Agnes Cuming Lecture Series
Agnes Cuming Lecture Series
The UCD School of Philosophy has an annual/biannual series of prominent philosophers come to speak at the School. This is made possible by a bequest of Agnes Cuming, one of the first female philosophy graduates of University College Dublin.
Biography of Agnes Cuming
Ms Agnes Cuming, daughter of a King’s Counsel, was born on 29 September 1890. She graduated from University College Dublin in the autumn of 1910, just two years after the National University of Ireland had been established (1908). This means that she actually entered as a student of the Royal University. At the time the degree was called Mental and Moral Science, and was a popular choice at the Royal University.
Of course one of the praiseworthy features of the NUI was that from its inception it had admitted women as full students. There were two women in the 1909-1910 Degree class of 24. Her professors would have included Professor Magennis, Professor of Metaphysics; Fr. John Shine, Professor of Logic and Psychology, and Dr M. Cronin, Professor of Ethics and Politics, who were all appointed in 1909. She achieved First Class Honours in her BA Examination and shared first place in the class with Robert L. McKernan.
Ms Cuming was awarded the MA in 1911 and the Travelling Studentship in Philosophy in 1912, at the time beating Robert McKernan to the Scholarship. He was awarded a prize of £100. She was the first, and for many years the only woman to have reached Master’s and Travelling Studentship standard in UCD in Philosophy.
She attended St Anne’s College, Oxford, and was awarded the BSc after World War I, in 1920. She went on to become the Librarian of University College Hull.
Ms Cuming willed one-third of the residue of her estate to be divided equally between St Anne’s College, Oxford and University College Dublin. The interest from this share funds the Agnes Cuming Public Lectures in Philosophy.
In recognition of Ms Cuming’s commitment to Philosophy and to UCD, the Philosophy Seminar Room has been renamed the Agnes Cuming Seminar Room.
Past speakers
| Year | Speaker |
| 2019 | Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley |
| 2016 | Susan Haack, University of Miami |
| 2015 | Quentin Skinner, Queen Mary University of London |
| 2014 | J David Velleman, New York University |
| 2013 | John McDowell, Pittsburgh |
| 2012 | Christine Korsgaard, Harvard |
| 2011 | Terence Irwin, Oxford |
| 2009 | Axel Honneth, Frankfurt |
| 2007 | Hilary Putnam, Harvard |
| 2005 | Gordon Graham, University of Aberdeen |
| 2004 | Raimond Gaita, King’s College London |
| 2002 | Bas Van Fraassen, Princeton |
| 2001 | David Pears, Oxford |
| 1999 | Edward Casey, State University of New York, Stony Brook |
| 1998 | John Searle, University of California, Berkeley |
| 1997 | Jacques Derrida, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris Paul Ricoeur, Nanterre |
| 1996 | Julia Annas, Oxford and University of Arizona |
| 1995 | Daniel Dennett, Tufts University |
| 1994 | Alisdair MacIntyre, Notre Dame |
| 1993 | Noam Chomsky, MIT |
| 1992 | Kevin Mulligan, Geneva |
| 1991 | Louis Dupré, Yale |
| 1990 | Roger Scruton, Birkbeck, London |
| 1989 | Antonio Negri, Italy |
| 1988 | Gerard Verbeke, Louvain |
| 1986 | Josef Pieper, Munster |
| 1985 | G.A. Cohen, Oxford |
| 1982 | Philippa Foot, Oxford |
| 1979 | Herbert McCabe, Blackfriars |
| 1978 | Michael Slote, Trinity |