Lectures and Talks

Professor Stephen Connor, Grace 2 Professor of English, discusses the ways in which literary writers over the last century, including Lewis Carroll, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, have approached and sometimes embraced mathematical operations in their work, often through reflections on probability.

Eben Upton, one of the creators of the Raspberry Pi, explains why he set out to design a computer so affordable that every child in Britain could have one, and discusses the staggering response to the Raspberry Pi.

The Institute of Continuing Education (ICE) will be taking part in the Cambridge Science Festival in 2013 with a programme of free talks at Madingley Hall on Sunday 17 March 2013.

In this talk, based on the ten-year research she undertook for new book Darwin's Ghosts: In Search of the First Evolutionists, novelist and historian of science Professor Rebecca Stott takes us back in time to examine the lives and work of those earlier thinkers who had eluded Darwin.

This lecture deals with whether philosophy is aptly viewed as a science. Professor Colin McGinn suggests that although philosophy is a priori conceptual analysis it is still a science - a formal science. Moreover, it can be described as empirical, natural, experimental science.

The world’s governments failed to meet their pledge of reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Wild populations, their habitats, and the benefits they provide for people, are continuing to decline. But is the situation hopeless? In this talk, Professor Andrew Balmford examines a series of case studies where things are getting better rather than worse.

Throughout much of the 20th century, the wages of the weak were enhanced, directly or indirectly, by the strength of trade unions. In the past two or three decades, global competitive pressures have undermined them. Professor William Brown discusses the different ways in which society can respond.

This lecture explores the history of girls' education in Africa over the past 20 years and describes the current status quo in the five countries in which Camfed International is working. Ann Cotton describes the Camfed Model that supports girls through primary and secondary education and on to securing livelihoods in the rural areas of Africa.