Women in Psychological Sciences Lecture 2025 - I'm a stranger here, I'm a stranger everywhere - Asifa Majid, Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Oxford
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck Clore Management Centre
This talk takes its inspiration from a song by Lambchop, I’m a stranger here. It captures the experience of being an outsider that characterises my life as a brown Scottish woman, a first generation academic, an interloper in psychology, linguistics, and anthropology, and a fieldworker in unlikely places. The song is melancholic and conjures images of loneliness, exclusion, maginalisation, and perhaps even the struggle to be taken seriously or accepted. But I want to focus on the converse—the benefits of being a stranger and on the outside. Outsiders are free from norms, so they can pursue new ideas. Outsiders are more able to see blind spots and bring a fresh perspective. Outsiders have to navigate different spaces, so they have to learn to be resilient and flexible, and most importantly they are uniquely placed to build bridges. I would encourage everyone to be a stranger at least once in their life. Eventually you will feel the way Lambchop do when they sing, I would go home, but honey, I'm a stranger there.
Asifa Majid FBA is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St Hugh’s College. She has previously been a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Wasow Visiting Scholar in Symbolic Systems, Stanford University, and an Inspirational Research Leader and full professor at the University of York. She has been awarded various accolades for her work, including the Jeffrey L. Elman Prize for Scientific Achievement and Community Building from the Cognitive Science Society, the Ammodo Science Award for fundamental research in the Netherlands, and the International Vigdís Prize for outstanding contributions to world languages and cultures from the Icelandic government, University of Iceland, and the Vigdís International Centre for Multilingualism and Intercultural Understanding, UNESCO Cat. 2 Centre. She serves on various grant panels, advisory boards, and editorial boards (including Science and the new MIT Press Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science).
Contact name: Charlotte Lowe
Tags: