Noam Chomsky

Overview

Noam Chomsky is coming to Australia to accept the Sydney Peace Prize, but don't expect a silent and biddable award ceremony. Chomsky is an intensely vocal critic of inequity and exploitation, covering issues such as U.S foreign policy, mass media (or, in Chomskyian, the 'bought Priesthood'), terrorism, ecology, the never-ending hoodwinks of capitalism and more. Coming to prominence during the late '50s in the field of linguistics, Chomsky's infamous proposition was that we all possess an innate gift, a natural capacity, for learning and shaping language (sometimes called 'universal grammar'). In other words, language is hard-wired into the old cerebrum.

Chaired by Mary Kostakidis, Chomsky will be answering questions posed to him by the audience relating to the ‘Problems of Knowledge and Freedom’. This obviously has an elastic potential, and gives us the opportunity to see one of the most cited, noted and quoted living public intellectuals think on his feet.

For early Chomsky (vs Michel Foucault) click here. For recent Chomsky on Middle East Peace click here.