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Cambridge Interfaith Programme

 
Artist's impression of stars springing up out of the darkness (courtesy of NASA/ Caltech)

Communication and its limits

Dr Tim Jenkins (University of Cambridge)

Abstract: I have two aims in this paper. The first is to draw attention to the history of the term ‘communication’ and to reflect on some difficulties contained in this apparently self-evident term. The second is to offer some examples of the work done by the idea of communication, drawn from the ambition to contact other, alien, races – so, instances of interplanetary exchanges of information or ‘first contact’. 

A subsidiary concern is that such an investigation may be of interest to a seminar dedicated to matters of interactions between faiths, because models based on the idea of communication, whether conceived as exchanges of information or as a basis for therapeutic repair and peace-making, will be familiar territory.

Part of the Inter-Religious Relations seminar.


The featured image is part of a sequence created in 2006, reproduced here under a Creative Commons license (BY 3.0), courtesy of its originators (NASA / JPL-Caltech). View the original image in NASA's collection.

Date: 
Tuesday, 28 February, 2023 - 14:15 to 15:45
Event location: 
Lightfoot Room, Faculty of Divinity

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