Some face-to-face events are returning. Check carefully for any requirements.
speaker:
Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse, Defence Counsel at the ICTR and Special Tribunal for Lebanon
OxTET is happy to welcome Riva-Melissa Tez – lecturer at the DAB university in Berlin, founder of the Berlin Singularity, Associate Director of Longevity Intelligence Communications, and co-runner of Kardashev Communications. Riva will be speaking on obstacles that emerging technology businesses face, analysing factors causing shortfalls in funding, social mistrust, and political dysfunction, and offering recommendations for dealing with these obstacles.
Speaker: Tom Price
The archipelago of Japan is defined as one of the World’s 34 biodiversity hotspots. Learn how staff from the Botanic Garden and Harcourt Arboretum are conducting expeditions to Japan to collect and document the native flora to improve the plant collections held by the University, promote biodiversity conservation and communicate research conducted by the Department of Plant Sciences, Oxford to a wider audience.
All Summer Lectures start at 6.30pm in the Daubeny Lecture Theatre (at
the front of the Botanic Garden) and are followed by a drinks reception in the Botanic Garden. Ticket cost £8 per talk or £36 for the series of 5.
For more details, visit: http://www.botanic-garden.ox.ac.uk/whatson
Speaker: Susie Orbach
Psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, writer and social critic. Her books include Fat is a Feminist Issue and Bodies. A convenor of Anybody, an organisation that campaigns for body diversity. Co-founder of Antidote which works for the emotional literacy and Co-founder of Psychotherapist and Counsellors for Social Responsibility. Part of the Mansfield Lecture Series, convener Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
Al Jazeera host Mehdi Hasan will challenge Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Medecins sans Frontieres and former French Foreign Minister, on France’s military interventionism. Are the country’s motives altruistic or do they respond to a neo-colonialist agenda? And is there a tipping point when intervening becomes essential? Syria, Mali, Libya, Kosovo and more.
This debate will be filmed and aired on Al Jazeera English at a later date. Audience members will be invited to participate in a Q&A section during the second half of the conversation.
Order free tickets here: http://bernardkouchner.eventbrite.co.uk
RANDY RETTBERG, President of iGEM
Randy Rettberg is the man behind iGEM, the global competition for undergraduates and high school students in designing brand new biological parts, or “genetically engineered machines”. An engineer by trade he is the President of the iGEM Foundation, which operates the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, a continuously growing library of genetic parts that can be mixed and matched to enable easier construction of synthetic biology devices.
Dr. RICHARD KELWICK, Researcher at CSynBI, Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation (Imperial College)
Richard has been scientific advisor and project manager of three successful iGEM teams, 2011-2013. Most recently, he was the lead advisor for the iGEM team Plasticity, at Imperial College London, which came third out of over 200 teams at the world final, held at MIT.
Dr. JAREK BRYK, National Centre for Biotechnology Education University of Reading
Jarek works at the National Centre for Biotechnology Education on a project to facilitate teaching of synthetic biology on an undergraduate level. He develops experimental kits that will be incorporated in synthetic biology curricula.He currently mentors the iGEM Reading team.
Speaker: Guy Horwood
In 2013, Harcourt Arboretum arborist Guy Horwood was awarded a travel bursary to join the prestigious International Dendrology Society on their study tour of the Czech Republic. The tour of this diverse and unspoilt country started and ended in Prague and visited botanic gardens and natural forests. In this talk, Guy will take you on a virtual version of the tour and share his experiences with you.
All Summer Lectures start at 6.30pm in the Daubeny Lecture Theatre (at
the front of the Botanic Garden) and are followed by a drinks reception in the Botanic Garden. Ticket cost £8 per talk or £36 for the series of 5.
For more details, visit: http://www.botanic-garden.ox.ac.uk/whatson
A new report by the Humanitarian Innovation Project, Refugee Economies: Rethinking Popular Assumptions, will be launched to coincide with World Refugee Day, on Friday 20 June 2014. It is one of the very first studies on the economic life of refugees and fundamentally challenges existing models of refugee assistance.
The report is based on participatory, mixed methods research including about 1,600 surveys in Uganda, one of the few refugee-hosting countries in Africa that allows refugees the right to work and freedom of movement. However, it has wider implications for the emerging refugee crises around the world.
Far from being uniformly dependent, refugees are part of complex and vibrant economic systems. They are often entrepreneurial and, if given the opportunity, can help themselves and their communities, as well as contributing to the host economy. The data in the new report challenges five popular myths about refugees’ economic lives:
that refugees are economically isolated;
that they are a burden on host states;
that they are economically homogenous;
that they are technologically illiterate;
that they are dependent on humanitarian assistance.
Read more about the report: http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/refugeeeconomies
Oxford Transitional Justice Research is pleased to invite you to its 2014 Summer Conference ‘Borders and Boundaries in Transitional Justice’.
This year’s conference, hosted with the support of the Planethood Foundation, Law Faculty, and the Centre for Criminology, will explore the issue of how borders and boundaries affect transitional justice processes across the world. The conference is organised around four panels:
The interplay between local, regional, and foreign transnational processes;
The role of diaspora and stateless communities in transitional justice;
The ways in which international law is dealing with cross-border transitional justice concerns; and
How local, national, and global approaches are affecting the theory and practice of transitional justice.
Registration is now open and we encourage all potential participants to register as soon as possible. Spaces are limited. We particularly welcome graduate students and early career researchers working on issues of transitional justice. A small registration fee includes tea and coffee and a light lunch.
As part of ‘LoveFriday’, a late night opening at the Ashmolean museum, join us for gallery talks on love, sex, gender, and poetry in the ancient world. Talks will be 15 minutes and given on a rolling basis
‘Love, sex and gender in ancient Egypt’ with Ed Scrivens
‘Latin Love Poetry’ with Sharon van Dijk
‘Love in the Ramayana, Krishna, and the Gopis’ with Nayan Bedia
‘Love, Sex and Tragedy in Japanese Literature and History’ with Lyman Gamberton
‘Sex, gender and power in Imperial China’ with Alex Nachescu
LoveFriday welcome the summer LiveFriday to the Ashmolean for an evening dedicated to Love. Visitors will be invited to seek out love in the museum’s collection; through musical and theatrical performances and interactive workshops. Offering a shared journey, whether as a pre-existing couple or about to be acquainted, you can look forward to exploring the Museum and meeting like-minded people.
In 2014 Barnett House is celebrating its centenary. The celebrations culminate with the Reunion Weekend on 12-13 July 2014.
This includes:
– Keynote talk from Magdalena Sepulveda, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
– The 100th birthday tea party (the V-C Andrew Hamilton will cut the birthday cake!)
– A talk on the history of Barnett House and the launch of the book on the history.
– Open house at the department with displays of historic material and current research.
– Drinks and dinner with an after dinner talk from Prof Jonathan Bradshaw.
– Showing of the film Rich Man, Poor Man based on research carried out by Robert Walker and Elaine Chase with a discussion with the director of the film.
Speaker: Martin Roth, Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum was founded during the tumult of the Industrial Revolution; a period of intense technological and social change. Today brings another such turning point, as we grapple with the consequences of the digital revolution. How are advances in digital design and media changing museum practice? And what curatorial principles remain the same, little changed from 19th century? The V&A holds a rich collection of ‘Ukiyo-e’ – popular representations of everyday Japanese life from the 18th-19th centuries. Radical changes and fundamental continuities are both in evidence when, today, curators consider collecting ‘emojis’, emoticons with distinctive features reflecting contemporary Japanese culture. Martin Roth, Director of the V&A and, formerly, Director General of Dresden State Museums, will consider these questions and more in a lecture mapping the future of museums in the digital age.
The lecture will be followed by audience questions and a drinks reception.
Free to attend, all welcome.
Matthew Spangler is the adapter of The Kite Runner and also teaches creative writing in San Francisco. In this seminar he will cover Adaptation Techniques (how to tell the story of a 400+ page book in 2 hours on stage) and Gaining Permission / Rights. There will also be a Q&A.
this seminar is FREE to any ticket holder for The Kite Runner.
Max 20 places, call Ticket Office to book on 10865 305 305.
A public meeting with a short introductory talk followed by questions and discussion.
The end of violence
Thursday 25 September, 7:30pm to 9:00pm
Oxford Town Hall, St Aldates
All welcome
Organised by Oxford Communist Corresponding Society.
This is the last in a three-part series of public meetings on violence and war. The three meetings of the series are:
Thursday 17 July
The war to end all wars
Thursday 21 August
The anti-war movement
Thursday 25 September
The end of violence
All are from 7:30pm to 9:00pm in the Town Hall
Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost
Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Professor of Global Health; and Commissioner on the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations, will provide his perspective on the key long-term challenges in global health, addressing the burden of both communicable and non-communicable disease.
This seminar will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome.
Join in on twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEwlBU7bNrA
About the speaker:
Professor Peter Piot is the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a Professor of Global Health. Professor Piot is also a Commissioner on the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations. In 2009-2010 he was the Director of the Institute for Global Health at Imperial College for Science, Technology and Medicine, London. He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1995 until 2008, and was an Associate Director of the Global Programme on AIDS of WHO. Under his leadership UNAIDS became the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS, also spear heading UN reform by bringing together 10 UN system organizations.
Professor Piot has a medical degree from the University of Ghent (1974) and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Antwerp (1980). In 1976 he co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire while working at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. He was a professor of microbiology, and of public health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, the Free University of Brussels, and the University of Nairobi, was a Senior Fellow at the University of Washington, a Scholar in Residence at the Ford Foundation, and a Senior Fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He held the chair 2009/2010 “Knowledge against poverty” at the College de France in Paris, and is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected a foreign member of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences, and is also an elected member of the Académie Nationale de Médicine of France, and of the Royal Academy of Medicine of his native Belgium, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
He was knighted as a baron in 1995 and has published over 550 scientific articles and 16 books, including his memior No Time to Lose. In 2013 he was the laureate of the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research and in 2014 he received the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health.
We have yet to discover other life in our Galaxy, but we have a good idea where it might be! Join the astrophysicists Chris Lintott (BBC’s Sky at Night) and Grant Miller from Zooniverse, the largest, most successful online citizen science project, discuss exoplanets and their potential habitability.
A public meeting with a short introductory talk followed by questions and discussion.
The difficulty of imagining a free society
Thursday 16 October, 7:30pm to 9:00pm
The Mitre, corner of High St and Turl St (upstairs function room)
All welcome
Organised by Oxford Communist Corresponding Society.
Part of the Oxford Internet Institute’s Bellwether Lectures series.
Speaker: Caroline Haythornthwaite
Learning has left the classroom. It is being re-constituted across distance, discipline, workplace, and media as the social and technical interconnectivity of the Internet challenges existing structures for learning and education. The new ‘e-learning’ is more than a learning management system – it is a transformation in how, where, and with whom we learn that supports formal, informal and non-formal learning, life-long learning, just-in-time learning, and in ‘as much time as I have’ learning. But to do so, e-learning depends on the power of crowds and the support of communities engaged in the participatory practices of the Internet. We are networked in our learning, but also in our joint construction of knowledge and its legitimation, and in the social and technical practices that support knowledge co-construction, learning and education. This talk explores the emerging trends and forces that are radically reshaping learning and knowledge practices. The talk further explores the changing landscape of learning and knowledge practices with attention to motivations for contributing and valuing knowledge in crowds and communities, and the implications for future knowledge practices.
Speaker: Lina Molokotos-Liederman (Uppsala University)
The first part of the seminar will look at the Orthodox Christian approach of addressing social issues of poverty, injustice and inequality, and the concept of Orthodox diakonia. The second part will focus on Greece as a case study, discussing the response of the Church to the social costs of the economic crisis (its charitable social welfare activities), but also the impact of this crisis on the Church itself.
As the dust settles after the Scottish referendum and the UK gears up for the next general election, the Oxford Martin School and the Department of Politics and International Relations bring constitutional experts together to debate what next for the United Kingdom?
Panel:
Professor Iain McLean, Professor of Politics, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford and specialist in devolution
Dr Scot Peterson, Bingham Research Fellow in Constitutional Studies and Junior Research Fellow in the Social Sciences, University of Oxford
Chair: Mure Dickie, Financial Times Scotland Correspondent
There will be a drinks reception after the debate, all welcome
About the speakers
Professor Iain McLean was born in Edinburgh and went to school there. He came to England for the first time as a student at Oxford where he obtained his MA, M.Phil and D.Phil. He was a college tutor in an undergraduate college for 13 years, during which the college scaled the heights of PPE. He has worked at the Universities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Warwick, and Oxford, and has held visiting professorships at Washington & Lee, Stanford, Yale, and the Australian National University.
He has been an elected councillor on Tyne & Wear County Council (committee chair) and Oxford City Council (group leader). In recent years he has principally worked on UK public policy, and started the Department of Politics and International Relations Public Policy Unit in 2005.
His research areas and insterests are:
Public policy, especially UK. Specialisms in devolution; spatial issues in taxation and public expenditure; electoral systems; constitutional reform; church and state.
The Union (of the United Kingdom) since 1707. Rational-choice approaches to political history
Dr Scot Peterson primarily in Colorado, in the United States, where he did his undergraduate work in Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of Chicago in Political Science, and attended law school at the University of California (Boalt Hall) in Berkeley. After practicing law for fifteen years in Colorado he came to Oxford, where he earned his doctoral degree.
He is interested in the constitutional history of the United Kingdom and of the United States, focusing particularly on matters arising from the relationship between church and state. His D.Phil. thesis was about the religious establishments, or the lack of them, in the three nations that make up Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) in the early twentieth century. He is concerned with questions of why those relationships have been maintained in recent history, despite the supposed ‘secularization’ inherent in modern Western democracies. He analyzes them as political and historical phenomena, engaging in archive research and applying rational choice methodology.
The first speaker in Oxford Females in Engineering, Science and Technology brand new speaker series ‘Inspiring STEM’ promises a fascinating talk on her research and personal experiences in combining professional career and personal life, do not miss out:
Professor Helen McShane is a Professor of Vaccinology and Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow at Oxford University, where she leads a programme of research to develop a new vaccine for Tuberculosis (TB). The BCG vaccine currently administered to children has been around for 90 years and shows only a limited and short-lived effect. Crucially, it does not offer protection against pulmonary TB, which is the most common form of the disease. TB remains a major killer worldwide with 1.4 million victims a year, and resistance has evolved to many drugs used to treat it, so new ways of preventing the disease are badly needed.
Helen originally planned to become a GP, but after 6 months in practice decided to embark on clinical medicine and PhD research into infectious diseases. By the time she arrived at the defense of her thesis, she had been pregnant with her second child and she has successfully juggled home and work life ever since (now, a mum to 3 children).
‘Inspiring STEM’ series of talks aims to bring together Oxford’s Women in STEM, showcase the research performed by the very best scientists and engineers, and inspire the audience to realize their potential. It reflects the academic aspect of OxFEST while providing a glimpse into possible career paths that we can take.
Why is intergenerational equity not better reflected in our policies? Why are calls on policymakers to extend their concern beyond short-term election cycles so ineffective? On 21 October, a year on from the release of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations’ Report ‘Now for the Long Term’, the conference will examine these questions and survey options for better embedding a long-term perspective in our institutions.
Two sessions will evaluate innovative mechanisms and tools for re-orienting our practices towards the future. The effectiveness and legitimacy of various measures such as ombudspersons for future generations or improved reporting methods will be assessed by leading practitioners and theorists.
Speakers:
Professor Ian Goldin, Director, Oxford Martin School
Peter Davies, Wales’ Commissioner For Sustainable Future
Oras Tynkkynen, Vice-Chair, Finnish Committee for the Future
Catherine Pearce, Director Future Justice, World Future Council
Simon Caney, Oxford Martin Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations, University of Oxford
Juliana Bidadanure, Political and Social Sciences Department, European University Institute, Florence
Jörg Tremmel, Institute for Political Science, University of Tübingen
Peter Lawrence, Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania
The conference is free and open to all and will be followed by a drinks reception.
Part of the St John’s Gender Equality Festival, Oxford University LGBTQ Society Trans Reps – Alyson Cruise and Rowan Davies – will be presenting an interactive Trans 101 session where we will talk about the basics of trans issues, what some important words mean and how to be respectful to trans people. They hope people can ask them questions without feeling awkward. They’ll explain the
relationship between trans issues and feminism, and how cis feminists can be more inclusive for trans people in general.
Eating Restoration Glue to Stay Alive: A History of Hermitage
With Dr Rosalind P. Blakesley, University of Cambridge
Ashmolean Lecture Theatre
Wed 22 Oct, 11am–12pm
The Hermitage is an institute like no other, housing over 3 million objects in buildings as iconic as the Winter Palace, seat of the Romanov dynasty until its spectacular fall from grace in 1917. As the Hermitage celebrates its 250th anniversary, Dr Blakesley charts its history from the lavish patronage of Catherine the Great to the unparalleled acquisitions of Impressionist and Post- Impressionist works.
Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost
No other large-scale health intervention can have as big an impact on child mortality as vaccination. Across the world millions of lives have been saved by innoculation, and in the past ten years the annual number of measles cases worldwide has dropped from one million to 200,000. But just as important as creating new vaccines is ensuring that children have access to them. Join us at the Oxford Martin School as Dr Matthew Snape, Consultant in Vaccinology at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS trust and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Oxford, looks at the challenges involved in making sure the success story of childhood vaccination can be a global one.
Join in on twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CO2L5Rq7tU
Come along to St John’s MCR to hear Professor Daniel Freeman, clinical psychologist and recent author of ‘The stressed sex?’ give a talk on the links between gender and mental health as part of St John’s Gender Equality Festival.
A fascinating and lively talk, with wine and nibbles provided.
Come along for a panel discussion about gender and the workplace following a drinks reception and followed by a question answer session. Part of St John’s Gender Equality Festival. We have a great line-up of people, including:
–PROF GINA RIPPON: Neuroscientist and investigator of differences between male and female brains
–CATHERINE MALLYON: Executive Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company
–BARBARA SLATER: the BBC’s first female Director of Sport
–JO HARRISON: from No More Page Three
–PROF LINDA MCDOWELL: Professor at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford