A book panel with Bhikhu Parekh and Tariq Modood

Thursday, 14 November 2019, 6:00pm - 7:30pm, IWM Library, Spittelauer Lände 3, 1090 Vienna

In the 1990s, multiculturalism was widely accepted as the future of liberal societies and defended by political philosophers as an extension of liberal principles. Since the early 2000s, the concept has come under heavy political attack, with the target more often being a caricature than a set of ideas and policies responding to diversity. Bhikhu Parekh, Member of the House of Lords and author of the much-discussed Parekh Report on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (2000) has recently published a new book on Ethnocentrism in Political Theory in which he critically examines “flawed universalisms” in contemporary liberal political thought. Tariq Modood, Professor at Bristol University and another prominent and prolific proponent of British multiculturalism, has just published a book collecting some of his major contributions on the topic.

The two authors will present their new books and discuss them with Rainer Bauböck, professor in the Global Governance Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute and Chair of the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Commission on Migration and Integration Research (KMI). Shalini Randeria, Rector of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), will moderate the discussion that will ensue after an introduction from Ivan Vejvoda, IWM Permanent Fellow and Head of Europe’s Futures.

The event is jointly organized by “Europe’s Futures”, project of the Institute for the Human Sciences (IWM), and the Commission for Migration and Integration Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (KMI)