University of Cambridge

Language about ‘plague’ rather than – say – ‘epidemic’ introduces elements of moral and theological interpretation into our view of a situation: plague is something ‘inflicted’, and is conceived against the background of certain kinds of biblical and classical narratives (the plagues of Egypt, Oedipus at Thebes, etc.). While this is by no means defunct (with some very unpleasant recent applications) the overall climate has changed. But it is still possible to reach for this language as a metaphorical structure – Camus, Garcia Marquez – which highlights aspects of the moral urgencies and ambiguities of a situation. The lecture will look at both the background usage and its modern transformations so as to draw out some thoughts on the nature of human limits and human responsibilities.

Biography

Dr Williams is Master of Magdalene College. He was educated at Dynevor Secondary Grammar School in Swansea, he came up to Christ’s College in 1968. He studied for his doctorate at Christ Church and Wadham College Oxford, working on the Russian Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky. His career began as a lecturer at Mirfield (1975-1977). He returned to Cambridge as Tutor and Director of Studies at Westcott House. After ordination in Ely Cathedral, and serving as Honorary Assistant Priest at St George’s Chesterton, he was appointed to a University lectureship in Divinity. In 1984 he was elected a Fellow and Dean of Clare College. During his time at Clare he was arrested and fined for singing psalms as part of the CND protest at Lakenheath air-base. Then, still only 36, it was back to Oxford as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity for six years, before becoming Bishop of Monmouth, and, from 2000, Archbishop of Wales. He was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2003. He was awarded the Oxford higher degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1989, and an honorary DCL degree in 2005; Cambridge followed in 2006 with an honorary DD. He holds honorary doctorates from considerably more than a dozen other universities, from Durham to K U Leuven, Toronto to Bonn. In 1990 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Dr Williams is a noted poet and translator of poetry, and, apart from Welsh, speaks or reads nine other languages. He learnt Russian in-order to read the works of Dostoevsky in the original. This led to a book; he has also published studies of Arius, Teresa of Avila, and Sergii Bulgakov, together with writings on a wide range of theological, historical and political themes.

Plagues & Metaphor

Cambridge University Press and Lancaster University present fascinating insights from a new project that investigates how British English is spoken today: from variation between regions to the effect of technology and the language of teenagers. Join us to find out how you can get involved too. - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/spoken-english-todays-britain#sthash.3uLyc8e8.dpuf

Spoken English in today’s Britain

In the 14th Hinsley Memorial lecture – an annual lecture given at St John’s on international relations - Timothy Garton-Ash examines the competing interests vying for control of the internet

International Relations: The Struggle for Power Over the Internet in a Post-American World

Hear a longer version of journalist Halima Athumani's conversation with the women at the Femwrite group in Kampala - a few days after the election results.

UGANDA RESULTS

Speaking as part of the University of Cambridge's 'Brexit Week' - which took place from 18 to 22 October 2016 - Victoria Bateman gives her response to the question 'How Did We Get Here?'

Dr Victoria Bateman is a Director of Studies, Fellow and College Lecturer in Economics at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. She publicly argued for a Remain vote in the run-up to the Referendum.

Brexit Week #2: Dr Victoria Bateman

Every day your immune system is busy protecting you from the thousands of germs around you that can make you sick. It does its job so efficiently that you don’t even notice that it is at work. Micro-organisms are present in your gut and interact with your body during periods of health and disease. When the immune system hits the wrong target, however, it can unleash a torrent of disorders, including inflammatory diseases, cancer, and autoimmune disease. Come along and be enlightened by our experts in the field.

Panelists: Dr Eoin McKinney (Autoimmunity - Dept of Medicine), Dr Maike De La Roche (Immunity - CRUK), Dr Sam Forster (Microbiota - Sanger Institute). Chaired by Prof Clare Bryant (Innate Immunity - Dept of Vet Medicine).

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Hello and welcome to We are the University. A podcast about the people who make Cambridge University unique. I’m your host Nick Saffell. 

In this episode we meet James Biddulph, the headmaster of the University of Cambridge Primary School. 

We talk about the school’s character and vision, how a trip to Nepal helped him realise that he wanted to teach as a career and we find out how he inspires the team of teachers that work with him.

https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/biddulph/

We are the University - James Biddulph

In this podcast, Peter Clarke, Professor Emeritus of Modern British History, discusses Theresa May’s leadership of the Conservative Party, her approach to the Brexit negotiations, and what he thinks will be the outcome of her Chequers deal when it is eventually put to parliament later this year. Prof Clarke is a Fellow and former Master of Trinity Hall. Recorded at the end of October 2018.

31st October 2018

Are the Conservatives entering their third historical political phase of self-destruction?

With huge internal and external pressures facing the European Union, including the rise of nationalist and populist movements of all types across Europe - both inside the EU and outside, as well as the power struggle going on for control of Europe, can it survive?

With Ian Kearns, co-founder of the European Leadership Network and author of Collapse: Europe after the European Union, Dr Julie Smith, Director of the European Centre in the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, John Breuilly, professor of nationalism and ethnicity at the London School of Economics, and Timothy Less, associate researcher at the University of Cambridge and director of the Nova Europa consultancy, which provides political risk analysis of Eastern Europe.

Chaired by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's Chris Mann.

18 Oct - EUROPE IN THE AGE OF EXTREMES

Professor David Runciman, Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge and author of How Democracy Ends, argues that, far from following the familiar pattern of military takeover or collapse in the rule of law, it is likely that democracy will fail in the 21st century in ways that we are not yet familiar with and that rather than implosion, it may simply fade away, hollowed out by forces of technological progress and social division that we lack the power to understand, never mind to resist.

Read David's feature article: www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/how-democracy-ends

20 Oct - HOW DEMOCRACY ENDS

What is the likely impact of trade wars and how has the tension between protectionism and free trade played out in history? A panel discussion with: Dr Marc-William Palen, historian at the University of Exeter and author of 'The 'Conspiracy' of Free Trade: The Anglo-American Struggle over Empire and Economic Globalisation, 1846–1896'; Dr Meredith Crowley, a Reader in International Economics in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge; Dr Minako Morita-Jaegerand, trade consultant and Associate Fellow at the UK Trade Policy Observatory; and Dr Lorand Bartels, Reader in International Law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge.

Chaired by Michael Kitson, Judge Business School.

20 Oct - TRADE WARS: DEAL OR NO DEAL

Will the future of work be one in which jobs become ever more precarious and robots take over or can we regulate to make the gig economy and artificial intelligence work in our favour? With Magdalena Soffia, former UN consultant and researcher in Sociology at the University of Cambridge, Dr Alex Wood, a sociologist of work and employment at the University of Oxford, Dr Hatice Gunes, associate professor in the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory, and Laetitia Vitaud, HR specialist and writer on the future of work.

20 Oct - THE FUTURE OF WORK

Ever felt your phone vibrate without getting a message? That’s a hallucination. In this talk, Hannah Jongsma will explore the spectrum from normal experiences to mental illness. How helpful is it to think of wellbeing this way? Where and how do we draw a line between being well and being ill?

20 Oct - MENTAL ILLNESS AN EXTREME STATE OF BEING

Many common sayings warn us against being judgmental: “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” is one familiar directive, underscoring the vulnerabilities of human judgments to distortion and bias and reminding us of our own exposure to others’ negative judgments. Nevertheless, we continue to make judgments, both positive and negative, because we have evolved to do so. In this talk psychologist Dr Terri Apter, former Senior Tutor at Newnham College, describes a 'judgment meter' at work in our brains, emerging in infancy and shaping our relationships with parents, children, spouses and colleagues throughout our lives. Rather than trying to suppress judgmental activity, we should respect its power as an inevitable feature of the human mind.

22 Oct - Praise And Blame

David Reynolds, Professor of International History, reflects on how Western perspectives on Stalin have changed since the end of the Cold War and why the wartime alliance with the Soviet Union remains one of the most challenging problems - both historically and morally - in writing the story of the 20th century.

24 Oct - WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT STALIN

What does gender equality mean in practice? Is feminism a threat to men or a collective liberation from social stereotypes? A panel discussion will look at the links between equality at work and equality at home and how the move towards gender equality connects to wider issues of social equality. With Jude Browne, Jessica and Peter Frankopan Director of the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies, economist Victoria Bateman, sociologist Manali Desai, film, TV and theatre director Topher Campbell and Duncan Fisher from the Family Initiative. Chaired by psychologist Magdalena Zawisza.

24 Oct - BRIDGING THE GENDER DIVIDE

The University Library is delighted to have been given the archive of the satirical TV programme Spitting Image. The first latex puppet to arrive is Margaret Thatcher. In this podcast, by Made For Your Podcasts, Spitting Image creator explains why the archive is coming home, and Mrs Thatcher speaks form beyond the grave...

Spitting Image archive comes to Cambridge University Library

Has parliament taken back control and if so, are MPs about to shed their traditional party loyalties to prevent a no-deal Brexit? Listen to David Howarth, Professor of Law and Public Policy and former Cambridge MP, and Simon Deakin, Professor of Law, discuss what’s likely to happen in the Brexit negotiations in both the short and longer term.

A Center for Business Research Podcast: January 28th 2019

Brexit and its consequences for the UK economy and political systems

Welcome to We are the University. A podcast about the people who make Cambridge University unique.

In this episode we meet James Biddulph, the headmaster of the University of Cambridge Primary School. https://www.cam.ac.uk/primaryschool 

We talk about the school’s character and vision, how a trip to Nepal helped him realise that he wanted to teach as a career and we find out how he inspires the team of teachers that work with him.

www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/biddulph/ 

More than just an outstanding Ofsted rating sets the University of Cambridge Primary School apart: it places research at its heart, informing education practice and furthering research at Cambridge’s Faculty of Education and elsewhere. 

Visitors walking through one of the ‘learning streets’ that run through the core of the University of Cambridge Primary School (UCPS) soon notice something unusual. It’s not the fact that they end up back where they started – the school’s Polo-mint-shaped structure is just one of its radical features – but the startling lack of doors: classrooms open up invitingly on each side of the street, with snatches of lessons, storytelling or music audible within. 

The open-plan design both facilitates and symbolises the school’s role as the first, and still only, University Training School at primary level in the UK (the only secondary UTS is in Birmingham). Sponsored by the University of Cambridge, its role is to provide brilliant and inclusive primary education for its local community, and also to work alongside the University’s Faculty of Education and others to be research informed and research generating. 

Building from the work of the Faculty of Education, the school identified three ‘golden threads’that bind together its curriculum: habits of mind (the resilience and problem-solving skills that help children learn); dialogue (exemplified in the new DIALLS project); and playful inquiry. The aim, looking forward again, is to “empower children to make sense of the complex world in which they live” and nurture “compassionate citizens who want to make a positive contribution to their local and global worlds.”

Releasing the imagination: the University of Cambridge Primary School - James Biddulph

https://www.cam.ac.uk/thiscambridgelife/waheedarian

Having survived the civil war in Afghanistan, Waheed Arian arrived alone in the UK aged 15. He went on to study medicine at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Today he’s using smartphones and volunteer specialists to provide life-saving medical advice to doctors working in areas of conflict.

University of Cambridge

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