Some face-to-face events are returning. Check carefully for any requirements.

May
23
Thu
The Politics of Higher Education – who care’s about universities? @ Oxford Brookes University, Headington Campus, John Henry Brookes Building, Oxford
May 23 @ 6:15 pm – 7:15 pm

This lecture is being given by social responsibility expert, Professor Andy Westwood – the former President of the OECD’s Forum for Social Innovation and an adviser at the IMF. Andy is Professor of Government Practice and Vice Dean of Humanities at the University of Manchester and a Visiting Professor of Further and Higher Education at the University of Wolverhampton.

May
29
Wed
5th Annual Oxford Business & Poverty Conference @ Sheldonian Theatre
May 29 @ 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm
5th Annual Oxford Business & Poverty Conference @ Sheldonian Theatre

The 5th Annual Oxford Business and Poverty Conference will feature a diverse range of speakers addressing the Paradoxes of Prosperity. Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/5th-annual-oxford-business-poverty-conference-tickets-57733957822
Hosted at the Sheldonian Theatre, the conference will feature keynotes by:
Lant Pritchett: RISE Research Director at the Blavatnik School of Government, former Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development
Efosa Ojomo: Global Prosperity Lead and Senior Researcher at the Clayton Christensen Institute
John Hoffmire: Director of Center on Business and Poverty and Research Associate at Kellogg Colleges at Center For Mutual and Employee-owned Business at Oxford University
Ananth Pai: Executive Director, Bharath Beedi Works Pvt. Ltd. and Director, Bharath Auto Cars Pvt
Laurel Stanfield: Assistant Professor of Marketing at Bentley College in Massachusetts
Grace Cheng: Greater China’s Country Manager for Russell Reynolds Associates
Madhusudan Jagadish: 2016 Graduate MBA, Said Business School, University of Oxford
Tentative Schedule:
2:15-2:20 Welcome
2:20-2:50 Efosa Ojomo, co-author of The Prosperity Paradox, sets the stage for the need for innovation in development
2:50-3:20 John Hoffmire, Ananth Pai and Mudhusudan Jagadish explain how the Prosperity Paradox can be used in India as a model to create good jobs for poor women
3:20-3:40 Break
3:40-4:10 Laurel Steinfeld speaks to issues of gender, development and business – addressing paradoxes related to prosperity
4:10-4:40 Grace Cheng, speaks about the history of China’s use of disruptive innovations to develop its economy
4:40-5:15 Break
5:15-6 Lant Pritchett talks on Pushing Past Poverty: Paths to Prosperity
6:30-8 Dinner at the Rhodes House – Purchase tickets after signing up for the conference
Sponsors include: Russell Reynolds, Employee Ownership Foundation, Ananth Pai Foundation and others

Jun
18
Tue
“From pollution to solution: will China save the planet?” with Barbara Finamore @ Oxford Martin School
Jun 18 @ 5:00 pm – 6:15 pm

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

Now that Trump has turned the United States into a global climate outcast, will China take the lead in saving our planet from environmental catastrophe? Many signs point to yes. China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, is leading a global clean energy revolution, phasing out coal consumption and leading the development of a global system of green finance.

But as leading China environmental expert and author of Will China Save the Planet? Barbara Finamore will explain in this talk, it is anything but easy. The fundamental economic and political challenges that China faces in addressing its domestic environmental crisis threaten to derail its low-carbon energy transition. Yet there is reason for hope. China’s leaders understand that transforming the world’s second largest economy from one dependent on highly polluting heavy industry to one focused on clean energy, services and innovation is essential, not only to the future of the planet, but to China’s own prosperity.

We will also hear from respondent Radhika Khosla, Research Director at the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, Somerville College.

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

Jul
13
Sat
Sound Diaries, recording life in sound @ The Jam Factory
Jul 13 @ 11:30 am – 6:30 pm
Sound Diaries, recording life in sound @ The Jam Factory

For this event, 12 artists from all over the country will be presenting work that they have been making as part of the Sound Diaries open call.

The presenting artists are:

Richard Bentley, Hannah Dargavel-Leafe, Aisling Davis, Atilio Doreste, Marlo De Lara, Beth Shearsby, Kathryn Tovey, Jacek Smolicki, James Green, Lucia Hinojosa, Sena Karahan, Fi.Ona

Sound Diaries expands awareness of the roles of sound and listening in daily life. The project explores the cultural and communal significance of sounds and forms a research base for projects executed both locally and Internationally, in Beijing, Brussels, Tallinn, Cumbria and rural Oxfordshire.

Sep
11
Wed
Documentary Makeing: Reporting from the Frontline @ Curzon Oxford
Sep 11 @ 6:15 pm – 9:15 pm
Documentary Makeing: Reporting from the Frontline @ Curzon Oxford

Natalie Triebwasser, Head of Production at Oxford based production company Quicksilver Media, makers of “Unreported World” – the UK’s longest running foreign current affairs series on Channel 4, and “Killer Ratings” – a documentary series currently streaming on Netflix, talks to award winning journalists Jenny Kleeman and Ramita Navai about their respective careers and the unique challenges that documentary makers face.

Oct
3
Thu
Lady Margaret Hall presents The History of Women’s Education @ Blackwell's Bookshop
Oct 3 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Lady Margaret Hall and Blackwell’s Celebrating 140 Years

Blackwell’s opened its doors on January 1st 1879 on Broad Street, Oxford and have been trading continuously from there ever since. Since then they have grown to become more than just one bookshop, with a chain of 40 bookshops serving not only individual customers but also a host of libraries, universities, businesses and government departments.

In October 1879 LMH opened its doors to the first nine women students under the Principalship of Elizabeth Wordsworth. Since that very moment they have been Leading Change in Oxford, being the first women’s College to make the decision to admit men as both students and Fellows from 1979, and in 2016 welcomed the first students of their pioneering Foundation Year to the College. The University of Oxford have recently announced Foundation Oxford, based on LMH’s model.

LMH Principal Alan Rusbridger will convene a conversation looking at the history of women’s education. He will be joined by Professor Senia Paseta, Professor of Modern History at St Hugh’s College, and Professor Louise Jackson, LMH alumna and Professor of Modern Social History at Edinburgh University.

We will discuss the significance of university education within the history of women’s lives in Britain since 1879 and look at the patterns of social change within this period

Senia Paseta is a historian of modern Ireland with a particular interest in the history of education, women’s activism, and political movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She has published widely on Irish nationalism, feminism and on a number of aspects of women’s history including the history of women’s education. Her current research is in the history of women’s political activism in Britain and Ireland. She is Professor of Modern History at Oxford, co-Director of Women in the Humanities and is currently leading on Women at Oxford University: an Online Resource. This collaborative research project involves the five women’s colleges, Bodleian Libraries and the History Faculty. It will be launched in 2020 to mark the centenary of the formal admission of women to Oxford.

Louise Jackson is Professor of Modern Social History at Edinburgh University. She is a co-Editor of the academic journal Social History, and on the editorial board of Women’s History Review and the steering committee of Women’s History Scotland. Her research is concerned with histories of women and gender in modern Britain as well as with histories of policing and surveillance, crime, deviancy, childhood, youth and sexuality.

Tickets for this event are free to alumni of Lady Margaret Hall. For your free ticket, please contact the LMH Almuni Engagement Officer, Emma Farrant at alumni.officer@lmh.ox.ac.uk. Tickets are available to the public at a cost of £5. Please note, the full details of this event are to be confirmed and all updates will appear on this page. The event will be followed by a short drinks reception. For more information please contact our Customer Service Desk on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk

Oct
17
Thu
Conflict and Identity: Confronting the past through education @ Lincoln College
Oct 17 @ 8:30 am – Oct 18 @ 5:00 pm
Conflict and Identity: Confronting the past through education @ Lincoln College

This two-day conference will explore the evolving relationship between conflict and identity, with a specific interest in the role of history education in pre-conflict, at-conflict, and post-conflict societies. It will focus on how teachers and lecturers present history; how such choices shape identity; and how history education can be used for the purposes of promoting or undermining peaceful societies.

Oct
21
Mon
FLJS Films: Peterloo @ Wolfson College
Oct 21 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
FLJS Films: Peterloo @ Wolfson College

FLJS Films opens its 2019-20 programme with acclaimed director Mike Leigh’s latest film Peterloo, which, by bringing to light a little-known atrocity in Manchester 200 years ago, makes a timely comment on the repercussions and resonances of public protest.

The film depicts the nascent labour movement of the nineteenth century, as the hunger and poverty brought about by the Corn Laws (which barred imports of cheap grain from the continent) drove 60,000 peaceful protesters to Manchester’s St Peter’s Field to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.

When the demonstration was brutally put down by the cavalry, leaving 18 people dead and hundreds injured, the government moved to suppress reporting by a nascent free press, and the event has since been largely forgotten.

On the bicentenary year of the massacre, and with the current resurgence of popular demonstrations and civil disobedience over Brexit and the climate crisis, Peterloo offers an invaluable reminder of the power of political resistance.

Historian of protest Dr Katrina Navickas will give a short introductory talk on her involvement in the historical research for Peterloo and the film’s political and contemporary resonances.

Praise for Peterloo
“A full-bore assault on the amnesia of British establishment history”
Sight and Sound

“Shattering in its cumulative effect, and its relevance to these turbulent times”
Wall Street Journal

Oct
26
Sat
Richard Ayoade – Ayoade on Top Signing @ Blackwell's Bookshop
Oct 26 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Blackwell’s are delighted to announce that we will be joined by comedian, director and writer, Richard Ayoade, who will be signing his new book, Ayoade on Top.

Synopsis

At last, the definitive book about perhaps the best cabin crew dramedy ever filmed: View From the Top starring Gwyneth Paltrow.

In Ayoade on Top, Richard Ayoade, perhaps one of the most ‘insubstantial’ people of our age, takes us on a journey from Peckham to Paris by way of Nevada and other places we don’t care about. It’s a journey deep within, in a way that’s respectful and non-invasive; a journey for which we will all pay a heavy price, even if you’ve waited for the smaller paperback edition.

Ayoade argues for the canonisation of this brutal masterpiece, a film that celebrates capitalism in all its victimless glory; one we might imagine Donald Trump himself half-watching on his private jet’s gold-plated flat screen while his other puffy eye scans the cabin for fresh, young prey.”

Richard Ayoade is a writer and director. In addition to directing and co-writing Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, he has adapted and directed Joe Dunthorne’s novel Submarine for the screen, and is the co-writer (with Avi Korine) and director of the film, The Double. As an actor he is best known for his roles as Dean Learner in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and Maurice Moss in the Emmy Award-winning The IT Crowd, for which we was awarded a BAFTA as Best Performance in a Comedy.

This signing is free, but please do register if you plan on attending. Please note, Richard Ayoade will be only be signing his books. For more information, please call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.

Oct
31
Thu
Chelsea Kwakye & Ore Ogunbiyi – Taking Up Space @ Blackwell's Bookshop
Oct 31 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

Blackwell’s are honoured to be joined by Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi, to talk about their hugely important book, Taking Up Space: The Black Girl’s Manifesto for Change.

Synopsis

As a minority in a predominantly white institution, taking up space is an act of resistance. Recent Cambridge grads Chelsea and Ore experienced this first-hand, and wrote Taking Up Space as a guide and a manifesto for change.

“FOR BLACK GIRLS:Understand that your journey is unique. Use this book as a guide. Our wish for you is that you read this and feel empowered, comforted and validated in every emotion you experience, or decision that you make.FOR EVERYONE ELSE:We can only hope that reading this helps you to be a better friend, parent, sibling or teacher to black girls living through what we did. It’s time we stepped away from seeing this as a problem that black people are charged with solving on their own.It’s a collective effort. And everyone has a role to play.”

Featuring honest conversations with students past and present, Taking Up Space goes beyond the buzzwords of diversity and inclusion and explores what those words truly mean for young black girls today.

Chelsea Kwakye is a first-class honours History graduate from Homerton College, Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge she was the only black girl in her year group of around 200 to read History. In her final year, she was Vice-President of the African-Caribbean Society and competed in a Cambridge vs. Oxford Varsity Athletics match. She is currently studying at the University of Law in preparation for a training contract with a city law firm in London.

Ore Ogunbiyi is a Nigerian-British Politics and International Relations graduate from Jesus College, Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge she pioneered the Benin Bronze Repatriation campaign, the #BlackMenofCambridgeUniversity campaign and was President of the African-Caribbean Society. She has since completed a Masters in Journalism at Columbia University, New York and is currently working as a Special Assistant and Speechwriter to the Vice President of Nigeria.

#Merky Books was set up by publishers Penguin Random House and Stormzy in June 2018 to find and publish the best writers of a new generation and to publish the stories that are not being heard. #Merky Books aims to open up the world of publishing, and this year has launched a New Writer’s Prize and will soon be launching a #Merky Books traineeship.

This event is free to attend, but please do register if you plan on coming. The talk will be held in our Philosophy Department, which is only accessible by a short flight of stairs. For more information please contact our Customer Service Desk on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.

Nov
1
Fri
Africa Oxford Initiative insaka @ St Cross College
Nov 1 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Africa Oxford Initiative insaka @ St Cross College

The AfOx insaka is a gathering for sharing ideas and knowledge about Africa-focused research with speakers from diverse and varied academic disciplines. There are two events each term.

Speakers for the first AfOx insaka in the new academic year are Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Oxford Department of International Development and Dr Jacob McKnight, Senior Researcher, Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health.

At this AfOx talk, Robtel Neajai Pailey uses her anti-corruption children’s books to argue that equipping children with verbal tools to question the confusing ethical codes of adults can revolutionise how we talk and theorise about corruption.

Jake McKnight is a Health Systems Researcher at the Oxford Health Systems Collaboration (OHSCAR). He was originally a logistician for MSF in Angola and Somalia, before conducting his PhD research in Ethiopia. He then read for the MSc. in African Studies at Oxford, before completing his PhD at Said Business School, where he concentrated on healthcare reform in Ethiopia. Jake will talk about the failures and successes of projects he’s studied or been involved in, reflecting on the idea that ‘Africa Works’, and as researchers and implementors, it’s up to us to fit local cultures rather to try to ‘fix’ them.

Nov
15
Fri
Faith in Translation: Edward Green Memorial Lecture @ Greene's Institute
Nov 15 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Faith in Translation: Edward Green Memorial Lecture @ Greene's Institute

In this lecture, in honour of Edward Greene, Donald Meek will describe the fascinating process of Gaelic Bible translation in Scotland and Ireland. Beginning with the standard Gaelic Bible, translated between 1767 and 1804, Donald will explain its creation, and its debts to the work of earlier translators and revisers, including the Rev. Robert Kirk of Aberfoyle (who produced ‘Kirk’s Bible in 1690), but pre-eminently to the foundational labours of the translators of the Bible into Classical Gaelic in Ireland in the earlier seventeenth century. Both the principal translators of that period – Bishop William Ó Dómhnaill and Bishop William Bedell – studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where they were trained in biblical languages by the first Master of Emmanuel, Lawrence Chadderton. By way of comparison and contrast, brief reference will be made to the somewhat different histories of Bible translation into Manx and Welsh. The lecture will conclude with some discussion of the profound influence of the Gaelic Bible on the development of modern Scottish Gaelic literature, and its enduring legacy

Jan
15
Wed
Mobile phone film making @ Curzon
Jan 15 @ 6:15 pm – 9:30 pm
Mobile phone film making @ Curzon

Mobile phone filmmaking. It’s the camera of choice for some.
Is the best camera the one you have with you?
We will welcome expert interactive filmmaker and thriller writer Nihal Tharoor (Electric Noir Studios) and former BBC Trainer Bob Walters (MediaInk TV, iphone-filmmaking).
This session will look at the potential of mobile phone cameras for low budget reasons and for those starting out, but also for more experienced filmmakers interested in producing gritty styled thrillers or entertainment for younger audiences who use the platform most. Whether you are using mobile phones for short films, pilots, showreels, documentary filmmaking or features this event offers great value – we’ll be looking at expert output, hearing from passionate speakers and offering some bonus technical tips.

Opportunities to network with local film and TV professionals after main talk

Jan
27
Mon
Alternative Provision and School Exclusions @ Department of Education
Jan 27 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Alternative Provision and School Exclusions @ Department of Education

This seminar is part of our public seminar series on ‘Exclusion from School and its Consequences’, led by the Department of Education and convened by Harry Daniels (Professor of Education) and Ian Thompson (Associate Professor of English Education & Director of PGCE).

Events in the series are free to attend and aimed at academics, researchers, teachers, head teachers, government members, policy-makers and students, although anyone with an interest in the topic is welcome to attend

Speaker: Martin Mills (Institute of Education, University College, London(

Seminar Abstract: This presentation will discuss the place of Alternative Provision (AP) in the process of exclusion in England, with a particular focus on issues related to social justice. Consideration will be given to some of the reasons why young people find themselves in AP. It will highlight the ways in which AP can serve to further marginalise young people who are already alienated by the education system. However, it will also draw on data from English AP sites to demonstrate how such sites can work to ensure that young people excluded from mainstream schools are retained in education. The choice is sometimes not between AP and the mainstream, but AP or no education. In some AP sites young people suggest that they are far happier than they were in the mainstream and, when it is provided can be engaged in meaningful learning. The presentation will consider why that it is and whether or not there are lessons to be learned from the AP sector which can help to make mainstream schools more inclusive. Throughout the presentation the voices of teachers and students in AP will be foregrounded. There will also be some discussion of international approaches to AP.

Open to all and free to attend – Registration required at: http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/events/alternative-provision-and-school-exclusions/

Feb
3
Mon
Behaviour and Attitudes in the Education Inspection Framework @ Department of Education
Feb 3 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Behaviour and Attitudes in the Education Inspection Framework @ Department of Education

This seminar is part of our public seminar series on ‘Exclusion from School and its Consequences’, led by the Department of Education and convened by Harry Daniels (Professor of Education) and Ian Thompson (Associate Professor of English Education & Director of PGCE).

Speaker: Matthew Purves, Ofsted

Seminar Abstract: The Education Inspection Framework is the most researched and piloted framework in the organisation’s history. Ofsted has taken over 25 years of it’s inspection experience and evaluated the existing literature on pupil behaviour and attitudes in schools. This, alongside two phases of research on behaviour significantly strengthens Ofsted’s inspection practice on behaviour. Challenges remain. Data indicators such as exclusion statistics rarely tell the whole story. Matthew will share how the inspectorate has used research to create a framework that captures the most important aspects of behaviour and attitudes and discuss the work that Ofsted are currently doing to further strengthen understanding of behaviour in schools.

Free to attend and open to all. Registration required at: http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/events/behaviour-and-attitudes-in-the-education-inspection-framework/

Feb
4
Tue
The Fly Screening at UPP & Talk @ The Ultimate Picture Palace
Feb 4 @ 8:30 pm – 10:30 pm
The Fly Screening at UPP & Talk @ The Ultimate Picture Palace

Join us for a screening of The Fly, the classic 1958 sci-fi horror movie produced and directed by Kurt Neumann and starring Vincent Price, Al Hedison and Patricia Owens. A scientist invents a teleportation device, but fate has other plans after an accident leads to a gruesome, life-changing injury. This brilliant 1950s sci-fi, famously remade by David Cronenberg in the 80s, treads a fine line between shlocky fun and an unnerving nature parable.

The screening will be preceded by an introductory with Dr Roderick Bailey, Medical Historian at the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities. Rod specialises in the study of modern war and conflict, the history of medicine, and the spaces in which those worlds overlap.

David Cronenberg’s ‘body horror’ film ‘The Fly’ is more than science fiction. The movie was based on an original story, published in Playboy magazine in 1957, whose author had been a spy in World War II. Dr Roderick Bailey of Oxford’s Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, works on the history of human enhancement. In the Q&A Roderick will discuss how secret procedures carried out in wartime London may have shaped this disturbing creation.

‘Funny, horrible and inventive — in its own deranged way this is a classic of 1950s horror.’ Film4

‘One strong factor of the picture is its unusual believability.’ Variety

Dir. Kurt Neumann. USA, 1958. 1h 34m. Vincent Price, Al Hedison (1927 – 2019) Patricia Owens, Herbert Marshall, Kathleen Freeman, Betty Lou Gerson.

Feb
6
Thu
Think Human 2020 – The Power of Creativity: Empowering Young People in the Arts @ Pagasus Theatre
Feb 6 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Think Human 2020 – The Power of Creativity: Empowering Young People in the Arts @ Pagasus Theatre

As part of the Oxford Brookes Think Human Festival 2020, Pegasus Theatre presents this discussion around creativity and empowering young people in the arts.
Is to be creative to be human? Join a panel of young people from East Oxford, professionals and academics to debate this and discuss what the power of creativity means in our lives.
What could it look like in the future? How can we create opportunities for creativity in all aspects of life? Hear the panel’s response to provocations and accept our invitation to formulate your own personal pledge to encourage creativity for future generations.
This is a free event, but booking is essential to secure your place.
Running time approx. 1 hour

Think Human 2020 – Mind the gap: the jump from school to university @ Glasgow Room, Harcourt Hill Campus, Oxford Brookes University
Feb 6 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

A panel exploring how universities can best support new students as they transition to University

Feb
7
Fri
Life is Wonderful: Mandela’s Unsung Heroes @ The Ultimate Picture Palace
Feb 7 @ 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm

As part of the Think Human Festival held by Oxford Brookes University, a film showing of ‘Life is Wonderful: Mandela’s Unsung Heroes’ is being held. Following the showing there will be a Q&A with a panel that includes the director of the film, Sir Nick Stadlen.

Feb
10
Mon
Exclusion and Mental Health: Exploring the Role of Improved Provision in Schools @ Department of Education
Feb 10 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Exclusion and Mental Health: Exploring the Role of Improved Provision in Schools @ Department of Education

This seminar is part of our public seminar series on ‘Exclusion from School and its Consequences’, led by the Department of Education and convened by Harry Daniels (Professor of Education) and Ian Thompson (Associate Professor of English Education & Director of PGCE).

Speaker: Mina Fazel (University of Oxford)

Seminar Abstract: This talk will discuss the latest understanding of mental health needs in adolescent populations in the UK and the potential role that mental health services in schools can play. An example of current research alongside clinical service development will be discussed. The opportunities and challenges of mental health services working in schools will be explored, including how to navigate some of the ethical complexities of working in this areas as well as some of the main unanswered research questions that can be addressed through schools-research. A particular focus will be on how this relates to excluded children- what we know about their mental health needs and the role of services.

Open to all and free to attend. Registration required at: http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/events/exclusion-and-mental-health-exploring-the-role-of-improved-provision-in-schools/

Massada Film Screening followed by Q&A @ Where: Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre, Worcester College
Feb 10 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Screening of “Streetscapes” (winner of the 2017 German Critics Award) followed by Q&A.
Dr Zohar Rubinstein, clinical and organizational psychologist, specialist in mental health in emergency situations, and one of the founding members of The Interdisciplinary Master Program for Emergency and Disaster Management at the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, will be answering questions.

Feb
17
Mon
Law and Exclusion from School @ Department of Education
Feb 17 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Law and Exclusion from School @ Department of Education

This seminar is part of our public seminar series on ‘Exclusion from School and its Consequences’, led by the Department of Education and convened by Harry Daniels (Professor of Education) and Ian Thompson (Associate Professor of English Education & Director of PGCE).

Speaker: Lucinda Ferguson (University of Oxford)

Seminar Abstract: The House of Commons’ Education Committee (2019) criticised the education system’s treatment of children with disabilities on the following terms:

“[C]hildren and parents are not ‘in the know’ and for some the law may not even appear to exist. Parents currently need a combination of special knowledge and social capital to navigate the system, and even then are left exhausted by the experience. Those without significant social or personal capital therefore face significant disadvantage. For some, Parliament might as well not have bothered to legislate.”

In this presentation, I combine legal analysis, theory, and evidence from practice to argue that the law is ill-equipped to support children at risk of permanent exclusion from school, particularly children with disabilities or other additional needs. I focus on the English experience, which is quite distinctive from that of other nations in the UK. I first outline the reality of permanent exclusion and introduce the legal framework.

I then consider the extent to which children’s rights arguments might support improvements in practice for these vulnerable children. I proceed to argue that much of the difficulty lies in our current conceptions of the nature of childhood, how we regard children compared to other ‘minority’ groups, and the implications of this for the legal regulation of their lives. I consider whether an intersectional perspective might assist here, and offer some concluding thoughts on how to bring about the necessary cultural shift and make the law work for vulnerable children at risk of exclusion from school.

Open to all and free to attend. Registration required at: http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/events/law-and-exclusion-from-school/

FLJS Films: The Oath @ Wolfson College
Feb 17 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
FLJS Films: The Oath @ Wolfson College

The Oath tells the fateful story of two men, whose loyalty to an ideal in a world of disintegrating legal, moral, and constitutional norms tests their beliefs and threatens their liberty.

Acclaimed director Laura Poitras has created a riveting documentary about Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s driver and the first man to face the controversial US military commissions that were established in response to his earlier exoneration by the Supreme Court. At the heart of the film is Hamdan’s charismatic brother-in-law, whose struggles with his conscience for having introduced him to bin Laden provide a gripping psychological portrait of guilt and the redemptive role of society.

A decade since its release, and with fault lines reopening between the Muslim world and the West, the film leads the viewer on a jihadist’s journey through Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, all the way to the US Supreme Court. Here, the complexities and contradictions of the war on terror are laid bare, epitomized in the devastating revelation behind the double meaning of the film’s title.

Praise for The Oath
“The most essential and revelatory documentary of the year”
New York Magazine

“Compelling, emotionally and intellectually complex, The Oath is an important film that raises questions we must all ask”
Film Comment

Feb
19
Wed
Petina Gappah – Out of Darkness, Shining Light @ Blackwell's Bookshop
Feb 19 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

Blackwell’s are delighted to be joined by Petina Gappah to discuss her latest novel, Out of Darkness, Shining Light.

Synopsis

Petina Gappah’s epic journey through nineteenth-century Africa – following the funeral caravan who bore Bwana Daudi’s body – is ‘engrossing, beautiful and deeply imaginative.’ (Yaa Gyasi)

This is the story of the body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, the explorer David Livingstone – and the sixty-nine men and women who carried his remains for 1,500 miles so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own country.

The wise men of his age say Livingstone blazed into the darkness of their native land leaving a track of light behind where white men who followed him could tread in perfect safety. But in Petina Gappah’s radical novel, it is those in the shadows of history – those who saved a white man’s bones; his dark companions; his faithful retinue on an epic funeral march – whose voices are resurrected with searing intensity.

This final, fateful journey across the African interior is lead by Halima, Livingstone’s sharp-tongued cook, and three of his most devoted servants: Jacob, Chuma and Susi. Their tale of how his corpse was borne out of nineteenth-century Africa – carrying the maps that sowed the seeds of the continent’s brutal colonisation – has the power of myth. It is not only symbolic of slavery’s hypocrisy, but a portrait of a world trembling on the cusp of total change – and a celebration of human bravery, loyalty and love.

Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University and the University of Zimbabwe. Her short fiction and essays have been published in eight countries. Her debut story collection, An Elegy for Easterly, won the Guardian First Book Award in 2009, and her first novel, The Book of Memory, was longlisted for the 2015 Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction.

This event is free, but please do register if you plan on attending. Please note, this event may take place in the Philosophy Department which is accessible via a short flight of stairs. Seats are unallocated. For more information, please contact our Customer Service Department on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk

Feb
24
Mon
From Inclusion to Exclusion from School: Transforming the Lives of Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities @ Department of Education
Feb 24 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
From Inclusion to Exclusion from School: Transforming the Lives of Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities @ Department of Education

This seminar is part of our public seminar series on ‘Exclusion from School and its Consequences’, led by the Department of Education and convened by Harry Daniels (Professor of Education) and Ian Thompson (Associate Professor of English Education & Director of PGCE).

Speakers: Jill Porter and Ruth Moyse (University of Reading)

Seminar Abstract: Government statistics indicate that children and young people with special educational needs are five times more likely to be excluded from secondary schools, and account for just under half of excluded pupils. This seminar will explore the process of formal and informal exclusion from the macro, meso and micro level to understand some of the complex interactions between policy, school and individual factors. The significance of these on the lives of young people will be illustrated with reference to data drawn from the topical life histories of autistic girls. These portray the experience of having ones’ needs continually underestimated or misunderstood coupled with a lack of in-school support.

Open to all and free to attend. Registration required at: http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/events/from-inclusion-to-exclusion-from-school-transforming-the-lives-of-young-people-with-special-educational-needs-and-disabilities/

Mar
3
Tue
Dame Janet Suzman in conversation with Professor Judith Buchanan @ St Peter's College, Hannington Hall
Mar 3 @ 3:45 pm – 5:00 pm
Dame Janet Suzman in conversation with Professor Judith Buchanan @ St Peter's College, Hannington Hall

We are delighted to welcome Shakespearean actor, director, academy award nominee and anti-Apartheid campaigner, Dame Janet Suzman, to St Peter’s College.

Janet Suzman remains one of the most respected classical stage actresses of her time, having portrayed most of Shakespeare’s heroines, including Cleopatra, during her career. She has also worked alongside some of stage and screen’s most legendary stars, including Marlon Brando, Sir Laurence Olivier, Ava Gardner and Sir Derek Jacobi.

She was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Czarina Alexandra in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), a sweeping historical epic about the fall of the Romanovs.

Suzman also starred alongside Donald Sutherland and Susan Sarandon in A Dry White Season (1989), a provocative drama that centres on a white schoolmaster’s gradual awakening to the horrors of government-sanctioned racism in South Africa during the 1970s.

St Peter’s College, Hannington Hall
Free to attend
All welcome

Mar
17
Tue
Inspiring People: Jess Thom @ The North Wall Arts Centre
Mar 17 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Inspiring People: Jess Thom @ The North Wall Arts Centre

Artist, writer and activist Jess Thom has Tourettes syndrome, a neurological condition that means she makes movements and noises she can’t control, called tics. In 2010 she co-founded Touretteshero as a creative response to her experiences, and toured the world with her multi-award-winning stage show, Backstage in Biscuit Land.

Join us for a screening of the 2018 documentary, Me, My Mouth and I, part of BBC Two’s Performance Live strand. Exploring Jess Thom’s funny and unpredictable journey of discovery into one of Samuel Beckett’s most complex plays, Not I, the film asks us to reconsider issues of representation and social exclusion as she prepares to perform the role of ‘Mouth’ in front of a live theatre audience. The screening with be followed by a Q & A with Jess herself.

Touretteshero presents Not I at The North Wall from 18 – 21 March.

About Inspiring People
The Inspiring People series is a joint venture between The North Wall and our principal sponsor, St Edward’s School. Our organisation both have a mission to educate and inspire and our hope is that this series will do just that: half of all tickets are offered free to local schools

May
2
Sat
Early Career Teachers’ Professional Development Forum 2020 @ University of Oxford, Department of Education
May 2 all-day
Early Career Teachers’ Professional Development Forum 2020 @ University of Oxford, Department of Education

Are you a secondary school teacher in your first few years of teaching? Come along to a day full of fresh ideas and update your knowledge of the latest educational research and its applicability in practice.

The forum will include a series of workshops for you to choose and a panel discussion exploring different routes in career progression. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

The workshops provide opportunities to update your knowledge of the latest educational research and its applicability in practice both in your subject and in other areas of current interest to schools. Confirmed workshops this year include:
-A subject-specific poster display and mini-talks from practising teachers who have completed research-informed interventions in their own classrooms
-Preventing and de-escalating challenging behaviour
-Strategies to reduce marking load without compromising on quality for students
-Teaching with objects (in collaboration with Oxford galleries and museums)
-Developing effective student questioning

Nov
19
Thu
Intersectionality and Inclusion Series: Pathways to visibility @ Saïd Business School - Online
Nov 19 @ 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Intersectionality and Inclusion Series: Pathways to visibility @ Saïd Business School - Online

How do you build inclusion from the ground up?

People with albinism face discrimination across the globe but are often left out of activist efforts around diversity and inclusion.

In this episode, we speak to representatives of Sesame Street Workshop, who have been championing diversity for years. With a breadth of expertise in the art of embracing diversity, this insightful look into the world of Sesame Street gives us new ways of approaching our goals. Supermodel and activist Diandra Forrest also joins the conversation. Fellow guest speaker Stephan Bognar, Executive Director of New York Dermatology Group Foundation, completes the line-up. They worked together previously on the Colorfull campaign, which was conceived by NYDG to highlight the prejudice that albinism attracts.

Nov
30
Mon
Dementia:Forget about a cure, focus on care and prevention @ Online
Nov 30 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Join the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences for their annual research lecture, delivered by Dame Professor Louise Robinson. The biggest risk factor for developing dementia is age, with dementia now the most common cause of death in women over 65 years of age in the United Kingdom (UK). Our ageing populations mean that the number of people with dementia globally is predicted to rapidly increase, although research from the UK and Europe has shown that modification of key lifestyle factors may positively influence this. Over the last decade, the UK has had a strong policy focus on dementia, initially via a National Dementia Strategy and followed by Prime Minister’s National Dementia Challenge. This led to the creation of the unique £200 million UK National Dementia Research Institute, with a main focus on finding the ‘cure’ and/or novel dementia drug therapies. Professor Robinson will discuss why future research should be as equally focused on improving the quality of dementia care and targeting future prevention as exploring the elusive cure.

This event is for: Everyone