lectures

Join Dr Miranda Griffin, College Lecturer in medieval French literature, in her fascinating investigation of medieval tales of transformation, exploring the way in which the Middle Ages imagined the frontiers between the human and the animal.

Werewolves and snakewomen

Lord Byron’s death on 19 April, 1824, ‘in Greece, and for Greece’, created a legend that is still with us. Professor Roderick Beaton traces the real story behind Byron’s mission to help the Greeks in their revolution against Ottoman Turkish rule and shows its effects are still with us.

Roderick Beaton is Professor of Modern Greek & Byzantine History and Director at the Centre of Hellenic Studies at King's College, London. He is also Chair of the Academic Committee overseeing the International Byron Conference this year. His research interests are Greek literature since the 12th century; the history of the novel; and nationalism in Modern Greece.

What Byron really did for Greece and why it still matters

What can patterns of history and business teach us? Join a discussion with: Dr Victoria Bateman, Lecturer and Fellow in Economics; Alan Turner, Managing Director, Global Head of Debt and Co-Head of Product at Barclays; and Aditya Chakrabortty, Economics leader writer at the Guardian, to explore turbulence in the UK economy across centuries and the balance sheets of more recent times.

The cycle of confidence

Join Georg FK Höhn who will talk about interactions between attitudes to language and the creation and maintenance of identities in the current age of the nation-state.

Do the limits of my language mean the borders of my world ?

Professor Ian Roberts will explore how languages shape human culture and human thought. Some languages have shaped our world more than others and some of them are not as obvious as you might think. This talk offers a sample of those languages, from Sanskrit to Singlish, via French and Esperanto, with one or two real surprises along the way.

Ideas and languages: 10 languages that changed the world

Football meets French philosophy. Albert Camus was a goalkeeper. Sartre preferred boxing. After his stint at Paris Saint-Germain, is it possible that David Beckham has become an existentialist? Andy Martin, lecturer in French, explores the links between the ex-captain of England and France’s left-wing thinkers.

Writer, teacher, surfer, Andy Martin is currently researching FBI files on French philosophers. He is the author of ‘The Boxer and the Goalkeeper: Sartre vs Camus’, ‘Waiting for Bardot’ and the tumblr blog, ‘BecksinParis’. He is also a contributor to BBC radio and the pages of The New York Times.

Becksistentialism

Educating The Heart

The Path to Peace and Happiness in a Global Society

Humans are social creatures using communications that are ‘regulated’ by trust, ethics, social systems and law. Our world of interactions and networks is increasingly complex and automated. What happens when events and decisions become too fast for us to perceive, let alone control? Professors Huw Price and Murray Shanahan join Dr Jonathan Cave and Dr Hermann Hauser.

The Internet of Things and the boundaries of humanity

Using specialist techniques, the Language Research Team at Cambridge University Press unpick the patterns of scholarly English as they explore the journey of academic writing: from sixth form students to published professors.

What makes a brilliant piece of academic writing?

Today's bookshops are helpfully categorised - crime, biography and memoir, fiction - and we rarely venture into unknown territory. Some writers are breaking down the barriers, but are publishers increasingly pushing their writers to write books with the same 'DNA' and will the digital revolution make any difference? Panel discussion with authors MJ Hyland and Trevor Byrne, digital publisher Daniel Franklin and literary agent Rachel Calder. 

Opening up literature: pushing the boundaries between genres

How far do conspiracy theories undermine trust in government and shape history? From 9/11 to the rise of Holocaust denial, three leading academics will explore and reveal some surprising answers. Sir Richard John Evans is an academic and historian, best known for his research on the history of Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly the Third Reich. Professor John Naughton is an academic, journalist and author. He is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at Cambridge, Vice President of Wolfson College, Cambridge, Emeritus Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the British Open University, Adjunct Professor at University College, Cork, and the Technology columnist of the London Observer newspaper. Professor David Runciman is a political scientist who teaches political theory at Cambridge University. He specialises in the development of the theory of the modern state and on aspects of contemporary politics.

Conspiracy theories: the impact on world history

Times have never been better for single women. Then why is it still so hard? Four women, experts on relationships and sex, share their insight and suggestions.

The s word- spinster - has been virtually outlawed, and ladies of all ages are encouraged to seek out the sex and relationships that suit them online or in person. Being single is all about being free, having fun, doing things your way or the highway...or is it?

This event brings together four experts on relationships and sex to discuss their own unique take on single womanhood at all ages - it's pitfalls, freedoms and the pressures. If it's as great as we think it should be in 2013, why do so many women, particularly those over 30, still find being single such a trial? How can they get the most out of it? Join in the discussion with Rowan Pelling, broadcaster, writer and founder of The Erotic Review; Cecilia d'Felice, award-winning clinical psychologist, author and relationships expert; Susan Quilliam, sex and relationships educator and author of the revised Joy of Sex and panel head Zoe Strimpel, internet dating and gender scholar and author of The Man Diet: One Woman's Quest to End Bad Romance (Avon).

How to be a single woman in 2013, whether you're 25 or 60

The Government's welfare reforms are starting to bite, but are they radical enough, given projected demographic changes, or do we need a complete rethink of our social values? With Rory Meakin, Professor Simon Szreter, Bill Davies, Jeff Miley and chaired by Gaby Hinsliff.

Rory Meakin is Head of Tax Policy at the TaxPayers' Alliance. He has contributed to projects on a variety of subjects from local government spending to an influential paper on simplifying taxes on income called Abolish National Insurance. Simon Szreter is Professor in History and Public Policy at Cambridge. He teaches modern British economic and social history since 1700. His main fields of research are demographic and social history, the history of empirical social science and the relationship between history and contemporary public policy issues. Jeff Miley is Lecturer of Political Sociology in the Department of Sociology at Cambridge. His research interests include nationalism, language politics, identity politics, immigration, religion and politics, regime types, and democratic theory.

Is Britain's welfare system ready for the 21st century?

In the light of the discharge of the jury in the trial of Vicky Pryce, questions have been asked about the value of the jury system. Professor John Spencer discusses the pitfalls of the system over the years, and suggests ways in which the delivery of justice might be improved.

Professor Spencer is Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Centre for European Legal Studies, and Honorary President of the European Criminal Law Association. He has written extensively on criminal justice matters and has been involved in a number of law reform projects.

For more information about Professor Spencer, please refer to his profile at http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/jr-spencer/79

Law in Focus is a collection of short videos featuring academics from the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, addressing legal issues in current affairs and the news. These issues are examples of the many which challenge researchers and students studying undergraduate and postgraduate law at the Faculty.

The Defects of Jury Trials

Dr Findlay Stark examines the defence of marital coercion, which recently hit the headlines with the trials of Vicky Pryce and former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne for perverting the course of justice over an attempt to transfer penalty points for a speeding offence.

Findlay Stark is the Yates Glazebrook Fellow in Law at Jesus College, Cambridge. His interests lie in the Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Evidence, and Legal Theory. For more information about Dr Stark, please refer to his staff profile: http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/fgf-stark/4759

Law in Focus is a collection of short videos featuring academics from the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, addressing legal issues in current affairs and the news. These issues are examples of the many which challenge researchers and students studying undergraduate and postgraduate law at the Faculty.

The Criminal Defence of Marital Coercion

Decisions of the European Court of Human Rights holding that the UK’s blanket ban on voting by convicted prisoners violates Article 3 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights have caused controversy in the UK.

Professor David Feldman discusses the judgements of the European Court, and considers the principles behind allowing prisoners to vote.

Professor Feldman is Rouse Ball Professor of English Law, Honorary Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and Fellow of the British Academy. He has acted as advisor to a number of Government Joint Select Committees, and was Judge of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2002-10. For more information about Professor Feldman, please refer to his profile at http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/dj-feldman/723

Law in Focus is a collection of short videos featuring academics from the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, addressing legal issues in current affairs and the news. These issues are examples of the many which challenge researchers and students studying undergraduate and postgraduate law at the Faculty.

Votes for Prisoners? Democracy and the European Convention on Human Rights

These lectures suggest a number of different ways in which to take Shakespeare's comedies seriously, and to appreciate how seriously he took them. They weren't meant to give the students a general introduction, but rather to support their other work on Shakespeare by suggesting some different angles from which to approach him.

Comedy And Contradiction

hese lectures suggest a number of different ways in which to take Shakespeare's comedies seriously, and to appreciate how seriously he took them. They weren't meant to give the students a general introduction, but rather to support their other work on Shakespeare by suggesting some different angles from which to approach him.

Jokes and Dreams

Simon Blackburn, Professor of Philosophy, and Chris Blackhurst, editor of The Independent
Trust in British public life has now reached catastrophically low levels for parliament, the press, the banks, the police and the NHS. Just as the National Rifle Association in the USA claims that the solution to gun crime lies in more guns, our government (and, for instance, The Times) preaches that the cure for decline in trust lies in less public service and more profit motive. The conversation will reflect on this alarming state of affairs.

lectures

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