Professor Christine Sypnowich, Oliver Smithies Visiting Lecturer, will be delivering an Oliver Smithies Lecture on ‘Dreaming Spires and Colonial Nightmares: Cultural Heritage, Human Flourishing and Social Justice.’
Abstract: Essential to the character of Oxford its cultural heritage – from dreaming spires to its beautiful quadrangles and magnificent halls. Yet that heritage is implicated in a history of colonialism and inequality. I propose to consider cultural heritage through the lens of social justice. This involves a candid reckoning with the historic injustice instantiated in dominant heritage narratives, but also how heritage might be understood in a way that contributes to social justice, understood in an expansive sense of furthering human flourishing.
All are welcome. Please RSVP to college.office@balliol.ox.ac.uk if you would like to attend. Refreshments will be available after the lecture.