Summary
The Centre for Global Knowledge Studies (gloknos) was founded by Dr Inanna Hamati-Ataya in autumn 2017 with support from the European Research Council, and inaugurated at CRASSH, University of Cambridge, in autumn 2018.
gloknos (/'glɒnɒs/) is a multi-disciplinary research centre and intellectual community concerned with the constitution, diffusion, exchange, and use of human knowledges throughout history. It aims to foster advanced cross-disciplinary research and pedagogical training in Global Epistemics, as well as cross-sectorial exchanges and initiatives, through a global network of associate members and partners engaged in academic and public-oriented collaborations and activities, an institutional and virtual infrastructure, and a range of scientific and public dissemination channels dedicated to the diffusion of its research outputs to the widest audience.
Visit the Centre's website for more information.
gloknos is initially funded for 5 years by the European Research Council through a Consolidator Grant awarded to Dr Inanna Hamati-Ataya for her project ARTEFACT (2017-2022), under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (ERC grant agreement no. 724451).
Annual Lecture Series
| Annual Lecture Series: 2020-21 |
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| Strauss in Beijing – gloknos Annual Lecture 15 April 2021, Online via Zoom |
| The View from the Land, 1947-1981: ‘Modernity’ in British Agriculture - gloknos Annual Lecture 13 May 2021, Online via Zoom |
| Women’s International Thought: Toward a New Canon? – gloknos Annual Lecture 27 May 2021, Online via Zoom |
| Indigenous Data Sovereignty - gloknos Annual Lecture 02 June 2021, Online, via Zoom |
| Ali al-Sharafi’s oeuvre as something other than simply local or global – gloknos Annual Lecture 09 June 2021, Online via Zoom |
| Islamicate Territorial Imaginations: Maps, Birds, and Related Machinations – gloknos Annual Lecture 16 June 2021, Online via Zoom |
| Kalwant Bhopal - gloknos Annual Lecture 17 June 2021, Online, via Zoom |
| Sarah de Rijcke - gloknos Annual Lecture 09 July 2021, Online via Zoom |
| Annual Lecture Series: 2019-20 |
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| Novelty and the Emergence of the Western Global in the Early Sixteenth Century – gloknos Lecture 28 October 2019, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| The Future of History: From Cliodynamics to Degenerative Dystopia, via Science Fiction 10 December 2019, Room SG1, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| From Epistemicide to Global Knowledge: Reconstructing a Decolonised Academy – gloknos Annual Lecture 07 February 2020, Room SG1, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED Heavens and Earth: An Empirical Approach to Knowledge Across Cultures 15 April 2020, Room SG1, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED gloknos Annual Lecture – Sarah de Rijcke 15 May 2020, Room SG1, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED Towards a Global History of Knowledge? Premises, Promises, Concerns 15 June 2020, Room SG1, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
Book Launches
| Book Launches: 2019-20 |
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| Knowledge Beyond Discipline • Global Epistemics Book Series Launch 29 October 2019, Rooms SG1 & SG2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Book Launch – Nikola Tesla and the Electrical Future 30 October 2019, Room S1, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Book Launches: 2018-19 |
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| Book Launch – Western Dominance in International Relations? – gloknos Sponsored Event 21 January 2019, London School of Economics |
| Book Launch – Canguilhem 20 May 2019, Room S1, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Book Launch – Making the World Global: US Universities & the Production of the Global Imaginary 11 June 2019, Room SG1, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Book Launch – The Transforming Power of Cultural Rights: A Promising Law and Humanities Approach 17 June 2019, Room SG1, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
Cambridge Connects
Coming in 2020-2021: Debt and Credit in Rural Communities
Financialisation, as a recent, but pressing topic in political economy, has been interrogated as a defining element of the current capitalist form of accumulation after the 1970s (Christopher, 2015). However, approaches to financialisation as a theoretical concept useful for the understanding of capitalist regimes of accumulation has lacked interest in incorporating the experience of peasant communities within finance and account for the process of agrarian change unleashed by it. How are processes of agrarian change affected by financialisation? What does it tell us about current value regimes and forms of accumulation? Does it help us re-examine our current understanding of the operations and histories of capitalism?
This online reading group pays attention to processes of agrarian change unleashed by debt and credit. It looks at the experiences of rural communities, peasants, and workers while also examining the structural transformations produced by finance.
Expressions of interest to take part of this reading group should be sent to Joseph Martínez-Salinas before February 26th. The group will start convening in April/May 2021 online, with dates to be decided depending on availability of interested participants.
| Domestication Practices across History Reading Group: 2019-20 |
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| Domestication and the Origins of Agriculture 04 November 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Classical Heredity in the Roman and Medieval Worlds 18 November 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED Commanding Nature in Early Modern Europe 02 December 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Commanding Nature in Early Modern Europe 20 January 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Empires of Acclimatisation 03 February 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| The Mendelian Gene Goes Global 17 February 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED Politics of Hybridisation 02 March 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED: Alternate Twentieth-Century Biotechnologies 16 March 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED: Engaging Modern Genetic Practices 30 March 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Global Imaginaries through the Ages Reading Group: 2019-20 |
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| Prehistory: Agriculture and the Societal Imaginary 28 October 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Mobile Knowledges Before the Classics 11 November 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED Global Classics? 25 November 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Global Classics? 09 December 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Economic Globalisation in the Late First Millennium 27 January 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED Imperial Imaginaries and the Making of Modernity 10 February 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED Towards the Modern Subject 24 February 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED The Imaginaries We Were Born Into 09 March 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED Hyper Globalism and the Retreat to the Local 23 March 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
Knowledge and Digital Capitalism Reading Group: 2018-19 Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism
16 October 2018, Room 220, Mary Allan Building, Homerton College, Cambridge, CB2 8PHCognitive Capitalism
30 October 2018, Room 220, Mary Allan Building, Homerton College, Cambridge, CB2 8PHPlatform Capitalism | Algorithmic Governance
13 November 2018, Room 220, Mary Allan Building, Homerton College, Cambridge, CB2 8PHDownloading the Dreaming
27 November 2018, Room 220, Mary Allan Building, Homerton College, Cambridge, CB2 8PHOrdering Knowledge
22 January 2019, Room 220, Mary Allan Building, Homerton College, Cambridge, CB2 8PHAnticipatory Uncertainty
05 February 2019, Room 220, Mary Allan Building, Homerton College, Cambridge, CB2 8PHFuture Science
19 February 2019, Room 220, Mary Allan Building, Homerton College, Cambridge, CB2 8PHOpen Access
05 March 2019, Room 220, Mary Allan Building, Homerton College, Cambridge, CB2 8PHTeaching Machines
30 April 2019, Room 2S3, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 8PQDatafication
14 May 2019, Room 2S3, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 8PQDigital Literacy
28 May 2019, Room 2S3, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 8PQDigital Education
11 June 2019, Room 2S3, Donald McIntyre Building, Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 8PQ
| Ontopolitics of the Future Reading Group: 2018-19 |
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| Ontological Politics 11 October 2018, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| The Politics of Life Itself 25 October 2018, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Excavating Contemporary Capitalism 08 November 2018, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Geontologies 22 November 2018, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Ontopower 17 January 2019, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Climate Leviathan 31 January 2019, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Toxic Politics & Nuclear Bunkers 14 February 2019, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Global Health Security | Cryopolitics 28 February 2019, Room S1, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Scopic Regimes | The Machine That Ate Bad People 14 March 2019, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Non-Human Politics 25 April 2019, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Ontofeminism 09 May 2019, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| After Extinction 23 May 2019, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Living on a Damaged Planet 07 June 2019, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
Cum Panis Seminars
| Cum Panis Seminars: 2019-20 |
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| Drake, Maroons and the Predation of Spanish Imperial Connectivity in the Sixteenth Century 29 October 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Consent, Prosent and Biomedical Data in the Era of Blockchain – gloknos seminar 30 October 2019, Room S3, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Trade, Empire and Late-Victorian Economists 20 November 2019, 1 Newnham Terrace, Darwin College, Silver Street, CB3 9EU |
| The Seventeenth-Century Safavid Diplomatic Envoy to Siam: A Politics of Knowledge Formation 12 December 2019, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Neoliberalism's Literary Rhythms: Engaging with Canonical Texts to Vanquish the Market Myth 24 January 2020, Room S2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Revisiting the North/South Binary: Towards a Thirding Lens 28 January 2020, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Cum Panis Seminars: 2018-19 |
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| States of Emergence, States of Knowledge: On International Relations Theorising in Rising Powers 06 November 2018, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Intangible Material Culture: Technical Knowledge Transfer in Architecture 28 January 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Ranking the World: Globalising Status Competition in International Society 14 February 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| The Power of Agnosis and the Politics of the Unknown 14 May 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Becoming Worldly: Relationality as Methodology – gloknos 30 May 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Agriculture and Anti-Imperialism: The Transnational Career of Pandurang Khankhoje 04 June 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| [CANCELLED] Consent, Prosent and Biomedical Data in the Era of Blockchain 10 June 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| The Burning Issue: Hazy Relations and the Construction of Knowledge in Land Management Fires 20 June 2019, CRASSH Meeting Room, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
Deep History Symposia
The first event in gloknos’s Deep History Symposia series will take place in 2020. More information will be available nearer the event date.
Transdisciplinary Initiative
The Transdisciplinary Initiative currently hosts four projects: you can find more information using the links below.
Objects is a modular project developed in collaboration with the Cambridge Global Food Security Interdisciplinary Research Centre. It aims to foster innovative transdisciplinary research by furthering our understanding of the scientific, historical, and social dimensions of food and agriculture.
Starting in 2018-19 with funding from the Isaac Newton Trust, the European Research Council, and the TIGR2ESS project, Objects has assembled multiple small groups of researchers from the natural, physical, and social sciences and well as the humanities, to discuss specific objects (ecofacts or artefacts) relating to global food security. You can watch the full series online now.
Leonardo is a project developed in collaboration with the Material Balance Research Group at the Politecnico di Milano. Through it we explore the structures and modalities of innovation and technical imaginaries of the past and future.
gloknos and publisher Rowman & Littlefield International (RLI) have launched a new, transdisciplinary book series on Global Epistemics.
Global Epistemics was founded and will be edited by gloknos's Founding Director Inanna Hamati-Ataya, with RLI's Isobel Cowper-Coles as its Commissioning Editor. The Global Epistemics book series is an important milestone for the ARTEFACT project, one of whose objectives is to develop interdisciplinary research on global knowledge studies. As gloknos's core academic dissemination arm, the series will foster, support, and promote empirically grounded and theoretically ambitious work that draws on advances across disciplines and speaks to audiences across and beyond disciplinary boundaries.
The series will be integrated into gloknos's research and dissemination structures, and will be managed by gloknos's core research team with the guidance of a substantial and multidisciplinary Editorial Review Board including world-leading experts in their academic fields and in the global organisation and circulation of knowledge.
The Right to Science project is an ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration led by a group of researchers in the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and law to further our understanding of how to protect and implement the right to science as a universal cultural right.
We all have a human right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress (the Right to Science [RtS]). The right has its origins in Article 27 of the United Nation’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted in the wake of World War II. In 1966, the UN turned these commitments into binding obligations under international law. The implication is that, just as governments are expected to respect the rights to, say, freedom of speech and due process, so they must also adopt measures to respect and ensure the RtS. The existence of this right is important for researchers and society. It adds a legal and moral dimension to a range of fundamental issues, including scientific freedom, funding, and policy, as well as access to data, materials, and knowledge. Yet, despite its potential for furthering science and human rights causes, the RtS has not received the attention it deserves.
gloknos is delighted to collaborate with an interdisciplinary team of researchers involved in furthering our understanding of the RtS and its implementation as a universal right. We are organising the RtS Symposium as well as hosting a workshop in the coming months. For more information on the group's research, please contact Prof Helle Porsdam.
Workshops
| Workshops: 2020-21 |
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| The Right to Science Symposium 07 October 2020, Online |
| (In)visible Labour: Knowledge Production in Twentieth-Century Science 22 February 2021, Online, via Zoom |
| Workshops: 2019-20 |
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| CANCELLED: The Right to Science Symposium 01 April 2020, Room S1, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| CANCELLED Agrarian Relations: Towards an Epistemology of Land 18 May 2020, |
| Workshops: 2018-19 |
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| Norming Knowledges: The gloknos Ideas Lab 29 January 2019, 1 Newnham Terrace, Darwin College, Cambridge, CB3 9EU |
Open Knowledge Summer School
| Open Knowledge Summer School 2019 |
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| The Science and Politics of Food in Human History: gloknos Summer School 2019 26 August 2019, University of Cambridge |
Public Events
| Public Events: 2019-20 |
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| Meat and Potatoes: Changing Diets for Changing Times? 15 October 2019, Sainsbury Laboratory , Auditorium, 47 Bateman Street , CB2 1LR |
| CANCELLED Can You Live Without Chocolate? 19 March 2020, Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1RB |
| WEBINAR | COVID-19 as a Zoonotic Disease 23 July 2020, Online |
| Public Events: 2018-19 |
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| GM Crops in Human History – Cambridge Festival of Science 15 March 2019, Room SG1 & SG2, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT |
| Objects: Carriers of Knowledge – Cambridge Festival of Science 19 March 2019, Lecture Theatre 1, Mill Lane Lecture Rooms, 8 Mill Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1RX |
Webcasts
| Webcasts 2020-21 |
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| Sakshi Aravind - 'Epistemologies of Land' gloknos Webcast 26 April 2021, Online, via Zoom |
| Eloisa Berman-Arévalo - 'Epistemologies of Land' gloknos Webcast 30 April 2021, Online, via Zoom |
| Leo Steeds - 'Epistemologies of Land' gloknos Webcast 26 May 2021, Online, via Zoom |
| Anna Wolkenhauer - 'Epistemologies of Land' gloknos Webcast 03 June 2021, Online, via Zoom |
| Louisa Prause - 'Epistemologies of Land' gloknos Webcast 10 June 2021, Online, via Zoom |
| Eduardo Machicado - 'Epistemologies of Land' gloknos Webcast 11 June 2021, Online, via Zoom |
| Shailaja Fennell - 'Epistemologies of Land' gloknos Webcast 17 June 2021, Online, via Zoom |
| Laksmi Savitri - 'Epistemologies of Land' gloknos Webcast 24 June 2021, Online, via Zoom |