Wolfson College Podcasts: Recent Episodes
Oxford University
Wolfson is the largest graduate college in Oxford. Our diverse student body has a wide spread of disciplines and nationalities. The College is both traditional and unconventional, forward thinking and friendly.
Wolfson College marks Black History Month 2020 with an engaging discussion with Britain's foremost experts on the history of black lives and communities in Britain. In this panel discussion we look at the deep and fascinating history of black individuals and communities in the UK, and how this history connects with and informs the concerns and goals of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Olivette Otele PhD, FRHistS is a Professor of History of Slavery and Memory of enslavement at the University of Bristol. She is a Fellow and a Vice President of the Royal Historical Society. Hakim Adi is a Professor of the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester. He was a founder member in 1991 of the Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA), which he chaired for several years.
In this year's Haldane lecture, Professor Kathy Willis examines the newly emerging 'green health' scientific evidence-base. The lecture is introduced by the College President, Sir Tim Hitchens. It has long been recognized that nature, especially in cities, is more than just street furniture. It is relatively well-known that trees, shrubs and flowers can provide shade in the summer, removal of particulate matter from polluted air, and habitats for birds, insects and other city-dwelling biodiversity.
Less well-known is the fact that nature can also directly influence our health. The amount of green space, the number of healthy trees and overall color of green of a neighborhood all appear to be important for physical and mental well-being. Intriguing correlations have been emerging from a number of large studies recently to suggest that these features can be associated with reduced incidences of obesity, cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases and depression.
But what is it about nature that leads to these improved health outcomes? Whilst many studies have demonstrated correlations between nature and health, the vast majority do not provide the underlying scientific evidence base to determine causality and this is a recognized knowledge gap. To address this, a new scientific discipline is emerging. This is one which aims to determine the physiological and psychological responses to different kinds of nature that lead to improved health outcomes. This “green health” agenda is being driven forward not by biodiversity scientists, but primarily by the medical profession and public health professionals. They recognize the huge potential of green prescriptions.
This talk examines this newly emerging ‘green health’ scientific evidence-base. In particular it discusses studies that have examined physiological and psychological responses to diversity, color, shape (fractal dimension), and smells of nature. What emerges is compelling evidence for quantifiable and significant health benefits associated with certain types of biodiversity.
Professor Willis, Principal at St Edmund Hall, holds a position in the departmen of Zoology as Professor of Biodiversity and Head of the Oxford Long-term Ecology group. Her research focuses on the use of fossils and modern datasets, models and innovative technologies to determine the diversity, distribution and ambudance of plants and animals across global landscapes.
This Wolfson College Lecture Series aims to explore the socio-legal dimensions of our experience in courts, and with other forms of legal proceedings. In this lecture entitled "A Tale of Two Europes", The Rt Hon Lord Reed focuses on Law and Europe.
Oscar-winning journalist, filmmaker and activist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy delivers the Sarfraz Pakistan Lecture. The lecture is introduced by Sir Tim Hitchens, College President. Pakistan, a deeply patriarchal society is rapidly changing and women are at the forefront. This lecture explores the ways in which women across the country are working on the grassroots level to create spheres of influence pushing back on archaic laws, age old practice and using the Internet to arm themselves to have a greater voice in society. This push against a power structure in a country where men make all the rules has led to a backlash against women with more voices calling for women to conform to traditional roles but this generation has dug its heels to fight back. As a filmmaker, Sharmeen, has documented this changing role over two decades. This lecture will use film and personal testimonies of the activists she has documented to demonstrate the rapidly shifting landscape.
A speech given by Sir Richard Sorabji at the launch party for the Jon Stallworthy Poetry Prize Campaign.
The 2019 Ronald Syme lecture was presented by Professor Alan Bowman and introduced by Sir Tim Hitchens. Alexandria was for many centuries, the largest and most important city in the eastern Mediterranean. This lecture explores how Rome tried to ensure its political stability which was crucial for its military control and economic interests in the east. This involved direct and indirect management by the imperial house of its role as the conduit through which the wealth of Egypt and the eastern luxury goods reached the Mediterranean and Italy. At the same time, the complex social and cultural character of its population changed and developed a profile distinct from the earlier period under the Ptolemies, turning it into a 'world-capital' which attracted the presence and influence of elites from Rome and the wider empire.
Ambassador Nicholas Burns, former US Political Director and NATO Ambassador, delivered the final lecture in the Wolfson Lecture Series: Diplomacy in the 21st Century. He is introduced by Sir Tim Hitchens, College President.
Sir Peter Gluckman, Former New Zealand Chief Scientific Advisor, presented the fourth Wolfson College Lecture in this series on modern diplomacy. The lecture was introduced by Sir Tim Hitchens. Science diplomacy has become much more than international science collaboration; it is primarily the intentional application of science (both natural and social) or scientific expertise in furtherance of diplomatic objectives. Structures for effective science diplomacies are often lacking; emerging issues drive a new emphasis on the global commons and thus the need for science diplomacy. The paradox, however, is that while globalization is being impaired, the need to address issues of the global commons is rising. Science can assist with most policy challenges, and in this lecture Sir Peter Gluckman explains that this is true also for much of diplomacy.
In the third 'Diplomacy for the 21st Century' Lecture, Sir Tim Hitchens concentrates on 21st-century diplomacy, and how it differs from 20th-century diplomacy Diplomacy for the 21st Century' is a Wolfson College Lecture Series that gives insight into how diplomacy is done in a modern age and the vital work that the diplomatic service does in strengthening relationships across borders. After 35 years working in diplomacy, Sir Tim considers how 21st-century diplomacy will be different from 20th-century diplomacy. He considers the evolution of diplomatic tradecraft, and the different cultures of diplomacy around the world. Sir Tim argues that the biggest challenge this century, will be between rules-based international relations and power-based. However, he goes on to explain that for rules-based diplomacy to survive, the rules themselves need to evolve to reflect changing realities, and that arguing for the status quo is a dead end.
The second Wolfson College Lecture in Diplomacy for the 21st Century was presented by Yamina Karitanyi, the current High Commissioner for the Republic of Rwanda to the United Kingdom . The lecture was introduced by College President, Sir Tim Hitchens. In the second lecture of the Diplomacy for the 21st Century Series, Karitanyi takes the ending of Rwanda's Presidency of the African Union as the starting point for a consideration of how Africa's perspectives will change global diplomacy in the twenty-first century. She will offer thoughts on the way in which regional and continental integration across Africa may change the way in which the continent is seen globally, and the role it can play. Sir Tim commented, "in our focus on China and India, we sometimes forget that Africa is also one of this century’s emerging giants. Rwanda shows how dramatic transformation is possible - but how do you balance development and democracy? This lecture will help answer those questions.". Yamina Karitanyi is currently the High Commissioner for the Republic of Rwanda to the United Kingdom, and non-resident Ambassador to Ireland since September 2015. Having held various senior positions over ten years at GoodWorks International, a strategic consulting and advisory firm that services multinational corporations and governments, in the USA and East Africa, Karitanyi has a proven track record in international business, operations management, business negotiations, and Diplomacy.
The 2019 Haldane Lecture was delivered by Sir Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the Royal Society, on February 7th at Wolfson College, Oxford. The lecture was introduced by College President Sir Tim Hitchens. The thousands of genes in our DNA are translated by ribosomes - ancient, enormous molecular machines that read the genetic code to make the thousands of proteins that carry out the functions of life. Although the ribosome was discovered in the 1950s, unravelling its million atom structure took over four decades. Venki Ramakrishnan will frame this in term of his career and show how science does not proceed in a series of logical steps but in fits and starts, with many characters and their egos, rivalries, competition and collaboration, blunders and dead ends. Sir Venki is a structural biologist who in 2009 received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and was knighted in 2012. In 2015, he was elected as President of the Royal Society.
Wolfson College was honoured to have Koji Tsuruoka, Ambassador of Japan, to present this year's Wolfson Lecture Series in Diplomacy for the 21st Century. The lecture was introduced by College President Sir Tim Hitchens. Tectonic plates are shifting in the world, nowhere more so than in earthquake prone East Asia. If the critical global relationship now is the US with China, then Asian Diplomacy will be a key determinant in global affairs this decade and beyond. This is not something happening on the edge of the globe; it’s not the 'Far East'. Japan, China and the US are now arguably the centre of world affairs. In the course of his lecture, Ambassador Tsuruoka examines the way that Asia continues to gain in importance in the international community with its vast population and growing economies, and how the region also faces numerous challenges.
Diplomacy for the 21st Century is a Wolfson College Lecture Series that will give insight into how diplomacy is done in a modern age and the vital work that the diplomatic service does in strengthening relationships across borders.
The 4th Aris Lecture in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies was delivered by Dr Sam van Schaik (British Library) on 15th November 2018 at Wolfson College, Oxford. The lecture was introduced by Professor Ulrike Roesler. Books of spells are a constant but little studied aspect of Tibetan Buddhism. Used by lay people as well as monks and nuns, they contain a variety of rituals covering divination, healing and protection, making rain and stopping hail, and summoning and exorcising spirits and demons. Some books of spells contain other kinds of spells as well, such as to make someone fall in love, or to gain powers of clairvoyance, invisibility, and finding hidden treasure. Some, but not all books of spells contain aggressive spells -- what we commonly call 'black magic'. This talk looks at the role of books of spells in Tibetan Buddhism, and how the use of magic fits within the Buddhist ethical framework.
The 2018 Sarfraz Pakistan Lecture was delivered by nuclear physicist Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy on October 18th at Wolfson College, Oxford. The lecture was introduced by College President Sir Tim Hitchens. Pakistan in 2018 elected as its new leader a crusading populist heading a young, inexperienced political movement. Widespread hopes for social change will soon clash with profound crises which are existential in nature. I will look at three issues where failure to find a path forward may imperil the future stability of the country and the lives of its people. First, there is a monumental and worsening crisis of governance, state legitimacy and national identity which accommodates and even fosters Islamist radicals but marginalizes progressive forces and stands in the way of structural reform. Second, climate change and the growing demands from an exploding population cast a growing shadow over the natural environment. And third, the growing reliance on nuclear weapons to shield Pakistan as its army seeks to settle scores with India creates risks of catastrophe. I shall discuss how Pakistan may possibly work itself away from these difficulties.
The 2018 Ronald Syme Lecture was delivered by Professor Kathleen Coleman, James Loeb Professor of the Classics at Harvard University, on 1st November. The lecture was introduced by Wolfson College President Sir Tim Hitchens. After much jockeying between Rome and Parthia for control of Armenia, the Romans agreed to the reinstatement of the Parthian prince, Tiridates, on the Armenian throne, on condition that he be crowned at Rome by Nero. A surviving fragment of the Roman History of Cassius Dio recounts the remarkable nine-month journey undertaken by Tiridates, his wife, and their retinue of thousands overland from Armenia to Italy, and their ensuing detour to the Bay of Naples, where they were treated to a spectacular display in the arena at Puteoli. This episode tends to be overlooked in favor of the subsequent coronation in Rome. But the more one thinks about it, the more intriguing the detour becomes. This paper suggests reasons, diplomatic and otherwise, for the apparently illogical choice of route and the reception that was laid on for Tiridates at the end of it.
The 2018 Wolfson Haldane Lecture was delivered by Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell and introduced by Professor Philomen Probert. Stroke is the third greatest killer and causes massive disability, yet there are few effective treatments. It is caused by a disruption of blood flow to part of the brain resulting in a catastrophic cascade and death of vital brain cells (neurones). We showed that inflammation, not commonly associated with brain disease, is a major factor in brain damage caused by a stroke and may also contribute to the devastating consequences of brain injury, haemorrhage and dementias. We have identified a key mediator of the inflammatory processes in stroke, a protein called interleukin-1 (IL-1). We have identified cell sources of IL-1, know it acts in the brain and in the rest of the body and have completed an early clinical trial of an IL-1 blocker in stroke and brain haemorrhage patients. These findings, plans and hopes for the future will be discussed.
Professor Greg Woolf, Director of the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London, gave this year's Ronald Syme Lecture at Wolfson College, Oxford. The lecture was introduced by Professor Philomen Probert. Romans told many myths of their civic inclusiveness, myths repeated from Machiavelli to modern times. The growth of their capital to a city of nearly a million has been understood as dependent on migrations of different kinds. Imperial Rome is often portrayed as a cosmopolitan society in which hundreds of languages, cults and styles rubbed shoulders in cheerful chaos, microcosm of empire, orbis in urbe. Greg Woolf, in his Syme lecture, asks how much of this we can believe given what we know about the scale and nature of human mobility in the classical Mediterranean, and the structure of Roman society. Modern analogies have taken us so far, he will argue, but compared to the capitals of modern empires ancient Rome was an Alien Metropolis.
Human rights lawyer and social activist Asma Jahangir gives the fourth annual Sarfraz Pakistan lecture. The lecture is introduced by Matthew McCartney. Pakistan has yet to fully comprehend that democracy cannot survive unless there are strong judicial machinisms that promote rule of law. Ironically, Pakistan's transition to democracy has invariably been disturbed by judicial intervention on the pretext of upholding rule of Law. This vicious cycle has undermined both the parliament and the courts. The erosion of a genuine democratic process has given space to the more organized civil and military bureaucracy to put on display a sham system of electoral politics while holding actual power themselves. However, each time that there is clash of interest between political forces challenging the hold of the military on civilian authority, it has pushed back military supremacy but only marginally.
Writer and historian William Dalrymple gives the third annual Sarfraz Pakistan lecture. The lecture is introduced by Matthew McCartney.
Raymond Pierrehumbert, holder of the Halley Professorship of Physics at Oxford, gives the 2017 annual Wolfson Haldane Lecture. The lecture is introduced by Hermione Lee, College President. The Proterozoic is the period of Earth history extending from approximately 2.5 billion years ago to 550 million years ago, and makes up something over half of all Earth history to date. It begins with a dramatic rise in oxygen in the atmosphere, global “snowball” glaciations, and major disturbances of the carbon cycle, and ends with another period of carbon cycle fluctuations accompanied by the two Snowball glaciations; shortly after the exit from the second of these, the first multicellular life appears in the fossil record, and not long thereafter comes the Cambrian explosion. However, between the two eras of great climate disruption extends a period of about a billion years in which nothing much is happening, either from the standpoint of evolutionary innovation (insofar as visible for single-celled life in the fossil record) or from the standpoint of glaciation or biogeochemical cycling. This is the “boring billion” — the geological waiting room for the modern era of the Phanerozoic leading to the appearance of intelligent life on Earth. But what was the pacemaker determining the exit from the Boring Billion? Were we unlucky in the duration of the wait? Were we just lucky, and could it have been the Boring Two Billion? That would have in fact precluded the emergence of complex life on Earth, or any other planet orbiting a star like the Sun, since the gradual brightening of a Sunlike star over time throws an Earthlike planet into a runaway greenhouse state after about 4.5 billion years (roughly a half billion years from now), whereafter the planet loses its oceans and turns into an uninhabitable Venus-like world. Thus, the nature of the Boring Billion, and the factors that terminated it, have a very great bearing on whether we are alone in the universe. Dim red dwarf stars, which age more slowly than Sunlike stars, are known to have planets and perhaps offer more chances for complex life to emerge, but have their own challenges, which will also be discussed in this lecture.
Lord Patten, Chancellor of Oxford University, gives the opening talk at Wolfson College's 50th Anniversary celebration weekend The presentation was introduced by the College President, Dame Hermione Lee.
The Annual Sarfraz Pakistan Lecture, Wolfson College, Oxford, 30 Nov 2015 Christophe Jaffrelot is Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King's India Institute, and Research Director at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). He also teaches South Asian politics and history at Sciences Po (Paris) and is an Overseas Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was Director of CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) at Sciences Po, between 2000 and 2008. His research interests include: theories of nationalism and democracy; mobilization of the lower castes and untouchables in India; Hindu nationalist movement; ethnic conflicts in Pakistan; the Dargah culture (with special reference to Ajmer sharif as a shared sacred space) and the relations between businessmen and politicians in India (with special reference to Gujaratis).
This annual lecture aims to promote Pakistan studies within Oxford to a wide, non-specialist audience.
Ronald Syme Annual Lecture 2015 The Syme lecture is held every year in Michaelmas term, it was established in memory of the Roman Historian Sir Ronald Syme. Sir Ronald Syme was a Fellow of the College from 1970 until 1989. He is regarded as the twentieth century’s greatest historian of ancient Rome. Roger Bagnall’s lecture focused on the comparison between two males ‘ the councillor and the clerk’ from the Siwa Oasis, Ancient Egypt. The first case about a man named ‘Serenos’, the councillor, and the second, a man with no known name, the clerk. The Lecture was introduced by Prof Martin Goodman. Roger Bagnall is Leon Levy Director and Professor of Ancient History in the faculty of ‘Institute for the study of ancient world’ at New York University. He studied at Yale University and University of Toronto. Prof. Bagnall has a background in Ancient History, as he was Jay Professor of Greek and Latin and Professor of History at Columbia University for 33 years. He has a number of publications including: Women's Letters from Ancient Egypt, 300 BC-AD 800 (Ann Arbor 2006) (with R. Cribiore) and Amheida I. Ostraka from Trimithis, volume 1 (New York 2012) (with G. R. Ruffini).
Introducing a new strategic collaboration between Wolfson College and the Oxford e-Research Centre. A series of short informal talks to introduce members of the College to the range of work across the disciplines at the OeRC, with Acting President of Wolfson College, Christina Redfield The Wolfson Digital Research Cluster (Donna Kurtz, Director, Digital Research Cluster) The Oxford e-Research Centre (David De Roure, Director of the OeRC) Signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Collaboration by the Acting President and David De Roure Self-Introductions: three OeRC Associate Directors who have recently joined the College will talk briefly about their work Andrew Richards: e-Infrastruture, High Performance Computing, Supercomputing for Research Wesley Armour: Novel Architectures, Scientific Computing, Models and Simulation Susanna-Assunta Sansone: Data Curation, Management and Publication More current research at the OeRC Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller: Linked Data for Musicology Sarah Sparrow: Volunteer Computing to Simulate Climate and Extreme Weather
Sir Vince talks about some of the issues raised in his latest book 'After the Storm' Sir Vince Cable was Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government, from 2010 to 2015. He is releasing a book entitled After the Storm. The event is chaired by Dr Oscar Dahlsten and Professor Anne Deighton. This is a lecture organised by the Research Fellows of Wolfson College.
Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics, describes how he located and analysed as many DNA samples as possible with links to the Yeti. In doing so, he found himself entering a strange world of mystery and sensationalism, fraud and obsession.
Professor Chris Stringer, Research Leader in Human Origins at the Natural History Museum, London, gave the 2015 Haldane Lecture at Wolfson College, Oxford. He discusses how we are mostly, but not entirely, 'Out of Africa'. Human Evolution can be divided into two main phases. A pre-human phase in Africa prior to 2 million years ago, where walking upright had evolved but some other characteristics were still ape-like. And a human phase, with an increase in both brain size and behavioural complexity, and an expansion from Africa. Evidence points strongly to Africa as the major centre for the genetic, physical and behavioural origins of both ancient and modern humans, but new discoveries are prompting a rethink of some aspects of our evolutionary origins, including the likelihood of interbreeding between archaic humans (for example the Neanderthals) and modern humans. We are mostly, but not entirely, 'Out of Africa'. Chris Stringer first worked at the Natural HistoryMuseum in 1969-1970, but joined the permanent staff in 1973, where he is now a Research Leader in Human Origins. His early research was on the relationship of Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe, but through his work on the Recent African Origin model for modern human origins, he now collaborates with archaeologists, dating specialists, and geneticists in attempting to reconstruct the evolution of modern humans globally. He's excavated at sites in Britain and abroad, and directed the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project from 2001 until it finished in 2013. Now co-director of the follow-up Pathways to Ancient Britain project. Those projects led to the successful Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story exhibition in 2014. As well as many scientific papers, He's also written a number of books, most recently The Origin of Our Species (2012, published in the USA as Lone Survivors: how we came to be the only humans on Earth), and Britain: one million years of the human story (2014, with Rob Dinnis).
A lecture given by Professor Christopher Pelling, Oxford Regius Professor of Greek, is the first annual Syme Lecture to address the work of the great historian of Ancient Rome himself. Professor Pelling took a literary historiographical approach to Syme’s work; an approach that he agreed was contrary to Syme’s own opinions on biography (which he claimed was "so much easier than history"). Pelling defended his methodology by suggesting that Syme’s authorial presence was so evident throughout the book, “he wrote much as he talked”, that a ‘death of the author’ stance could never work with the manuscript. Pelling masterfully led the audience through an exploration of the changes made by Syme to the manuscript throughout the drafting process. He showed how some of the most “famous and controversial sentences were added at the end”, often as scribbles in the margins, and he continually rewrote key sentences, settling on the most provocative phrases, even if they did not make perfect grammatical sense. For example, the phrase ‘Caesar lay dead, striken by 23 wounds’, was originally drafted as ‘Caesar lay dead in the Senate House, bleeding from 23 wounds’, but Syme reworded it to startling effect. Professor Pelling also entertained the audience with anecdotes of his own interactions with the book and with Syme himself. He met Syme half a dozen times throughout his career, and confessed the appropriation of a sentence spoken by Syme at a Trinity Feast for the opening sentence of one of his books. Professor Lee articulated the thoughts of all present by thanking Professor Pelling for a fascinating lecture that “led brilliantly into the mindset of the writer”.
A lecture given by Professor Christopher Pelling, Oxford Regius Professor of Greek, is the first annual Syme Lecture to address the work of the great historian of Ancient Rome himself. Professor Pelling took a literary historiographical approach to Syme’s work; an approach that he agreed was contrary to Syme’s own opinions on biography (which he claimed was "so much easier than history"). Pelling defended his methodology by suggesting that Syme’s authorial presence was so evident throughout the book, “he wrote much as he talked”, that a ‘death of the author’ stance could never work with the manuscript. Pelling masterfully led the audience through an exploration of the changes made by Syme to the manuscript throughout the drafting process. He showed how some of the most “famous and controversial sentences were added at the end”, often as scribbles in the margins, and he continually rewrote key sentences, settling on the most provocative phrases, even if they did not make perfect grammatical sense. For example, the phrase ‘Caesar lay dead, striken by 23 wounds’, was originally drafted as ‘Caesar lay dead in the Senate House, bleeding from 23 wounds’, but Syme reworded it to startling effect. Professor Pelling also entertained the audience with anecdotes of his own interactions with the book and with Syme himself. He met Syme half a dozen times throughout his career, and confessed the appropriation of a sentence spoken by Syme at a Trinity Feast for the opening sentence of one of his books. Professor Lee articulated the thoughts of all present by thanking Professor Pelling for a fascinating lecture that “led brilliantly into the mindset of the writer”.
Mehmood Khan Achakzai, Leader and the Chairman of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, delivered the inaugural Sarfraz lecture on October 30th 2014, at Wolfson College, Oxford.
Walter Scheidel, Professor of Classics & History at Stanford University, gave the 2013 annual lecture held in memory of eminent Roman historian Sir Ronald Syme Lecture. The lecture was introduced by College President, Hermione Lee.
Kamila Shamsie, the Pakistani-born author of books including In the City by the Sea and Burnt Shadows, gives a talk as part of the 2014 Wolfson Lecture series on 'New Challenges for South Asian Writing in the 21st Century'.
Romesh Gunesekera, the celebrated British/Sri Lankan author of the Booker-prize nominated 'Reef', presents the first of the 2014 Wolfson Lecture series on 'New Challenges for South Asian Writing in the 21st century'.
Based on his latest book, Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford University, gave a public lecture at Wolfson College exploring the rich ancestral tapestry of the American nation. From the moment that our DNA fingerprints could be profiled, genes have served as invaluable forensic tools to settle legal matters, exonerate the innocent, and identify the dead. But, as geneticists like Bryan Sykes have revealed in recent groundbreaking work, they can also help answer larger existential questions: Where do we hail from? How did we get here? And in what ways are we all related? In DNA USA, Sykes, a professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford, delivers the most comprehensive genetic portrait yet of our country. Genealogy is big business in America because we crave links to an illustrious past, whether to Mayflower passages, Native American chieftains, or African queens. But it also reflects our insatiable curiosity about forebears who fled, by necessity or by force, countries and continents far away. In a land of new starts and reinventions, American family trees can be frustrating for their shallow roots. However, to Bryan Sykes that’s merely a pretext to dig deeper. In his best-selling work The Seven Daughters of Eve, Sykes showed how our mitochondrial DNA pointed to global matrilineal ancestors. In DNA USA he also utilizes the Y (or male) chromosomes and the new technique of “Chromosome Painting” to help settle arguments over lineage in our relatively young society. Though we are all born with surnames that tell one part of the story, those names fragment and mutate (and flat-out lie) with far more regularity than the DNA we inherit. Can a MacDonald in Houston rightly claim Gaelic ancestry? Is a Cohen in Milwaukee actually the descendant of Moses’s brother? Are African Americans with European surnames largely free of European chromosomes? Even more intriguingly, Sykes uses genetic analysis to ponder other long-unsolved mysteries such as when and how humans first inhabited the Americas, whether it was only by foot and across the Bering land bridge, and the unusual implications of Polynesian chromosomes “jumping” across Siberia and into the pre-Columbian Native American population. Like de Tocqueville with a DNA kit, Sykes travels across the country meeting (and swabbing) genealogists, anthropologists, celebrities, and average Americans to paint a fascinating genetic portrait of our nation. For fans of Henry Louis Gates’s series African American Lives or NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are?, DNA USA suggests an even richer American tapestry than we could ever imagine.
Wolfson's President, Professor Hermione Lee, gave an evocative lecture at Lincoln's Inn, London, entitled 'From Memory: Isaiah Berlin, Literary Encounters and Life-Stories' Professor Lee presented a lecture in the Old Hall concerning encounters between great men and women, and how they are remembered, narrated, and turned into legend.
Professor Lee focused on an encounter between Wolfson College founder Isaiah Berlin and the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, which took place in Leningrad in 1945. Drawing on her research as one of our most renowned literary biographers, she recounted a number of other literary encounters, in order to explore questions about remembering and storytelling, disputed rival accounts, and how encounters can harden into myth.
In dealing with life-writing, memory, and versions of the truth, the lecture addressed isues at the forefront of the College's Oxford Centre for Life Writing, one of a series of new research clusters at Wolfson
Experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist, and popular science author Steven Pinker fields questions from Graduate students at Wolfson College.
Steven Pinker gives a compelling account of the unacknowledged worldwide decline of violence in the 2014 Haldane Lecture Professor Pinker details how humanity has gone through a series of stages over the past 6,000 years through which rates of violence have declined dramatically. For example it has been determined that approximately 15% of Palaeolithic skeletons found show signs of unhealed violent trauma, suggested violence caused deaths, while the comparative worldwide number for the twentieth century is 0.06%. From interstate warfare to homicide, he shows how we are far less likely to die a violent death than any previous generation. Pinker concludes by assessing the various reasons for this decline in violence. He believes that the move towards peace is helped by ‘our better angels’: self-control, empathy, moral sense, and reason. A number of historical developments have contributed to this move, particularly the state monopolising violence, increasing commerce, an expanding circle of empathy, and the increase in literacy, education, and public discourse. He cautions, however, that this movement was not teleological and could be subject to pauses and reversals.
The lecture is introduced by the President of Wolfson College, Professor Dame Hermione Lee.
Wolfson Fellow Professor Vlatko Vedral delivered a lecture on March 12th 2013 at the Royal Society in London. His presentation includes discussion of the applications of quantum physics in other areas of science and technology. Vlatko Vedral made his name developing a novel way of quantifying entanglement and applying it to macroscopic physical systems. He did his undergraduate and graduate studies at Imperial College London. Since June 2009 he has been in an entangled state of professorship at the University of Oxford (Governing Body Fellowship at Wolfson College) and at the National University of Singapore. He has held professorships at Imperial College, and University of Leeds and a number of visiting professorships in Canada, Austria, and Brazil. His research has won a number of awards, including the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award and the World Scientific (Physics Research) Medal and Prize. Further details of his lecture at the Royal Society may be found here: https://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/content/1578-evening-royal-society
Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society, presents the 2013 Wolfson Haldane Lecture. The speaker is introduced by College President, Hermione Lee.
Historian Stella Tillyard delivers the fourth Weinrebe Lecture in Life-Writing and Portraiture. The talk is introduced by College President Hermione Lee.
Biographer Paula Byrne (Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson and Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead) delivers the second Weinrebe lecture on Life-Writing and Portraiture.
Art critic Martin Gayford (A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney and Man With a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud) delivers the first annual Weinrebe lecture on Life-Writing and Portraiture.
Do science and art have anything in common? Do artists and scientists share practices - from practicalities to ways of looking at the world? A cross-disciplinary discussion with a panel of artists and scientists, held at Wolfson College on 18th October 2012.The session was chaired by Peter Bell of the Wolfson Arts Society. The Panellists and their respective fields were: Katalin Hausel (artist); Mirja Koponen (artist); Lizzie Burns (artist/scientist); Paul Matthews (neuroscientist/writer); Angela Palmer (artist); Henrietta Bowden-Jones (neuroscientist).
Renowned psychologist, literary critic and essayist Adam Phillips delivers a public lecture at Wolfson College on his work on 'Freud's Impossible Life'. The lecture is introduced by the College President, Hermione Lee.
Biographer Susie Harries delivered this Oxford Centre for Life-Writing lecture on her acclaimed biography, Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life. Biographer Susie Harries speaks on her acclaimed biography of Nikolaus Pevsner, the German-born British scholar of history of architecture, best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England.
The 2012 Wolfson College Ronald Syme Lecture was given by Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Master of Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. The speaker is introduced by College President Professor Hermione Lee. A Roman social and cultural historian, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill was elected as Master of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, in 2009. For the previous 14 years he served as Director of the British School at Rome. Born in Oxford, son of a distinguished historian of the early middle ages (John Michael Wallace-Hadrill), he took his first degree in Classics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and his doctorate, on Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars, at St John's College in the same University. He moved to Cambridge for his first post, as a Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Magdalene College (1976-1983), publishing a book on Suetonius and articles on aspects of Roman imperial ideology. After a spell in Leicester (1983-1987), during which he worked closely with colleagues in sociology and urban history and edited two volumes, he moved to Reading as Professor of Classics (1987-2009). He edited the Journal of Roman Studies, the leading journal of Roman history and culture, from 1991 to 1995. Interest in Roman material culture led to the publication of a study of Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (1994), which won the Archaeological Institute of America's James R. Wiseman Award. His work in Pompeii led to the development of a joint project with Professor Michael Fulford on a group of houses in Pompeii, and to appointment as Director of the British School at Rome (1995-2009), a post he held simultaneously with the professorship at Reading. Since 2001 he has directed the Herculaneum Conservation Project, a project of the Packard Humanities Institute which aims to protect and study this unique site. His other publications include, most recently, Rome's Cultural Revolution (2008), published by Cambridge University Press, and Herculaneum: Past and Future (Frances Lincoln, 2011). He has held visiting fellowships at Princeton University and the Getty Museum, and is a frequent contributor to radio and television broadcasts. He was awarded an OBE in 2002 for services to Anglo-Italian cultural relations. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2010, and appointed from October 2010 by the University of Cambridge to the title of Professor of Roman Studies.
The final lecture in the series entitled Climate Connections was presented by Dr Myles Allen who currently heads the Climate Dynamics Group in the Department of Physics, University of Oxford. Dr. Allen's latest research addresses the question of how scientific evidence can best be used to inform climate policy. His work has shown that limiting cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide may be a more robust approach to climate change mitigation policy than attempting to define a 'safe' stabilization level for atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Thomas Stocker discusses the challenges that are posed to climate scientists when communicating with the public. Professor Stocker is at the laboratory for Climate and Environmental Physics, University of Berne, Switzerland. Climate science regularly makes headlines in the media, usually after an extreme weather event or a disaster, or in the wake of campaigns by think tanks about the science of climate change. In this presentation, Professor Stocker discuss four specific challenges that are posed to climate scientist when communicating with the public: (i) The widening gap between the scientific literacy of the public and the communication literacy of the scientists (ii) the multiplicity of scientific information conduits (iii) information of, and under, uncertainty (iv) the requirement to be precise without using technical language. It turns out that these challenges are quite generic to science communication. Climate scientists have learned from the regular international assessments they perform under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and have accumulated a collective experience of more than 20 years. In this presentation, Professor Stocker discusses the most important lessons learned from this experience and their relevance for other science areas which are also frequently communicating with the media and the public.
The second lecture of a series entitled 'Climate Connections' was presented by Carl Wunsch, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this talk, Prof Wunsch considers the perhaps unique problems faced by scientists and the public in understanding climate change. The problems include the very long times over which climate can and does change--far longer than human working lifetimes; the intuitive belief that the world is deterministic with randomness unimportant; the corresponding tendency to see patterns where none exist; the insistence by governments that scientists must tell them what will happen in the future; the liking of many scientists for the media limelight; the widespread confusion between weather and climate; the rise of 'sophisticated' computer models; Etc.
This first lecture of a series entitled 'Climate Connections' is presented by John Broome, White's Professor of Moral Philosophy and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The progress of climate change places moral demands on all of us to do something about it. It makes moral demands on governments and the international community, and also on each of us as private individuals. The public and private morality of climate change derives from moral duties of two different sorts. Firstly, it derives from the general duty of beneficence to make things better. Secondly, it derives from duties of justice, and in particular from the duty not to harm other people except in specific circumstances. It turns out that the private morality of climate change is entirely governed by the duty of justice not to harm. Emitting greenhouse gas harms other people in a way that is not morally permitted, so we should not do it. Fortunately, at present we can satisfy this moral demand by offsetting our emissions. The public morality of climate change is partly governed by the duty of justice, but more strongly by the duty to make things better. To carry out this duty properly requires goods and harms to be weighed against each other; it requires cost-benefit analysis in a broad sense. Because the problem is so complex, it requires the technical methods of economics. But the economic methods must be properly founded on ethical principles.
Professor Andrew Neil, Nicholas West and Bonnie Lander talk about the different scholarship opportunities offered at Wolfson College.
The first Weinrebe lecture in life-writing was given by Michèle Roberts, Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. The lecture is introduced by Professor Hermione Lee. In this lecture, Michèle Roberts offers a stimulating blend of moving personal accounts, and thought-provoking reflections on the theory of life-writing. Michèle Roberts is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House which won the WHSmith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her memoir Paper Houses was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in June 2007. She has also published poetry and short stories, most recently collected in Mud- stories of sex and love (2010).
The British-Libyan author Hisham Matar describes to a packed audience at Wolfson College the 'existential crisis' at the heart of contemporary Libyan national identity. The talk is introduced by Hermione Lee. The British-Libyan author Hisham Matar marked the first publication of his work in his home country by describing to a packed audience at Wolfson College the 'existential crisis' at the heart of contemporary Libyan national identity, and the corresponding existential exile embedded in the life of the writer. The lecture for the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW) at Wolfson was introduced by OCLW Director and College President Hermione Lee, who recounted the thrill of discovering Matar's work while judging the 2006 ManBooker Prize, for which his debut novel In the Country of Men was shortlisted. The book was set in Gadaffi's Libya of 1979, and brought Matar literary acclaim and international prominence, leaving the novelist with the difficult task, Professor Lee observed, of negotiating the responsibility of the artist to the claims of world history.
The 2012 Wolfson College Haldane Lecture was given by leading health services researcher Sir Iain Chalmers, currently Coordinator of the James Lind Initiative, Oxford, UK. Sir Iain Chalmers is a leading health services researcher who has spent the past 30 years trying to ensure that health professionals and patients have free access to unbiased evidence of the effects of medical and other treatments. Sir Iain qualified in medicine in the mid-1960s. He practised as a clinician for seven years in the UK and the Gaza Strip, and then became a full time health services researcher with a particular interest in assessing the effects of health care. Between 1978 and 1992 he was founding director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit in Oxford. Between 1992 and 2002 he was founding director of the UK Cochrane Centre, which convened the meeting that inaugurated the Cochrane Collaboration, a not-for-profit, international organization that prepares, maintains and publishes systematic reviews of the effects of health care interventions. Since 2003, he has coordinated the James Lind Initiative to promote public and professional acknowledgement of uncertainties about the effects of healthcare interventions, and research to address these uncertainties.
The award-winning author and memoirist Candia McWilliam attests to the edifying power of fiction and biography in the third lecture in the Weinrebe series from the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing. The award-winning author and memoirist Candia McWilliam attests to the edifying power of fiction and biography to help us see the world through the eyes of others, in the third lecture in the Weinrebe series from the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing. McWilliam overcame writer's block following a period of near-blindness brought on by the rare illness blepharospasm to write the Hawthornden Prize-winning memoir What to Look For in Winter. Wolfson College President and OCLW Director Hermione Lee, in her introduction to the lecture, described her voice as "subtle, original and sharp", and her memoir as remarkable for its candour and lack of sef-pity, "told with eloquence, truthfulness and comic brio".
Booker Prize winning novelist Alan Hollinghurst discusses fiction and biography in conversation with Hermione Lee at Wolfson College's Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW). Alan Hollinghurst gives an insight into the secrets of his fiction at Wolfson College's Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, speaking in conversation with College President and literary biographer Hermione Lee on the complex relationships between biographer and subject; lived experience and the attempt to record it, a subject he explores in his latest novel, The Stranger's Child. The conversation ranges over the changing attitudes to privacy charted through the historical span of the novel, the parallel liberation of biography and gay writing over the same period, the fallibility of the novelist's primary tool - memory - and the difficulty of acquiring a true understanding of the lives of others.
A talk given at Wolfson College as part of a lecture series entitled "The Work of Music". Timothy Gowers is a Royal Society Research Professor at the Centre For Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK.
A talk given at Wolfson College as part of a lecture series entitled "The Work of Music". Eric Clarke is Professor of Music at the Music Faculty, University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow at Wadham College, Oxford.
The inaugural lecture of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing was delivered by Micahel Wood, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Princeton University. He was introduced by Hermione Lee, President of Wolfson College and Director of the Centre.
Wolfson College was privileged to welcome back esteemed honorary fellow Sir Anthony Caro on 2nd November, who, 'in conversation' with art historian Tim Marlow, recounted his fifty-year career as one of the key figures in contemporary sculpture.
The 2011 Wolfson College Syme Lecture was given by Denis Feeney, Giger Professor of Latin and Professor of Classics, Princeton University. The speaker is introduced by College President Prof. Hermione Lee.
CLAROS is an international federation of European universities, museums and archives led by Oxford. 2,000,000 records and images of Greek and Roman art held at six sites in four European countries are linked virtually, using semantic web tools.
The 2011 Wolfson College Haldane Lecture was given by Sir Tony Hoare, Emeritus Professor at Oxford University Computing Laboratory and a principal researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK.
The 2010 Wolfson College Syme Lecture was given by Oxford Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine History, Dame Averil Cameron. The speaker is introduced by College President Prof. Hermione Lee.
Ian Buruma is a writer and lecturer focussing on Asian (esp. Japanese) culture. He is currently Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College, New York. The proposition underlying this year's Wolfson Lectures on 'War and Civilization' is that, as one century of wars seems all too likely to bleed into another, we have become accustomed to think of warfare simply as the destroyer of civilization, the ultimate evil. This understandable view evades the extent to which warfare over the centuries has contributed to civilizations it has subsequently damaged or destroyed. The lectures by Niall Ferguson, Geoffrey Hill, Marina Warner, and Ian Buruma will consider warfare's creative contribution to the development of the arts and society, not to downplay the horrors of war, but to consider whether conflict has also made a positive contribution to the balance-sheet of civilization.
Marina Warner is a writer of fiction, criticism and history; her works include novels and short stories as well as studies of myths, symbols, and fairytales. She is currently Professor at Essex University. The proposition underlying this year's Wolfson Lectures on 'War and Civilization' is that, as one century of wars seems all too likely to bleed into another, we have become accustomed to think of warfare simply as the destroyer of civilization, the ultimate evil. This understandable view evades the extent to which warfare over the centuries has contributed to civilizations it has subsequently damaged or destroyed. The lectures by Niall Ferguson, Geoffrey Hill, Marina Warner, and Ian Buruma will consider warfare's creative contribution to the development of the arts and society, not to downplay the horrors of war, but to consider whether conflict has also made a positive contribution to the balance-sheet of civilization.
Geoffrey Hill is currently Professor of Literature and Religion at Boston University and in 2009 his Collected Critical Writings won the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism. The proposition underlying this year's Wolfson Lectures on 'War and Civilization' is that, as one century of wars seems all too likely to bleed into another, we have become accustomed to think of warfare simply as the destroyer of civilization, the ultimate evil. This understandable view evades the extent to which warfare over the centuries has contributed to civilizations it has subsequently damaged or destroyed. The lectures by Niall Ferguson, Geoffrey Hill, Marina Warner, and Ian Buruma will consider warfare's creative contribution to the development of the arts and society, not to downplay the horrors of war, but to consider whether conflict has also made a positive contribution to the balance-sheet of civilization.
Niall Ferguson is currently Professor of History at Harvard University and Professor of History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics. The proposition underlying this year's Wolfson Lectures on 'War and Civilization' is that, as one century of wars seems all too likely to bleed into another, we have become accustomed to think of warfare simply as the destroyer of civilization, the ultimate evil. This understandable view evades the extent to which warfare over the centuries has contributed to civilizations it has subsequently damaged or destroyed. The lectures by Niall Ferguson, Geoffrey Hill, Marina Warner, and Ian Buruma will consider warfare's creative contribution to the development of the arts and society, not to downplay the horrors of war, but to consider whether conflict has also made a positive contribution to the balance-sheet of civilization.
Recently appointed Creative Arts Fellow at Wolfson College, artist Mark Rowan-Hull, gives a talk on his work, in particular, the collaborative works between him and musicians.
A presentation given by Research Fellow Cristina Parau at Wolfson College on February 24th 2009. Dr Parau is also a member of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in Oxford. Europeanization scholars study the impact of the European Union (EU) on domestic politics. The literature on the impact of the EU on the domestic politics of accession countries in Eastern Europe has focussed too narrowly on the formal conditions for accession to the EU stemming from Brussels. Accession conditionality and the EU body of legislation (the acquis) which the accession countries must adopt have been claimed to be the drivers of domestic change. Research has omitted the class of phenomena where no real EU rule exists yet domestic change happens as if there were, or where an EU rule does exist yet has little or no impact. This paper examines several cases of such phenomena. It reveals how transnational networks outside Brussels, but with help from inside, were able to (re-)construct accession conditionality amid the wider enlargement context. Some networks, by heightening its uncertainty and 'accession anxiety', made the accession candidate government constrain itself before a phantom 'extra-conditionality' where virtually no EU acquis existed and Brussels declined formal intervention; others emboldened it to defy real conditionality where the acquis commanded obedience and Brussels intervened forcefully. When uncertainty and anxiety are high, an accession candidate will be susceptible to irrational influence, as of an objectively unreal conditionality; whereas, when uncertainty and anxiety are low, the candidate may even get away with flouting real conditionality.
A lecture given by retired Labour MP Tony Benn at Wolfson College, Oxford. The lecture is introduced by Prof Richard Sorabji.