Lecture series

SOAS World Philosophies Lecture Series

The SOAS World Philosophies Lecture Series is a bimonthly lecture series organised by the World Philosophies team at SOAS University of London. It features guest speakers from around the globe who are experts and world-class scholars in various aspects and themes in World Philosophies broadly construed.

At SOAS, the World Philosophies Programme is carefully designed and structured by a dedicated team to offer a rich, diverse and comprehensive approach to philosophy as a form of human inquiry. It explores core issues and themes in philosophy from world philosophical traditions such as Indian African European and Anglophone, Confucian Buddhist, Indigenous, Japanese, South-East Asian and Islamic Philosophy.

The World Philosophies Programme takes a decolonised approach to philosophy seriously and pays close attention to the margins of traditional philosophy. The bimonthly lecture series is conceived out of the same decolonised and diverse approach to philosophy that frames the ethos of general approach, providing an important avenue for distinguished scholars in different philosophical traditions to present their research and ideas in a way that is discursive and conversational.

The event usually takes place on the last Friday of every 2 months (February, April, June, August, October and December) at 2:00pm to 4:00pm BST. But due to holidays, the December event, takes place on the first Friday of the month. The event is open to the public and is heldonline via Zoom. We will be exploring a hybrid lecture here in London in the near future.

Please contact Dr Elvis Imafidon (ei4@soas.ac.uk) for further details. Join our mailing list and receive Zoom links for forthcoming lectures. All seminars are recorded and available on YouTube.

Previous lectures in this series:

• Lecture 1: Reflections on Globalising Philosophy by Prof Richard King, University of Kent, February 2021.
• Lecture 2: Are Black Women Persons? by Dr Mpho Tshivhase, University of Pretoria, April 2021.
• Lecture 3: Where is World Philosophy and How is She Doing? by Prof Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University, June 2021.
• Lecture 4: Enlightenment Raciology and the Revision of the History of Philosophy by Prof. Peter K J Park, University of Texas at Dallas, August 2021.
• Lecture 5: The Epistemologies of the South and the Task of Decolonising the University by Emeritus Prof Boaventura de Sousa Santus, University of Coimbra, October 2021.
• Lecture 6: Is Epistemic Injustice White People Stuff? by Prof Veli Mitova, University of Johannesburg, December 2021.
• Lecture 7: On Mexistentialism, by Prof Carlos Alberto Sanchez, San Jose State University, California, FEB 2022.
• Lecture 8: Contemplative Transformation in Early Daoism, by Distinguished Prof Ronnie Littlejohn, Belmont University, Tennessee, April 2022.
• Lecture 9: Àddina: Non-objective representation of "the world" in Boubacar Boris Diop's Doomi Golo (2003), by Prof Alena Rettová, University of Bayreuth, Germany, June 2022.
• Lecture 10: Humanism in Contemporary Indian Philosophy, by Elise Coquereau-Saouma, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
• Lecture 11: Modern and Contemporary Traditions of Arab Philosophy by Professor Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Doha, Qatar
• Lecture 12: Subjective Security, by Professor Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Georgetown University,Washington DC.

A Journey through the Contemporary Philosophy of the African Continent, Country by Country

For more information about this lecture series, please contact please contact Dr Bjorn Ole Gerd Freter (bf22@soas.ac.uk).

Previous lectures in this series:

• Lecture 1 (Nigeria): ‘The Conversational School of Philosophy in Nigeria’ and ‘Introduction to the Philosophy of Consolationism’ by Jonathan Chimakonam (University of Pretoria) and Ada Agada (University of Fort Hare) respectively. June 2022.
• Lecture 2 (Botswana):  On indigenous psychology in Africa: What can African philosophy offer African psychology? By Seth Oppong, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana

Re-Reading the Western Canon: New Perspectives on ignored Problems

For more information about this lecture series, please contact Dr Bjorn Ole Gerd Freter (bf22@soas.ac.uk).

Previous lectures in this series:

• Lecture 1: Philosophy, Racist Ideology & Liberatory Pedagogy: a reflection on Kant & the canon problem, by Prof Huaping Lu-Adler, Georgetown University, June 2022.

Contemporary Philosophy by Women Scholars

For more information about this lecture series, please contact Dr Bjorn Ole Gerd Freter (bf22@soas.ac.uk).

Previous lectures in this series:

• Lecture 1: Mental Disorders as Processes, by Elly Vintiadis, The American College of Greece, August 2022.
• Lecture 2: The Concept of Justice in Africa: A Catalyst for Sustainability and  Development, by Dr Mirian Ngozi Alike, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria, October 2022