A one-day conference, with Professor Dame Marina Warner and featuring a rehearsed reading of Roberto Cavosi’s Bellissima Maria (after Phaedra/Hipploytus). Registration is £25, or £20 for students, and includes: lunch, refreshments, a drinks reception and confirms a place at the evening’s rehearsed reading (in the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, St Hilda’s). See the website for the full line-up of speakers and papers.

A rehearsed reading of Roberto Cavosi’s Phaedra/Hippolytus inspired play, Bellissima Maria; performed by Marco Gambino and Sasha Waddell. Please join us in the Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building from 6pm for a Drinks Reception, and a pre-performance talk chaired by Marina Warner, with the playwright Roberto Cavosi, the translator Jane House, and actors Marco Gambino and Sasha Waddell.

*This event concludes the Italy and the Classics conference held during the day at the Ioannou Centre (66 St Giles’). Registration for the conference is £25 (students £20) but you do not need to attend the conference to book for the evening’s rehearsed reading.

Photos and tales on the highs and lows of life in the field. Intrepid Explorers was co-founded at King’s College London by Briony Turner to provide an informal opportunity to share fieldwork experiences. The program has subsequently been nominated for an ESRC impact champion prize and the hope is to expand it to the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford University. The highs and lows of research in the field will be shared by members of SoGE, including fascinating photographs from around the globe.

Visualise the world in the 21st century in seven new maps! Geographers Ben Hennig and Danny Dorling present some of the key challenges and questions relating to the future of people across the world, using a series of seven thought-provoking maps about our lives on the planet.

William Zappa performs from his ABC-radio-commissioned, one-man version of the Iliad.
Free, all welcome. No booking required.

This performance concludes day-one of the APGRD’s 16th annual joint Postgraduate Symposium (but you do not have to attend the symposium in order to attend the evening performance).

Ludo, snakes & ladders and draughts are all popular pastimes, but in the past couple of decades a new generation of board games from designers with backgrounds in maths and science has begun to break the Monopoly monopoly. Perhaps the most successful of these is multi award winning Reiner Knizia, who joins mathematician Katie Steckles and board game lover Quentin Cooper to discuss how you develop a game which is easy to learn, hard to master and fun to play time after time. With a chance to have a go at some of Reiner’s latest creations and other top games afterwards.

Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/tuesday.html

Shakespeare lived in one of the most unhealthy times and places in history. Disease was rife and hygiene poor, physicians could only be trained abroad, and there was no such thing as a public medical lecture. Most of Shakespeare’s own insights into science were learnt through friends who would tell (or show!) him their discoveries.

This event will bring together professional actors from Creation Theatre with medical historian Leah Astbury and modern day researcher Martijn van de Bunt to explore some of the medical references in Shakespeare’s plays and how they relate to contemporary science. From epilepsy to astrology, malaria to anaesthesia, compare the science of 400 years ago to the cutting edge research we have today and discover what has changed and what has stayed the same.

Date/Time: Friday 1 July 13:00
Venue: Holywell Cemetery, St Cross Road, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/friday.html

The wide range of rock types used for gravestones means that cemeteries can be geological treasure-troves – and provide a wonderful introduction to geology and other sciences. Social history comes into it too. Join geologists Nina Morgan and Philip Powell on a geological walk through Holywell Cemetery, one of the cemeteries described in their book, The Geology of Oxford Gravestones. You’ll never look at cemeteries in the same way again!

Join us for a sensational evening of cabaret – an alchemy of acts delivered by Science Oxford’s network of creative science performers. If you love science, stage and stand up, you’ll be in your element with our periodic table-themed cabaret including science presenter and geek songstress Helen Arney and compered by award-winning science communicator Jamie Gallagher. See the everyday elements that make up the world around us in a new light, watch in disbelief as gold is created before your eyes, and learn about their origins and how they behave inside our bodies. Get your tickets now – once they are gone they argon!

Ian Shipsey, Particle Physicist and Professor of Physics, Oxford University, has been profoundly deaf since 1989. In 2002 he heard the voice of his daughter for the first time thanks to a cochlear implant. These implants have instigated a popular but controversial revolution in the treatment of deafness. Learn the physiology of natural hearing, the function of cochlear implants, and experience speech and music heard through a cochlear implant. Ian Shipsey was one of the leaders of the experiments that discovered the Higgs particle in 2012.

Nicola Blackwood, local MP, is Chair of the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons. Science and technology are central for the development of the region, and fundamental for the country: boosting innovation and enterprise,
developing employment, advancing health and promoting knowledge. Engage in a conversation chaired by Hannah Devlin, science correspondent for the Guardian. Get insights from your local MP and take part in a reflection about the future of science and technology in the UK.

Colette Morgan works for SAFE! as the Child on Parent Violence Project Development Manager. Sadly, Child-on-Parent violence is on the rise and this fascinating talk will show us how SAFE! tackles this problem and works with families to cultivate respectful family relationships, for the benefit of all society.

We will even provide you with a free sandwich and a cuppa.

Photographer Akio Kushida will share her photographs and experiences of capturing the backstage view of kabuki and other forms of Japanese theatre. Her photographs are currently on display in the Museum’s Long Gallery exhibition ‘Kabuki – Behind the Scenes’.

The Symposium focuses on drought and water scarcity in the UK and globally. A range of expert speakers give their perspectives from an academic and practisers view on the impact of drought and how to manage drought risk in the Up and beyond.

This event is organised and subsidised by the MaRIUS project, and so has a very low price of either £25 for the conference incl. lunch and a drinks reception; or £35 for conference, lunch, drinks reception and dinner!

More information on the event can be found here: http://www.mariusdroughtproject.org/news/

Brookes Centre for Global Politics, Economics and Society seminar series

Denis Bridoux (past editor of Mallorn, founder of the 1992 Tolkien centenary conference committee, convener of the Amon Sul branch of the Tolkien Society) will be visiting Oxford to give his talk entitled “Laketown, or How a mythology for Switzerland came to contribute to a Mythology for England”

Refreshments will be served after the talk

Synopsis:
“Laketown is one of the most iconic places in The Hobbit, but where did Tolkien get the idea? The concept of palafites (lacustrian dwellings), whereby people lived on platforms built on wooden stakes and piles above lake waters in prehistoric times, was first identified in Switzerland in the 1850s. It was soon included in all history schoolbooks , and it is indeed most probably the source for Laketown, but might not Tolkien have had a more personal inspiration? Denis Bridoux’s slideshow entitled Laketown, or How a mythology for Switzerland came to contribute to a Mythology for England, will attempt to answer those questions.”

A free afternoon of artist talks.

3-5pm at OVADA Warehouse, Osney Lane.

Our guest speakers will be independent publishing house Hurst Street Press and fine artist Tommy Watkins.

This event is part of the exhibition ‘Blue Fades into the Invisible’ by Klick Oxford-Leiden.

This July, a team of four from Oxford travelled high into the Arctic Circle to ski from East to West across the island of Spitsbergen.

For the first time in ninety-three years they retraced the route of a groundbreaking 1923 expedition that pioneered the exploration of this remote polar land.

Over the course of thirty-two entirely unsupported days they tracked down and repeated the photos from 1923, conducted scientific surveys and pursued mountaineering objectives old and new whilst capturing it all in film for an upcoming feature documentary.

Hosted by the Oxford University Exploration Club, join the Spitsbergen Retraced team to learn more about a journey into one of the last truly wild corners of our increasingly crowded planet.

svalbard2016.com

Free entry to members of the OUEC and, for this week only, OUMC members too. OUEC membership can be bought on the night.

Dr Brenda Boardman will speak at the Neighbourhood Forum AGM on ‘How we can deliver a low carbon future for Summertown and St Margaret’s’.
Please come along. All welcome. Entry free.

8 countries, 50 days, 2300km, countless encounters – Between March and May of this year Christian cycled from Munich along the Western Balkan refugee route to Athens. Attempting to understand what European and national politics meant for people fleeing their homes, he engaged with NGOs, border guards and refugees along the route. He described and portrayed his fascinating encounters and experiences bilingually under https://chrisbikes.wordpress.com/ and on Facebook (www.facebook.com/chrisbikestoathens/).

On Thursday, 17 November, Chris will talk about his insightful tour, his touching impressions and the lessons to be drawn from his journey in the context of European and national migration and border policies.

Martin Barker (Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at Aberystwyth University, Director of the Global Hobbit Project) will be visiting Oxford to discuss the results of the landmark Global Hobbit Project, a research initiative examining the popular reception of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit Film trilogy.

Synopsis:
“Tolkien aficionados may have disagreed somewhat among themselves about the value and achievements of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. But any frustrations – or celebrations – over the 2001-3 films were nothing compared to the overwhelming sense of let-down occasioned by the Hobbit trilogy. But your disappointments are, I am afraid, grist to the mill of an audience researcher like me. In 2014 I led a consortium of researchers in 46 countries across the world, to gather responses to Peter Jackson’s second trilogy. We managed to attract just over 36,000 completions of our questionnaire. Of course, when we conceived and planned the project, we couldn’t know what the films would be like, or what range of responses and debates they might elicit. In this presentation I will (briefly) explain why and how we carried out the research, and offer some of its major findings. These can act, I hope, as a kind of mirror to the depths, and also the significance, of the sense of disappointment experienced by even the most hopeful and forgiving viewers. And they open an important agenda about the changing role of ‘fantasy’ in our contemporary culture.”

Please join us at 7pm on Thursday of 7th Week (November 24th) for a presentation by Daniel Castro Garcia and Thomas Saxby on their recent publication ‘Foreigner: Migration into Europe 2015–2016’.

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“The photographs are a protest against those who so
readily attack refugees and migrants entering Europe
without taking into consideration the dangers faced
during the journey.” (Foreigner: Migration into Europe 2015–16 by John Radcliffe Studio www.johnradcliffestudio.com)

For more information please read the press release below:

‘Foreigner: Migration into Europe 2015–2016’, is a photography book that documents the lives of people at various stages of their migration to Europe. The book is divided into three sections, focusing on migration to Italy from North Africa, migration to Greece and through the Balkans from the middle east, and the migrant camp in Calais known as ‘The Jungle’. Alongside the photography, written texts serve both as a context, and a means to share the stories of the people we met during the project.
The book was created in response to the imagery used in
the media to discuss the issue of migration, which we felt was
sensationalist, alarmist and was not giving people the time and
consideration they deserved. We wanted to approach the subject from a calmer perspective, using medium format portrait photography as a means of meeting the people at the centre of the crisis face to face – and of learning something about their lives.

John Radcliffe Studio is the creative partnership of Thomas Saxby and Daniel Castro Garcia. We specialise in photography, film and graphic design and have spent the last year documenting the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe.

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The Moser Theatre is fully accessible, with access to gender netural toilets, and the event will be **FREE** to attend. Oxford for Dunkirk will be collecting donations before and after the event in aid of La Liniere Refugee Camp, Dunkirk, France: please see our page for more details! (www.facebook.com/oxfordfordunkirk)

Ruth Webb (Charles-de-Gaulle Lille III): “Bodies and texts: Attitudes towards tragedy from the Second Sophistic to Late Antiquity”. Free, all welcome, no booking required.

A twenty minute talk to introduce the topic, followed by Q&As and about an hour’s discussion. All welcome.

From Lesotho Rock art to Peruvian orchids, multi-award winning fine art photographer Quintin Lake will share his highlights from visiting over 70 countries.

Quintin will speak on his approach to expedition photography having photographed for expeditions to Greenland, Iran, Peru, Namibia and closer to home on various UK walks. This includes his ongoing project, The Perimeter, to walk the 10,000 km of coast around Britain, through which he has come to understand that exotic locations are not a prerequisite for adventure and discovery.

Mary Keen, Paradise and Plenty – the How and Wow of Lord Rothschild’s private garden on the Waddesdon Estate

Mary Keen is a writer, lecturer and renowned garden designer and will talk about the garden, its dedicated gardeners, past and present, and her book, which celebrates the tradition of excellence at Eythrope.

Sean O’Brien, Weidenfeld Visiting Professor in Comparative European Literature, on ‘For dreams are licensed as they never were’. What becomes of the history poem?

Other lectures in this series:

Tuesday 14 February – Displacement: Irish poetry and poets of Irish descent in Britain.

Tuesday 21 February – ‘I only am escaped alone to tell thee’ or ‘The Faster We Go the Rounder We Get’

Tuesday 28 February – In Conversation with Patrick McGuinness

The lectures take place at 5.30pm in the Mary Ogilvie Lecture Theatre at St Anne’s College. The first lecture will be followed by a drinks reception. All welcome, no need to book.

Sean O’Brien is a poet, novelist, playwright, critic, broadcaster, anthologist and editor. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University in the UK and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His first six poetry collections gained awards, most recently The Drowned Book (2007), which won both the Forward and T S Eliot Prizes and was republished in 2015 as a Picador Classic.

His version of Dante’s Inferno was published in 2006, and the bilingual poetry anthology, The Third Shore, published simultaneously in the UK and China in 2013, includes translations he produced during ground breaking poet-to-poet workshops in China that year. In 2015, his versions of the poems of Cape Verde Portuguese poet Corsino Fortes were published in the USA.

O’Brien’s own Collected Poems was published in 2012. His eighth and most recent poetry collection, The Beautiful Librarians (2015), shared the Roehampton Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize.

In 2016 his publications have included his second novel, Once Again Assembled Here, a chapbook of poetry and photographs, Hammersmith, and a graphic novel collaboration, The Railwayman. A second collection of short stories, Quartier Perdu, will be published in 2017.

He is currently working on a new collection of poetry and a book-length poem.

Katherine Stoessel has worked in the field of restorative practice for over 20 years in the UK, the USA, West Africa, the Balkans and Eastern Europe and she is a regular facilitator and trainer for the Thames Valley Restorative Justice Service. She is privileged to work with these powerful and meaningful processes and they underpin her deep commitment to restorative approaches and the profound difference they can make to people’s lives.

Cyclist and author Emily Chappell has been travelling by bicycle for many years. Here she shares some of her more noteworthy adventures, from surviving the frozen Alaska Highway to winning the 4,000km Transcontinental Race across Europe.