Is Post-modernism to Blame for Our Post-truth World? (the Forum)

Did Derrida make us do it? Is our current situation the inevitable outcome of the intellectual adventuring of the twentieth century that critiqued grand narratives and challenged absolute truths? Or should we call upon the critical scepticism of post-modernism and post-structuralism with renewed vigour, to better see through the smoke and mirrors of contemporary culture? We ask what the relationship is between facts, alternative facts, and fiction, and explore the precarious status of truth in the twenty-first century.

Speakers
Mark Currie, Professor of Contemporary Literature, Queen Mary, University of London
Alison Gibbons, Reader in Contemporary Stylistics, Sheffield Hallam University
James Ladyman, Professor of Philosophy, University of Bristol
Hilary Lawson, Director of the Institute of Art and Ideas

Chair
Shahidha Bari, Fellow, The Forum; Senior Lecturer in Romanticism in the Department of English, Queen Mary, University of London