conférences

Having decided to become a doctor at the age of 10, Professor Carol Brayne’s love of the novels of Charles Dickens and George Eliot fired up her determination to tackle social inequalities in healthcare. Today she is Director of the Cambridge Institute of Public Health.
Here she talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peek inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.

‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks. 

Novel Thoughts #7: Carol Brayne on Charles Dickens and George Eliot

Professor of Economics, Sir Partha Dasgupta, addresses a recent conference on Pope Francis and the environment, backing the "sound economics and correct science" of the Pope's encyclical  and arguing that nature cannot be treated as "just another commodity".

Our Treatment of Ourselves and Nature: Equity Within and Across the Generations

This talk will explore Mark Twain’s perspective on conspiracy theory in late-nineteenth century America. In Twain’s time, public attitudes towards conspiracy theory went through a somewhat unusual change. Namely, conspiracy theory was becoming increasingly identified with amusement and entertainment. Figures such as Josiah Strong and Ignatius Donnelly drew enormous crowds and sold bestselling books by offering conspiratorial interpretations of history that bore a closer resemblance to P.T. Barnum’s promotions than to conventional political rhetoric.

For his part, Twain was ambivalent about these developments. On the one hand, he expressed appreciation for the “solid satisfaction” to be had from a good conspiratorial mystery. Twain even penned a conspiracy theory history on Shakespeare where he commented on his enthusiasm for what he termed the “conjecturability” associated with conspiracy. On the other, Twain also regarded the public’s amusement with conspiracy thinking as a disturbing trend. If historical events were only considered interesting when they provided a thrilling mystery or visceral head rush, this encouraged people to drift towards political insularity and extremism. In tracing these currents in Twain’s thought, the discussion will delve into widely-known works by Twain like Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court as well as lesser-known pieces such as the unfinished novel Tom Sawyer’s Conspiracy. 

Paranoid Masculinities: Conspiracy Theory in Mark Twain’s Fiction

A Land of Conspiracy: Geopolitics and Imagination in Colonial North Africa

A public talk from Dr Andy Martin (Cambridge).

In 1940s New York, FBI alarm bells are ringing: the Existentialists are coming! J. Edgar Hoover has to know: what the hell is this Existentialism all about anyway – and is it some kind of code for Communism? He sets his agents on the trail of first Jean-Paul Sartre (1945) and then Albert Camus (1946). Sartre and Camus, Resistance heroes and intellectual emissaries, are sending back their reports about New York to Paris; and, at the same time, G-men are sending in their reports about Sartre and Camus. Through their reading of French philosophy, the FBI and CIA develop contrasting approaches to the concept of conspiracy. 

Nausea in New York: the FBI & CIA vs Sartre and Camus

An open lecture with Nicci Gerrard and Sean French (writers).

'Story-telling is how we make sense of the world - especially the bits we don't understand'
Two leading writers talk about how this surfaces in - and influences - their work. Join the Conspiracy and Democracy Project as we host Nicci Gerard and Sean French - collectively Nicci French - for a talk and discussion. 

Lying in the Dark: the stories we tell to keep ourselves sane

In 2003 Jenny Clay Strauss, daughter of the German Jewish historian of political philosophy Leo Strauss and herself a professor of classics, wrote to the New York Times to protest articles that presented her father “as the mastermind behind the neoconservative ideologues who control United States foreign policy.” She went on: “He reaches out from his 30-year-old grave, we are told, to direct a "cabal" (a word with distinct anti-Semitic overtones) of Bush administration figures hoping to subject the American people to rule by a ruthless elite.” In “A Cabal We Deserve: Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and Public Intellectual Culture,” Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft explores the meanings of conspiracy theories surrounding Leo Strauss and the Straussians. What values of transparency in democratic governance, what attitudes towards lying in politics, animate them? What ideas about conservative as opposed to progressive intellectuals? And what expectations for public intellectual life in a democratic society are bound up with all this talk of conspiracy? 

Leo Strauss and Public Intellectual Culture

Anti-terror legislation has been used in several countries to effectively gag free speech about sensitive political issues, but can writing or painting be a terrorist act and what role do they play in radicalisation? With Pelin Basaran, arts curator, producer and Turkish cultural policy researcher; Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship; Professor Anthony Glees, Professor of Politics at University of Buckingham; and Sara Silvestri, Director of Studies in Human Social and Political Science at St Edmund’s College and a Research Associate with the Von Hügel Institute.Chaired by Dr Ryan Hill, Senior Lecturer in law at Anglia Ruskin University. 

Can writers and artists ever be terrorists?

A conversation exploring the implications of trans identities for religious faith with Christina Beardsley, an Anglican hospital chaplain, Surat-Shaan Knan, founder Twighlight People, and chaired by Duncan Dormor, St John’s College. 

Rebellious bodies, faithful minds? Religion and gender identity

Shakespeare experts Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells cast new light on the poet and his times by looking afresh at the lives of the people he was closest to, in both his personal and his professional life.

This original and enlightening talk casts fresh light on Shakespeare by examining the lives of his relatives, friends, fellow-actors, collaborators and patrons both in their own right and in relation to his life. Well-known figures such as Richard Burbage, Ben Jonson and Thomas Middleton are freshly considered; little-known but relevant lives are brought to the fore, and revisionist views are expressed on such matters as Shakespeare‘s wealth, his family and personal relationships, and his social status. Written by a distinguished team, including some of the foremost biographers, writers and Shakespeare scholars of today, this enthralling volume forms an original contribution to Shakespearian biography and Elizabethan and Jacobean social history. It will interest anyone looking to learn something new about the dramatist and the times in which he lived. A supplementary website offers imagined first-person audio accounts from the featured subjects.


The Shakespeare circle

Speaking more than one language, and having a qualification to show for it, has many advantages, as a group of multilingual GCSE students describes in this short film. The film also features University of Cambridge academics who work on languages, and Cambridge’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, who was UK born in Wales to Polish parents.
This film is part of the activities of the Cambridge Bilingualism Network, which was set up in 2010 by Cambridge researchers to promote the public understanding of of bilingualism through their work with schools and communities.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/your-languages-your-future

Your Languages, Your Future

Fryderyk Chopin is one of the most enduring composers of all time, universally celebrated for the originality and expressive power of his music. But Chopin is as frustrating as he is fascinating, because he rarely left behind just one version of his works. More often, there are three, four or more versions -- any number of which might be an authoritative representation of how he wanted the piece to sound. Listeners, performers and researchers alike may find this liberating as well as bewildering because there are so many options from which to choose.

John Rink, Professor of Musical Performance Studies at the University of Cambridge, is director of a project that is transforming the way in which we understand Chopin's work by bringing this compositional cornucopia together in one place. Launched in 2005 with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Online Chopin Variorum Edition will eventually provide digital images of all the available primary sources of Chopin's music -- including sketches, complete manuscripts, first editions and later impressions. Thousands of pages from these documents are already available, and the entire site is free of charge. Users anywhere in the world can explore, compare and combine elements from the composer's music, comment on it as they go, and ultimately construct their own version of the Chopin work to an extent that has never before been possible.

In this film John Rink explains why Chopin's music retains such a hold on us. Referring to the composer's boundless genius, he describes the sources and provides examples of interesting and revelatory changes of mind on Chopin's part. His demonstrations on a Pleyel "pianino" from 1846 are accompanied by images of manuscripts and editions alike, along with action shots of the OCVE website.

"Music does not exist in a single, correct version," John Rink notes. "It constantly changes over time. Chopin reminds us of that because he himself kept changing his music. Whenever we perform or listen to it, our experience is different from the last. By putting his compositions into a digital space, we can model and capture that evolutionary process. In doing so, we breathe new life into Chopin's music and witness for ourselves his compositional genius at work."
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/the-virtual-chopin

Virtual Chopin

Professor Jacqueline Bhabha, Research Director at the Harvard FXB Center for Health & Human Rights, discusses the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe and how the recent terrorist attacks in Paris might reshape policy regarding the resettlement of Syrian refugees in both Europe and the United States.

Compassion or Caution? The Migrant Crisis After Paris | PolicyCast

The Harvard Art Museums worked with the national oral history project StoryCorps and National Grid to record conversations about the artist Corita Kent in conjunction with the exhibition "Corita Kent and the Language of Pop.” This audio sampler pulls from conversations with Mary Anne Karia, John O’Connor, Harvey Cox, Susan Dackerman, and Molly Lanzarotta. Listen to the full segments here: http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/tour/storycorps-and-corita-kent.

StoryCorps and Corita Kent at the Harvard Art Museums

Panelists Sam Harris, Co-founder and Chief Executive of Project Reason and Maajid Nawaz  Founding Chairman of Quilliam, joined moderator Juliette Kayyem,  Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School,  for a panel discussion to reflect on the future of Islam and tolerance regarding it. The panelists discussed many topics regarding Islam in modern society, such as Islam's place in modern culture, the events leading up to the modern public perception of Islam, and Islamic extremism. These topics were put forth with the final goal of collaborating to ensure a stable future of tolerance in the world.

Islam and the Future of Tolerance | Institute of Politics

Panelists Maziar Bahari, journalist and filmmaker, and Tim Greenberg, Executive Producer of The Daily Show, joined moderator Candy Crowley, former political correspondent and host of State of the Union with Candy Crowley, for a discussion on the rights of journalists. The panelists discussed their personal experiences with arrest, repercussions from their past productions and works, and the state of human rights for journalists across the globe. 

Journalism is not a Crime | Institute of Politics

The Harvard Black Men’s Forum and the Institute of Politics hosted a discussion between linguist, political activist and MIT professor Noam Chomsky and Havard Professor Brandon Terry. The two covered a wide range of topics, including the Black Lives Matter movement, Bernie Sanders’ presidential run, income inequality and the power of organized, grassroots movements to effect social and political change. 

Identity, Power and the Left: The Future of Progressive Politics | Institute of Politics

Zena Agha, Iraqi-Palestinian Poet, Mariah Al Abdeh, Syrian Activist and Director of Women Now for Development, Fouad Faris, Syrian Activist and refugee, Douglas Johnson, Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and Curt Rhodes, Founder and International Director of Questscope, joined moderator Marco Werman, Host of PRI’s The World, for a discussion on the Syrian Refugee Crisis. The speakers addressed topics ranging from the world’s perception of refugees to the necessary next steps in solving and minimizing the damage of the conflict. 

Taking Action on the Syrian Refugee Crisis | Institute of Politics

On October 6, 2015, the Ash Center hosted a discussion entitled The Refugee Crisis in Europe: The Challenges of Policy, Politics, and Logistics. Speakers discussed the complex challenges of responding to the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe from several different perspectives, exploring its political context and ramifications, the European Union’s capacity to respond to emergencies within its own borders, the logistics involved in managing the flow of refugees across the continent, and the importance of information technology in shaping events and aiding the response. 

Panelists included: Muriel Rouyer, Adjunct Professor of Public Policy, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School; Bartel Van De Walle, Visiting Scholar, Program on Crisis Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School; and Associate Professor, Department of Information Management, Tilburg School of Economics and Management, Tilburg University (The Netherlands); Tina Comes, Visiting Scholar, Program on Crisis Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School; and Associate Professor, Centre for Integrated Emergency Management, Department for ICT, University of Agder (Norway); and Anaide Nahikian, Program Manager, Advanced Training Program on Humanitarian Action at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Executive Producer of the Humanitarian Assistance Webcast, and Associate Instructor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard School of Public Health.


The Refugee Crisis in Europe: The Challenges of Policy, Politics, and Logistics | AshCast

On September 17, 2015, The Ash Center hosted a conversation with the authors of The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform. Speakers included: Tarek Masoud, Sultan of Oman Associate Professor of International Relations, Harvard Kennedy School; Jason Brownlee, Associate Professor of Government and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas; and Andrew Reynolds, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  The event was moderated by Stephen Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, and cosponsored by the Harvard Kennedy School Middle East Initiative. 

conférences

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