Panel:

Professor Charles Godfray, Director, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and author of the chapter How can 9-10 Billion People be Fed Sustainably and Equitably by 2050?
Professor Ian Goldin, Director, Oxford Martin School, Editor of Is the Planet Full? and author of the chapter Governance Matters Most
Professor Sarah Harper, Director, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, Oxford Martin School and author of the chapter Demographic and Environmental Transitions
Professor Yadvinder Malhi, Director, Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests, Oxford Martin School and author of the chapter The Metabolism of a Human-Dominated Planet
Dr Toby Ord, James Martin Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology and author of the chapter Overpopulation or Underpopulation?
The panel will discuss whether our planet can continue to support a growing population estimated to reach 10 billion people by the middle of the century.

The panel discussion will be followed by a book signing and drinks reception.

This panel discussion will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFIqDQP1Vjc

About the Book:
What are the impacts of population growth? Can our planet support the demands of the ten billion people anticipated to be the world’s population by the middle of this century?

While it is common to hear about the problems of overpopulation, might there be unexplored benefits of increasing numbers of people in the world? How can we both consider and harness the potential benefits brought by a healthier, wealthier and larger population? May more people mean more scientists to discover how our world works, more inventors and thinkers to help solve the world’s problems, more skilled people to put these ideas into practice?

In this book, leading academics with a wide range of expertise in demography, philosophy, biology, climate science, economics and environmental sustainability explore the contexts, costs and benefits of a burgeoning population on our economic, social and environmental systems.

Public Seminar: Thinking About the Brain

With speakers: Professor Chris Kennard; Professor Glyn Humphreys; Professor David Lomas; Dr Joshua Hordern; Dr Ayoush Lazikani; Dr Matthew Broome; Dr Chrystalina Antoniades

Thursday 20 November, 5.30-8.30pm
Ashmolean Education Centre

The evening will offer an opportunity to explore current research into the brain and the mind from a wide range of perspectives, from medieval literature to contemporary art and neuroscience.

Thinking About the Brain is a public seminar, forming part of the developing collaboration between the Ashmolean Museum’s University Engagement Programme and Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. It is being co-organised by Dr Jim Harris, Andrew W Mellon Foundation Teaching Curator at the Ashmolean, and Dr Chrystalina Antoniades, Lecturer in Medicine at Brasenose College and Senior Research Fellow in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences.

Open to all and free of charge. To ensure a place, please follow this link to e-mail Dr Jim Harris (at jim.harris @ ashmus.ox.ac.uk), or telephone 01865 288 287.

A History of Ancient Greece in Fifty Lives
With David Studdard, historian

Saturday 22 November, 2–3pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

David Studdard creates a vivid picture of life in all arenas of the Ancient Greek world. Delve into the worlds of mathematics, geography, rhetoric, historiography, painting and sculpture; explore the accounts of historians, mystics, poets, dramatists, political commentators and philosophers; and travel through the ancient realms of Sicily, Afghanistan, Macedonia and Alexandria.

Tickets are £5/£4 concessions and booking is recommended as places are limited.
Visit: http://www.ashmolean.org/events/Lectures/?id=132

Join us for a critical review of the extent to which businesses promote HR in practice. Talk of corporate responsibility, pro-bono schemes and language of sustainability and accountability continues to increase but in reality are businesses doing enough to promote and protect Human Rights? There will be the chance to talk more informally with the speakers after the event over drinks and nibbles.

Panel Speakers: Rae Lindsay (Clifford Chance), Peter Frankental (Amnesty International)

Chair: Dr Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne, University of Reading

The Anglo-Scottish Border: a Photographic Tour
With Tim Porter, lecturer

Medieval Scotland Afternoon Tea Lecture Series

Tuesday 25 November, 2–4pm
At the Ashmolean Museum (Lecture Theatre)

With the 2014 referendum for Scottish independence, the historic relationship between Scotland and England has recently been a prevalent topic of political discussion. This year also marks the 700th anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn, a significant Scottish victory in the First War of Scottish Independence. These lectures explore three key aspects of the Anglo-Scottish relationship during the Middle Ages.

Tickets are £9/£8 concessions (includes tea & cake), and booking is recommended as places are limited.
Visit: http://www.ashmolean.org/events/Lectures/?id=132

‘Reclamations: Writing on the Lives of Shirley Hazzard and Hannah Lynch’. This informal seminar features Brigitta Olubas, Senior Lecturer in English at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a Visiting Scholar at OCLW from November-December 2014. Brigitta will be joined by Kathryn Laing (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick) and Faith Binckes (Bath Spa) to discuss the lives, work, and reception of different women authors. Brigitta will be talking about her biographical research on the Australian author of fiction and non-fiction Shirley Hazzard, whose 1970 novel The Bay of Noon was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010, and whose 2003 novel The Great Fire won the US National Book Award for Fiction. Shirley Hazzard is celebrated in Australia and the US, but is perhaps less known in other parts of the world. Kathryn Laing and Faith Binckes will be speaking on their experience of working on the neglected author Hannah Lynch. Kathryn’s paper is entitled ‘“I am an unexplained enigma. I live alone. I follow art”: Textual Traces, Literary Recoveries and the Irish writer, Hannah Lynch (1859-1904)’. Faith Binckes will be talking on ‘“What we no longer know we have forgotten”: Canonicity, Gender, and the Lives of the Obscure’.

Oxford C.C.S. talk and discussion

Some horror and some relief: the aesthetics of the ghost story

Thursday 27 November, 7.30pm to 9.00pm

Upstairs function room, the Mitre (junction of High St and Turl St).

A introductory talk of about twenty minutes, followed by questions and discussion.

All welcome.

For more information about the C.C.S. you can visit our website,www.communistcorrespondingsociety.org or follow us on Twitter, http://twitter.com/CCSoc.

Oxford C.C.S. talk and discussion

All welcome.

For more information about the C.C.S. you can visit our website,www.communistcorrespondingsociety.org or follow us on Twitter, http://twitter.com/CCSoc.

Life-Writing Lunch Seminar: Michelle Kelly, ‘J. M. Coetzee, Autobiography, and Confession’. Michelle Kelly, Departmental Lecturer in World Literatures in English, at the University of Oxford, will discuss the relationship between J. M. Coetzee’s autobiographical writings and his career-long engagements with confessional forms in his fiction. The Life-Writing Lunch is a termly lunchtime seminar series, in which practising auto/biographers discuss their work in an informal, friendly setting, over a buffet sandwich lunch. There is no charge, but you must register well in advance, as these seminars often sell out. To register online, please go to http://www.oxforduniversitystores.co.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=1&deptid=244&catid=2263&prodid=9039

Why Poetry Matters
Part of the Why Philosophy Matters Series

With Professor Max de Gaynesford, University of Reading

Wednesday 3 December, 6‒7.30pm, Education Centre

Join esteemed scholars to talk about the hot topics in contemporary culture and philosophical thought. In partnership with Oxford Brookes University and sponsored by the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

Free, no booking required, seats allocated on a first-come first-served basis. Entry via St Giles’ Street, drinks from 5.45pm.

William Blake: Apprentice & Master
With Professor Michael Phillips, exhibition curator

Saturday 6 December, 11am‒12pm, Ashmolean Lecture Theatre

Exhibition curator Professor Michael Phillips explains how some of Blake’s best-known works were created and individually produced. This lecture also looks at how Blake developed personally and artistically from an apprentice engraver to a master printmaker.

Tickets are £5/£4 concessions and booking is recommended as places are limited.

This is a William Blake exhibition event. To find out more about our William Blake exhibition, and see a full list of exhibition events, see http://www.ashmolean.org/williamblake/

This is a monthly free meeting. This week we have two main talks, one on creating 360degree tours of buildings using Google business, (basically using street view you can walk in and tour round certain buildings) and another creating a title sequence with After Effects & Photoshop. Guest speakers: Guy Henstock and Sathya Vijayendran

One of the UK’s leading scientists, Marcus du Sautoy, will argue that mathematical proofs are not just number-based, but are also a form of narrative. In response, author Ben Okri, mathematician Roger Penrose, and literary scholar Laura Marcus, will consider how narrative shapes the sciences as well as the arts.

The discussion will be chaired by Elleke Boehmer, Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford, and will be followed by audience discussion and a drinks reception.

This event is co-hosted by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford. It is the opening event in TORCH ’s Humanities and Science series, which will explore how new answers can be found – and new research questions can be set – by bringing together the disciplines.

Brought to you by Blackwell’s Bookshop and the Ashmolean Museum, ‘Inspired by Blake’ is a two-week William Blake Festival celebrating the magnificent and visionary painter, poet, thinker and icon.

William Blake and five of his contemporaries, including William Wordsworth, Mary Wollstonecraft and Humphry Davy are in a balloon that is plummeting perilously towards Earth. Excess weight will have to be jettisoned. Which figure can justify that they merit their place in the balloon? An evening that is both educational and highly entertaining is guaranteed!

For information about the festival, including a full events listing, please visit the Inspired by Blake website. #inspiredbyblake

Public meeting. Twenty minute talk, one hour discussion. You’re welcome to come along just to listen, or participate actively in the discussion. Free entry, no need to book.

Reading in the Spirit of Blake

With Saree Makdisi, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, UCLA

Friday 23 January, 4.30‒5.30pm, Lecture Theatre

Grounded in an exploration of the relationship between words and images in Blake’s illustrated books, this lecture will use his work as the basis of learning to read in the spirit of Blake. Part of the Ashmolean Museum and Blackwell’s Bookshop ‘Inspired by Blake’ Festival.

Tickets £5/£3 concessions. Booking is essential.

Dr Henry Power of the University of Exeter talks about Henry Fielding and Epic.
All welcome, free, no booking required.

The Weinrebe Lectures in Life-Writing:
Roy Foster, Carroll Professor of Irish History at Hertford College, Oxford, will speak on ‘The Making of Saints: Politics, Biography and Hagiography in Modern Irish History.’ Professor Foster is one of Britain’s most eminent historians; he is also a world-renowned biographer and an accomplished and prolific critic, reviewer, and broadcaster. His books include Charles Stewart Parnell: The Man and His Family (1976); Lord Randolph Churchill: A Political Life (1981); Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (1988); The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making It Up in Ireland (2001), which won the 2003 Christian Gauss Award for Literary Criticism; W.B. Yeats, A Life. I: The Apprentice Mage 1865-1914 (1997), which won the 1998 James Tait Black Prize for biography, and Volume II: The Arch-Poet, 1915-1939 (2003); and Words Alone: Yeats and his Inheritances, derived from his Clark Lectures at the University of Cambridge.

Mansfield lecture series,( convener Baroness Helena Kennedy QC). Professor of American Literature & Public Understanding of the Humanities, University of East Anglia, whose works include The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (2004) and Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby (2013), and literary journalism in The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review, The New Statesman, and The Spectator, among others. 2015 Eccles Writer in Residence at the British Library.

Blackwell’s presents a musically accompanied reading of ‘War Horse’ at the prestigious Sheldonian Theatre by award winning children’s author Michael Morpurgo. Michael Morpurgo tells the powerful and deeply moving story of young Albert and his beloved horse Joey during the First World War. Michael is joined by acclaimed musicians John Tams and Barry Coope, who accompany his reading with the rousing yet haunting songs specially composed by John Tams for the National Theatre’s award-winning production of ‘War Horse’.

Samantha Shannon will be discussing her bestselling book ‘The Bone Season’ as well as her new release ‘The Mime Order’, book number two in the series. Joining Samantha to discuss her books and the wonderful world that she has created will be Andy Serkis, best known for his acting roles as Gollum, King Kong and Caesar from ‘Planet of the Apes’. Andy is also the founder of Imaginarium Studios which has purchased the rights to Samatha’s ‘The Bone Season’.

To introduce the week, David Edgar will outline the story of new writing in postwar British theatre and the growth of the anti-writer trend since the 1990s. He will present the case for the individual playwright (vigorously) but also discuss whether the primacy of the playwright is outdated and what playwrights can learn and have learnt from alternative playmaking methods.

Ever more people are interested in the social impact that organisations are creating beyond their contributions to the economy (gross value added, employment, etc.). Despite an existent tradition of cost-benefit analyses and other types of evaluations, a genuine interest in assessing ‘social effects’ rigorously is only about to manifest itself. Yet, available methods for assessing social impact often leave social aspects like the strengthening of social cohesion, the enhancement of participation or the reduction of conflict relatively unaddressed.

The talk will outline how we can grasp such perceptibly unfathomable social effects, both conceptually and empirically.

Gorgi Krlev is a DPhil student at Kellogg College and a research associate at the Centre for Social Investment (CSI) at the University of Heidelberg.

Most people assume that the individual writer brings something particular to the playwriting process, but is that true? What do playwrights actually get up to at their desks? Do they plan, or is it all instinct? What does feeling something “works” or is “right” actually mean? What do they feel is essentially “them” about their work: the subject matter, the form or the voice?

A conversation with playwrights April de Angelis and David Greig discussing their working methods and what is (or isn’t) unique about their work.

Public meeting. Twenty minute talk, one hour discussion. All welcome.

How do playwrights with together with each other, with dramaturgs, with directors and producers, with actors? How do things work in television, where writers are increasingly powerful in the production process? In theatre, how do playwrights work with companies that have traditionally made their own work?

A conversation with playwrights Howard Brenton and Bryony Lavery about how playwrights collaborate with directors, performers and each other.

Emma Moran is in her second year of the MSt. in Creative Writing and is the MCR President at Kellogg College. She is primarily a writer of fiction and has had a number of short stories published in print and online. She also has a growing interest in drama and poetry, as well as the genres of magical realism and fairytale. She is currently working on her first full-length novel.

‘The Suspicions of Mrs Gaskell’: Award-winning biographer and critic Claire Harman, whose biography of Victorian novelist Charlotte Brontë is forthcoming in 2015, will speak about the composition and reception of the controversial first biography of the subject, published in 1857.

Professor Traute Meyer, Southampton

This will be a bilingual performance of poetry and prose including specially commissioned new work and translations, sound art, film and a discussion of her new volume Buch gegen das Verschwinden (2015), followed by a reception. All welcome!

Born in Großenhain in the former East Germany in 1979, Ulrike Almut Sandig is one of the most acclaimed German writers of her generation and has received six major literature awards since the publication of her first poetry collection Zunder in 2005. Since her debut she has published two further collections including Dickicht (2011) and the prose volume Flamingos (2010) and Buch gegen das Verschwinden (2015), as well as a CD of ‘poetry for lovers of pop music’ (2012)

See a portrait of one of the most original and versatile of the new generation of German authors in her own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doi1ZoszyUo#sthash.8TuA34js.dpuf