Lectures etc

Season 1 Episode 6 of Cambridge PhDcasts with PhDcaster Michelle Wallis.

'Of Monsters and Mangled Tongues - Tales from Early Modern English Medical Advertising, 1660-1720'

Michelle Wallis is a PhD student in the department of history and philosophy of science working on cheap print and medical advertising in seventeenth and early eighteenth century England.

For more details, including links to additional materials, please see http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/page/1193/michelle-wallis.htm 

To find out more about Cambridge PhDcasts, go to http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/phdcasts

Cambridge PhDcasts are presented by John Gallagher and produced by Richard Blakemore and Ruth Rushworth with thanks to CRASSH.

Michelle Wallis - Of Monsters And Mangled Tongues

n the first in a new series of Cambridge PhDcasts Simon Abernethy talks to John Gallagher about class and commuting in Greater London in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

Simon Abernethy is a second year PhD student studying the relationship between social class, commuting habits, transport companies, and local government in Greater London in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

For more details, including links to additional materials, please see http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/page/1187/simon-abernethy.htm.

To find out more about Cambridge PhDcasts, go to http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/phdcasts

Cambridge PhDcasts are presented by John Gallagher and produced by Richard Blakemore and Ruth Rushworth with thanks to CRASSH.

Simon Abernethy- Class And Commuting

Season 1 Episode 5 of Cambridge PhDcasts with PhDcaster Susan Raich.

'Pilgrims and Pirates'

Susan Raich is a medieval historian at Trinity College working on shipping and seafaring in the eleventh and twelfth-century English Channel.

For more details, including links to additional materials, please see http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/page/1191/susan-raich.htm 

To find out more about Cambridge PhDcasts, go to http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/phdcasts

Cambridge PhDcasts are presented by John Gallagher and produced by Richard Blakemore and Ruth Rushworth with thanks to CRASSH.

Susan Raich: Pilgrims and Pirates

Plagues have changed history, stopped armies in their tracks and altered the fate of nations. Mary and Christopher Dobson will outline the impact of plagues on human history and reflect on related challenges that will be faced by future generations. Taking a broad chronological perspective, their talk will range from the plagues of antiquity and the medieval period, including the Black Death of the mid-14th century, to the major infectious diseases of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as the 1918-19 Spanish flu and the recent pandemic of HIV /AIDS. They will also highlight the continuing importance of addressing the ‘silent’ killers, such as the many diseases that afflict children and the poor in low-income countries, as well as discussing the increasingly prevalent afflictions of ageing and affluent societies, including dementia and diabetes. Tremendous advances have been made over the centuries in our understanding, prevention, and treatment of disease, with triumphs such as the eradication of smallpox and a substantial rise in life expectancy in many parts of the world. Major challenges now are to find ways of preventing modern ‘plagues’, such as those facing our ageing populations, and this talk will conclude by looking at scientific research that offers hope for current and future generations.

Biographies

Mary Dobson is an historian of medicine with wide ranging interests in the plagues of the past. She has held a number of Research Fellowships, including a Harkness Fellowship at Harvard University, and was formerly Director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Green Templeton College. She is author of a variety of publications including a groundbreaking monograph, Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 1997), and, most recently, two books for general audiences: Disease: the Extraordinary Stories Behind History’s Deadliest Killers (Quercus, 2007) and The Story of Medicine: From Bloodletting to Biotechnology (Quercus, 2013). Her next book, Murderous Contagion, will be published in October 2014.

Christopher Dobson is the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Chemical and Structural Biology at the University of Cambridge and Master of St. John’s College. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. He has received numerous awards, including both the Davy and Royal Medals of the Royal Society, and achieved international recognition for his research on the nature of protein misfolding and its links to disease. His work provides a fundamentally new view of the origins and means of progression of many of the most debilitating and increasingly prevalent ‘plagues’ of the modern era, ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to Type II diabetes.

Plagues & History

The spread of an infection is an ecological event, with the infected hosts acting like prey and the infectious agents like predators – albeit rather tiny ones. This metaphor can help us understand the spread of emerging infections, the control of existing infections and the spread of infections inside individual people. Using examples from infectious diseases that pose problems right now this lecture will illustrate how taking an ecological view of plagues helps us to understand them and, sometimes, control them.

Biography

Professor Angela McLean FRS studied mathematics at Oxford but soon after decided to become a biologist. After a brief spell in the City she joined the Mathematical Biology Group at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill then returned to Oxford as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. In 1994 she went on secondment to the Institut Pasteur in Paris to work on the population dynamics of murine lymphocytes in the immunology department there. In 1998 she became Head of Mathematical Biology at the BBSRC ’s Institute for Animal Health. Since 2008 she has been a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College in Oxford. She was elected to the Royal Society in 2009, and was awarded the Royal Society’s Gabor Medal in 2011.

The Nature of Plagues

The gold rush of whole genome sequences spurred by the human genome project, is heralding a new way to study the previously unanswerable from pre-history; allowing us to now mine the genomic footprints of ancient defining events of humankind and other mammals. As early paleontologists conjured up extinct forms based on fossil remains, genetic archaeologists reconstruct the origins of genomic patterns derived from ancient demographic episodes. Modern scourges that clog the world’s hospitals represent a major challenge to human health and a historic selective regulator. Past interactions between constantly adapting pathogens and finely-tuned, ever-evolving immune defenses represent a biological puzzlement that is only beginning to be deciphered. In my presentation I will illustrate how we learn hidden lessons of survival, adaptation and genome evolution referred from current views of natural history with new insights from genomes of wildlife species and ourselves. I will provide an early glimpse of the coming discipline of genomic archaeology giving illustrative examples (from the plague, SARS , HIV -AIDS), and will describe how scientists track the emergence and progression of deadly outbreaks revealing unfathomed threats to their very existence. How these non-traditional approaches can ablate extinctions and unlock medical secrets will be the lessons learned from this presentation.

Biography

Dr. Stephen J. O’Brien is a world leading molecular biologist and dedicated conservationist whom uses the tools of molecular biology to help protect endangered species and understand devastating diseases such as cancer and AIDS . He received his PhD in Genetics from Cornell University, USA in 1971. He then joined the prestigious National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health as a post-doc in 1971 and there, served as Founder and Chief of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity from 1986-2011. In December 2011, he joined the Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics, St. Petersburg State University as Chief Scientific Officer. Convinced of the utility of exploring diverse species to advance our understanding of the human genome, Dr. O’Brien and his team have assembled over 62,000 animal and 424,000 human tissue/DNA specimens, facilitating wide-ranging studies of disease gene associations, species adaptation and natural history. His research interests and expertise span human and comparative genomics, genetic epidemiology, HIV /AIDS, retro-virology, bioinformatics biodiversity and species conservation. Dr. O’Brien is best known for documenting the remarkable genetic uniformity of African cheetahs, resolving the mammalian tree of life, describing heretofore unrecognized species of orangutans, African forest elephants and Bornean clouded leopards. He is credited with the discovery of CCR5 delta 32, the first of 20 human AIDS restriction genes, which imparts natural immunity to HIV . He is the one of the founders of the Genome 10K initiative, has published over 750 leading research papers, written multiple books and is adjunct professor in over 12 international leading universities. He is considered a ‘National Treasure’ by man

Plagues, Populations & Survival

Between the 1330s and the 1360s, the Black Death killed between a third and a half of all the people in Europe, China, and the Middle East. To many contemporaries, it seemed like the end of the world; but in the last thirty years, economists have suggested that its consequences were anything but catastrophic. Instead of leading to economic collapse, they argue, the plague launched Europe’s takeoff by improving its land: labor ratio, doubling ordinary people’s incomes by 1450. In this talk I want to put Europe into perspective, comparing its experience of plague and economics between 1350 and 1750 not what happened in China and the Middle East in the same years and also with the economic consequences of plagues in the 2nd and 6th centuries. I try to show why some plagues lead to collapse while others do not, and ask what that tells us about the likely consequences of plagues in the 21st century.

Biography

Ian Morris is Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and Archaeology at Stanford University. He received his PhD from Cambridge in 1986 and taught at the University of Chicago before moving to Stanford. His most recent books are Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Future (Profile, 2010), The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations (Profile, 2013), and War! What is it Good For? Violence and the Progress of Civilization, from Primates to Robots (Profile, 2014). He has directed archaeological excavations in Italy and Greece and is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

Plagues & Economic Collapse

Earth is home to millions of species, yet just one dominates it: Us. Our cleverness, our inventiveness and our activities are the drivers of almost every global problem we face, and as we continue to grow, every one of these problems is set to grow. We are in trouble, are heading into deeper trouble, and are doing little about it. In this talk, I shall aim to set out some of the problems that we look set to face as a consequence.

Biography

Stephen Emmott is Head of Computational Science, Microsoft. He leads an inter-disciplinary research programme, centred around Microsoft’s Computational Science Laboratory, based in Cambridge. Stephen completed a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences (Psych) at the University of York, and a PhD. in computational neuroscience at the Centre for Cognitive & Computational Neuroscience, University of Stirling.

The Human Plague

Jonathan Haslam, Professor of the History of International Relations
The history of Russia’s Secret Services from the Revolution to the Fall of the Wall: the Military Intelligence, the codes and ciphers and the KGB. 

Near and Distant Neighbours 1917–1989

Dr Girard will describe how the “red scare” greatly varied depending on the period, the political affiliation or the country; and the main long-lasting conspiracy theory actually concerned the threat of the far-right and, to a certain extent, of the government itself. 

Conspiracy Theories in France and Italy during the Cold War and Decolonization

What in spring 2011 was described as Egypt's peaceful revolution (which it never really was), has in nearly three years of contestation left behind a trail of violence, death, polarisation and hatred in a society increasingly divided along multiple lines of conflict. The extent of this polarisation surprised many people abroad following the violent events after 30 June 2013, but many Egyptians had been anticipating them in various ways. Taking up the theme of religion and ethics from an outsider perspective, so to say, I look in this paper how Egyptians critical of the Islamist project have participated in a process of extreme political polarization, and begun to talk about bloodshed as an inevitable, even necessary solution. Based on my ethnographic experience of a gradual shift of mood over more than two years, I argue that polarisation, hatred, and violence force us to question inhowfar ethics is a useful way to understand human action, and inhowfar the religious-secular distinction is an apt way to understand political and social conflicts in the Middle East. I argue that we have to pay more attention to the nexus of moral reflection (and oblivion), emotional dynamics, and conditions of political economy in a world where people often don't do the right thing, and where lofty aims may have horrible consequences.

Samuli Schielke - 'There will be blood: Expecting violence in Egypt 2011-13'

Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, will speak about ‘Holocaust Denial: A Flat Earth Theory or a Clear and Present Danger?’

Holocaust denial, the attempt to deny that the Third Reich engaged in the annihilation of approximately six million Jews, has been depicted as a serious threat to historical truth. Others have dismissed it as the equivalent of the theory that the earth is flat, i.e. absurd, illogical, and unworthy of serious consideration. In this presentation Professor Lipstadt will explore these two contradictory perspectives on Holocaust denial. In addition, she will explore the difference between “hardcore” or traditional Holocaust denial and the more recent phenomenon of “soft core” denial. 

Holocaust Denial: A Flat Earth Theory or a Clear and Present Danger?

A Public Lecture by Conspiracy & Democracy Visiting Fellow Professor Cornel Zwierlein (Ruhr-Universität Bochum). 

It seems as if Conspiracy Theories are a particularly modern phenomenon. By relying on some examples and cases, this lecture gives a long-term overview of what they looked like and when they appeared. We possess full-fledged conspiracy theory texts only since the 16th century. While examples may have existed already in Antiquity, we do not possess any textual evidence for them. The lecture tries to develop an explanation for why conspiracy theories emerged only at this point in European history. In order to do so, it is necessary to distinguish between conjurations, any kind of revolts, conspiracies and conspiracy theories. We will show how their coming into being is linked to the emergence of the ‘Information Public Sphere’, as a by-product of the early inter-state diplomatic communication (which has, first, little to do with the later famous ‘Enlightenment Public Sphere’), and how those narratives filled in where knowledge gaps existed. In a hasty run through history, we will distinguish several phases or ‘epochs’ of Conspiracy (theory) communication. Finally, we will ask how Democracy comes in: ‘Real’ democracies were practiced rather nowhere after Ancient Europe, and were rare even during the 19th century. So, in pre-modern times, often it was ‘democracy’ or ‘democrats’ that were ‘conspiring’ against the good order of the commonwealth – not vice versa.

Cornel Zwierlein is Associate Professor at the University of Bochum, Germany. Currently, he is on leave as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. His research focuses on the intersection of political, religious and scientific knowledge. Cornel is the author of ‘Discorso und Lex Dei die Entstehung neuer Denkrahmen im 16. Jahrhundert und die Wahrnehmung der französischen Religionskriege in Italien und Deutschland’ (Göttingen, 2006), and, more recently, ‘Der gezähmte Prometheus. Feuer und Sicherheit zwischen Früher Neuzeit und Moderne’ (Göttingen, 2011). 

The Early Modern Foundations of Conspiracy & Democracy

Mr Dwight Smith Jr will speak about ‘The Mafia & Conspiracy’. Mr Smith’s paper will explore how the idea of the mafia and conspiracy emerged in America, developed and became entangled in very different contexts.

Mr Smith will describe the ideas, experiences, and events through which his book, ‘The Mafia Mystique’ (1975), took shape; the consequences of those events that have led to contemporary public understanding and use of ‘Mafia’ in the United States; and the consequences in a democracy of strategies that were developed for organized crime control. 

The Mafia & Conspiracy

A Public Lecture by Conspiracy & Democracy Visiting Fellow Stef Aupers (Erasmus University of Rotterdam).

In the social sciences, a conspiracy theory is often disqualified as ‘irrational’ superstition or religious belief. In defense, conspiracy theorists present their methods of inquiry as utterly rational – often even more scientific than ‘dogmatic’ institutionalized science. In this lecture, it is argued that both definitions of conspiracy theories are inadequate: they are basically moral labels and informed by a power struggle over ‘true’ knowledge. At closer empirical inspection, conspiracy theorists combine aspects of science and religion to find the ‘truth out there’. On the one hand, they embrace modern skepticism about contemporary institutions, experts and the knowledge they produce. On the other, they are motivated by a desire to believe in a progressively ‘disenchanted world’: by making claims about invisible, yet powerful forces operating beyond the empirical surface of everyday life, they attribute ultimate meaning to a modern, rationalized and globalized society. Conspiracy culture is a complex constellation of skepticism and belief – a rational form of re-enchantment. 

Conspiracy theories between secular scepticism and religious salvation

A public talk by Professor Joseph Parent (University of Miami) & Professor Joseph Uscinski (University of Miami).

Are conspiracy theories overtaking deliberative societies, inflaming discourse and degrading democracy? How much more prone to violence are conspiracy theorists? Which political party is more likely to traffic in conspiratorial talk? Has the Internet ushered in a new era of conspiracy-fueled paranoia? Using original data sources spanning more than a century, Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent provide surprising answers. In taking stock of American conspiracy theories, Uscinski and Parent argue that much of what we thought we knew about conspiracy theories needs amending.

Joseph E. Uscinski is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. He earned his Ph.D. in American Politics at the University of Arizona. Professor Uscinski teaches and studies mass media, public opinion, and campaigns.

Joseph M. Parent is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. He received his bachelors from the University of Chicago and doctorate from Columbia University. Professor Parent teaches international relations theory, foreign policy, and security studies. 

American Conspiracy Theories

This paper examines British and American anticommunist conspiracy theories in the 1920s and 1930s. In both countries, former wartime intelligence agency chiefs set up private intelligence networks in the post-World War I era to spy upon and blacklist radicals -- and, not incidentally, to monitor and control labour union leaders. Also in both countries, businessmen created and lavishly funded anticommunist propaganda organizations. The propagandists in each country exploited quite different anxieties, yet they shared the same goal: to use the fear of communism as a weapon in the struggle against organized labour.


Kathy Olmsted is professor and chair of history at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI; Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley; and Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11. 

Anglo-American Conservatism and the Transatlantic Threat between the World Wars

Join Dr. Jensen as she translates recent medical discoveries and clinical trials into easily understood information about the brains of teenagers. Dr. Jensen offers a revolutionary look at the adolescent brain, and provides remarkable insights that translate into practical advice for both parents and teenagers. 

THE TEENAGE BRAIN by Dr. Frances E. Jensen

Animals with backbones took millions of years to move out of the seas and onto land, then one group turned around and dived back in. Join Dr Helen Scales for an encounter with whales, including the biggest and some of the smartest animals ever to evolve.

Dr Helen Scales is a marine biologist, writer and broadcaster. Her latest book is the Guardian bestseller Spirals in Time, the secret life and curious afterlife of seashells.

Wonders Of Whales

How do conspiracies happen, how can historians use them to understand more about the past, and where do they begin and cease to be relevant to the study of history? Such questions were the starting point for this panel debate, in which Professor Christopher Andrew and Dr Stephen Dorril examine cases from Stalinist Russia, Harold Wilson’s government in the 1960s, and Northern Ireland in the 1970s, to name but a few.

Lectures etc

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