As planning academics living and working in Cambridge, we have become acutely aware of the mismatch between professional and public discourses on what it means for the city to grow. Particularly, the term ‘growth’ carries varying meanings for different individuals, e.g., for some people it is largely positive and growth brings opportunities for homes wealth and to solve existing problems cities like Cambridge face. But for others, it can also be threatening, much loved places change their character, environments can be damaged and what opportunities are created are not shared by everyone.

This public event aims to open up dialogues about 1) what it means for Cambridge to grow, and 2) how such a variety of perceptions could enable new visions of city development, drive behavioural changes and address major challenges through novel policymaking processes.

This event has two stages:

Stage 1: We invite your views on what growth means to YOU. Share your thoughts through participating our online survey. We plan to visualise anonymised public inputs through a small exhibition as part of Stage 2.

Stage 2: A one-day public event on 4 June 2024 with invited talks by field experts and thinkers. Invited speakers will be exposed to your inputs in Stage 1 prior to their talks, and are expected to reflect on their past experiences of planning and managing the growth in Cambridge.

The full programme is available at: www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/41983/  

Please use this link to complete the survey: https://cambridge.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_exkpspjHYqBHT5c

Quentin Skinner lecture

Given by William Selinger, Quentin Skinner Fellow

This lecture will focus on Montesquieu’s first major work, Persian Letters (1721), which is about the relationship between love and despotism. In it, Montesquieu suggests that despotism is incompatible with love, and that a monarchy grounded on the mutual love of subject and sovereign will break down into sheer Machiavellianism. Montesquieu also shows how the drive to purify love and desire is inherently despotic. In making these arguments, Montesquieu criticized not only prominent justifications of absolute monarchy in seventeenth-century France but also the political-theological ideas of the foremost French critic of absolute monarchy, François Fénelon. Persia served as Montesquieu’s backdrop because of parallels between Persian and French political structures as well as between ideas about pure love in Catholicism and Islam.

The full programme is available at: https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/42071/#programme

Registration fee includes refreshments, lunch, and drinks reception.

Please email [email protected] if you have any questions about this event.

Activism and science: What space is there in science for activism around the climate and biodiversity crises?

The science is clear: climate change and biodiversity loss are happening. Although there are obvious mitigation actions that can be taken, global strategies and policies are lagging far behind what is needed to keep a rise in the Earth’s temperatures below 1.5 or even 2.0 degrees and conserve the diversity and abundance of life on this planet.

Does this discrepancy between scientific findings and the lack of climate and biodiversity action mean that science and scientists may, or even should, engage in climate and biodiversity activism? And, if so, what would this mean for the traditional conceptions of science as value-free and objective?

In our half day event, open to academics, students and members of the public, we will explore these and other questions. 

There are two workshops that form part of this event:
Workshop 1 - Coping with the climate crisis
Workshop 2 - Creativity in activism

Each workshop is £3.00 with limited places.  These will be presented as optional items during registration.  If you are interested, please select accordingly.

Refreshments will be served in the event.

The full programme is available at: https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/41105/#programme