Department of Philosophy hosts annual Lumsden Lecture, 9 July 2020

Screen grab of the virtual lecture

The event celebrates the success of students from the department and hears a lecture from an eminent public academic. This year’s lecturer was Dr. Sarah Fine, from King’s College London, who spoke on the topic of “Knowing My Place”. Sarah’s talk considered what it means to be attached to a particular place – such as a city or landscape – and how such attachments can be both psychologically important and used to push anti-immigration narratives.

This year the lecture took place in unusual circumstances. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic pushed all University activities online and as a result the lecture was held online using the Zoom platform. The switch to online did not, however, seem to dimension interest and engagement, with 46 participants including several dozen students, members of the public, and academics from other institutions. The “chat” function provided by online meetings generated an extra dimension of audience engagement, with questions and discussion flowing both from the normal method of raising (electronic!) hands, and from comments posted in the chat. The Q&A session following the lecture could easily have continued for the rest of the afternoon.

The event also celebrated the success of Nottingham’s philosophy students. The following prizes were awarded via a transfer of digital certificates:

• The Jim Lees Prize - donated by His Honour Richard Benson. This Prize was established in 2001 by Richard Benson, a Politics graduate of the University of Nottingham. Richard wanted to set up the prize to commemorate Jim Lees, his former tutor in Philosophy. Richard had a prestigious career as a circuit judge and when he died in 2017, he left a gift in his Will so the Jim Lees prize could continue supporting students beyond his lifetime.  The prize is awarded each year to the best overall performance by a second year single honours philosophy.
  • The 2018/19 the prize was awarded to three students: Martina Peroni, Jonathan Hawkins, and Hannah Durden.

• The Michael Lumsden Essay prize. This Prize was founded in 1996 from a donation by Carmen and Barrie Lumsden to record the period of study of their son, Michael, who graduated in Philosophy at Nottingham in 1993, and sadly died shortly thereafter. The prize is awarded to awarded to the undergraduate adjudged to have written the best philosophy essay that year.
  • The 2018/19 prize was awarded to Christopher Spaull, for his essay on Rawls’ political philosophy.

Congratulations to all our prize winners.

The Lumsden lecture is organised by the student-run PhilSoc, this year led by Bolade Ajayi, assisted by the Department’s Koshka Duff in her role as PhilSoc liaison. Huge thanks to both Bolade and Koshka for organising, and to Sarah for the fantastic talk and discussion.

-          Neil Sinclair (Head of Philosophy) 29 July 2020.