As we face climate change, our relationship with nature needs rethinking. Nature is impacted, even constituted, by human activity. However, societies are also co-constituted by nature. My research explores the subject-centrality of nature through land and the making of contemporary India. For centuries, we have believed that land is a fixed asset. I propose unfixed land. Interdisciplinary, qualitative research in India shows humans physically reconfiguring, legally redefining, politically re-labeling and discursively reimagining land in growth and investment-led policies. For instance, riverbeds are mined, ponds built over, and national territory securitised and then commercialised. In turn, unfixing land shapes our institutions. Legality and illegality blend in states, markets and politics with vast shadows. Here, middlemen and musclemen unfix and re-fix land, keeping it in circulation. Unfixed land is not merely the holder of India’s growth story. It is that story, and one that needs urgent telling.

This is a joint event with the Oxford Energy Colloquia

Since the late 2000s, science has established that global warming is largely defined by the total amount of carbon dioxide we emit into the atmosphere. This concept not only implies that halting warming to any level implies that global carbon dioxide emissions have to be reduced to net zero, it also allows to estimate carbon budgets that would be compatible with limiting warming to either 1.5°C or 2°C. Once established, the carbon budget concept and its implications were rapidly taken up in policy discussions.

In this talk, Dr Joeri Rogelj, will explore and discuss the latest developments in estimation the remaining carbon budget as well as its usefulness for guiding policy and climate change mitigation action.

This talk will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome

There seems to be a growing consensus that previous assumptions about the long term consequences of China’s rise have turned out to be misplaced. Rather than China becoming ‘socialised’ into the liberal global order (and democratising at home), a China challenge to that order is instead being identified. This is seen not just as a challenge to the distribution of power within the current system, but to some of the fundamental norms and principles that underpin it, as well as to the theories and concepts that are used to try to understand it and predict future behaviour.  Of course, some always expected it to be this way; however, others now see a Chinese ability and willingness to promote alternatives that they didn’t envisage even a decade ago.
This presentation explores how what were originally designed as defensive norms and theories for China itself have transformed into putative platforms that might have salience and utility for others outside China. The paper suggests that the Chinese position may better be understood as a critique of universalism rather than the basis of an alternative world order. It also asks whether there is more than just an aspirational dimension to new Chinese thinking on international relations built on a form of “Occidentalism”, or if we can identify a real and distinct Chinese approach to both its own international relations and the nature of the world order itself.
—
Shaun Breslin is Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick and a leading British academic expert on Chinese politics and economy, globalization, regionalism, global governance, and International Political Economy. Professor Breslin is also an Associate Fellow of the Asia Research Centre based at Murdoch University and an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Centre for European Studies, Renmin University. In 2010, he became an Associate Fellow in the Asia Programme of Chatham House. Professor Breslin is Co-Editor of The Pacific Review and sits on the Editorial Committee of the Review of International Studies, China and World Economy, and the Fudan Review of International Relations.

As part of the Surgical Grand Rounds lecture series, hosted by the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences at the University of Oxford, Mr Puneet Plaha, a Consultant Neurosurgeon at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, will discuss ‘Brain tumour surgery – awake and novel imaging’.

‘Triboreacted materials as functional interfaces in internal combustion engines and medical implants’

Reducing CO2 and particulate emissions to halt global warming and improve the air cleanliness in developed and developing nations is urgent. A similarly large challenge is the provision of medical implants that will serve the ageing population. Both challenges are underpinned by the need to understand important functional interfaces.
This talk will focus on the engine and the hip and will present how an understanding of the interactions between tribology and chemistry/corrosion play a crucial role in the interfacial friction, wear and integrity. The integration of state-of-the-art surface science with engineering simulations in both of these areas enables engineers to create optimised systems with improved performance

– GPES Seminar Series – Oxford Brookes

“Prevention is better than cure”, and yet only 3% of health expenditure in OECD countries is spent on prevention and public health while more than 90% is spent on curative, rehabilitative and long-term care. How can that paradox be explained? What are the obstacles and opportunities for greater investment in staying healthy?

Abstract:
Although early modern artistic connections between India and Ethiopia are reasonably well documented, there is little or no epigraphic or textual evidence for earlier histories of circulation across the Indian Ocean. Yet, architectural and other material from the Horn of Africa suggests a certain intensity of contacts with western Indian in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Highlighting the ‘archival’ value of extant artifacts and monuments, this lecture explores the role of medieval Ethiopia as a nexus between the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean.

About the Speaker:
Finbarr Barry Flood is director of Silsila: Center for Material Histories and William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the Humanities at the Institute of Fine Arts and Department of Art History, New York University. His publications include The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture (2000), Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter, (2009), awarded the 2011 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Prize of the Association for Asian Studies, and the 2-volume Blackwell Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture (2017), co-edited with Professor Gülru Necipoğlu of Harvard University. He is currently completing a major book project, provisionally entitled Islam and Image: Beyond Aniconism and Iconoclasm, which will form the basis of the 2019 Slade Lectures at the University of Oxford.

A lecture exploring the therapist’s use of Spiritual and Religious Interventions.

The lecture will delve into questions such as “what is the most helpful way for God to be present in the counselling room?”, “what Spiritual and Religious Interventions are best used for which mental health disorders?” Does prayer work for stress?

Following the lecture and questions there will be the opportunity to explore setting up a ‘local’ Oxford BACP Spirituality group.

Alistair Ross (Director of Studies in Psychodynamic Studies and Psychology at Oxford University Department for Continuing Education),
Shannon Hood (Counsellor, Clinical Supervisor, Educator, Researcher)
Maureen Slattery-Marsh (Chair of BACP)

In conjunction with BACP Spirituality

Please RSVP to penny.wheeler@conted.ox.ac.uk if you are planning to attend.

The economic case for limiting warming to 1.5°C is unclear, due to manifold uncertainties. However, it cannot be ruled out that the 1.5°C target passes a cost-benefit test. Costs are almost certainly high: the median global carbon price in 1.5°C scenarios implemented by various energy models is more than US$100 per metric ton of CO2 in 2020, for example. Benefits estimates range from much lower than this to much higher. Some of these uncertainties may reduce in the future, raising the question of how to hedge in the near term.

Simon Dietz is an environmental economist with particular interests in climate change and sustainable development. He has published dozens of research articles on a wide range of issues, and he also works with governments, businesses and NGOs on topics of shared interest, such as carbon pricing, insurance and institutional investment.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, UN agencies, NGOs and the Red Cross / Crescent work to save lives and protect rights in the wake of natural disasters and armed conflict. How effective is the $27Billion sector? And what challenges does it face? The Oxford launch event of the State of the Humanitarian System report, with expert panel and Q and A

Cycling film ‘Why We Cycle’ Duration 57 minutes
There are more bicycles than people in the Netherlands. The film “Why We Cycle” gets cyclists and scientists to talk about Dutch cycling culture. These conversations uncover hidden effects of cycling on people, on societies, and on the organization of cities.

The day will consist of a range of events, hosted by speakers from different areas of STEM and industry. Expect to hear from keynote speakers, engage with panel discussions, and get hands on experience in smaller workshops focusing on entrepreneurship, outreach, disabilities and more.

Don’t miss out on hearing from a range of speakers, including: Dr. Chonnettia Jones, Director of Insight and Analysis at the Wellcome Trust; Prof. Daniela Bortoletto, Professor of Physics at Brasenose; plus Oxford’s own Vice Chancellor, Louise Richardson.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of gender, year and subject.

For more information visit OxFEST’s facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/294126621288050/

Join us at Teddy Hall next week for a fantastic event on the ‘Neuroscience of Dance’ brought to you by the Centre for the Creative Brain!

Science, dance and wine – what more could you want for a Saturday afternoon?

A few (free) tickets are still available, so be quick!

https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/discover/research/centre-for-the-creative-brain

– GPES Seminar Series, Oxford Brookes University

The beginnings of a celebrity or star culture in the theatre of Shakespeare’s time.
How many women went to Shakespeare’s plays? This talk explores the evidence and significance of female theatre going in the early modern period.

Professor Smith will discuss the beginnings of a celebrity or star culture in the theatre of Shakespeare’s time, discussing notable actors and, in particular, their appeal to women spectators. She’ll look at the evidence, often negative and satirical, about how women at the theatre were perceived, and trace their changing place in audiences as theatre went upmarket in the seventeenth century. Drawing on histories of consumerism and of celebrity, Smith will identify women theatregoers as crucial to the development of the playhouses within the early modern experience economy.

Professor Smith has been a Fellow of Hertford College and Lecturer in the Faculty of English since 1997. She teaches part of the first year paper ‘Introduction to Literary Studies’, the Renaissance paper to second years and Shakespeare. She lectures in the English Faculty on these topics with some of these lectures available as free podcasts from iTunesU. She also teaches on the English Faculty MSt course 1550-1700 and supervises research students on early modern topics.

Schedule:
12:15 – On-site registration & buffet lunch
12:30 – Talk commences
13:30 – Event close

The seminar is open for anyone to attend, registration is essential so please use the register button to confirm your attendance.

Automation, AI and robotics are changing our lives quickly – but digital disruption goes much further than we realise.

In this talk, Richard Baldwin, one of the world’s leading globalisation experts, will explain that exponential growth in computing, transmission and storage capacities is also creating a new form of ‘virtual’ globalisation that could undermine the foundations of middle-class prosperity in the West.

This book talk will be followed by a drinks reception and book signing, all welcome.

Deborah Warner: Changing Directions – Journeys in theatre, opera and installation
Date: Wednesday, 27 February 2019
Time: 5.00pm (Attendees must be seated by 4.45pm)
Venue: Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre, St Catherine’s College, Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UJ

Over her career, Deborah Warner has worked extensively in the fields of theatre, opera and classical music. Examples of her work as a Director include the plays Electra, King Lear and Richard II; and the operas The Turn of the Screw for the Royal Opera, which won the Evening Standard and South Bank Awards; Dido and Aeneas and La Traviata for the Vienna Festival. You can read more about Deborah Warner, and about the Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professorship here.

Places for this event will be allocated by ballot. To register for the ballot, please complete the online form at www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/deborahwarner by 12.00pm on Friday, 8 February. Please note that entry to the ballot does not automatically entitle applicants to a place at the lecture, but to a place in the draw. Printed confirmation of your ticket to the event will be required in order to attend the lecture.

You will be notified, via email, week commencing Monday, 18 February if you have been successful in securing a place at the lecture. Please contact development.office@stcatz.ox.ac.uk should you have any queries.

In 2013, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne published a paper titled ‘The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?’ which estimated that 47% of jobs in the US are at risk of automation.

In this talk Dr Carl Benedikt Frey, Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment, will discuss the societal consequences of the accelerating pace of automation, and what we can learn from previous episodes of worker-replacing technological change.

As part of the Surgical Grand Rounds lecture series, hosted by the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, Professor Shafi Ahmed (Consultant Laparoscopic Colorectal Surgeon at the Royal London Hospital and Associate Dean at Barts and the London Medical School) and Ms Sarah Kessler (Producer of award-winning documentary The Checklist Effect and past Lead for Lifebox) will discuss ‘Innovations to improve outcome and patient safety in low and middle income countries’.

Chief Philologist of the Oxford English Dictionary Edmund Weiner will be presenting his talk, “Thew Grew out of their Name” to the Oxford Tolkien Society

Entry free for members, £2 for non-members

“Many words and names in Tolkien’s words seem to have had a complex inner history in his own mind. This talk will look at how Tolkien’s creative philological mind worked. It will be an unhasty ramble around Ent country, looking at names and topics of language construction and language theory, with even a quick visit to Humpty Dumpty!”

The 2019 Dementia Awareness Day will be held at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford on the morning of Saturday March 2nd. The Oxford ARUK Network Centre organise this event to discuss current dementia research taking place within the network centre, which includes the University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University and University of Reading.

The event is open to the public and features several short talks from scientists on a range of topics in dementia.

We will also invite those who support people living with dementia and carers who will host information stands during the break. There will also be information on how you can get involved with dementia research.

This is a joint lecture with The Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health at the Oxford Martin School

Cooling is critical for many of the sustainable development goals, including those relating to health, shelter, livelihoods, education and nutrition. As the world’s population grows, as disposable incomes grow and as urban areas grow, the need for cooling is booming. However cooling uses super polluting gases and large amounts of energy and is therefore a significant cause of climate change. More efficient, clean cooling has the potential to avoid up to a degree of warming by the end of the century and recently all governments came together to agree action to try to maximize this opportunity. Cooling sits at the intersection of the UNFCCC, the SDGs and the Montreal Protocol, but can these forces ensure success?

Dan Hamza-Goodacre will explain the risks and possibilities in the search for sustainable cooling for all.

This talk will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome

Currently limited tools exist to accurately forecast the complex nature of disease spread across the globe. Dr Moritz Kraemer will talk about the dynamic global maps being built, at 5km resolution, to predict the invasion of new organisms under climate change conditions and continued unplanned urbanisation.

This book talk is co-organised with the Oxford Martin Programme on Collective Responsibility for Infectious Disease

Vaccination raises ethical issues about the responsibilities of individuals, communities, and states in preventing serious and potentially life-threatening infectious diseases. Such responsibilities are typically taken to be about minimising risks for those who are vaccinated and for those around them. However, there are other ethical considerations that matter when defining the responsibilities of different actors with regard to vaccination. Such ethical considerations are not often given due considerations in the debate on vaccination ethics and policy.

Thus, in this talk Dr Alberto Giubilini aims at offering a defence of compulsory vaccination taking into account not only the importance of preventing the harms of infectious diseases, but also the value of fairness in the distribution of the burdens entailed by the obligation to protect people from infectious diseases. He will offer a philosophical account of the key notions involved in the ethical debate on vaccination, of the types of responsibilities involved, of the possible types of vaccination policies ranked from the least to the most restrictive, and of the reasons why compulsory vaccination is, from an ethical point of view, the best policy available, as it is the most likely to guarantee not only protection from infectious diseases, but also a fair distribution of the burdens and responsibilities involved.

The talk will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome

REGISTRATION REQUIRED (Free): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/women-in-academia-tickets-56916538900

Join us at Magdalen College Auditorium as we explore what it takes to be a female in Academia and how to progress in this line of work. We’ll be joined by 5 incredible panelists:

– Professor Sian Pooley, History
– Professor Susan Bright, Law
– Dr Priyanka Dhopade, Engineering Science
– Professor Marilyn Booth, Oriental Studies
– Professor Lucy Bowes, Experimental Psychology
After hearing about each panelist’s journey up the academic ladder, there will be a dedicated Q&A session.

For any queries contact hannah.rana@magd.ox.ac.uk.

Can female directors help save economies and the firms on whose boards they sit? Policy-makers seem to think so.

Numerous countries have implemented boardroom gender policies because of business case arguments. While women may be the key to healthy economies, Adams argues that more research needs to be done to understand the benefits of board diversity. The literature faces three main challenges: data limitations, selection and causal inference. Recognizing and dealing with these challenges is important for developing informed research. But, recognizing the value of research is important for developing informed policy.

Schedule:
18.15 – Registration opens
18:45 – Event starts
19.45 – Drinks reception
20:45 – Close

This talk has been cancelled. Sorry.

Talk followed by questions and discussion

Professor Bill (KWM) Fulford, Fellow of St Catherine’s College and Member of the Philosophy Faculty, University of Oxford, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health, University of Warwick, Director of the Collaborating Centre for Values-based practice, St Catherine’s College, Oxford, and Founder Editor and Chair of the Advisory Board, Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology.
Abstract:
The widely held belief that the diagnosis of mental disorder is a matter exclusively for value-free science has been much reinforced by recent dramatic advances in the neurosciences. In this lecture I will use a detailed case study of delusion and spiritual experience to indicate to the contrary that values come into the diagnosis of mental disorders directly through the language of the diagnostic criteria adopted in such scientifically–grounded classifications as the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). Various competing interpretations of the importance of values in psychiatric diagnosis will be considered. Interpreted through the lens of the Oxford tradition of linguistic-analytic philosophy, however, diagnostic values in psychiatry are seen to reflect the complex and often conflicting values of real people. This latter interpretation has the direct consequence that there is a need for processes of assessment in psychiatry that are equally values-based as evidence-based. A failure to recognise this in the past has resulted in some of the worst abusive misuses of psychiatric diagnostic concepts. In the final part of the presentation I will outline recent developments in values-based practice in mental health, including some of its applications to diagnostic assessment, and in other areas of health care (such as surgery)

Seminar Series: Combined Medical-Surgical Grand Rounds
Title: ‘Gene therapy for retinitis pigmentosa’
Speaker: Professor Robert MacLaren, Professor of Ophthalmology at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences
Hosts: Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences and Nuffield Department of Medicine