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Facilitated by: Dr Ibrar Bhatt who is one of the co-convenors of the Multilingual University Network, alongside Dr Zhen Li, Dr Dylan Williams and Dr Sal Consoli. For more details about the network and its activities, please click here. 

Overview

Join us for an engaging and thought-provoking in-person event titled “In Conversation with Syed Farid Alatas”, where the renowned scholar will discuss the ongoing need to decolonise and expand the canon of knowledge in higher education. Professor Alatas will be joined by two distinguished discussants: Shuchen Xiang, a specialist in Chinese philosophy at Xidian University (China), and Ibrar Bhatt, a specialist in applied linguistics and higher education, from Queen’s University Belfast (UK). 

Through a dynamic question-and-answer format, Professor Alatas will share insights from his work on integrating non-Western epistemologies into mainstream academic discourse, drawing on thinkers such as Ibn Khaldun and José Rizal, among others. He will explore how western – and westernising – academic curricula have marginalised these voices, and discuss the importance of integrating alternative perspectives to challenge the dominance of Eurocentric frameworks. Alatas will also address the issue of ‘captive minds’ and the internalisation of intellectual frameworks that devalue non-Eurocentric knowledge systems and thus stymie pluralism.

Shuchen Xiang will offer her expertise in Chinese philosophy, examining how Confucian epistemology and other Chinese intellectual traditions can contribute to contemporary social theory in the way Alatas proposes. She will highlight the potential for these traditions to offer rich, alternative approaches to global academic discourse. 

Ibrar Bhatt will engage with the conversation by discussing the structural challenges faced by non-Anglophone scholars. He will emphasise the importance of critical self-reflection within these contexts, pushing for a more autonomous, linguistically just, and context-sensitive approach to knowledge production.

This event will be conducted entirely through a dynamic question-and-answer format, with the two discussants leading the conversation before opening the floor to audience questions. It aims to be an opportunity for deep reflection on how global academia can move beyond Western-centric narratives and embrace a more inclusive, pluralistic intellectual landscape.

Don’t miss this exciting conversation on the future of knowledge production in higher education!

Schedule

Speaker bios

Syed Farid Alatas is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. He headed the Department of Malay Studies at NUS from 2007 till 2013. He lectured at the University of Malaya in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies prior to joining NUS. Professor Alatas has authored numerous books and articles, including Ibn Khaldun (Oxford University Press, 2013); Applying Ibn Khaldun: The Recovery of a Lost Tradition in Sociology (Routledge, 2014), and (with Vineeta Sinha) Sociological Theory Beyond the Canon (Palgrave, 2017). He has a forthcoming book entitled Decolonial Thought from the Malay World. His areas of interest are the sociology of Islam, social theory, religion and reform, intra- and inter-religious dialogue, the critique of Eurocentrism, and the promotion of autonomous knowledge.

Shuchen Xiang (项舒晨) is Professor of philosophy at Xidian university (Xi’an, China). She is the author of two monographs, A Philosophical Defense of Culture: Perspectives from Confucianism and Cassirer (SUNY, 2021), Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea (Princeton, 2023), she also co-edited The Islamic-Confucian Synthesis in China (Rowman & Littlefield). She is currently working on her third monograph, A More Complete Humanism: A Confucian Alternative to the Liberal-Capitalist Subject.

Ibrar Bhatt is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the School of Social Sciences, Education & Social Work at Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland, UK). His research interests encompass applied linguistics, higher education, and digitalisation. His prior work includes A Semiotics of Muslimness in China (sole-authored monograph), Critical Perspectives on Teaching in the Multilingual University (co-edited volume), The Epistemology of Deceit (co-edited volume), Academics Writing: The Dynamics of Knowledge Creation (co-authored monograph), Assignments as Controversies: Digital Literacy & Writing in Classroom Practice (sole-authored monograph), as well as many published research articles on similar subjects. He is currently writing his next monograph Heritage Literacy in the Lives of Chinese Muslims, which will be published in 2025 with Bloomsbury.