Communication and its limits

Dr Tim Jenkins (University of Cambridge)

Abstract: I have two aims in this paper. The first is to draw attention to the history of the term ‘communication’ and to reflect on some difficulties contained in this apparently self-evident term. The second is to offer some examples of the work done by the idea of communication, drawn from the ambition to contact other, alien, races – so, instances of interplanetary exchanges of information or ‘first contact’. A subsidiary concern is that such an investigation may be of interest to a seminar dedicated to matters of interactions between faiths, because models based on the idea of communication, whether conceived as exchanges of information or as a basis for therapeutic repair and peace-making, will be familiar territory. Part of the Inter-Religious Relations seminar.