Kenan Malik

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Kenan Malik is an Indian-born British writer, lecturer and broadcaster. As scientific author his focus is on the philosophy of biology, and contemporary theories of multiculturalism, pluralism and race.

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[edit] Career

Malik was born in India and brought up in Manchester, Great Britain. He studied neurobiology at the University of Sussex and History and Philosophy of Science at Imperial College, London. In between he was a research psychologist at the Centre for Research into Perception and Cognition (CRPC) at the University of Sussex.

He has lectured at a number of universities, including University of Cambridge (Department of Biological Anthropology); University of Oxford (St. Anthony's College and the Department for Continuing Education); the Institute of Historical Research, London; Goldsmiths College, University of London (Department of Social Anthropology); University of Liverpool (Department of Politics); Nottingham Trent University; University of Newcastle (Department of Social Policy and Sociology); University of Oslo; and the European University, Florence. He was, in 2003, a visiting fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

His writing has appeared in a variety of newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, Financial Times, the Independent, Independent on Sunday, Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, New Statesman, Prospect, TLS, The Times Higher Education Supplement, and Nature. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and one of the presenters of Analysis on BBC Radio 4.

[edit] Areas of academic interest

His main areas of academic interest are philosophy of biology and philosophy of mind, scientific method and epistemology, theories of human nature, science policy, bioethics, political philosophy, the history, philosophy and sociology of race, and the history of ideas.

His book "The Meaning of Race" examines the historical development, and philosophical and political roots, of the idea of race. It also explores the relationship between the idea of race and contemporary theories of multiculturalism and pluralism. "Man, Beast and Zombie" investigates the historical roots, philosophical assumptions and methodological problems of contemporary theories of human nature, in particular cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. His new book yet to be published, "The Museum of Difference", examines the relationship between scientific and political ideas of human differences, and between ideas of human nature and human differences.

He is critical of the positions taken by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion. "So great is his loathing for religion that it sometimes overwhelms his reasoned argument... he ends up sounding as naive and unworldly as any happy clappy believer...Whatever our views on God – and I am as obdurate an atheist as Dawkins – blaming it all on religion does little to illuminate the nature of contemporary sectarian conflict." [1]

[edit] Politics

In 1987 Malik stood in the UK general election for the Revolutionary Communist Party, a small trotskyist group. Malik wrote for the RCP's controversial magazine Living Marxism, later LM, which was closed in March 2000 following a libel lawsuit brought by British news agency ITN after an LM article claimed that ITN had faked a photograph of a prison camp holding Muslims during the Bosnian War. Although the RCP has now disbanded, Malik is still informally involved with the later incarnations of LM, the web magazine Spiked Online which he has written for and the institute of ideas (IoI).

[edit] Charity Affiliations

Dr. Malik is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.

[edit] Books

  • The Meaning of Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society, Palgrave / New York University Press, 1996
  • Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us About Human Nature, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2000 / Rutgers University Press, 2002

[edit] External links

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