The Hay Festival brings together writers from around the world to debate and share stories in the staggering beauty of the Welsh Borders. A host of Cambridge academics and alumni will speak about subjects ranging from obesity and smart drugs to US politics and domestic service at this year’s Hay Festival. 2013 is the fifth year that the University has run it Cambridge Series at the Hay Festival, one of the most prestigious literary events in the world. This year for the first time speakers include alumni such as Chris Blackhurst, editor of The Independent who will speak with Professor Simon Blackburn on the current crisis of trust in major institutions including the press, the police and parliament following a series of scandals.

The Cambridge Series at the Hay Festival 2013

Barbara Sahakian, Professor of Neuroscience
Professor Sahakian discusses the process of normal decision-making – our strategies, biases that affect us and influential factors. She will describe the abnormal patterns found in patients with conditions such as severe depression, Alzheimer’s and accidental brain damage. Examining how the brain can be manipulated to improve cognitive function in these patients, she will consider the use and the ethical questions of ‘smart drugs’.

Bad moves: how decision-making goes wrong

James Jackson, Professor of Earth Sciences
Earthquakes in the last decade have revealed that rich nations have become very resilient in terms of loss-of-life, while much smaller earthquakes have killed up to 30% of urban populations in countries that are far less well prepared. This contrast is related to wealth, development and education, but also to the geological setting and the nature of the hazard involved. This talk will examine what is behind the sombre conclusion that ‘the rich pay and the poor die’.

Living With Earthquakes: Know your faults

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

Sir Mark Welland, Professor of Nanotechnology
There's been a lot of hype about nanotechnology, but what is it and what is a realistic expectation of what it can do? Professor Welland will look at how nanotechnology developed, how it is one step in the progress of technology, and at the kind of areas it can be applied to, such as the understanding and treatment of human diseases as well as the more obvious miniaturisation of electronics that provides ever smaller but more complex mobile phones.

The Future Is Nano

Tony Badger, Paul Mellon Professor of American history and Master of Clare College
In 2009, as in 1933, a charismatic president succeeded a discredited president at a time of economic crisis and with resounding majorities in Congress. Obama and his advisers explicitly looked to Roosevelt's New Deal for policy models. Despite his re-election in 2012, Obama has lost control of the House where Republicans stymie attempts to avoid the fiscal cliff. Economic recovery is partial and largely jobless. The prospects for his second term look unpromising in highly polarised politics. Did Obama learn the right lessons from the New Deal?

The lessons of the New Deal

Do women need equality at home to be equal in the workplace

Sadaf Farooqi, Professor of Metabolism and Medicine
In an age of obesity where sugary, fatty food is available 24/7, will it ever be possible to control our appetites? Professor Farooqi will describe how the brain, not the stomach, controls what and how much we eat and how scientists are working to conquer the many triggers for overeating.

What Makes Us Fat

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.

Do nice guys finish last – or first?

Dr Abigail Brundin (Magdalene 1991), University Senior Lecturer in the Department of Italian, Pilkington Prize winner 2013
In C17th Italy, the number of girls and young women entering convents rose rapidly as dowries became increasingly expensive. Not all the girls went willingly and some left powerful written accounts of their experiences. 

“Only a pen can ease my pain”: voices from renaissance convents

Dame Fiona Reynolds (Newnham 1976), Master of Emmanuel College and former Director-General of the National Trust.
In a world of rapid change and global, multicultural influences we explore the place that landscape, history and nature play in people’s sense of Britishness today. 

What is Britishness today?

Dr Tim Minshall (Christ's 1993), University Senior Lecturer in Technology Management
Engineers are fantastic – they are the people who change the world. Engineers put a man on the moon, develop the internet, build skyscrapers, rebuild bodies…and so much more. Yet not many people know what engineers actually do. This talk will reveal – in just ten words – the secrets of what engineers really get up to as they work hard to build a better future for us all. 

The Cambridge Series at the Hay Festival 2013

University of Cambridge