New York University Professor Robert JC Young will give a keynote speech on "The University at the Boundaries of Knowledge" during an upcoming event sponsored by Old Dominion University's Post-Colonial Research Group.

Together with the sponsorship of ODU's College of Arts and Letters, the Humanities Institute, the Office of the Provost, the Honors College and ODU Virginia Beach, the Postcolonial Research Group is hosting Young, a professor of English and comparative literature, for a multipart discussion on geopolitical issues and how the "absent university" can inquire into the multiple dimensions of the relevance of academia at the boundaries of knowledge.

Three events, at separate venues, will explore the nuances of this issue:

• A roundtable discussion will be held on Oct. 23 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the ODU Virginia Beach lecture hall, at 1881 University Drive. For more information, call 757-368-4100 or visit www.odu.edu/vabeach. Reception to follow. Young will be joined by prominent postcolonial feminist scholar Sangeeta Ray, a University of Maryland professor of English and comparative literature, and prominent queer studies scholar Dana Heller, an ODU professor of English, to discuss the role of the university in public discourse. Of particular interest to this panel is the potential for theory and political practice to increase the relevance of the humanities in public understandings of key issues confronting us today.
• A student-led symposium will take place on Oct. 24 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the Perry Library Learning Commons Conference Room on the ODU Main Campus. Here, ODU students hosted by the Honors College will explore the importance of public engagement. Student presentations and a roundtable will precede an open forum for discussing how students can directly intervene in public discourse and shape how we approach pressing geopolitical problems on a global scale.
• Young's keynote speech will be held Oct. 24 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Batten Arts and Letters building auditorium. Young will talk about how knowledge is made at the margins.

One of the goals of the roundtable is to facilitate staff and postgraduate research on a wide range of topics relating to historical, political, cultural and geographical aspects of imperialism ­- past and present. Interdisciplinary in spirit, the Post-Colonial Research Group aims to support individual and collaborative projects, to advance current research in postcolonial studies here and abroad and to engage vigorously in debates of interest to the international scholarly community.

Professor Young's work has been primarily concerned with people who exist or have existed on the margins and peripheries of society, whether nationally or globally. What forms of knowledge do such communities produce? In what ways do they represent themselves and articulate their specific concerns-personal, social, political and aesthetic? Under what conditions, material and cultural, did they live? How might we retrieve their histories when they often seem to have almost disappeared without a trace in the past? How might we learn from their experiences?

In an era in which think tanks and super PACs seem to dominate how we think about the world, and when the university seems to be marginal to popular debates about global affairs, this event will ask a series of questions: What are the university's limits? How can the university press beyond them? What use are the forms of knowledge that it produces, especially when the geopolitical landscape looks increasingly bleak and when public discourse in the US seems increasingly vapid? How can it intervene in the formation of involved, informed citizens? What does tolerance look like?