Noam Chomsky Lectured in Beijing

    Professor Noam Chomsky, the distinguished American linguist and political activist, was honoured on August 13 with the conferment of an honorary doctorate by Peking University.  Professor Chomsky, Institute Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is known for establishing a “biolinguistic” approach to language study, His revolutionary work is regarded as having opened new research directions in psychology, philosophy, semantics, education, computer science and neuroscience.Outside academic circles Professor Chomsky is widely known internationally for his decades of unremitting criticism of US foreign policy and media, themes that informed much of his public lecture “Contours of world order: continuities and changes” that he delivered after the conferment ceremony to a capacity audience in the university’s Centenary Memorial Hall. He stressed the dangers of nuclear proliferation and imminent “environmental catastrophe,” pointing out that the US and China now account for half of global emissions and that “it is no use to have justice on your side as the chances of survival slip away.”  Professor Chomsky also lectured at Beijing Language and Culture University, Academia Sinica (Taipei) and at Taiwan’s  National Tsing Hua University, which also awarded him an honorary doctorate.