Wolfson College lunchtime seminar series: Recent Episodes
Cambridge University
The talk looks at historical examples in which multiple assassinations have generated the spectre of conspiracy.
The literary culture of late medieval England underwent a significant change with the advent of the printing press in the 1470s. While the most popular genre of secular literature in Middle English was chivalric romance, only one fourth of all extant medieval romances made the transition from manuscript to print. This paper explores the circumstances that influenced the meagre distribution of medieval romance through the medium of print.
Blake was the London born English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised in his own lifetime, he was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.
In 1949, Britain unilaterally recognised Sayyid Mohammed Idris as king of Cyrenaica (eastern Libya), a move that encouraged the UN to recognise him as king of all Libya in 1951. His was a despotic regime that was easily overthrown by (the equally despotic) Muammar Qadhafi in 1969. Since his fall in 2011, distant events of earlier times have greater relevance. The talk is an introduction to Richard Synge’s new book Operation Idris: Inside the British Administration of Cyrenaica and Libya 1942-52, published by Silphium Press, the imprint of the Society of Libyan Studies, London.
Today many definitions are easily retrievable by means of no more than just a few mouse clicks. But “simple” definitions such as those of the frequencies which determine the identities of musical tones are far from straightforward, even when considered only within the realm of Western music. Tuning of musical instruments has occupied the minds of scientists and musicians at least since Pythagoras of Samos, and yet misconceptions are still not uncommon amongst musicians and audiences alike. Catering both to musicians and non-musicians, this talk will aim to explain the fundamental difficulties in tuning as well as the different ways these difficulties are overcome accompanied by hands-on demonstrations using a harpsichord.
In 1856 the British consul general in Christiania reported to the Foreign Office: ”I am not far from the truth when I say that a Norwegian […] feels himself more at home in England than in [the union partner, 1814-1905] Sweden.” Britain had the role of Norway’s protector, and represented the democratic and civilized norm-makers in international politics. On the other hand, during World War I, a journalist noted that the Norwegian relationship to Britain was “an arithmetic problem”: It would take 36 hours to stop supplies to Norway. The western bias thus was inescapable and unavoidable.
Having worked in academic libraries through an intense period of change, I will explore how academic libraries have responded to the digital revolution through innovative services, outreach and spaces. Far from disappearing or becoming irrelevant, recent changes in pedagogy and information organisation have prompted academic libraries to change in important ways. In this talk, we’ll explore how academic libraries, including the Wolfson Library, have responded to the digital revolution through innovative services, outreach and spaces. It’s not about old ladies in cardies protecting dusty books anymore (and never was!).
In the 1960’s, it was generally admitted that ancient Egypt was a civilization which did not possess cities. To define an ancient Egyptian city turns out to be a difficult task because we too often tend to impose our modern models on ancient examples. In a seminal study, Manfred Bietak specified that “the Egyptians felt no need to make their distinctions between towns, villages, hamlets, etc.” He adds, however, that in the New Kingdom (ca. 1539-1077 BC), a different mode of classification allowed differentiations, which vaguely resemble a modern day construct. Taking this information into account it is possible to conclude that there is not only one “Egyptian city type” but several. This talk aims to present the different kind of settlements known in ancient Egypt, their mode of functioning, their town planning, as well as their arrangements. It will then take a closer look at the living conditions in these settlements through the domestic architecture and built-in installations. Certain aspects of daily life are quite well known, thanks to the studies that have been conducted on the elite in Egyptian society. The highest social class is arguably easier to study because the members of this wealthy socioeconomic stratum left more evidence: finely decorated tombs and large houses with elaborate furnishings and luxury goods. Finally, the talk will explore the place occupied by the non-elite population in these settlements.
Tiago Carvalho discusses the ongoing political consequences of the economic crisis in Portugal. This talk is based on collected data and analysis from his PhD thesis. He will critically reflect and compare why countries experiencing austerity measures, such as Greece and Spain, have been in the news because of their political turbulence; while Portugal presents a very different political landscape. In this seminar he looks at the reasons why Portugal is reacting so differently?
What is the legitimate use of force by states in their relations? The answer to this question is analysed through a dialogue between Raymond Aron and Jacques Maritain, concerning the Machiavellian and the Kantian problem. The former follows from the problem of the legitimate means that can be used in the context of the relations between states, that is, the possibility of resorting to force, and the latter from the problem of the ban of force leading to universal peace.
Ms Saunders considers the relations between text and nature in John Clare’s Midsummer Cushion, the last substantial work he produced in the early 1830s before being committed for madness at High Beach hospital, and then sent to Northampton General Lunatic Asylum. The full text was never published, though a thoroughly-edited version titled The Rural Muse was printed in 1835. A ‘midsummer cushion’ was, Clare explained in the introduction to the manuscript, was a ‘cottage custom,’ a piece of ‘greensward full of field flowers & place[d] as an ornament’. It was, he suggested, ‘a title that was not inapplicable to the contents of the Volume’. I want to explore the relationship Clare created between this ‘ornament’ of the natural field (representative of the artificial and the wild, collected and rooted) and the textual field of his poetry. In particular I will look at Clare’s efforts in his prose and poetry to represent and analyse what he called ‘the pages of sweet natures book.’ Clare’s writing was acutely attentive to the natural environment it described, particularly that of botanical nature, and to the experience of writing, reading, coding and decoding the natural world as it was partaken of by the poet. In so doing, he showed that the space of the page is a key location for mediation between man and nature, a space central to the formation of interpretative interactions. Through an examination of Clare’s own experiences in ‘getting to know plants’ as nature lover, gardener, and amateur naturalist, and the conflict he found to exist between wildness and cultivation, I hope to discuss how these poems present such conflict in a complex interplay between language and nature on the page, a space where writing about nature also concerns the nature of writing.
The name of a planet, moon or asteroid has no objective scientific significance whatsoever. A name for a celestial object is a subjective human invention which serves only to help scientists remember what they are communicating about. A name is the product of the human imagination and the names of planets have a human significance, for the discoverer, for his or her colleagues and for the wider community. Some names evidence hero-worship, sycophancy, avarice, vanity, whimsy, erudition and wit, revealing the human side of astronomers, especially where controversy has followed the christening. 'I was drawn into this subject by having an asteroid named after me. Asteroid 128562 Murdin is made of sandy rock, far away, orbiting somewhere in the space between the planets Mars and Jupiter, and only about 2 km in diameter. I started to wonder how its christening had happened and why I was so pleased, and this is what I found…'
For the first 20 years of the Internet’s existence, cyberspace and the ‘real’ world were essentially parallel universes. From 1993 onwards, the two universes gradually merged to give us the world we now inhabit—on in which the affordances of digital technology combine with those of the physical world. No wonder we’re having trouble understanding it.
The Confessions, composed by the bishop of Hippo in the late fourth century CE, is often claimed to be the first Western autobiography – but it is not the first, and the autobiographical passages constitute only a small percentage of the whole. It is, however, one of the most spiritually creative and intellectually original works ever written. How, then, should we read this anomalous work? And why?
Scholars of the ancient world must deal with a wide range of sources, including not only classic historians like Herodotus or Thucydides but also numerous minor historians who may be highly derivative of other, now-lost, authors. One such writer is Diodorus of Sicily, long studied almost exclusively for understanding his sources. But Diodorus was writing during the time of Julius Caesar and the Roman Civil Wars, and this paper will demonstrate how important it is to understand Diodorus and similar authors in their own historical context and how this context has decisively shaped Diodorus’s view of history regardless of his sources.
The Museum was established in 1816 by the bequest of Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam, an eighteenth-century collector who sought to promote the ‘increase of learning’. His gift to the University included the capital sum both for the building, which opened in 1848, and for its endowment. Since then the Museum has benefitted from a constant stream of gifts and bequests which reflect changes of taste and collecting in Britain. Like the collections, the Museum itself has grown in response to changing priorities. This illustrated talk will trace the story principally through the growth of the buildings and will include some significant people and objects along the way up to the 2014 preparations for the celebration of the Museum’s bicentenary in 2016.
Since the start of the economic crisis, a growing number of Italian young people have been leaving Italy for more prosperous areas of the Union, often with the UK as their destination. The project Picturing Identities was a Cambridge-based investigation of these young people and their identities: what are their experiences, and what does it mean for them to be migrants? Photography had a key role in this visual research project, which also involved the collection of photographic portraits of the participants. To coincide with the seminar, an exhibition of the portraits will be in the Wolfson Library Foyer from February 1st to February 8th.
Join Marga Jann RIBA , AIA as she recounts some of her travels, research and architectural projects around the world towards sustainable, equitable futures. While sustainability is typically concerned with futurity/resilience, public participation, equity and the environment, Marga makes a case for the importance of aesthetics and design in underpinning the eco-agenda and promoting wellbeing, social mobility and productivity.
In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, cinematic realism was the most significant revolution in visual culture since the late Renaissance. Not only did it carry along the Neo-Realists in Italy, La Nouvelle Vague and and cinéma vérité in France, Direct Cinema and urban realism in the US, and Free Cinema and social realism in Britain; it also shaped the visual language of television, in a profound way, in fiction and non-fiction.
But there is a dark side to this revolution – one that has filmmakers in numerous national (and usually oppositional) cinemas struggling to break free.
In the Victorian period one of the most popular places where the public could see displays of wild skins was the zoo. Opportunities were plentiful. Thanks to the growth of empire, to improved transportation, as well as to newly opened routes to distant lands, it was now more possible than ever to collect and bring back creatures or their skins from far-away regions and put them on view before a population eager to see exotic animals and birds. According to one commentator, in the 1860s, throughout Europe, zoological gardens were being established at the rate of one a year. One of these establishments was the Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester, founded by a former silk weaver in 1836. This is a zoo that tends to receive minimal attention by those fascinated with either the history of Manchester or the history of zoos in Victorian Britain. Compared to the more established and intellectually prominent London Zoological Society Gardens, this provincial and transparently commercial (and very popular) institution, once located just three miles from the center of industrial Manchester, tends to be regarded as being relatively inconsequential. I suggest, however, that it is not a place to be overlooked, for Belle Vue in the mid to late nineteenth century offers a vital portrait of its surroundings. Rather than compete with places like the London Zoo, Belle Vue chose to present itself as an institution primarily dedicated to the celebration of its industrial and imperialistic context. Belle Vue was an extension of not only its neighboring manufacturing city but also the nation’s enthusiasm for empire. In this talk, I shall demonstrate Belle Vue’s commitment to its manufacturing and imperialistic context. Belle Vue Zoo both celebrated and replicated the industrial surroundings of Manchester. Looking at the zoo from a distance, people in the mid-nineteenth century would have remarked upon the establishment’s dazzling grounds, illuminated either by Belle Vue’s own gas works or by the electricity powered by its robust generators. They also would have caught sight of the zoo’s buildings, humming with the action of the steam-driven machines within. By utilizing the most up-to-date technology, Belle Vue was an extension of its neighboring manufacturing city. Furthermore, its founder encouraged the presence of the working classes. In addition to showing off the power of industry, Belle Vue Zoo also dedicated itself to glorifying Britain’s imperialistic achievements. As a consequence, it populated its grounds with powerful reminders of Britain’s economic, military, and political campaigns throughout the globe. The zoo’s collections of exotic beasts from Britain’s colonial territories placed its visitor in this larger international context. But even more dramatically – if not excessively, the zoo’s spectacular evening reenactments of recent battles, which demonstrated Britain’s superiority, created a dramatic set of imperialistic portraits. Begun in 1852, these shows distinguished Belle Vue from its competitors and insured the zoo’s financial success. With their display of technological wonders, these performances were extraordinary to watch. In this talk, in addition to demonstrating Belle Vue’s indebtedness to its industrial context, I shall describe several of these productions and show slides of the amazing sets built for these mock battles.
The study of “consciousness” has been of interest to scientists, philosophers, and laypeople alike for millennia. But the constant struggle to define consciousness has been due to its intangible nature. How can we describe something that we cannot perceive with our senses? We can know what it is like to perceive, and what it is like to have consciousness, but it has proven difficult over the millennia to actually pinpoint with a measure of certainty what consciousness actually is. Furthermore, when attempting to study consciousness, the method by which we can study it is elusive. Is it necessarily limited to the philosophical realm? Can there be a “science of consciousness”? By current empirical scientific standards, it is difficult to study consciousness objectively and holistically because either we do not know enough about the brain or there are seemingly nonphysical components to consciousness that are rendered totally subjective by the scientific method. But must the methods employed to study consciousness be borrowed from any of the natural scientific disciplines, like biology, chemistry, or physics, or can it indeed be studied by the psychological or philosophical disciplines, with an independent epistemology and methodology? Today we have many distinct and arguable philosophies of consciousness because the study of consciousness is one of the most fundamental studies of humankind, yet its object is highly elusive to systematic enquiry. It is an ancient study, but also a contemporary study. In this research, we take a look at the methods of studying consciousness according to a set of ancient Indian texts, namely the Upaniṣads, whose sole purpose seems to have been the understanding of consciousness. By looking at these ancient texts, we may gain some insight into developing a modern method of studying consciousness.
“Nothing so utterly breaks me down, as lots of concerts. Even one is for the most part a burthen. The truth is, I have little or no music in me…” How can someone with ‘little or no music’ in him, be worthy of an academic music paper? The answer is that the author of the quotation above, Thomas Perronet Thompson (1783–1869), worked in league with Louis Panormo, the leading guitar-maker of nineteenth-century London. Furthermore, Thompson’s resulting publication, Instructions to my Daughter, for playing on the Enharmonic Guitar although a disguise for what is actually a complex mathematical treatise, contains organological concepts, which may have had a long-term influence on the design of the guitar. There is a little bit for everyone: A Cambridge connection, history, political economics, mathematics, organology, and… a splattering of music to boot.
Laurence Sterne – one of the world’s greatest comic writers – quipped that he wrote ‘not to be fed, but to be famous’. His enormously successful book, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, helped Sterne to achieve this ambition: it caused a sensation when it was published in the 1760s and remains in print to this day. Many of Sterne’s earliest readers found his approach to novel-writing highly innovative, even provocative, because of his zany narrative methods, bawdy jokes, haphazard erudition, and the striking visual features he brings into Tristram Shandy: its black, marbled, and blank pages continue to surprise readers who first open the book, as do the many asterisks and dashes which often half-conceal rude words. From the outset Sterne’s readers recorded their opinions about him and his work in remarkably imaginative ways: prose parodies, poems, and plays sit alongside songs, book illustrations, paintings, satirical prints, objects and, most recently, a graphic novel and a film inspired by Tristram Shandy. Adaptation and illustration provide a means by which to measure how Sterne was read and when: ‘Sterneana’ boisterously displays Tristram Shandy’s continuing appeal.
Conspiracy theories are often regarded as individual cognitive failings and collective pathologies of public reason. In this paper I will argue for the democratic benefits of conspiracy theories. There are two main groups of ways in which conspiracy theories can contribute to democratic goods. One is epistemic, and it has to do with the collective benefits of having some one-eyed partisans who focus obsessively on criticising the arguments of their opponents, resist consensus even when it would be reasonable to accept it, and who may bring valuable information to light in the course of pursuing unpromising lines of inquiry. The second is political, and it has to do with demanding communicative accountability, influencing the behaviour of power holders, and revealing second-order reasons for trusting (or distrusting) authorities. The upshot of these arguments is that the presence of stubborn minority opinions of the sort often represented by conspiracy theorists can create conditions for greater trustworthiness and more informed judgment of public authorities. What these arguments have in common is that none of them depend on the conspiracy theorists being right, and they are all conditional on the marginality of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories, I conclude, are like salt in the soup of public discourse - good in small doses. The benefits evaporate to the extent that conspiracy theories come to be held by majorities, and conspiracy theories become most dangerous when they are in the minds of the powerful.
An illustrated talk on his paintings related to the monastic society on Mount Athos, both secular and religious. Landscapes, drawings, prints, book illustrations and religious murals shall be presented with the scope of examining their relationship to the art produced there during the past and the problems arising in creating contemporary art within a traditional environment.
Works can be viewed at: http://www.markoskampanis.gr
The first society for folklore studies in Germany was established in 1890. The aim of the scholars who founded this society was to study the traditions and material culture of Germany’s domestic rural populations. It is less well known that the study of German folklore also had colonial roots. After the mid-19th century German anthropologists examined both domestic and colonial societies within one field of analysis. They were both deemed superstitious, unindustrialised and hence, in scholars’ eyes, living in a ‘primitive’ stage of civilisation. How did scholars and scientific bodies justify devoting themselves to the study of civilisations as far apart as the agrarian German hinterland and colonial possessions? Why did the two research trajectories separate after the turn of the century with the establishment of folklore studies as a scientific discipline? And why did domestic traditions become the foundation of national history, while overseas civilisations remained in the position of ‘peoples without history’? This paper will shed new light on such key topics as the role of temporality and progress in claims to territorial rule, the establishment of middle class identity in relation to primitive cultures, home and abroad, the impact of racial and social-Darwinist ideas, and the rise of nationalism in the age of empire. It will also discuss the extent to which these notions shape our understanding of global societies today.
It has been three years since the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake of the 11th of March 2011. This unprecedented catastrophe, and the resulting accident at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, shocked the public and rocked Japanese politics and society as a whole. Among other incidents, the huge tsunami and the nuclear accident thrust the Tohoku Region into a state of emergency. Even now, three years later, the reconstruction of the disaster-stricken areas still cannot be said to be going smoothly. In addition, Japan is faced not only with the challenges of implementing and achieving specific reconstruction policies, but also with the need to consider and solve some longer-term problems, seen from a wider perspective, such as harsh domestic economic conditions, public distrust of politicians, and the negative impact of the nuclear accident on the international community. The national crisis caused by the catastrophe awoke a community spirit among the people that lies dormant in times of peace. It also brought to light some fundamental problems latent in the nation and its people. Among the various issues that have been illuminated by the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, I shall focus on the relationship between the state of emergency, declared after the earthquake occurred, and the Constitution of Japan, from the perspective of the popular sentiment toward the Self-Defense Forces (the Japanese military), the Emperor and the Imperial system. This seminar is not a legal analysis of the constitutional issues but a summary of the political and philosophical issues surrounding the challenges of reconstruction.
Wolfson’s Executive Chef, Ray Palmer, who retires in July, takes a look back at his long and illustrious career in food. It’s 1965 and The Beatles are in the Hit Parade with “We can work it out”, “Ticket to ride” and “Help”. Six graduate students have been accepted at the newly opened University College, Cambridge. I have enrolled on a professional catering course at Croydon Technical College. Are these events connected? Not yet but they will be (well maybe not The Beatles). It’s 1973 and The Beatles split up three years earlier, University College has been renamed Wolfson College and has 160 students and I move to Cambridge as Pastry Chef at The Garden House Hotel. Cooking in Britain (as opposed to British cookery) has become fashionable and popular and now boasts to be among the best in the world if the number of restaurants (and TV cookery programmes) is a gauge of its strength. But, perversely, its meteoric rise has had consequences on British cookery which has almost disappeared from the menu and at home, particularly puddings, cakes and biscuits which are unique to this country whilst often contradictory advice on “healthy” and “ethical” choices in eating has made us a nation afraid to cook and eat. In parallel with this rise and fall, I am not unaware of my own immanent disappearance from the professional kitchen to eke out a living on a pension. Hear more and try some samples of the cooking I’m talking about.
Iain King tracks the lives of six young men who served anonymously as soldiers in the frontline, and later went on to produce world-changing philosophies. From Ancient Greece to World War Two, battlefield heroics, horror, and hubris have all left traces in the ideas we associate with these great philosophers. The talk will elucidate their fascinating war records, consider how their experiences shaped their ideas, and explain the legacy for us today.
Based on his experience as a teacher, lecturer, and writer in America and elsewhere in the world, Howard Wolf (SUNY-Buffalo) will make a case for these types of writing as a mid-term between: academic discourse and “ordinary” language; scholarly claims of objectivity and human development; passive learning and creativity; fixed literary canon and extreme postmodernism; impersonality and “subjective immortality;” research and social media (popular culture). After the 1960’s, American universities and culture turned away from Wordsworthian, Emersonian, Frostian, and Dennisian imperatives of Selfhood. Wolf sees good Literary Journalism and Creative Nonfiction as a bridge over troubled waters.
The formation of States started in the 14th century, mainly because the powers of the time had to get organized in order to address the needs of the wars among them. They were created around a powerful public administration which gradually became the spine of the states and the best servant of the princes, with the exception of England, where centralization was the result of the action of the judges and the Rule of Law. The question is where the ingredients of the concept of the state and especially the idea of a strong public administration come from. They come from the late Roman Empire of Constantinople which was characterized by the introduction of the ministerial system and the development of a well organized public administration, and radiated civilization for more than a thousand years in Europe promoting the idea of res publica to the new nations through diplomacy, influences, wars, Christianity, weddings, and the crusades, the most massive cross-fertilization process of the times.
As a hub connecting East and West, Berlin was an important place of refuge for tens of thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe after the First World War. Most of them were refugees from Russia, Lithuania, and Galicia, escaping war, pogroms, or revolution. With its multilingualism and complex internal networks, the community of Eastern European migrants brought about a heyday of Jewish culture in Berlin, which has long been neglected by historians. Focussing on everyday life, networks and interrelations the case of Eastern European Jews in Weimar Berlin provides an excellent example of the trans-territorial and transnational character of this migration movement and the role of the migrants as mediators between the various Jewish and non-Jewish cultures. Moreover, the migrant experiences offer a fresh insight into the tensions between the cosmopolitan cultural traditions and nationalist Prussian heritage in Weimar Berlin.
East Asian families are still a mystery to many western social scientists. Despite their large populations and increasing presence on the global stage, the private life of East Asian families remains understudied, compared to their African, Latino and South Asian counterparts. Whilst Amy Chua’s controversial Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother provided (albeit inaccurate) glimpses into the parenting practices of traditional Chinese mothers, much less is known about their male co-parents. What are Chinese fathers like? Are they distant, stern-faced disciplinarians following Confucius family ethics, or are they advocates of the “new nurturant father” model that has been diffused into Euro-American families in recent years? In this talk, I will present an overview of existing theories and evidence about Chinese fathers, extracted from both an expanding volume of cross-cultural research and my PhD fieldwork, conducted in Nanjing, China from 2011 to 2012. In particular, I will focus on the affection display of Chinese fathers to their children, the lack of which used to be seen as one of the defining features of East Asian males. My data suggest that contemporary Chinese fathers are experiencing a transition towards a fathering ideal that increasingly values intimacy and closeness, and are living through the dynamic negotiation between cultural traditions and current social realities. The driving forces of this change are discussed.
Exposure to trauma is a common experience in childhood; there are approximately two million child and adolescent attendances at hospital Emergency Departments each year, and at least 50,000 children are on an “at-risk” register at any given time. The past twenty years has seen a spectacular increase in the study of children’s reactions to such experiences. In this talk I will outline how mental health researchers now conceptualise children’s reactions to life-threatening experiences (such as road traffic accidents, assaults and war), with a “warts and all” emphasis on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I will then review the psychological mechanisms proposed to be underpinning persistent PTSD and the evidence for psychological treatments for this disorder in youth
Teachers learn by watching great teachers: A response to the Secretary of State for Education’s espoused theory of professional learning
Since the beginnings of compulsory secondary education in England, questions have been asked about the general attainment level of those leaving education. In order to improve standards, there have been increasing numbers of initiatives aimed at improving the quality of teaching. These have been in the form of stronger accountability and in professional development. Perhaps no more attention has been given to any other subject as it has to the teaching of mathematics. In this lecture, I consider how we might go about developing the quality of mathematics teaching through professional development. I draw on the evidence of my recent research. The research is based on a four-year mixed methods embedded multiple case study involving four secondary school mathematics departments participating in a professional development programme. From this I propose a new theoretical framework for professional learning. From this I will demonstrate the flaws in current Government policy and in its espoused position on teachers’ professional learning.
Notes about the speaker: Steve Watson is a University Lecturer in Mathematics Education in the Faculty of Education and is a member of Wolfson College. In the Faculty of Education, he is principally involved in the initial teacher training programme as well being actively involved in education research. Previously he was at the University of Nottingham after having been a teacher of mathematics in North East Lincolnshire for eight years. Before teaching, Steve worked as a telecommunications engineer.
In 1971, the community of Las Terrazas was officially inaugurated as part of the development plan for the Sierra del Rosario, Pinar del Río province, Cuba. A comprehensive reforestation and development plan had preceded the construction of the village in a heavily impoverished area. Later, it turned into one of Cuba’s first sustainable tourism development schemes, and continues to be a model community. Oral testimony has recently been published on the subject (Reynaldo González, Conversaciones en Las Terrazas, Havanna 2010) which underpins a local identity interwoven with a national process, though its success arguably outscores that of the Cuban revolution today.
Slides accompanying this talk can be accessed at http://www.wolfson.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/P%20Lindley%20Presentation.pdf
This lecture will examine the value of 3D laser scanning of artefacts for the visualisation of the past, using the Tudor monuments of the dukes of Norfolk as a case study Until its dissolution by Henry VIII in 1540, Thetford Priory was the dynastic mausoleum of the dukes of Norfolk. In 1539, some of the finest sculptors in the country were at work carving monuments for Thomas Howard, the third duke, and for his son-in-law, Henry VIII ’s bastard, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond. After he had failed to stave off the priory’s dissolution, Howard decided to move the still incomplete monuments to the parish church of St Michael, Framlingham in Suffolk and to rebuild the chancel to house them. Pending that reconstruction, some tomb components were stored in his great house at Kenninghall but other pieces were abandoned at Thetford.
Before the monuments could be moved to Framlingham, the ailing king resolved on the destruction of the Howards, whose power might threaten his young son, the future Edward VI. The Earl of Surrey, Norfolk’s heir, was convicted of treason and beheaded and the duke himself was only saved from execution because the king himself died. Howard, though, remained in the Tower until Queen Mary I released him in 1553. Salvaged pieces of the monuments could now be taken to Framlingham, but the octogenarian duke died the next year. Both monuments were hastily finished off – but in a different style and radically modifying the original designs – during the time of the fourth duke. The latter commissioned two more monuments, one for himself and his wives, another for his daughter. They too were left incomplete when the fourth duke was executed for treason in 1572. Such were the perils of power under the Tudors.
So, the monuments of the third duke and of Richmond are composites, started in 1539 and hurriedly finished off in the 1550s. Bits of them had been left at Thetford, where they were excavated in later centuries. In posing the question how the excavated components were intended to fit into the monuments as erected at Framlingham, we are asking what the monuments were originally intended to look like, and what their subject matter meant. The question is an important one not just because these were two of the most important monuments of the period. To reconstruct their planned appearance as first intended, 3D laser scanning and CAD software has been used. The monuments at Framlingham have been digitally disassembled and later additions removed. The tomb-chests have then been virtually reconstructed, incorporating pieces discarded at Thetford in 1540. Here I go beyond art-historical connoisseurship and archaeological examination of artefacts to suggest that modern technology can enable innovative and imaginative visualisations of the past.
Together, the adult lives of Eliza (c.1820-1850), Caroline (1816-1889), Matilda (1816/17-1866) and Emilie Ashurst (1826?-1893) spanned the greater part of Queen Victoria’s reign. Daughters of a wealthy Radical lawyer, the artistic and political causes they embraced cover many of the most progressive tendencies of the period, ranging from translation of the novels of George Sand to patronage of James McNeill Whistler and the unification of Italy to the women’s suffrage. Besides the opportunity they offer to re-examine metropolitan middle-class radicalism, the careers of these four women raise the question of whether provincial non-conformist Radicals may have been over-valued in twentieth century historiography of the British labour movement as well as perennial issues about the relative importance of political parties and social movements in achieving political change.
The post-war period in British history has proven to be one of remarkable change for the United Kingdom, from the rapid dismantling of the Empire through adjusting to a post-imperial role/identity to eventual entry into the European Economic Community/European Union. When exploring the latter, scholars have frequently focused on the policy dynamics of Britain’s late entry into “Europe”, questioning why Britain remained “on the sidelines” and debating Britain’s “missed opportunity”. But what of the period prior to British entry into the EEC ? How did the government view Europe? What was the response of the British people to the European continent? Without foreknowledge of how successful the Community would become, how were British debates framed? Ultimately for the British in the post-war period, the question was ‘To be or not to be . . . European’. In my talk I will explore this crucial period in British history, looking also at how Britain’s end of empire and search for a post-imperial role shaped British approaches to Europe and even the rise of Euroscepticism as we move towards the present day.
Jason Pack is a PhD Candidate in History at St. Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, and president of Libya-Analysis.com. He is the editor of The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and The Struggle for the Post-Qadhafi Future (Palgrave Macmillan 2013). His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Spectator, and Foreign Policy.
In the process of defeating Qadhafi, Libyan society was mobilized along local/regional/tribal/and religious cleavages. The post-revolutionary struggle has re-created power relationships that are analogous to those that existed in the Ottoman, Italian, British, and Sanussi Monarchy periods. Study of the Berber community, federalists, and extreme Islamists reveals that paranoid and jingoistic revolutionary militiamen have set each of their community’s policies rather than more compromising and talent members of civil society.
The central government’s inability to create an inclusive rhetoric to compete with the discourse of the periphery or build functioning institutions and a national army which can constrain the militias has ceded initiative and power to the periphery. This talk will examine the periphery’s successful attempts at blackmail and the centre’s inability to consolidate power and penchant for appeasement.
This paper addresses the current lack of historicized understanding of forced migration practices. It argues for a method of comparative analysis that takes into account the patterns of past events in order better to understand the implications of present day crises. The paper also argues for a method of situated discourse analysis, since key to stopping abuse of forced migrants is to listen to their own lived experience, and to interrogate critically the rhetoric used by state actors past and present to exclude or cover over those realities on the ground. The paper offers results of recent research into the transatlantic slave trade and the expulsion of the Acadian people in the 18th century, as case studies in how lessons learned from the past can better inform analysis of present migration and can encourage development of just policies to deal with the fluid movements of populations in our day.
Shrine visitation is a widespread phenomenon throughout Sudan and the Islamic world that represents the living religion rather than orthodox Islam and is deeply embedded in traditions. Thousands of devotees visit shrines regularly as individuals or in groups. Using ethnographic research this paper highlights the significance of shrine visitation by examining some examples of the sacred landscape in Suakin, Sudan. This sacred landscape provides the community with a sense of shared history, religious and collective identity, personal and collective memories, historical continuity and belonging. The research shows that social, cultural and religious life is interlinked and indivisible from everyday life. Nevertheless, the rich intangible associations with the shrines are not officially recognised and only tangible heritage is protected.
The past 30 years have witnessed rapid evolution and growing demand for assistive reproductive technologies (ARTs): technologies that assist in achieving and monitoring a pregnancy. The ART market is a unique one – fueled by parents willing to go to great lengths to conceive. The demand is high and desire deep. ARTs have led to medical service markets, and markets for gametes and surrogacy. The focus of this lecture will be on the market of egg donation in Canada – a market in which donors are in scarce demand. Based on qualitative interviews conducted with Canadian intended parents, egg donors, and fertility specialists, this lecture will examine the barriers and ethical dilemmas faced by intended parents seeking donor eggs. Additionally, this lecture will address the implications of this data for Canadian regulation surrounding the use of donor eggs.
EU banks are free to establish branches and provide services across the Union. This means that a banking failure in a member state can have spillover effects for the entire Union. The experience from the financial crisis and the Eurozone crisis has led to the realization that a common legal framework to regulate and supervise EU banks is necessary. The creation of the European Supervisory Authorities, as the first step towards “more Europe” was soon followed by a Single Rulebook, a Single Supervisory Handbook and a Single Supervisory Mechanism, with a common resolution rulebook and a Single Resolution Mechanism in the pipeline. The lecture will examine this shift towards “more Europe” in bank regulation and supervision and assess whether the new emerging supra-national framework is well placed to safeguard financial stability in the EU.
British and Dominion soldiers’ Great War field publications are relatively well known, but the way troops created cartoon narratives has been neglected. The concerns of the lower ranks about medical services, discomforts, food and drink, leave, military routines, complaints about officers, and expectations versus emerging reality, all emerged as humour from adversity. The central comic character was the long suffering citizen soldier, portrayed as a source of entertainment and morale boosting.
Weblinks referred to in the talk are: http://youtu.be/zlUe1P8K7vY and http://youtu.be/zi4A6IJnlO0
My career change from a plant pathologist at the National Institute of Agricultural botany to a Head Gardener at Wolfson and the joys of growing and nurturing healthy plants here at Wolfson as opposed to looking at diseased and dying plants in my previous career! As a farmer’s son, I grew up with a love of nature and the countryside and I am now re-creating ‘naturalistic’ areas within the gardens to ‘mimic’ what we see in nature.
Musical improvisation is often considered in terms of indeterminacy and freedom. It would thus seem to resist the systemization of a scientific approach. However, as cognitive science is expanding the domain of behaviours it seeks to explain, understanding improvisation scientifically is becoming feasible. This talk examines how improvisation can be understood scientifically and the value of a scientific approach by first considering the concept of improvisation in cultural and historical terms, reframing improvisation in a way that can give rise to scientific hypotheses, reviewing past scientific research on improvisation, and exploring new empirical questions and methods from my own research.
Everything sets, in principle, English law against French Law. They are as different as English and French gardens. English law belongs to the model of the common law whereas French law takes root in the roman law. But what are the real differences between both laws? Are these differences always relevant in 2013?
When Roald Amundsen, first of all men, reached the South Pole in December 1911, he did more than win the historic race for the last geographic goal. He closed the Age of Discovery. This was the exploration of the globe by Western seafarers, and the establishment of the great maritime empires. It began in the mid fifteenth century when the Venetian Ca’ da Mosta first sighted the Cape Verde Islands, off the coast of Africa and, continued with the discovery of the Americas and the sea route to the East, conventionally ending two centuries later in the sighting of Australia and New Zealand by Dutch sailors. In fact, the process lingered on until the only undiscovered territory lay in the polar regions. Amundsen’s arrival at 90º South latitude finally brought the epoch of terrestrial discovery to an end. Few movements have had such profound consequences. It exploded intellectual boundaries in the arts and sciences. The men who accomplished this revolution were a motley crowd of ambitious sailors, fantasists, earnest pioneers, ruthless conquerors, buccaneers, investors out for the main chance and down at heel adventurers like the Spanish conquistadores. Amundsen combined within his person some of these qualities, so he may be said to have been their heir in more senses than one. In sailing to Antarctica, he reprised in whole or part some of the great voyages of discovery. He ended a whole epoch, and paved the way for the leap into space.
What is the secret of the persisting popularity of two charismatic “clowns” (courtesy The Economist et.al.) like Silvio Berlusconi, Europe’s most powerful media tycoon, and Beppe Grillo, Europe’s most influential blogger?
At least one of these terribles simplificateurs, of these two rivalling role models of 21st Century populism, is now crucial to the future of the most unstable of Europe‘s biggest countries.
Given Italy’s historical role as a laboratory of Alta Moda not only in fashion, but also in politics (Fascism and Eurocommunism docent), Mr Berlusconi’s and Mr Grillo’s electoral successes may be illuminating (obscuring?) the future of Western-style parliamentary democracy itself.
Our initial question should be apt to stimulate debate on Italy, and beyond. Being put at lunchtime, however, it should provide some exhilarating answers too, be it from Italy’s best political cartoonist, be it straight from the horses mouths, as it were, namely from various DVD ’s featuring live performances of both the most successful Italian narcisists themselves.
Buon appetito con Silvio Berlusconi e Beppe Grillo!
Dr Georg Schedereit is a broadcaster and commentator who learned his trade decades ago at the BBC ’s German Language Service in London, and is still practising it at RAI ’s Sender Bozen in his Alpine home province South Tyrol/Italy.
His dissertation in political science at the University of Salzburg/Austria dealt with the enigmatic jargon of Italian political discourse in pre-Berlusconian times. As a Wolfson Press Fellow 2012, researching on Anglophone Fascist Studies, he produced the trilingual blog www.faschistensindimmerdieanderen.wordpress.com (“The Fascist is always the other“)
Anthony Green RA in conversation with Dr Frank Whitford about his art and the convictions and experiences that have shaped it, on 1 May 2013 at Wolfson College, Cambridge.
The Moche civilization flourished along the north coast of Peru from AD 200 -800. Known for their monumental architecture, including the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, ritual sacrifice and dismemberment, and pageantry in the royal courts, the Moche were a formidable kingdom prior to the arrival of the Spanish. Excavations at the complex of Dos Cabezas in the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, have uncovered elite burial chambers containing the skeletal remains of five contemporaneous males with extremely unique pathologies. Laid to rest in the style of the warriors, research has revealed that these individuals share a secret that has never been documented in the New World before. In this talk, the most recent results of the project will be presented, including a discussion about bone disease, male castration, and the warrior-cult of the Moche.
Dr Gordon Johnson, former President of Wolfson College, sketches the background to the establishment in the 1960s of new Cambridge colleges, with a focus on Wolfson.