Night School

To celebrate BFM’s 6th Anniversary, Night School puts on a special episode looking at 6 ideas we each encountered in our lives and through our work. In this free-wheeling episode, we talk about Antonio Gramsci’s “common sense”, Edward Said’s notion of the role of “the intellectual”, Buddhism’s concept of “impermanence”, the power of “historical materialism” as well as Alexis de Tocqueville’s understanding of “enlightened self-interest”.

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Children’s Studies is emerging as an independent field of study that’s recently achieved institutional recognition in the establishment of dedicated departments in several universities. We ask what makes Children’s studies different from the numerous studies on children that exist in many other disciplines.

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Poverty porn is an expression that describes the ‘exploitative’, sometimes ‘gratuitous’ images of the poor that many of us consume through mainstream as well as social media. This episode explores the cultural and symbolic dynamics of representing the poor and marginalized.

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“It was a cold morning, and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his prayers were more acceptable to God if he said them in his nightshirt than if he waited till he was dressed. This did not surprise him, for he was beginning to realise that he was the creature of a God who appreciated the discomfort of his worshippers,” wrote W. Somerset Maugham in “Of Human Bondage”. The basic facts of the human condition – life, disease, happiness, desire and death - and responses it are subjected to some scrutiny in this episode.

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The downing of MH17 has made the Feminist notion that “the international is personal, and the personal is international” almost intuitive. And despite the “realist” assumptions underscoring most journalistic writing on the tragedy, we might ask, as critical International Relations scholars might, what are the “hidden narratives” in this unfolding crisis. In this episode we explore the field of International Relations (not the MH17 tragedy).

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Working from an anthropology of education Professor Behr was able to propose the introduction of a new dimension of educational curriculum in German schools which continues to help a migrant population assimilate into society. By recognizing that the religious commitments of the community was not the problem but part of the solution of the social dislocation of migrants, the government was able to speak to the children of migrants in a language they understood.

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“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die,” wrote Charles Darwin in his magna opus “The Origin of Species”. Biology’s unified theory – natural selection and evolution – provides the basis for understanding a range of non-human animal behavior. Today we try to get to grips with the logic behind “honest signaling”.

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Is the intellectual merely devoted to the “life of the mind” or ought she be committed to social progress. And what happens to a society in which intellectual have lost their nerve, refuse to ask difficult questions? This week we speak to the author of “Minda Terwan”, loosely translated as ‘The Capitive Mind’. Whose extended essay ponders the Malaysian intellectuals’ condition. His first published book entitled "Menyarung Jiwa" or "Soulship", a collection of poems in Malay and English.

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“Although I believe identity politics 'produces limited but real empowerment for its participants,’ it is important to note that it contains significant problems: first, its essentialist tendency; second, its fixed "we-they" binary position; third, its homogenization of diverse social oppression; fourth, its simplification of the complexity and paradox of being privileged and unprivileged; and fifth its ruling out of intersectional space of diverse forms of oppression in reality,” writes Namsoon Kang in “Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World”. We explore the contours of this compelling mode of being.

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A full recording of the forum “No Pain No gain - Cutting Subsidies is Necessary For Malaysia’s Future Prosperity”. Sponsored by the British High Commission, KL, and the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus as part of their Great Debate series. The forum was held on the 20th of March 2014, at the Islamic Arts Museum, Kuala Lumpur.

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