'The Edge: borders and boundaries': Richard Sennett
Channel: Cambridge Law Faculty
Date: 2015-03-10

Speaker: Professor Richard Sennett is Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics (LSE) and University Professor of the Humanities at New York University (NYU) (www.richardsennett.com). His work explores how individuals and groups make social and cultural sense of material facts -- about the cities in which they live and about the labour they do. He focuses on how people can become competent interpreters of their own experience, despite the obstacles society may put in their way. His research entails ethnography, history, and social theory. Most recently, Professor Sennett has explored more positive aspects of labor in The Craftsman (2008), and in Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation (2012). The third volume in this trilogy, The Open City, will appear in 2016. 

The new speaker series brings together film-makers, writers, journalists and academics to tell stories about law, politics, gender and development in the global south, and the 'south in the north'. Confirmed speakers include: Jose Antonio Ocampo (economics); Rajeev Bhargava (political theory); Akeel Bilgrami (philosophy); Partha Chatterjee (political theory/history); Ken Loach (filmmaker), Saskia Sassen (sociology), and Richard Sennett (sociology). 

After an extremely successful inaugural season, the series continues this term with a focus on land, labour and cities. 

Co-organisers: Antara Haldar (Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, ah447@cam.ac.uk, via Twitter @antarahaldar) and Diamond Ashiagbor (School of Law, SOAS, da40@soas.ac.uk).

An audio recording of this lecture, which includes the subsequent Q&A session, is available at http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1923350