engage big questions about reality, the environment, morality, God, society and how we find or lose ourselves in a changing world.
Mon 15 Jan 2024 – Professor Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, University of Lancaster, The Gendered Self in a Masculinist World: A Phenomenological Reading of a Mahābhārata Dialogue
Mon 22 Jan 2024 – Dr Ankur Barua, University of Cambridge, Remaking a Home in the World: The Self-Other Dialectic in the Religious Poetry of Rabindranath Tagore
Mon 29 Jan 2024 – Dr Jessica Frazier, University of Oxford, Hindu Worldviews: Theories of Self, Ritual and Reality
Mon 5 Feb 2024 – Dr Taushif Kara, King’s College London, Between Past and Future: Muslim Political Philosophy in Colonial India
Mon 12 Feb 2024 – Dr Marie-Helene Gorisse, University of Birmingham, Isolated or Co-responsible? Perfected Souls in Jainism
Mon 19 Feb 2023 – READING WEEK (No live lecture)
Mon 26 Feb 2024 – Professor Diwakar Acharya, University of Oxford, Annam Brahma: Hindu Theology of Eating
Mon 4 March 2024 – Professor Humeira Iqtidar, King’s College London, Justice: Beyond the State
Mon 11 March 2024 – Dr Shalini Sinha, University of Reading, Self and World in Early Indian Philosophy
Mon 18 March 2024 – Professor Naomi Appleton, University of Edinburgh, Narrative Imagination and Moral Perfection in Indian Buddhism
See our sample lectures, including previous AKC lectures