In this collection of short reflections, four Fellows of the British Academy – Patricia Clavin, Joanna Bourke, Simon Goldhill and Stuart Elden – reveal how humanities and social sciences scholarship can help us to address international security crises, tackle ethical dilemmas in health provision, combat the proliferation of sexual violence, and understand concepts of territoriality.

We start this December edition with Patricia Clavin, Professor of International History at the University of Oxford. Here she teaches us lessons from the ‘hunger catastrophe’ that befell Austria after the First World War.

Joanna Bourke is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London. Here she talks about her research on the history of sexual violence, and about how to combat this global scourge. [at 8:06]

Simon Goldhill is Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge, and Director of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. Here he makes a plea for interdisciplinarity and for collaborative approaches to researching real-world issues. [at 15:30]

2016 has been the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and has featured many explorations of his work. At the end of this celebratory year, Stuart Elden, Professor of Political Theory and Geography at the University of Warwick, reveals how Shakespeare’s plays shed light on the idea and practice of ‘territory’ at a time of conceptual and technological change. [at 21:45]

Image: picture by Bella Vichon, reproduced in 'Christmas Pictures by Children, 1922' [pupils of Franz Čižek of Vienna], edited by Francesca M. Wilson, with an introduction by Edmund Dulac (London: J.M. Dent; Vienna: Burgverlag, 1922). The image is related to Patricia Clavin's piece.

The British Academy: From Our Fellows

From Our Fellows 02, December 2016

The British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. We mobilise these disciplines to understand the world and shape a brighter future. ​

From artificial intelligence to climate change, from building prosperity to improving well-being – today’s complex challenges can only be resolved by deepening our insight into people, cultures and societies.​

We invest in researchers and projects across the UK and overseas, ​engage the public with fresh thinking and debates, and bring together scholars, government, business and civil society to influence policy for ​the benefit of everyone. ​