Sociologist Dr Balihar Sanghera has been made a visiting scholar at the leading US research institution, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.

He has been awarded the George F. Kennan fellowship for three months with the goal to examine how major global powers use development strategies to compete and struggle for their vision and goals in Central Asia.

The study will explore in particular how Russia, China and Saudi Arabia contest the dominance of Western development and financial institutions, putting in place alternative visions of economic, political and normative development, thereby affecting US relationship with Central Asia and its support for liberal capitalism and democracy in the region. During the stay at the Wilson Center, Dr Balihar Sanghera (SSPSSR) and Dr Elmira Satybaldieva (Politics and IR) plan to conduct interviews with US state officials and Chinese experts in Washington DC.

The week commencing 2nd October is Liftshare week, and here at the University of Kent we are encouraging as many people as possible to sign up for Liftshare and find someone to share with.

While liftsharing has many benefits by itself, we’re also offering a great incentive for everyone who tries out Liftshare over the course of Liftshare Week.

Between the dates of 25th September and 15th October anyone who visits https://liftshare.com/uk/community/unishare and sends a message or a share request will be entered into a prize draw to win £250. And because we want to celebrate those of you already sharing, anyone already in a Liftshare team will be automatically entered, too.

You don’t have to Liftshare every day, even sharing once a week with someone makes a big difference. You’d be surprised how much the benefits add up over time; we’re talking financial savings (drivers can make back up to 100% of their fuel costs by sharing), as well as reducing your carbon footprint and decreasing congestion and parking pressures. Plus you might make some great new connections!

You can read the Ts and Cs of the competition over at the Liftshare website. https://liftshare.com/uk/other/terms#liftshare-week-terms

If you have any queries please contact the Estates transport team by email or by calling ext. 3609.

Dr Angelos Evangelou, Associate Lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature, has just published a new book entitled Philosophizing Madness from Nietzsche to Derrida (Palgrave, 2017).

Drawing connections between madness, philosophy and autobiography, Angelos’s book addresses the question of how Nietzsche’s madness might have affected his later works. It also explores why continental philosophy after Nietzsche is so fascinated with madness, and how it (re)considers, (re)evaluates and (re)valorises madness.

To answer these questions, the book analyses the work of three major figures in twentieth-century French philosophy who were significantly influenced by Nietzsche: Bataille, Foucault and Derrida, examining the ways in which their responses to Nietzsche’s madness determine how they understand philosophy as well as philosophy’s relation to madness.

Out of this analysis of their engagement with the question of madness emerges a new conception of “autobiographical philosophy”, which entails the insertion of this vulnerable subject into the philosophical work, to which each of these philosophers adheres or resists in different ways.

For more details, please see the publisher’s page here.

Dr David Garbin has been awarded a grant under the British Academy Cities and Infrastructure Programme which is part of the UK Government’s £1.5 billion Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).

Through the project Dr Garbin will explore the links between mega-urbanisation, development and religion in Central and West African contexts. This work addresses one of the most pressing challenges of contemporary African mega-cities: how to tackle social, moral, strategic and economic issues raised by often spectacular processes of religious urbanisation.

Taking Lagos in Nigeria and Kinshasa in the Congo (the most populated and fastest growing cities in Sub Saharan Africa) as ethnographic case studies,  the project will explore how religious socio-spatial models and strategies engage with challenges of infrastructural development, urban social cohesion and inclusion, safety, and sustainability. The project will provide recommendations aimed at promoting civic urban culture in the context of growing inequalities, urban poverty, and widespread informalisation of life in cities where religious actors play significant infrastructural roles.

Altogether the Academy will support thirteen interdisciplinary research projects, with awards of up to £300,000 each.

The overall aim of the British Academy programme is to ensure that the best UK research across the disciplinary spectrum takes a leading role in addressing the challenges of creating and maintaining sustainable and resilient cities in developing countries.

The research projects funded under the programme will generate evidence to inform future policies and interventions aimed at improving the lives and welfare of people in the developing world, by making cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

Professor Ash Amin, Foreign Secretary and Vice-President of the British Academy, described sustainable urbanisation as “one of the main and more pressing challenges of the contemporary world” and stressed the need for interdisciplinary research. More information can be found on the British Academy website.