In this third Uehiro Lecture, I consider a number of worries about the possible impact of global efforts to aid the needy. Among the worries I address are possible unintended negative consequences that may occur elsewhere in a society when aid agencies hire highly qualified local people to promote their agendas; the possibility that highly successful local projects may not always be replicable on a much larger regional or national scale; the possibility that foreign interests and priorities may have undue influence on a country’s direction and priorities, negatively impacting local authority and autonomy; and the related problem of outside interventions undermining the responsiveness of local and national governments to their citizens.

I also discuss a position that I call the Capped Model of Moral Ideals, which may have a bearing on the intuitively plausible approach of always prioritizing the greatest need when making one’s charitable contributions. Another issue I discuss is the possibility that efforts to aid the needy may involve an Each/We Dilemma, in which case conflicts may arise between what is individually rational or moral, and what is collectively rational or moral. Unfortunately, it is possible that if each of us does what we have most reason to do, morally, in aiding the needy, we together will bring about an outcome which is worse, morally, in terms of its overall impact on the global needy.
The lecture ends by taking stock of the main claims and arguments of all three Uehiro Lectures, and considering their overall implications for our thinking about the needy. I consider the implications of my discussion for Peter Singer’s view, and the implications of my view for the approach and recommendations of Effective Altruism. I also consider where my discussion leaves us given my pluralistic approach to thinking about the needy. I have no doubt that those who are well off are open to serious moral criticism if they ignore the plight of the needy. Unfortunately, however, for a host of both empirical and philosophical reasons, what one should do in light of that truth is much more complex, and murky, than most people have realized.

Watch the process of creating a new ballet in an interdisciplinary workshop with writer, Marina Warner, choreographer Kim Brandstrup, pianist and composer Joanna MacGregor, and professional dancers. Rawaa comes from Arabic – the root for words meaning ‘to water’ and ‘to relate’ and provides the dominant metaphorical motif of the ballet’s mood and movement.

Open to the public on Tuesday 14 November at 5.30pm to view the workshop in action and at other times by request – contact susan.jones@ell.ox.ac.uk

Abstract: This presentation will consider the ethical dimensions of Brexit. Specifically the case will be made that there are profound ethical questions posed by Brexit that have not properly been considered. The focus of the public debate has been largely on the pragmatic, economic and political reasons for and against Brexit. It is important to supplement these with a consideration of the ethical questions raised by it. In a book he edited entitled Political Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives (1994) Chris Brown made a case for constitutive theory as a way of approaching the ethical issues involved in proposals for restructuring Europe in the wake of the break-up of Yugoslavia. In this talk his analysis will be extended, illustrating how constitutive theory produces surprising, enlightening and important results that have so far been absent from the debate. The insights point to a set of political imperatives that ought not to be ignored.

Mervyn Frost is Professor of International Relations in the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. Publications include: Towards a Normative Theory of International Relations (CUP, 1986), Ethics in International Relations (CUP, 1996), Constituting Human Rights: Global Civil Society and the Society of Democratic States (Routledge, 2002) and Global Ethics: Anarchy, Freedom and International Relations (Routledge, 2009). He edited a 4 volume reference work entitled International Ethics (Sage 2011). His recent work, with Dr Silviya Lechner, is focused on the “practice turn” in International Relations. Their book Practice Theory and International Relations is to be published by CUP in 2018.

Jonathan Spencer is Regius Professor of South Asian Language, Culture and Society at the University of Edinburgh. He has carried out research in Sri Lanka since the early 1980s. His most recent book, Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque (2014) concerns the role of religious organizations in the Sri Lankan civil war, and was co-authored with a team of Sri Lankan and European researchers.

This talk is a progress report from the midpoint in a 5-year comparative project on the Anthropology of Conscience, Ethics and Human Rights. For the Sri Lanka case study in this project the researchers have been interviewing dissenters, Sinhala and Tamil survivors of the 30-year civil war who took a stand against the violent claims of rival ethnonationalisms. The talk will combine some reflections on the translatability of the idea of “conscience” with preliminary analysis of the dissenters’ accounts of their lives and motivations.

The South Asia Seminar is co-funded by the Ashmolean Museum, the Asian Studies Centre of St Antony’s College, the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, the Department for International Development and Faculty of History and the Faculty of Oriental Studies.

Professional social media like LinkedIn are changing the professional landscape. Users can now connect and get to be known by creating personal information profiles and inviting colleagues to have access to those profiles. Sending emails and connecting to professional in different sectors became very easy. Recruiters can reach you easily in a matter of seconds. However, it is sometimes hard to identify the right pathways to make our professional social profile most profitable. Reaching out unknown professional can be especially very challenging and stressful when we don’t know how to engage.
Join us to our social workshop: we will talk about tips and tools to build good relationship skills in order to get a powerful network. We will be later joined via a skype call by Jenny Mith who is a business development and outreach manager at CodeSmith LLC.
Codesmith is a selective, need-blind 1- or 12- week program teaching Software Engineering and Machine Learning with locations at LA, NY and Oxford University. Jenny will give us insight on how to make a social profile more attractive and visible using digital and/or coding tools.

The workshop will be held on Tuesday 14th of November and will start from 5.30 till 7 p.m at the Stapeldon room in Exeter college (Main building). The event is aimed to be informal and fun. Feel free to bring a laptop or tablet to work on your Linkedin ( or other professional) profile.

What is the social responsibility of the sciences? In recent times, ethical conflicts surrounding race, gender, and the natural sciences have surfaced again. A recent editorial in Nature defending memorials to J. Marion Sims, who experimented on enslaved black women, and Thomas Parran, who oversaw the Tuskegee syphilis study, led to widespread criticism. How should STEM scholars incorporate questions of social justice and ethical responsibility into their research and teaching?

Join us for a pre-dinner conversation on these issues. Cedric Tan, a biologist and college lecturer at Wadham, will present on „Shying or crying: a personal experience on communicating sensitive issues in biology (same-sex behaviour, trophy hunting and illegal logging)” and Juliane Borchert, DPhil candidate in physics will explore the controversy surrounding indigenous rights and the construction of the Thirty Metre Telescope on Mauna Kea.

Ever felt like there was something you really wanted to say but you just weren’t sure how? We’re exploring the why and how of women’s speech and writing with the help of some amazing women writers and gender experts.

This is our fabulous launch for a feminist writing course to run in Oxford in early 2018.

The event will include presentations from rising-star feminist writers sharing their work and discussing what it means to express their gender in their writing.

There will be a chance to share your ideas about what feminist poetry means to you, how gender is expressed through poetry and language, what it means to write as your gender, and some of the challenges of writing women’s experiences, platforming a variety of voices in conversation.

We also invite presentations from YOU of your own work and/or that of your feminist heroes.

Kids and people of all genders welcome.

East Oxford Community Centre
Doors open 7.30pm (the bar will be open)

The annual Nabeel Hamdi Lecture, presented by CENDEP and the Oxford Human Rights Festival. Emeritus Professor Nabeel Hamdi is the founder of the MA in Development and Emergency Practice and long term director of CENDEP and one of the most distinguished academics in our field. On his retirement from Oxford Brookes he set up the Nabeel Hamdi Lecture Series. We are honoured to welcome human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell to deliver this year’s lecture.

Peter Tatchell discusses the flaws and limits of international human rights law in relation to the conflict in Syria. He will look at some of the options that could have been used to defuse the war and save lives, but were not actioned by the UN or any countries. This failure points to the need to reform international human rights law and create improved mechanisms for its enforcement.

Our Marriages: When Lesbians Marry Gay Men 奇缘一生 —Documentary Screening and Talk with Director He Xiaopei and Dr Bao Hongwei

The Oxford Chinese Studies Society welcomes all to an exclusive screening and discussion of “Our Marriage: When Lesbians Marry Gay Men” with Director He Xiaopei and Dr Bao Hongwei.

How do gays and lesbians negotiate their social identities in postsocialist China? Are the so-called “fake marriages 形式婚姻” between them a pragmatic choice made out of social pressure or a queering act of subversion against the traditional institution of marriage? How do these phenomena tie into China’s revolutionary past and connect to Asia’s current wave of gay marriage legalisation and rising pink economy? These are the questions provoked by Dr. He Xiaopei’s documentary Our Marriage.

“The film, Our Marriage, is an exploration of the lives of four lesbians who decided to marry gay men in order to secretly pursue their relationships with their girlfriends and at the same time fulfil their families’ deep-seated desire that they get married. The sense of respect and responsibility that the marriage partners feel towards their parents, and the avoidance of social ridicule and tricky questions about their child’s sexuality, also play a large role in their decision to stage elaborate and glamorous sham ceremonies…In China, as one of the women in the documentary explained, nobody is allowed to be single. Whilst a burgeoning lesbian social scene is becoming more visible in large cities, heteronormative attitudes force people, heterosexual and homosexual alike, into marriages which they would rather avoid. Marriage can provide social acceptance, but it also gives you certain economic benefits such as access to social housing. Whilst homosexuality is not illegal in China there are no plans to introduce same sex marriage. Activists like He have argued against campaigns for same sex marriage suggesting that the institution of marriage itself should be challenged as it supports patriarchal norms and is detrimental to all people, whether they are gay, straight or bisexual.” — Kate Hawkins, Sexuality and Development Programme International Advisory Group

This event will be of interest to those of you who work on Chinese society, queer studies, film studies, as well as gender studies. The documentary is 45 minutes long, followed a brief talk on queer filmmaking and LGBT activism in China by Dr Bao Hongwei from the University of Nottingham, and then both of them will engage in audience Q & A and discussions.

Speaker biography:
Dr He Xiaopei completed a PhD at the University of Westminster in 2006, titled ‘I am AIDS: Living with the Epidemic in China’. She co-founded an NGO called the Pink Space Sexuality Research Centre in Beijing to promote sexual rights and sexual pleasure among people who are oppressed.

Dr Hongwei Bao is Assistant Professor in Media Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. He holds a PhD in Gender Studies and Cultural Studies from the University of Sydney, Australia. His research primarily focuses on gay identity and queer politics in contemporary China. He is author of Queer Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism in Postsocialist China (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, forthcoming in 2018).

We hope you had a good start of the week. We would like to introduce next week’s event: “Life Lessons of a Christian Scholar: Things I Have Learned from Working 45 Years in Cancer and Palliative Care”

In this reflective talk, retired nurse and clinical specialist Ginny Dunn will speak to us about her experiences of caring for cancer patients and their families, from diagnosis through death and the grieving process. Throughout her career, in four different countries (USA, Canada, UK, and Ireland) and across more than 45 years, she has helped both cancer patients and their medical staff to confront issues around pain and dying. She has also co-written a book on the topic, Alongside the Person in Pain: Holistic Care and Nursing Practice. Finally, Ginny studied theology while on sabbatical at Regent College in Vancouver, where she met her husband, Nigel Biggar, a professor of moral theology at Christ Church, Oxford.

As a committed Christian, having practised and researched in this field, Ginny has found her work important and challenging and hopes to share some of the insights she has gained with us on Monday night.

The World Health Organization identifies antibiotic resistance as a global challenge so serious that it threatens the fundamental achievement of modern medicine. Looking at human use and the use of antibiotics in meat production – what can we do to stimulate research into new antibiotics and to regulate the current use of antibiotics? How does collective responsibility and its ethical implications play its part?

Part of the Hilary Term Lecture Series Health:fresh perspectives”

For further information and registration: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/event/2524

In conjunction with Oxford International Women’s Festival , Oxford Community-led Housing* research project and Transition by Design is organising a session on “Taking Control of our Housing: Women Leading the Charge”, to celebrate the efforts of a number of women pioneering community-led housing in various forms in Oxfordshire. In line with the festival’s broader theme of “Winning the Vote: Women’s Suffrage 100 Years On”, the session aims to raise awareness around community-led housing and an opportunity to gain fresh interest and broaden the movement.

Join us in the much needed discussion to highlight that affordable, safe and secure housing is a basic human right. The session will champion the idea that women can and are taking action to tackle the housing crisis in Oxford, and to generate discussion that homes and housing shape our identity as women and as human beings. We’re also very keen to find out more about the challenges you’re facing with the housing market. And to top it up, let’s celebrate the efforts of women in community-led housing.

Event format:

Interactive panel discussion

Panel speakers from Kindling Housing Coop, Edge Housing, Dragonfly Housing Coop, Oxford Fairer Housing Network, Oxford Housing Crisis Group and many more!

For more info or queries, please contact katie@transitionbydesign.org

*Oxford Community-Led Housing research project is a new partnership project by Oxford Community Foundation, Community First Oxfordshire and Oxford Community Land Trust. We have been commissioned by Oxford City Council to conduct a research project on how community-led housing could be delivered sustainably in Oxford. Community Led Housing (CLH) is about local people playing a leading and lasting role in solving local housing problems, creating genuinely affordable homes and strong communities in ways that are difficult to achieve through mainstream housing.

Mental health, like other areas of medicine, is set to benefit from dramatic advances in the biological and medical sciences – yet values (what matters or is important to those concerned) are key to the differentiation between pathological delusions and positive spiritual experiences. The discussion will explore, from both philosophical and medical perspectives, how values and science come together in mental health indicating, in particular, the role of cultural values in how delusions are experienced and hence how they impact on the lives of those concerned.

Wikipedia is the 5th most visited website in the world… but is it biased? Join us on International Women’s Day in the new Makerspace at the Oxfordshire County Library.

We’ll have a short talk on the gender gap on Wikipedia, learn how to edit, and then work on improving articles about and of interest to women!

Talk is at 10:30, followed by the editathon from 11:00am – 2:00pm. If you are planning on attending the editathon, please bring a laptop. If you don’t have a laptop please let us know in advance and we may be able to provide one.

Workshop on the theory and practice of compassion by Emma Slade, a Buddhist nun living in Bhutan.

A lecture on compassion by Alexander Norman, the author of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama biographies and the President of Help Tibet.

In conjunction with the 16th Annual Oxford Human Rights Festival, Oxford Community-led Housing* research project is organising a session on “Identity and [Affordable] Housing”, with a focus on self-build housing. The session will screen the BBC documentary ‘The House that Mum and Dad Built’ (1982), that captures the stories of families involved in the first Walter Segal self-build project, Segal Close. The project, a collaboration between local authority, self-builders and local community, highlights a strong theme that promotes self-empowerment through building one’s own home, and alleviating poverty through the process.

The film screening will be followed by a diverse and interactive panel discussion session with experienced speakers including Professor Nabeel Hamdi, one of the pioneers in participatory planning and author of “Small Change”, Lesley Dewhurst, CEO of Restore Oxford and former Cheif Executive of Oxford Homeless Pathways, and others.

Join us in the much needed discussion to highlight that affordable, self and secure housing is a basic human right. The session will also highlight the role of community-led housing in alleviating poverty, promoting self-empowerment, and hopefully together, we can gain a deeper understanding of how alternative options to Oxford’s unaffordable rents, poor housing conditions and lack of control in one’s living condition can make significant changes.

*Oxford Community-Led Housing research project is a new partnership project by Oxford Community Foundation, Community First Oxfordshire and Oxford Community Land Trust. We have been commissioned by Oxford City Council to conduct a research project on how community-led housing could be delivered sustainably in Oxford. Community Led Housing (CLH) is about local people playing a leading and lasting role in solving local housing problems, creating genuinely affordable homes and strong communities in ways that are difficult to achieve through mainstream housing.​​​​

Beautiful Japanese Teas
Open your mind and palate as we introduce you to classic examples of the finest Japanese teas.

We will be sharing a hand-picked selection of stunning teas sourced directly from Japan’s tea gardens. The teas will include classic examples of green, shaded, black and roasted teas – with some unique surprises to complement the classics.

We will also be sharing ceremonial grade Matcha and you will learn how to prepare, serve and store Matcha to bring out its distinct and delicious flavour.

Traditional Tea Gathering
Teas will be prepared and served in traditional Japanese teaware – houhin, kyusu and chawan.

The right choice of teaware optimises the flavour and aroma of high quality teas, so you will be enjoying them at their best. We will give you brewing tips, and advice on how to source and buy Japanese teas.

It promises to be a fun, sensory adventure through modern Chinese tea culture that will entertain, educate and inspire.

No experience required. Just bring curiosity and a love of tea.

To celebrate the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, Master of St Cross Carole Souter and Alfredo Pérez de Armiñán, President of Patrimonio Nacional, will be talking about the challenges faced by the preservation of heritage, both in Spain and in England.

Patrimonio Nacional is the Spanish entity that manages 19 palaces – among them the Royal Palace of Madrid – and royal foundation monasteries, as well as 135,000 works of art and 21,000 hectares of parks, mountains and gardens. One of the greatest challenges entrusted to its president has been the new Museum of Royal Collections, considered the most important State museum project in recent decades in Spain.

Alfredo Pérez de Armiñán has been president of the Patrimonio Nacional Board since 2015. Before that, he was Deputy General Director of Culture of UNESCO and has held different public positions in the field of Spanish cultural heritage.

Carole Souter is the current Master of St Cross College, and has also held important positions in the field of cultural heritage, as Chief Executive of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund, and is currently a Trustee of Historic Royal Palaces and Chair of the Board of Visitors of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

After a short introduction to the session’s four sub-topics; custom-splitting, Oxford Community-Led Housing’s research project, co-housing and Homemaker Oxford; an interactive discussion will involve participants in the discussion of how we can work with housing providers to enable delivery of alternative housing models like community-led housing in and around Oxford.

The session is designed to engage with those who are housing providers (both small and large scale), or have the potential to provide housing, in and around the city of Oxford. What barriers, if any, do these groups and individuals experience when thinking about or actively engaging in community-led housing projects? Further, what can Oxford Community-Led Housing and similar groups do to break down these barriers and engage with housing deliverers to provide alternative housing models like community-led housing as a viable, sustainable and affordable housing model in Oxford?

Kailash: A Participant Media and Concordia Studio Screening

As a young man Kailash Satyarthi promised himself that he would end child slavery in his lifetime. In the decades since, he has rescued more than eighty thousand children and built a global movement. From producers Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, He Named Me Malala), Sarah Anthony and rising director Derek Doneen comes Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner Kailash, a suspenseful yet intimate look at one man’s groundbreaking crusade to liberate every child possible. This kinetic journey through secret raids and quests for missing kids shows how refusing to accept an unacceptable status quo can create sweeping change. Gripping as it is, the film is also the story of spirited children who, released from a nightmare, latch onto a second chance. It is the kids Kailash rescues who prove the absolute necessity of what he does: giving hope to the world one child at a time.

Q&A to follow featuring:

Kailash Satyarthi, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Child Rights Activist

Nina Smith, Chief Executive Officer, GoodWeave International

Holly Gordon, Chief Impact Officer, Participant Media (moderator)

Seating is first-come, first-served. The film screening is free of charge and open to the public. No ticket is required.

In this age of so-called ‘Fake News’, a concept promoted in Tweets from the White House, seized on by conspiracy theories, and threatening to undermine the democratic process, the trustworthiness of our journalists has never before been so important.

Alessandra Galloni is Reuters Global News Editor, based in London, appointed in January 2016. She joined Reuters in September 2013 as Editor of the Southern Europe bureau, after spending 13 years at The Wall Street Journal in various positions as correspondent, economics and business writer and editor in New York, London, Paris and Rome. She has won several awards, including an Overseas Press Club Award in the US and a UK Business Journalist of the Year Award for her coverage of the Parmalat corporate scandal. She is co-author of From the End of the Earth to Rome, an e-book on Pope Francis. An Italian national, Ms Galloni is a graduate of Harvard University (1991-1995) and has a Masters degree from the London School of Economics (2002).

UN concern to restore trust in news was expressed through a joint declaration from the Office of the High Commission on Human Rights last year, co-authored by the Freedom of Expression rapporteurs of the OHCHR, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organisation of American States, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The report is on-line at http://www.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/WopiFrame.aspx?sourcedoc=/Documents/Issues/Expression/JointDeclaration3March2017.doc&action=default&DefaultItemOpen=1

Ms Galloni’s talk is part of the series of lunchtime discussions held every term by the Oxford branch of the United Nations Association UK. This is a free event and members of the public are welcome to attend. Refreshments are available from 12.30pm.

The photo of Ms Galloni was taken by Mikhail Metzel for GettyImages.

As part of Think Human Festival, this one-off pop-up event is a unique opportunity for visitors of all ages to interact with leading academics from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Oxford Brookes University. The academics will act as ‘human books’ from a range of perspectives; historic, literary, political, legal and educational for 15 minutes per ‘book loan’ against the back drop of revolution. ‘RESIST! REMAIN!’ will provide the chance to engage with and access humanities and social science disciplines in a fun, original and inspiring way, and aims to create a lasting impression of how these subjects can help to understand what it is to be human.

Please note that this event is free, open to all ages and there is no need to book ahead. Please come to Bonn Square and start a interesting conversation around revolution!

This is the second in a series of lunchtime workshops to think about teaching/research through different (and intersectional) lenses, with the goal also of capturing interdisciplinary and intergenerational perspectives.

This time we want to explore ways in which research deploys a queer lens to transform, disrupt and challenge fields of scholarship, and how that productive dislodging of perspective informs teaching (and could do so more profoundly), at both an individual and a more systemic level. Our specific focus is on the interface between research/teaching (in art, ancient world philology and musicology) and activism/performance – both within and outside ‘the academy’. This workshop is timed to fall within a few days of the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Bi-Phobia.

The panellists are Oreet Ashery (Ruskin School of Art), Jacob Mallinson Bird (Music) and Richard Parkinson (Oriental Studies).

This workshop will be chaired by Jane Garnett (Tutor in Modern History, Faculty of History).

Lunch will be available from 12.30pm. Attendance is free but booking is essential.

This workshop, facilitated by journalist Shaista Aziz, will introduce and explore the notions of ‘intersectional’ identities. Intersectionality may be defined as the way in which people’s experiences are shaped by their ethnicity, class, sex, gender, and sexuality all at the same time and to varying degrees. For example, if being middle-class brings with it a set of shared experiences and expectations, how might those experiences and expectations become altered by being a member of the black middle-classes? Intersectionality is a way in which such terms as class or ‘race’ can retain some usefulness without oversimplification or stereotype.

As a city, Oxford is also prey to stereotype: white, scholarly, privileged, elite even. But Oxford is also the product of its intersectional histories, cultures and inhabitants and we perhaps need to do more to recognise and understand the complex inter-relations that have always defined it and continue to shape it. Understanding Intersectional Oxford is a session devoted to opening up and exploring the experiences that make up intersectional Oxford.

Shaista Aziz is a freelance journalist and writer specialising in identity, race, gender and Muslim women. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Globe and Mail, New York Times, BBC and Huffington Post. She’s a broadcaster and political commentator and the founder of The Everyday Bigotry Project seeking to disrupt narratives around race, Islamophobia and bigotry. She’s a former Oxfam and MSF aid worker and has spent more than fifteen years working across the Middle East, East and West Africa and across Pakistan with marginalised women impacted by conflict and emergencies. Most recently she was working in Borno state, North East Nigeria. She is also a member of the Fabian Women’s Network Executive Committee.

Kei Miller is a poet, novelist, essayist, short story writer, broadcaster and blogger. His many books include the novel Augustown (2016) and poetry collection The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion, which won the Forward Prize (Best Poetry Collection of 2014). In 2010, the Institute of Jamaica awarded him the Silver Musgrave medal for his contributions to Literature. He is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Exeter.

Kei’s work challenges the way we think about and perceive the world and its history through vibrant, compelling language and imagery. Come and hear one of the country’s most sought-after readers in an event organized by Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre for Think Human Festival.

You are a German citizen living under the Nazi regime led by Adolf Hitler—do you resist or comply? Featuring dramatic monologues and explanatory interludes this event introduces the audience to two real-life historical characters: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Christian theologian, and Adolf Eichmann, a member of the Nazi bureaucracy.

Bonhoeffer was executed in 1945, having served time in prison for his staunch opposition to Nazism. Eichmann was executed in 1962 in Israel for helping to organise the deportation of Jews to killing centres and sites during the Holocaust. We meet both men during their time in captivity and watch as they ponder their actions and seek to make sense of the horrors unleashed by the Nazis.

Bonhoeffer is clearly a good man. But what was it that inspired his heroic resistance to the Nazis—why, when so many other Christians chose not to act, did he put his life on the line? Eichmann is clearly a villain. And yet, as he himself protested, he was only doing his job. He followed rather than made orders and he was not directly responsible for the death of anyone. Is he, as the philosopher Hannah Arendt once argued, a terrifying instance of “the banality of evil?”

Based on the writings of Bonhoeffer and the records of the police and court interrogations of Eichmann, this event offers a unique portrait of good and evil during one of the darkest moments of the twentieth century.

Sinéad Morrissey is the author of six poetry collections, including Parallax (2013), winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2017 she was awarded the Forward Prize for her most recent collection, On Balance, and is currently Director of the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts at Newcastle University.

Sinéad often writes of her native Northern Ireland, but her poetic gaze ranges much more widely and frequently interrogates the act of looking itself. Her poems are resonant with meaning and beautifully crafted, provoking the reader or listener into further thought. Join Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre at Think Human Festival to hear one of the most critically-acclaimed poets in the UK read from a selection of her most recent as well as older work.

In this exciting event organized by Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre for Think Human Festival, the celebrated poet, editor and translator Clare Pollard will join us to read from her work and talk about the ‘thrill of entering a new way of thinking’ when we read and translate poetry from another language. How does translation break down boundaries between cultures? Can the translation of poetry help to make us more empathetic or even more human?

Clare has published five collections of poetry with Bloodaxe, the latest of which is Incarnation (2017). Her translation projects include a version of Ovid’s Heroines (2013), which she toured as a one-woman show, and a co-translation of Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf’s The Sea-Migrations (2017) which was The Sunday Times Poetry Book of the Year. She is the new editor of Modern Poetry in Translation.