LINGUIST AND philosopher Prof Noam Chomsky will receive awards from students at Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin today.
Chomsky, who is professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will be awarded a gold medal for outstanding contribution to public discourse at the Trinity historical society at 2pm.
The auditor of the society, Jamie Walsh, said Prof Chomsky’s ideas “have not only transformed political narrative but brought about an entirely new awareness of how the process of public discourse takes place”.
The gold medal has previously been awarded to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Salman Rushdie and John Major
Later today, Prof Chomsky will address the UCD law society at the O’Reilly Hall in Belfield, where he will be awarded honorary life membership of the society.
Conor O’Hanlon, auditor of the society, said the event, which starts at 7pm, would honour one of the “world’s leading public intellectuals”.
It would be “a stimulating evening of intellectual discourse for students, staff and members of the general public”.
Delivering the annual Amnesty International lecture at Queen’s University, Belfast, last week, Prof Chomsky called for concerted international action against injustice, inequality and poverty.
He said liberals and those on the left should “examine our own failures” and “provide the right answers and do something about them” for “a mass of people with real grievances, who want answers but are not receiving them”.