University of Westminster CentreLGS Members Events

Past Events 2007-2008

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30th October 2007 (6.30-8pm)

FEMINISM WITH FIZZ! a series of conversations on ‘feminism in practice’ Feminis And Ageing with Pat Thane, Ann Stewart, and Other Speakers (TBC)

Venue: University of Westminster, Portland Hall, 4 Little Titchfield Street, London W1, (Oxford Circus tube)

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20 November 2007 (6pm)

Torture and Evil - Claudia Card

Torture is like slavery (and unlike genocide and murder) in that the idea that it can be justified is not self-contradictory. But the circumstances of its tolerability are unrealistic in philosophically interesting ways. It is unrealistic to think we can predict when interrogational torture will be effective and containable, unwarranted to suppose humane alternatives impossible, disastrous to reduce motivations to create such alternatives. Given torture's extremity, it is unacceptable to be satisfied with evidence available to potential torturers regarding a suspect's identity, knowledge of critical detail, ability to recall it, or reasons for not providing it, and the costs of even successful torture would negate its gains. I am convinced that there is no moral excuse for torture in our world. Perhaps one can imagine a different world in which torture might be tolerable. But that world it not ours. Let's see if I can convince you.

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21 November 2007 (1pm)

Irene Watson, University of Sydney, Australia

Law-full woman: an exploration of the self–determination of Aboriginal women’s laws and lives, their colonisation and the possibilities for decolonisation

I am currently mapping Australian law and its attempt to embody Aboriginal law and culture.  My work explores questions of universality and the possibility or otherwise of available space for Aboriginal law and culture.  I particularly focus on Aboriginal women’s law. The colonisation of Aboriginal women is a continuing phenomenon within Australia; this paper focuses on the practical and theoretical difficulties which arise from our working towards creating space for Aboriginal women to discuss and activate our own particular strategies for the alleviation of the socio-political-economic-cultural crises which afflict many Aboriginal people’s lives and communities across Australia, results of the colonial project.  In June 2007 the Australian Federal government announced its own strategy to intervene in the ‘crisis’ within Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, in its Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill (Cth) 2007.  The intervention is already underway and is being led, like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, by the Australian military.  According to the Australian government this intervention is to save the lives of Aboriginal children and what is to be transformed are the lives of Aboriginal peoples living on Aboriginal lands that are recognized as such under the (Cth) NT Aboriginal Land Rights Act.  This paper will explore the law-full voices of Aboriginal women within those ‘saved’ and ‘transformed’ spaces

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15th January 2008 (6.30-8pm)

FEMINISM WITH FIZZ! a series of conversations on ‘feminism in practice’ FEMINISM AND Style With: Elizabeth Woodcraft, Barrister Reina Lewis, Professor of Fashion Studies, London School of Fashion Elizabeth Wilson, author of Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity.

Venue: University of Westminster, Portland Hall, 4 Little Titchfield Street, London W1, (Oxford Circus tube)

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