A History of Trust
The fourth Global History Seminar of the season is a panel discussion with Geoffrey Hosking (Emeritus Professor of Russian History, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies), Warren von Eschenbach (Director of the University of Notre Dame London Global Gateway where he also lectures in Philosophy, and Assistant Provost for Europe, University of Notre Dame), Anthony Seldon (co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary British History, author of Trust: How We Lost it and How to Get it Back), and Kieron O’Hara (senior research fellow in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, author of Trust: from Socrates to Spin).
This interdisciplinary panel is inspired by Trust: a History by Geoffrey Hosking, who believes that historians have seriously underestimated the importance of forms of social solidarity, which do not depend wholly on political structures or rational choice. He will argue the need to complement political science with a kind of ‘trust science’ – using ‘trust’ as the focus of a cluster of concepts, such as confidence, reliance, faith, belief etc. Hosking also views trust as mediated through symbolic systems and the institutions associated with them. Such systems and institutions change greatly over time and differ from one society to another. In European-North American societies we are currently experiencing a ‘crisis of trust’ which we understand poorly because we do not appreciate how our trust structures have changed in the last 50-70 years.
RSVP to lonconf@nd.edu
This event will take place at Fischer Hall (1 Suffolk Street, London SW1Y 4HG)
#GlobalHistory
Speaker Bios
Geoffrey Hosking is Emeritus Professor of Russian History, University College London, a Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary Fellow of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He previously taught at the Universities of Essex, Cambridge, Cologne and Wisconsin (Madison). His principal publications are A History of the Soviet Union (3rd edition, 1992), Russia and the Russians: from Kievan Rus to the Russian Federation (2nd edition, 2011), and Trust: a History (2014). He gave the BBC Reith Lectures in 1988, and he regularly lectures in Russia on problems of trust and social solidarity.
Sir Anthony Seldon is a leading British schoolmaster and a contemporary historian, commentator and political author. He is Master of Wellington College, Britain’s top co-educational independent boarding school. He is author or editor of over 40 books on contemporary history, politics and education, was the co-founder and first director of the Centre for Contemporary British History, is co-founder of Action for Happiness, and is honorary historical adviser to 10 Downing Street. He is also a member of the First World War Centenary Culture Committee, established by the Culture Secretary in 2013.
Kieron O’Hara is a senior research fellow in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. He researches into our relationship with technology, particularly the World Wide Web, and focuses on issues such as privacy, transparency and open data. He advises the UK Ministry of Justice and the Home Office on open data releases about crime and criminal justice.
Originally published at international.conductor.nd.edu.