Righteous Anger
The Righteous Anger Symposium celebrating the lives of Sir Michael and Ann Dummett took place on Monday 21st November 2022.
Professor Sir Michael Dummett died in December 2011, and his wife Ann on 7th February 2012. This event focused on Michael, but also commemorated Ann, and their joint contribution to the struggle against injustice in the areas of race and immigration.
Michael Dummett is recognised as a philosopher of huge stature. But his role in British politics and social thinking is also critically important, if not enough remembered. Nor has it been much related to his academic life.
Prior to events in 2025, which will celebrate both his birth and his role as a philosopher, this Symposium sought to explain and contextualise him as someone whose righteous anger against racism in our society found its way into many practical, and often courageous, actions - well beyond what normally would be expected of an Oxford academic.
Watch a recording of the Symposium
You can watch a recording of the Righteous Anger symposium below.
Michael and Ann Dummett in front of the iron screen in New College's Garden Quad
Speakers
Panel Chair
Mr Miles Young, New College
Keynote Speakers
Professor Robert Bernasconi, Penn State University
Mr Alfie Steer, Hertford College
Participants
Professor William Emmanuel Abraham
Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York University
Professor John Haldane, University of St Andrews
Dr Kimberly Ann Harris, University of Virginia
Dr Daniel Isaacson, Wolfson College
Dr Anat Matar, Tel Aviv University
Dr Ian Patel, London School of Economics
Dr Paolo Fait, New College
Queries
If you have any questions about this event, please email wardens.office@new.ox.ac.uk
Righteous Anger: the book
Celebrating the Anti-Racist Activism of Michael and Ann Dummett
Commemorating a decade’s anniversary of their deaths, our book focuses on the lives and anti-racist activism of an extraordinarily symbiotic married couple — Sir Michael Dummett, Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College, and his wife Ann Dummett.
Here we explore Michael’s and Ann’s remarkable approach to race and immigration, and their fearless activism.