Scrutopia Summer School 2021 Gala dinner. A wonderful week of studying and socialising with friends old and new. Thank you to everyone involved, we hope to see you again soon.
Don't miss the presentation Ed Husain at the Summer University organized by Civismo and European Reform
"Remembering Sir Roger Scruton"
See here: https://youtu.be/6_BpxLqZ5nI
Read all the latest news from Scrutopia HERE.
When the philosopher Sir Roger Scruton died last year Boris Johnson called him “the greatest modern conservative thinker”.
It seems that he had an even greater admirer in Viktor Orban, the right-wing prime minister of Hungary, whose allies have poured £1.5 million into a chain of coffee shops in Scruton’s memory. The first opened in November in Budapest and is filled with Scruton memorabilia donated by his widow, Sophie.
More cafés will follow, says John O’Sullivan, a former speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher who now chairs a Hungarian think tank. The £1.5 million investment comes from the state-sponsored Batthyany foundation, which also paid for the historian Norman Stone to write a history of Hungary that praised Orban’s leadership
The full article can be read online at The Times here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hungarian-coffee-shop-idolises-uk-philosopher-sir-roger-scruton-657x2npl5
We are pleased to announce that Fellowships to the Roger Scruton Philosophy Symposium have been awarded to four fantastic students.
Here are the announcements posted on project related websites:
We are incredibly grateful to the New Generations Research Exchange organised by the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion, University of Oxford in collaboration with the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb and the Humane Philosophy Project and the John Templeton Foundation for their very generous support.
I’m drinking my morning coffee at home from a paper cup I swiped from Scruton, the Budapest coffeeshop dedicated to the memory of Sir Roger. Scruton is a great space, and I can hardly wait for it to open up fully (for now, you can only get take-out coffee from there, because of Covid). Wouldn’t it be great if American university towns had a Scruton, as a hangout for conservatives, and a place to debate and discuss? Read the full article HERE.
The secret university. Roger Scruton’s work with dissident intellectuals in the Eastern Bloc was risky but crucial. The full feature by Jessica Douglas-Home is taken from May 2021 issue of The Critic, it is available to read here.
Tibor Fischer discovers the first of many Roger Scruton cafés
After their deaths, Julius Caesar and Augustus were honoured with deification (and indeed the late Duke of Edinburgh got that rank in the South Pacific during his lifetime). It’s not quite the same as apotheosis, but I imagine Roger Scruton would be touched that a café has opened in Budapest giving him a powerful launch into posterity. The café bears his name, offers allegiance to his ideas, and indeed boasts many of his possessions, generously donated by his wife. And finally, what better tribute to a philosopher than a place where you can sit down, have a glass of wine and discuss ideas? It’s so symposium.
Read the full article in The Critic online.
Photo from Scruton Cafe on facebook
Read all the latest from Scrutopia HERE.
Music was an essential part of Roger Scruton’s life. He learned the piano as a boy, and as an adult acquired the profound technical knowledge that enabled him to write The Aesthetics of Music, widely recognized as the most important book in its field. He also wrote two books of essays on music, and three magisterial books on Wagner – Death Devoted Heart (on Tristan und Isolde), The Ring of Truth, and his final book, Wagner’s Parsifal: The Music of Redemption. He taught himself to compose (with a little help from me) and wrote two operas, The Minister (1998) and Violet (2005), both of which were staged and which, as I experienced myself, are musically and dramatically effective. Composing for him was a sideline, although if he had not decided to pursue just about everything else, Roger might have become an important contributor to the music of our time
Read the full article HERE on the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation website.
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