Paul Ricoeur

Dr. Alison Frances Scott-Baumann is Professor of Society and Belief in the Law, Media and Gender Department at SOAS, University of London and Principal Investigator of an AHRC project on Communities of Inquiry. She speaks on BBC Radio 4, has written for the Guardian and several higher education blogs, and she applies modern philosophy (Ricoeurian) to social justice issues. She is also conducting a deep mapping of curricula and extracurricular provision for Jewish and Israeli studies in the Bloomsbury universities, to establish excellence, gaps and room for improvement.   With politicians, Alison has established an All-Party Parliamentary group (APPG) in Westminster called Communities of Inquiry across the generations and an advocacy group that brings together policy makers, politicians and academics and also provides the secretariat for the APPG.

“The study comprises 121 pages, organised in seven chapters, which can be read as stand-alone essays. … the study is rich and dense. … This book will serve not only as an advanced handbook on Ricoeur, but as an indispensable guide for identifying, discussing, and improving how universities understand themselves today” (LSE Politics and Policy Blog, blogs.lse.ac.uk, November 13, 2024)

• 1. Introduction.- 2. The idea of the university.- 3. Communities of Inquiry.- 4. Ricœur’s early language, activism and Algeria.- 5. 1968 and campus shock at Nanterre.- 6. Challenging ‘bad infinity’.- 7. The politics of pedagogy leading to polity praxis.- Conclusion.