Science / Technology
Law
Philosophy / Sociology / Creativity
Literature and Film
History / Archaeology
Medieval Studies
History of Art, Garden History and Architecture
International relations, politics, the modern world
Classics
Shakespeare
Medical emergency: climate emergency?: Dr Claire Barlow
University Senior Lecturer, University of Cambridge Engineering Department; Fellow, College Lecturer, and Director of Studies, Newnham College
When the pandemic hit in spring 2020, one of the many international crises was the urgent need for protective masks, gloves and aprons. Demand in the UK healthcare sector quadrupled, and supplies simply weren’t available. Most items are designed for single use, so there’s constant demand for increased production, carrying sky-high financial and environmental costs. And what happens to all this equipment when it’s discarded? Some of it ends up littering our streets and hedges; internationally, masks are contributing to contamination of our oceans. Does it have to be like this? Hygiene must take top priority in healthcare, but what scope is there for reducing environmental impact while still keeping people safe?
The crash that shook the Universe: detecting waves in space and time: Dr Matthew Bothwell
Public Astronomer, Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge
Astronomy is the oldest science. The first astronomers had to use their eyes to study the night sky: the invention of the telescope, around 400 years ago, was a scientific revolution which allowed us to see a whole new - previously hidden - Universe. Another genuine revolution happened around a century ago, when radio astronomers discovered how to harness electromagnetic waves beyond visible light to understand the cosmos around us. The third grand revolution in astronomy happened on the 14th of September 2015. That was the date that humanity detected our first ‘gravitational wave’: a completely new way to see the Universe. As with every grand astronomical revolution, this discovery has opened an entirely new window to the cosmos. Matt Bothwell will talk all about that discovery: how it happened, what we saw, and what comes next.
Evolution: sex, drugs, rocks and moles: Dr Paul Elliott
Admissions Tutor and Director of Studies, Homerton College, Supervisor on the 1st year Evolution and Behaviour Course
In this talk, Dr Elliott will guide you through some amazing evolutionary discoveries that have been made in recent years. The lecture will start by explaining some of the strange adaptations that can be produced by sexual conflict, before moving on to discuss how plants produce an incredibly array of toxins and drugs through the process of co-evolution. We will also consider how fossils and environmental DNA are producing new insights about the process of evolution. The lecture will finish by highlighting the importance of convergent evolution, focusing mainly on moles!
How are DNA manipulations changing how we live?: Dr Charlie Morgan
Research Officer, Children's Medical Research Institute, Sydney, Australia
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of CRISPR/Cas9, a revolutionary DNA editing technique. However, humans have been manipulating DNA for centuries and as a result changing how we live. This talk looks at the science, the promises, and risks involved in DNA manipulations.
Erasmus Darwin: sex, science and serendipity: Dr Patricia Fara
Emeritus Fellow, Clare College
Erasmus Darwin (Charles’s grandfather) was well-known among his 18th-century contemporaries, highly respected by many but reviled by others. Energetic and sociable, this corpulent tee-totaller ran a successful medical practice, was a Fellow of the Royal Society and did much to alter the public face of science by sponsoring industrial innovation in the Midlands as well as writing best-selling poems on plants, technology and evolution. In this lecture, Patricia Fara explores fresh ways of thinking about this champion of Enlightenment thought. More than fifty years before his famous grandson, Erasmus Darwin dared to publish controversial ideas about evolution that put his medical text on the Vatican’s banned list. Politically radical, he campaigned for the abolition of slavery, supported the French Revolution, promoted education for women, and challenged Christian orthodoxy.
How is precision medicine changing healthcare?: Dr Charlie Morgan
Research Officer, Children's Medical Research Institute, Sydney, Australia
Precision medicine is changing how doctors think about patients and how researchers are investigating diseases as they search for new treatments. This talk looks at the challenges of a ‘one-size fits all’ approach and how new biotechnologies are informing both diagnosis and treatments decisions in the clinic.
Growing the future: from farming linen to farming wind: Dr Darshil Shah
University Lecturer in Materials (Fixed-term), Department of Architecture, Centre for Natural Material Innovation, University of Cambridge
Bridging archaeology, botany and materials engineering, this talk explores the advancements we have made in growing flax fibres that now enable their uses to capture wind energy through plant material-based turbines. Linen is woven into the fabric of human societies: from its first use over 30,000 years ago for making effective stone tools, to its cultivation by Egyptians 5,000 years ago to wrap mummies, to its farming in contemporary France for uses extending into automotive components. We will reflect on historic and modern practices of growing flax, transforming the crop into high-quality fibres and textiles, and designing wind turbines as sustainable energy solutions.
Why the 2020s could and should be the decade for nature's recovery: Craig Bennett
Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts; Formerly Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth; Honorary Professor of Sustainability and Innovation, Alliance Manchester Business School; Policy Fellow with the Centre of Science and Policy, and Senior Associate, University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership; Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
It’s no longer good enough just to talk about the protection and conservation of nature when, particularly in countries like the UK, so much of our nature has already been severely depleted. We need to stop and reverse the decline of nature, and put nature in recovery. And we need to do this at pace and at scale if we’re going to have any hope of tackling the climate and ecological emergency. In this lecture, to coincide with the launch of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, Craig Bennett will explore what might this look like in practice. How might it happen, at the local, UK and global scale? What might the benefits be for our economy, our health and wellbeing? And how does it fit with the story of human progress?
Where did Covid-19 come from, and when will it go away? LIVE ZOOM SESSION 1PM THURSDAY 22 JULY: Dr Chris Smith
Medical Consultant specialising in Clinical Microbiology and Virology, University of Cambridge and Addenbrooke's Hospital; Public Understanding of Science Fellow, University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education; Fellow Commoner at Queens' College; Co-presenter of the Naked Scientists radio show; Science correspondent for the ABC RN (Radio National) Breakfast show, Australia; Presenter for 5 live Science on BBC Radio 5; Guest presenter for Talk Radio 702/567 CapeTalk, South Africa and for Radio New Zealand National's This Way Up show.
For 15 months the world has remained in thrall to a virus whose origins we still cannot trace. Some say it jumped into the human race from a bat; others speculate that it escaped from a Chinese coronavirus lab. So what does the science say, and what does the future hold in terms of our ability to stamp out this threat and get our lives back on track?
Heart of oak: the oak in history, legend and natural history: Dr Patrick Harding
Freelance Lecturer, Broadcaster and Author; Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
We consider the oak from Birnam wood to battleships, from charcoal to cathedrals and from dryads to druids. The talk also includes Charles II, chicken of the woods, cow wheat and references to bats, beetles, beef steaks and finally, Spike Milligan (the comedian) and Kate Moss (the model). All are linked with the iconic British oak tree.
Animal Rights Law - working with farm animals: Dr Sean Butler
Director of the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law; Fellow, St Edmund’s College
Animal rights laws would mean that people cannot exploit animals or kill them for food or pleasure. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we won’t have farmed animals any more: it may be possible to keep animals in such a way that they continue to provide us with milk and wool and perhaps eggs - but this will have to be done with true respect for the animals as individuals. This lecture considers how use of animal products may be compatible with animal rights, and explores how one farm, the Ahimsa Dairy Foundation in Rutland, may do just that.
Kant’s Analytic of the Beautiful: Dr Martin Parker Dixon
Tutor and Bye-Fellow, Fitzwilliam College; Tutor for the Postgraduate Certificate in Philosophy, University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education; Affiliated Lecturer in Music Aesthetics, Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge
In this talk Dr Martin Parker Dixon will trace Kant’s argument from Book One of The Critique of Judgement (1790) which sets out the intricate negotiations that take place when our ‘faculty of judgement’ is enlisted to ‘discern whether anything is beautiful or not’. The various moments of this analysis transform traditional observations relating to taste and pleasure into some surprisingly radical proposals regarding disinterestedness, universality, and finality. Martin Parker Dixon will also be asking: “Are there any aspects of Kant’s account that transcend the 18th-century context and provide food for thought for 21st-century ‘aesthetic experiences’?”
“Love that moves the sun and other stars” in Dante’s Divine Comedy: Dr Scott Annett
Affiliated Lecturer in English and Italian; Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Robinson College
In this session Scott Annett will introduce Dante’s Divine Comedy, paying particular attention to his presentations of pity and gradual redefinition of love throughout the course of the poem. The text will be discussed in English translation.
Reading Caribbean poetry: Dr John Lennard
Formerly Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Trinity Hall and Professor of British and American Literature, University of the West Indies, Mona; Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education; Associate Member and Director of Studies in English, Hughes Hall
The mid-late 20th century saw an extraordinary flowering of Caribbean poetry, most famously in the Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, but also in a bewildering variety involving scores of poets from many islands, writing in Spanish, Dutch, and French as well as English and dialectal 'Nation Language'. Using Stewart Brown's and Mark McWatt's excellent Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse (2009), this lecture looks at some highlights, nails some difficulties, and suggests some questions, while enjoying and celebrating some of the astoundingly beautiful and powerful work in which one part of the former British Empire wrote back.
African-American Science Fiction: the troubling case of Octavia E Butler: Dr John Lennard
Formerly Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Trinity Hall and Professor of British and American Literature, University of the West Indies, Mona; Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education; Associate Member and Director of Studies in English, Hughes Hall
It has been argued that every alien encounter in Science Fiction in some sense replays the 'colonial encounter' between white and indigenous peoples, but when real-world race enters the picture things can get messy. The late, great African-American Science Fiction & Fantasy (SF&F) writer Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) had problems both with the white hegemony of publishing, and with African-Americans who thought SF&F was for white adolescents, and that she was debasing her talents by writing it. This lecture considers her career and novels, and some of the issues she raised for writers and readers of SF&F.
Fate, resistance, and the office job: Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener: Dr Andy Wimbush
Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education; Author of Still: Samuel Beckett’s Quietism (ibidem, 2020).
Melville’s 1853 short story Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street has variously been interpreted as a philosophical meditation on fate and free will, as a chilling account of alienation and loss of individuality in the capitalist workplace, and as an example of tragicomic absurdism avant la lettre, a crucial forerunner of the work of Kafka and Beckett. As well as exploring these interpretations, this lecture will also consider how Bartleby is an experiment with the short story form that blends realism and allegory and that reimagines both characterisation and narration.
Primo Levi’s Friendships in Auschwitz: Dr Scott Annett
Affiliated Lecturer in English and Italian; Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Robinson College
In this session Scott Annett will introduce Primo Levi’s seminal work, If This Is A Man, exploring the significance of human friendships to his survival in Auschwitz, as well as understanding of what it means to be a human being. The text will be discussed in English translation.
'I smiled at your letter': 19th-century love letters and romantic culture: Maggie Kalenak
Fourth year PhD candidate in Modern British History, Girton College
This talk will look at love letters exchanged by middle-class English men and women throughout the 19th century. The evidence comes from thirty-five collections of private correspondence as well as etiquette manuals, popular fiction, pamphlets and periodicals. Love letters were experienced as highly personified extensions of their senders and facilitated intimacy for couples separated geographically or contending with the strict social codes that governed 19th-century middle class courtship. Correspondence also provided a venue for shared experiences, mutual fantasies and the performance of domesticity for couples during the formative life period of engagement. Within the boundaries of correspondence, couples established and performed romantic relationships while negotiating intimacy. This talk aims to contextualise 19th-century these love letters as material culture integral to the experience of courtship and engagement both for individual couples and within the broader 19th-century culture of the time.
Physically-challenged heroes in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Science Fiction & Fantasy: Dr John Lennard
Formerly Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Trinity Hall and Professor of British and American Literature, University of the West Indies, Mona; Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education; Associate Member and Director of Studies in English, Hughes Hall
Most heroes (and heroines) are unthinkingly whole, readily able, but not in the works of Lois McMaster Bujold (b.1949). Her space-operatic protagonist Miles Vorkosigan is distinctly short and slightly hunched, his bones so brittle they must in the end be replaced, but he does not understand himself as disabled and is a compulsive overachiever; while in her four-decker fantasy masterpiece The Sharing Knife Dag long ago lost a hand, and his prosthesis plays a significant part in his romance. This lecture looks at the clever and positive ways in which Bujold deploys physical challenge where convention does not expect it.
"The problem of belief": religion and literature: Dr Stephen Logan
Principal Supervisor in English, Clare College
What happens when writers and readers have dissonant systems of belief? And, particularly, when that dissonance is unrecognised? Some sort of Christian faith was prevalent among the majority of British/American writers up till (very roughly) the emergence of Modernism (round about 1910). So the 'problem of belief' is relevant when non-believers - or readers of other faiths - read a writer committed to a faith which involves belief in the supernatural, miracles, atonement and the operation of grace. If we imagine our own period being read by Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Browning, Wordsworth or Coleridge, for example, the awkwardness perhaps becomes apparent. Stephen Logan addresses this intriguing topic.
Conquistadores and pandemics: the Aztecs 1521-2021: Dr Nicholas James
Consultant; Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Magdalene College; Affiliated Scholar in Archaeology and Institute of Continuing Education Panel Tutor, University of Cambridge
1521's Conquest of the Aztecs was a turning point in world history. The Spaniards' hidden weapon was smallpox, over which they had no more control than the Aztecs. Then came the demands of building the colonists' cities and labour for their farms, mines and sweatshops. By 1580, two more pandemics later, some foresaw the extinction of all Mexico's indigenous peoples. Yet their descendants are obvious today. Are there lessons for us all in the social, economic, political and religious history of their survival?
Generalplan Ost: Nazi Plans for Eastern Europe in the Second World War: Dr Andrew Lacey
Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education; Tutor for the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education
The ‘General Plan for the East’, commissioned by Heinrich Himmler when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, was approved by Hitler and became official policy in July 1943. The plan envisaged the wholesale reordering of the racial, historical and political map of Eastern Europe and European Russia with the forcible deportation and extermination of around 31 million people as the prelude to German colonisation and the creation of a vast Greater German Reich in the east. This talk will discuss the evolution of ‘The Plan’ and what it reveals of the Nazis’ long-term goals.
When did the First World War really end?: Dr Seán Lang
Senior Lecturer in History and Politics, Anglia Ruskin University
The books and monuments usually give 1914-18, but the fighting didn’t end with the Armistice. There was war in Russia and in Turkey and revolution right across the continent. Five years after the Western Front went quiet French troops were marching into Germany and the bitterness left by defeat was to stay in German mouths for a generation. The ink was hardly dry on the peace settlement before people started speculating about another war. So when, really, did the First World War actually end?
Wars and worship - the turbulent history behind Cambridge's places of worship: Dr Seán Lang
Senior Lecturer in History and Politics, Anglia Ruskin University
From the dominant spire of the Catholic Church, the medieval heritage of the Round Church, the breathtaking roof of Kings’s College Chapel, to the serene beauty of Cambridge’s new mosque, Cambridge’s places of worship attract worshippers and tourists alike. But few who visit them know of the controversy, contention and conflict that lie behind these imposing and beautiful exteriors. Cambridge’s religious history includes political coup, Reformation conflict, Victorian anti-Catholicism and modern-day islamophobia.
"The most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of my enemies" - Napoleon against Britannia: Dr Seán Lang
Senior Lecturer in History and Politics, Anglia Ruskin University
2021 marks two hundred years since the death in British-controlled exile of Napoleon Bonaparte. At the height of his power he controlled the whole of Europe except Britain and he always blamed the British for frustrating his plans and ideals and, ultimately, bringing him down. Yet Britain and France were two European countries with perhaps the most fully developed systems of political liberty in Europe. What lay behind this constant, and fatal, rivalry?
The power of words: the oratory of Winston Churchill: Allen Packwood
Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College; Fellow, Churchill College
In this talk Allen Packwood, Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, will describe how Churchill crafted his famous speeches and broadcasts and look at some of the origins and inspirations for his rhetoric.
Paupers behaving badly: punishment in the Victorian Workhouse: Dr Sam Williams
Reader in Social History; Academic Director for History, University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education; Fellow and Director of Studies in History, Girton College
The Victorian workhouse still looms large in the imagination as a place of dread. This talk will explore actual conditions inside workhouse and instances when paupers rebelled, such as Susan Gilliver, who was recorded as ‘refusing to do any kind of work and screaming murder the whole morning, threatening to smash the windows and after throwing two stone[s] through the kitchen windows got over the wall and absconded with the House clothing’. Paupers also regularly swore, assaulted workhouse staff, refused to say prayers, and, when allowed out, returned drunk. Such behaviour demonstrates that discipline was an endemic problem in all workhouses.
What was Hadrian's Wall for?: Dr Matthew Symonds
Editor, Current World Archaeology
Hadrian’s Wall is rarely seen as much of an archaeological mystery. After all, a wall is something we can all relate to. Yet the modern world reminds us that division can take many forms, with some barriers regulating peaceful movement and others blocking access altogether. The nature of the division that the Roman army imposed remains a source of spirited debate, but it will have determined the fate of thousands of people living in the region. Examining how the army responded to longstanding modes of movement through the landscape sheds new light on the Wall’s purpose.
Between the wind and the water – Later Neolithic sites in Orkney, Callanish (Lewis) and the Isle of Man: Professor David Jacques
Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology, Buckingham University; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
The talks chart key Middle and Late Neolithic complexes in the Outer Hebrides, Orkney and the Isle of Man in the light of the latest scientific and archaeological research. An interpretation of life and thought in some of the most influential prehistoric places in the Old World reveals remarkable, complex and vigorous societies whose nature and development provide new insights into the Neolithic world view.
How to be an amateur archaeologist in lockdown: Dr Gilly Carr
Academic Director, University Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education; Fellow, St Catharine’s College
During the pandemic, so many of us have been unable to take part in excavations, and yet our desire to get involved is undiminished. During periods of lockdown, how can we make the most of daily walks in the countryside to help us build our skills? This talk follows ICE Academic Director in Archaeology, Dr Gilly Carr, as she talks us through field-walking in her area, what she found, and how she goes about interpreting artefacts.
The making of Domesday: Dr Philip Morgan
Formerly Senior Lecturer, Keele University; Formerly Lecturer at other Universities in Britain and the United States; Editor of several volumes of the Phillimore edition of Domesday Book.
Most people have heard of Domesday Book, the book of the end of the world. Connie Willis used the name as the title of her classic SF novel about time travel between worlds experiencing deadly pandemics. Many, many more have misunderstood the original. It is the starting point for the local history of most English places, and the record of a traumatic Conquest twenty years after 1066. How was a national survey completed in less than a year, and what do we understand of its making?
The languages of Domesday: Dr Philip Morgan
Formerly Senior Lecturer, Keele University; Formerly Lecturer at other Universities in Britain and the United States; Editor of several volumes of the Phillimore edition of Domesday Book.
Most people have heard of Domesday Book, the book of the end of the world. Connie Willis used the name as the title of her classic SF novel about time travel between worlds experiencing deadly pandemics. Many, many more have misunderstood the original. It is the starting point for the local history of most English places, and the record of a traumatic Conquest twenty years after 1066. Written in abbreviated Latin, what challenges face the translator, and how can a text in modern English be understood and used?
The dirty bits of Domesday: Dr Philip Morgan
Formerly Senior Lecturer, Keele University; Formerly Lecturer at other Universities in Britain and the United States; Editor of several volumes of the Phillimore edition of Domesday Book.
Most people have heard of Domesday Book, the book of the end of the world. Connie Willis used the name as the title of her classic SF novel about time travel between worlds experiencing deadly pandemics. Many, many more have misunderstood the original. It is the starting point for the local history of most English places, and the record of a traumatic Conquest twenty years after 1066. Yes, it does contain a lord with the name Rogerus Deus Salvat Feminas, but there's more to dirtiness than simple smut.
Gerhard Richter and the Pop portrait: Dr Aline Guillermet
Junior Research Fellow, King’s College
In the 1960s, the now world-famous German painter Gerhard Richter (b.1932) used mass-media images and family photographs as sources for painting a new genre of “photo-portraits”. This lecture discusses Richter’s early portraits in relation to mass media photography and Pop Art, with a particular focus on the nude portrait of his first wife: Ema (Nude on a Staircase) (1966). Although it looks like a fairly traditional nude representation, this painting connects with the Pop portrait in fascinating ways.
Between drawing and painting: Julie Mehretu’s monotypes: Dr Aline Guillermet
Junior Research Fellow, King’s College
This lecture discusses the work of the Ethiopian-born American painter and visual artist Julie Mehretu (b. 1970). It takes as its starting point a series of monotypes exhibited at Kettle’s Yard in 2019, and brings them in dialogue with the artist’s large abstract paintings. The monotypes, like the paintings, play with scale and layering in order to address a set of related issues, including artistic subjectivity and the political efficacy of painting.
Impressionists in their gardens - living light and colour: Caroline Holmes
Garden Historian; Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
This talk explores gardens through the senses of Impressionist artists from three continents – Europe, North America and Australasia - enjoying the essentially similar pleasures of the garden, but engaging with the light from their skies in order to create very different sensations. The enclosure of the garden acts like a picture frame showcasing a living canvas that exudes the individuality, vision and taste of its tenants, their family, friends, lifestyles and, in the simple words of the greatest Impressionist and gardener Monet, providing motifs to paint.
Around the world in three years with Captain James Cook and Joseph Banks: Caroline Holmes
Garden Historian; Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
An illustrated and anecdotal account highlighting the extraordinary voyage of HMS Bark Endeavour that set out from Plymouth on 26th August 1768 towards Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus. The focus will be on plants discovered in New Zealand and Australia, recorded by botanical artists such as Sydney Parkinson. No fewer than 30,000 plant specimens were collected, representing 2,000 species of which 1,400 were as then unknown. How apt that they were pressed between proof sheets of Addison’s commentary on Paradise Lost, bought as a job lot from a London printer. On 13th July 1771, 250 years ago, they anchored off Deal in Kent.
Keats and Regency domestic gardens, 1795-1821: Caroline Holmes
Garden Historian; Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
"The fashion now for years has been in favour of borders wherein flowers of the greatest brilliancy are planted." (William Cobbett The English Gardener 1833).Using Keats’s poetry as the thread and the gardens of Keats’s House in Hampstead as setting, this lecture explores Regency Gardens from a new perspective. Images range from the desire to educate and sound domesticity of John Claudius Loudon’s writings and illustrations, to Joseph Banks and Kew for botany and the exotic, and Cobbett for vegetables and opinion. Trained as an apothecary, Keats would have known a great range of plants used as poisons and medicine, as well as the wild flowers and sweet scents he conjures in his writings.
Interesting concept, but is it art?: Dr Sarah Pearson
Architecturel Historian and Writer
Conceptual art is a sometimes maligned branch of 20th-century artistic production which focuses on the notion that it is the concept rather than the finished product which constitutes the truest form of art. Spanning painting, sculpture and performance, conceptual art can be challenging or amusing and witty – but however it is presented conceptual art is certainly designed to engage the brain and make you think. This introduction to the subject will discuss some of the key pieces and artists of the Conceptual genre.
What rough beast? The re-birth of the Nation State: Sir Tony Brenton
Former British Ambassador to Russia
The nation state, of which there are now about 200, has become the fundamental building block of world politics. This was not inevitable. In earlier periods city states, commercial leagues and extensive territorial empires were much more prominent. And the rise of the nation state - mostly in Europe and then, quite rapidly, worldwide – has often given birth to extreme nationalism, confrontation, and war. In response, the end of World War II and the Cold War saw a big push towards international integration and cooperation, and the surrender of national authority to such organisations as the UN and the EU. The individual nation state seemed to be fast fading as a significant actor on the world scene. But the past decade or so have seen the resurgence of great power competition, the rise of the “civilisational state” and of “strong man” nationalistic rule – all suggesting that nationalism will remain central for the foreseeable future in the way the world works. We look at these tendencies and where they may be leading us.
Time without clocks: capturing the invisible in science and art: Dr Patricia Fara
Emeritus Fellow, Clare College
Clocks tell the time, but they only record a fleeting instant, and often do not even reveal whether it is night or day. In contrast, although pictures are unchanging and two-dimensional, they can portray the passage of time as experienced by human beings. Through analysing a selection of paintings, drawings and diagrams, this lecture reveals different techniques that artists and scientists have developed over the centuries to pin down this elusive entity constantly slipping past us.
What is peace and how do we build it?: Dr Peter Dixon
Course Director, Undergraduate Diploma in International Relations, University of Cambridge Institute for Continuing Education
We may think we know what peace is. It’s when the fighting stops, isn’t it? Unfortunately, things are not that simple. Most conflicts in recent years have been civil wars with complex causes. Even well-meaning interventions can just make matters worse. This talk will explore the different meanings of the word ‘peace’ and the factors that come into play when outsiders intervene to try to bring it about. It will briefly look at some of the causes of civil war and how the most powerful outsiders may not be the right ones to bring lasting and sustainable peace, whatever that may mean.
The world cut in two – again: The rise of China and the “New Cold War”: Sir Tony Brenton
Former British Ambassador to Russia
We have been living through a unique moment in world affairs. Over the past thirty years a single nation – the United States - has entirely overshadowed the global scene. No other country has offered a challenge to US military or economic dominance and the international system has revolved around the reality of overwhelming US power. With the rapid rise of China that situation is rapidly changing. And as US/China relations deteriorate people are increasingly bracing themselves for a reversion to the sort of great power competition which shaped international politics from 1945 to 1991 - the original US/USSR Cold War. In this lecture we look at how that cold war emerged and was conducted, the dangers (particularly nuclear) that it posed, and how it came to an end. We then look at the rise of China, the parallels and differences between the emerging US/China competition and the old cold war, and how things are likely to go.
Plague planet: Coronavirus and world politics: Sir Tony Brenton
Former British Ambassador to Russia
Since ancient times pandemics have recurrently upended global history. In our era Coronavirus has been the single greatest challenge to the global political system since the Second World War. As has been pointed out, in today’s interlocked world no one is safe unless we all are. We have, moreover, several centuries' experience to draw on of growing international cooperation to tackle infectious disease. Nevertheless, confronted with Coronavirus, the international response has been calamitously fragmented. There have been big quarrels about the origins of the epidemic, the supply of medical equipment, the performance of the international system and the allocation of vaccines. Meanwhile more than three million people (so far) have died. This lecture looks at the overall history of our handling of pandemic diseases, the particular features of the coronavirus case, and what the implications are for the future.
How to begin your research project: Dr Sudesh Sangray
Senior Lecturer, Accounting and Finance, De Montfort University, Leicester; Tutor (Business and Finance) University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
Understanding the research process is the most rewarding of activities, but it requires a combination of skills to ensure its successful and efficient completion. Key to good, quality, rigorous research is a systematic approach that progresses a thread of chronological thought from the early stages of title generation through to testing data, analysing results and writing conclusions. Many research-based training courses teach participants what to do but do they teach you how to do it? In this first of a series of three sessions, Sudesh Sangray will introduce a systematic approach to generating ideas using a revolutionary software tool, the Cambridge Research Training Tool. We start with how to fact find our way to generating a research idea. We then analyse the syntax of our ideas, constantly testing for credibility and specification. We apply the TIS system, developed by the presenter, to test for Topic, Issue, and Scope. We then apply tests for correct title formulation, select optimal research ideas and analyse factors that determine our selection. Combining results through a simple ranking process, we generate an optimal title, correctly formulated and with the correct syntax. We conclude by analysing all the types of analysis we wish to pursue during our research, such as case studies, experiments, investigations, etc, using the same process.
How to conduct systematic and efficient reviews of academic literature: Dr Sudesh Sangray
Senior Lecturer, Accounting and Finance, De Montfort University, Leicester; Tutor (Business and Finance) University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
In this session, we shall continue to carry forward the ideas we concluded with in the session on ‘How to begin your research project’. We concluded that session by systematically generating a research title, correctly specified and with TIS components. Our next steps are to generate a Thesis Statement followed by a rigorous and systematic review of academic literature. Today’s session leads us through this process: we construct a Thesis Statement and learn what distinguishes Aims from Objectives. What is the purpose of the Thesis Statement and how does it help focus our research? Most crucially, how does a Thesis Statement link into our research? You will learn how the Thesis Statement helps researchers make a claim about their work and use data to either substantiate or refute their claim. You will also learn how to systematically organise and review academic literature in order to identify any potential gaps in knowledge to which researchers can look to contribute.
Testing research questions for originality - conducting analysis: Dr Sudesh Sangray
Senior Lecturer, Accounting and Finance, De Montfort University, Leicester; Tutor (Business and Finance) University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
In the session, you will see the link between the literature review, gaps in the literature and which potential research questions can be asked. You will see how research questions can be ranked in terms of their level of originality depending on the literature and see how changes in the research question link to changes in testing methodologies. Most importantly, you will see how a software tool like the Cambridge Research Training tool can link your research questions back to the Thesis Statement where the research claim was first stated. You will see how different research questions require different tests which link to the previously formulated Thesis Statements. This systematic approach ensures that you have addressed all research questions by linking all research claims to at least one research question. This rigorous process ensures that the research loop has been closed and you have completed your research agenda. Sudesh Sangray demonstrates how your conclusions and contributions can then be explored.
How to read an Ancient Greek poem: Dr Charlie Weiss
Senior Language Teaching Officer, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; External Director of Studies in Classics, St Catharine's College; Fellow, Praelector, Tutor and Director of Studies in Classics, Clare College
This talk offers a quick overview of the kinds of poems Ancient Greeks wrote and what you need to know to understand them better. Using the first seven lines of the Iliad as illustration, Dr Charlie Weiss explores core concepts, such as rhythm, occasion, genre and myth. (Two further talks are dedicated to specific Greek poems: Sappho 31 and Pindar’s Olympian 12.)
Sappho 31: Dr Charlie Weiss
Senior Language Teaching Officer, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; External Director of Studies in Classics, St Catharine's College; Fellow, Praelector, Tutor and Director of Studies in Classics, Clare College
This lyric poem by the ancient Greek poet Sappho is one of her most famous works, and has been the subject of numerous translations and adaptations from ancient times to the present day. Charlie Weiss offers a close reading of Sappho's intense description of passion and jealousy, composed around 575 BC.
Pindar Olympian 12: Dr Charlie Weiss
Senior Language Teaching Officer, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; External Director of Studies in Classics, St Catharine's College; Fellow, Praelector, Tutor and Director of Studies in Classics, Clare College
The Greek poet Pindar (c518-438 BC) composed fourteen Olympian Odes, glorifying athletes at the Ancient Olympic Games. Charlie Weiss offers a close reading of a short celebration of a victory at the Olympic games of 466 BC.
Ancient myths and ancient men: Homer, Virgil and being a hero: Simon Browne
Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
Homer presents savagery and solipsism as normal to the ‘heroic’ code in both the Odyssey and the Iliad. Whether it is Odysseus’ murderous hate or Achilles’ uncontrollably angry destructiveness, the hero is a force to be terrified of and a man who seeks to impose personal validation through violence. Virgil seeks to confront this amorality - also a problem for Plato, centuries before him - by positing a new type of hero, stoical, self-denying and interested in diplomacy and treaties. Which is more appealing to the modern mind? Are we more Roman empire or Greek kingdom?
Thebes: Professor Paul Cartledge
A G Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; Fellow, Clare College
Ancient Greek Thebes - not on any account to be confused with Egyptian Thebes - was one of the half-dozen most important of the 1000 or so cities that made up Hellas (the ancient Greek world) between about 500 and 300 BCE. Actually, it was a tale of two cities: the city of Myth (Oedipus, Antigone & Co) and the city of History (for a decade in the 4th century Thebes exercised a kind of 'hegemony' over all mainland Greece). The subtitle of Professor Cartledge's book, Thebes: the Forgotten City of Ancient Greece, registers a protest against the fact that all too often in modern reflection it's Athens or Sparta or Macedon that hog the headlines - and not, as it should, Thebes.
How to read a Latin poem: Dr Charlie Weiss
Senior Language Teaching Officer, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; External Director of Studies in Classics, St Catharine's College; Fellow, Praelector, Tutor and Director of Studies in Classics, Clare College
Dr Charlie Weiss offers a quick overview of the kinds of poems Romans wrote and what you need to know to understand then better. (Two further talks are dedicated to specific Latin poems: Sulpicia’s parce meo iuveni and Horace’s carmen saeculare.)
Sulpicia parce meo iuveni: Dr Charlie Weiss
Senior Language Teaching Officer, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; External Director of Studies in Classics, St Catharine's College; Fellow, Praelector, Tutor and Director of Studies in Classics, Clare College
Sulpicia is one of few female poets of Ancient Rome whose work survives to the present day. Dr Charlie Weiss offers a close reading of Sulpicia's witty elegy on her lover Cerinthus, composed around 20 BC.
Horace carmen saeculare: Dr Charlie Weiss
Senior Language Teaching Officer, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; External Director of Studies in Classics, St Catharine's College; Fellow, Praelector, Tutor and Director of Studies in Classics, Clare College
This piece was commissioned by the Roman Emperor Augustus, and is the earliest fully-preserved lyric poem for which there is clear evidence about its first performance. Dr Charlie Weiss offers a close reading of Horace's famous prayer for the safety of Rome, performed publicly by a chorus of girls and boys in 17 BC.
'O brave New world' : Shakespeare's Magic Island: Simon Browne
Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education
Shakespeare’s farewell, The Tempest, is set away from European civilisation on an island where magic and magic beings flourish. The island becomes a place of conquest, revenge and torture in the hands of various of its inhabitants. The European mind and its hopes and values are played out on its soil. Where do we in the audience stand in relation to its powerful controlling central figure, the magus, Prospero? In this lecture we will think about what the playwright is saying about history and rulership in the context of the early modern world he inhabited.
Looking at 'dead' bodies on Shakespeare's stage: Dr John Lennard
Formerly Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Trinity Hall and Professor of British and American Literature, University of the West Indies, Mona; Panel Tutor for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education; Associate Member and Director of Studies in English, Hughes Hall
An actor who is playing dead, or mock-dead, does not cease to act, and five times in his career Shakespeare asked one to play mock-dead at length -- in 1 Henry IV, Romeo and Juliet, Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale (where the body is also acting a statue). What do we see when we look at such a 'body'? This lecture considers the not-so-dead bodies of Falstaff, Juliet, Thaisa, Imogen, and Hermione, with the dangerous game Shakespeare repeatedly played with the 'reality' and 'unreality' of stage illusion, culminating in the extraordinary scenes of revival in Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale.
Scenes from Shakespeare, 1: Rosalind wooing Orlando: Dr Fred Parker
Senior Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge; Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Clare College
Boy playing girl plays boy playing girl... meets boy. This talk takes Act 4 Scene 1 from As You Like It as a focus for thinking about cross-dressing and role-playing in Shakespeare. Is it liberating to think that gender roles, and the attitudes to love that go with them, are like parts performed in a play? If love or marriage are being tested in this playful exchange, do they pass the test?
Scenes from Shakespeare, 2: Lear loses his knights: Dr Fred Parker
Senior Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge; Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Clare College
Lear's unkind daughters force the reality of his situation upon him. This talk takes Act 2 Scene 4 from King Lear as a focus for thinking about the meaning of kingship and the need for status and power in Shakespeare. Why might it be unbearable, or material for tragedy, or something that drives you mad, to cease to be king and become dependent upon others?
Scenes from Shakespeare, 3: Passing the time with Falstaff: Dr Fred Parker
Senior Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge; Fellow and Director of Studies in English, Clare College
In a tavern in Eastcheap, Prince Hal explores whether Falstaff can be made accountable for his actions. This talk takes Act 2 Scene 4 from Henry IV Part One as a focus for thinking about this famous double-act, and about what happens when comedy and history collide. Is Falstaff's irresponsibility a vital principle to be celebrated, or a dangerous temptation to be condemned? And why, really, is Hal spending time with him?
