Grand Challenges lecture series ILAS 2016-2017 | Page 7

LECTURE SERIES
DYING INTO DANCE:
TAKING REFUGE, TALKING
REFUGE AND THE LIMITS
OF HOSPITALITY
PROFESSOR ALISON PHIPPS
8 FEBRUARY 2017 | 1PM-2PM KEELE HALL | THE SALVIN ROOM
a dance between a myth
of scarcity and a practice
of abundance
The present political crisis over refugees, race and language
in Europe, Australia and the U.S. has sharpened the focus
on the philosophical question of what it means to exist as
a refugee, and what it means to give and receive refuge.
It is one of the grand challenges of the day in these contexts
and yet, in other areas of the world, the practice of refugee
integration and hospitality is a far less crisis-driven and
ordinary affair. At the heart of these questions of refuge,
which have been asked acutely at other times in history,
is the question of sufficiency – a dance between a myth
of scarcity and a practice of abundance.
Alison Phipps is Professor of Languages and Intercultural
Studies at the University of Glasgow, Co-convenor of
the Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network
(GRAMNET) and UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration
through Languages and the Arts.
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