The Inaugural Elaine Stavro Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Theory, Politics and Gender lecture was presented Thursday September 22 at the remodelled and updated Market Hall to a full house and great success.

Faculty, staff and students representing the gamut of humanities and social science departments at Trent were in attendance to hear Dr. Wendy Brown present Civilizational Delusions: Secularism, Tolerance and Equality.

Endowed by Dr. Elaine Stavro, acting director Theory, Culture & Politics, the Distinguished Visiting Scholar lectureship has been established to provide students, staff, faculty and members of the Peterborough community with access to an exceptional scholar who is engaged in political theory, and to significantly build on the University’s reputation for its interdisciplinary program.

“Hosting Dr. Wendy Brown speaks to the prestige of the Distinguished Visiting Scholar program,” Dr. Gary Boire, provost and vice-president Academic, said in opening the series. “We have been provided with an excellent opportunity to engage with and learn from experts from other universities and countries.

“Thank you to Dr. Elaine Stavro,” Dr. Boire said, “and your vision to introduce the Trent and Peterborough community to leaders of social thought and issues. It is initiatives like these that strengthen our intellectual community.”

Professor Wendy Brown’s lecture explored western secular society’s claim to be religiously neutral by examining proposed and enacted “burka bans” in Europe and North America. In exploring this topic, Prof. Brown illuminated five conceits of secularism in the West that make the “burka bans” acceptable: (1) western secularism believes they have achieved a religiously neutral state, (2) western secularism is equally available to all, including those practicing minorities in the west, (3) that the wide-spread embrace of western secularism generates tolerance as a practice of mutual respect for all religions and cultures, (4) that secular regimes are religiously and culturally neutral, and (5) that secularism is equated with women’s freedom and equality.

“By reflecting on the false robes of religious neutrality in which western secularism drapes itself,” Prof. Brown stated, “I want to unveil delusions of secularism.”

An engaging speaker, Prof. Brown held the attention of a packed Market Hall before taking questions from eager students and faculty, both from Trent and Brock University, the lectureship drawing attendance from across the province. Prof. Brown made a special thank you to Professor Stavro, citing the importance of endowed lectures at universities around the world. “We can’t let the arts – humanities and social sciences – erode,” she said. “We must offer support to sustaining critical work and critical enquiry in the humanities and social sciences. Special thanks to Elaine Stavro for recognizing this.”

“The intent of this endowed lectureship is to foster conversations and possibly collaboration between the humanities and the social sciences,” Prof. Stavro has said. “Prof. Brown’s work, which appreciates the historical situatedness and yet symbolic nature of political knowing, goes some distance to connect these often separate and warring approaches to knowledge.

“Research in humanities and social sciences is often neglected,” Prof. Stavro said in her opening remarks, “I hope to obviate this crisis by bringing a distinguished scholar to Trent.

“We’ve had a terrific response to Dr. Brown’s talk,” Prof. Stavro said after the event. “Several suggestions about next year’s Distinguished Visiting Scholar have been sent to us. It will not be easy to find someone who is both able to engage the public as well as satisfy the needs of the academy with such aplomb, but we will try.”

Prof. Wendy Brown is a researcher with the Political Science Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University, and has held faculty positions at the University of California, Santa Cruz and at Williams College. The author of numerous books, Prof. Brown’s work has been translated into more than 15 languages. She has lectured around the world and held a number of distinguished visiting lectureships.