Three high-profile SPC alumni return to their college to discuss the impending EU Referendum in a forum chaired by the Master, Mark Damazer CBE.

Join the Editor of the Sunday Times, Martin Ivens (BA Modern History – 1977), the Deputy Editor of the New Statesman, Helen Lewis (BA English – 2001), and the BBC’s Political Correspondent Ben Wright (BA Modern History – 1996) for a panel discussion in which they will cut through the rhetoric surrounding this most controversial of issues in contemporary British politics, and who will then face your questions.

Professor Trevor Young, Dean of the University of Toronto and world expert on bipolar disorder, is coming to Oxford to give a talk on “Your Brain Needs YOU: Why Psychiatry Is the Best Specialty for the Brightest Medical Minds”.

Venue: Blue Boar Lecture Theatre
Time: 6-7pm (please arrive promptly)
Cost: FREE!

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As an active clinician scientist, Dr. Young’s principal research interest includes understanding the molecular basis of bipolar disorder and its treatment, and how to apply these findings to the clinical setting. He is widely published and well funded by peer-reviewed granting agencies. His research is particularly focused on understanding the processes that lead to long-term changes in brain structure and function in patients with bipolar disorder and how these changes can be targeted by mood stabilizing drugs.

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Dr. Young was appointed Chair, Department of Psychiatry effective September 1, 2010. He received his medical degree at the University of Manitoba. This was followed by residency training at McGill University and the University of Toronto where he also completed his PhD in Medical Sciences. He completed a Research Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. His former roles include Physician-in-Chief, Executive Vice President Programs at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Professor and Cameron Wilson Chair in Depression Studies in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and Professor and Head, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. He was received numerous awards including the Douglas Utting Award for outstanding contributions in the field of mood disorders, the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology Heinz Lehmann Award, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He has led several large clinical programs including the Mood Disorders Program at Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital, which received the American Psychiatric Services Gold Achievement Award. In 2009, he was elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Dr. Young serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, effective January 1, 2015.

The political, economic and social landscape is changing and, as in similar circumstances in the past, the Fabian Society is at the cutting edge. As Andrew Harrop, General Secretary of the Fabian Society, recently wrote in Future Left:
As collective, risk-sharing institutions decline people seem to be becoming more individualistic. The British today have a strong sense of personal responsibility, but also rising expectations about others and weakening social deference.
If so, what does the future hold for centralised, mass-membership organisations like political parties? If not political parties – demonstrably long in membership and activist decline – how best can we collectively organise to get progress moving again?
Given these challenges and opportunities, we invite you to have your say as to what to aim for, what to do, and, most importantly, how to do it.
Speakers: Olivia Bailey, Research Director, Fabian Society, and Mary Southcott, Unlock Democracy. Chair: Penny Farrar, East Oxford Labour Party.

On Thursday, 9th June, we will welcome Ms. Clara Roquet, one of Spain’s most promising film makers. We will be hosting a conversation with Ms. Roquet before screening her last short film, “El adiós” (The Goodbye), winner of several awards at international film festivals in the U.S. and Spain in 2016.

Ms. Roquet is also known for her work on “10.000 kms” (Long distance), which won a Goya award in 2015, was nominated for the European Academy Awards, and was short-listed as one of the three candidates to represent Spain at the Oscars after a successful run at major international festivals.

The screening of The Goodbye will be in Spanish with subtitles in English. After the screening there will be ample time for questions.

Drawing upon sociology of culture and digital rhetoric literature, this talk will illuminate the persuasive function of hashtags in the context of the UK EU membership referendum. What makes a hashtag more influential, or more successful?

The hashtag is not just a category or community marker—it has also become a vehicle through which rhetorical strategies are being used to influence thoughts and feelings. Many scholars have explored hashtag success by examining popularity and longevity. This talk presents an expanded definition of success that takes hashtag hijacking into account. The data that will be presented are being gathered live from the Twitter Streaming API; over two hundred hashtags and usernames relating to the EU referendum are being tracked. The talk will also highlight the challenges and opportunities afforded by big ‘linguistic’ data on social media.

Yin Yin Lu is a DPhil Candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and Balliol College, as well as a Clarendon Scholar. She is fascinated by the intersection between language and technology, and her research focuses on the hashtag, one of the most notable sociotechnical phenomena of the 21st century. Prior to joining the OII, Yin obtained a Masters in English Language from the University of Oxford (Lincoln College) and a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University. Between these degrees, she worked at Pearson Education and 10 Speed Labs, a digital media agency in Manhattan. She is the founder and co-convenor of the #SocialHumanities network at TORCH, and her ultimate objective is to reinvent the novel—along with the very acts of reading and writing—through new media technologies.

Welcome to Future Debates, a series of public events supported by the British Science Association.

A genome is an entire set of DNA; all the instructions for making every part of a living thing. Research into our genomes could improve our understanding of diseases, cancers and passing on certain traits. The application of this research through genomic medicine is at the cutting edge of science. There’s large potential for the technology to help us create new treatments and preventative approaches.

Someone’s genome can explain lots of things about them, and we don’t yet understand all of what the genetic code means. Genome data is being collected from a group of patients with rare diseases and cancers across the UK, as part of the Genomics England 100,000 Genomes Project. This information needs to be collected and stored securely, interpreted by experts and viewed in a way that protects the donor’s identity. There have been discussions among scientists about the implications of genomic medicine for privacy and the NHS, and the British Science Association believes that it is vital to open that conversation up to the public.

Come and join our panel of scientists and other experts to discuss who should have access to this data. Should genomic data be used outside medicine? Should private companies share any profits they make from genomic data with participants? Does the right to privacy outweigh the societal benefit of genomic research?

Doors open from 6.00 pm, and the debate will run from 6.30 pm until 8.00 pm.

Future Debates events are part of the British Science Association’s work to make science a fundamental part of British society and culture. We want to empower many more people – not just scientists – to constructively engage in debates over the applications and implications of science in their lives, their local economy and the UK’s future.

Follow us on twitter @LivingWellOx @HumanGeneticsOx @BritSciAssoc and use the event hashtag #FutureDebates

Date/Time: Saturday 25 June, 15:00
Venue: Oxford Town Hall, Long Room
Admissions: £5/£4(conc.)/£16(fam.)
Suitability: 14+
Book here:
http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/sat-opening-weekend.html

Neural implants, nanomedicine, brain enhancing drugs, genetic engineering…
Many human enhancement technologies are emerging and raise ethical and legal
challenges. This interactive event will present scenarios and take you on a
journey to the edge of technologies and ethics.

Date/Time: Monday 27 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com

Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short
introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.

Today’s session: Schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, bipolar disorders… get ‘a very short introduction’ to severe mental illness and dive into a thought provoking discussion with psychiatrist Tom Burns.

In the era of the development of technologies like robotics and artificial intelligence, machines are more and more capable of outperforming human beings at work tasks. What will be the decline of today’s professions? What are the prospects for
employment, and how will professions like doctors, teachers, architects, the clergy, lawyers, and many others adapt to this emerging world? What could be the new models to produce and distribute expertise in society?

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

Date/Time: Tuesday 28 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: www.oxscifest.org

Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short
introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.

Today’s session: Get ‘a very short introduction’ to mental health during adolescence and dive into a thought-provoking discussion with psychiatrist Belinda Lennox and psychologist Peter Smith

Date/Time: Wednesday 29 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: www.oxscifest.org

Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.

Today’s session: Drugs can help patients suffering from various mental illnesses like depression, anxiety or schizophrenia. How do these drugs work in the brain? How to ensure the safety of patients? Get ‘a very short introduction’ to drugs for psychotherapy, and dive into a thought-provoking discussion with pharmacologist Les Iversen.

‘Gene-editing’ sounds like science fiction, but today it is an emerging reality. This raises hope for treating medical problems, but also opens ethical quandaries about equality, privacy, and personal freedom. Discuss these questions with a panel of experts including geneticist Andy Greenfield, science fiction author Paul McAuley and science policy advisor Elizabeth Bohm. Lisa Melton, Senior News Editor at Nature Biotechnology, will moderate the event, with Ben Davies, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, presenting technical background.

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

Date/Time: Thursday 30 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com

Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.

Today’s session: Mental health problems account for nearly 40% of all illness but only 13% of NHS funds are devoted to their treatment. How to best address the mental health challenge with limited resources? Get ‘a very short introduction’ to mental health services, and dive into a thought provoking discussion with psychiatrist David Clark.

Date/Time: Friday 1 July 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/friday.html

Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.

Today’s session: Why do we need sleep? What happens to our health when we don’t get enough, and how does our modern lifestyle impact our sleep quality? What causes the major sleep disorders? Get ‘a very short introduction’ to sleep and dive into a thought-provoking discussion with neuroscientist Russell Foster.

Imagine constantly worrying about something that you know is not real, or feel a deep anxiety that only repetitive (and often embarrassing) behavior can diminish. Now imagine this happening 24 hours a day for 365 days a year and you can begin to understand what it might be like to suffer from OCD. Join scientist Paula Banca who will discuss the OCD brain and why psychopaths never suffer from it, followed by artist Dan Holloway’s performance poetry inspired by his own experience. This event is part of the Storytelling Science project.

Date/Time: Sunday 3 July, 19:00
Venue: Amey Theatre, Abingdon School, Abingdon-on-Thames
Admissions: £7/£5(conc.)/£22(fam.)
Suitability: 16+
Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/grand-finale.html

What are the next steps for human evolution? Natural changes or technologies? Combining gene splicing and trans-humanism, medical advancement and surgical enhancement, biology and ambition, Level Up Human takes a light hearted look at what it means to be human, and what the alternatives might be. Join science writer and TV presenter Simon Watt, and his guests, for the live recording of an exciting podcast series.

Psychologist in the Pub events are completely free and open to everyone, so please join us on:

Thursday 7th July, 6:30 for 7pm start, with Dr Kinga Komarzynska & Dr Chelsea Slater

What can we learn from crime scene behaviour?

Crime linkage focuses on identifying crimes committed by the same offender using crime scene behaviour. Offender behaviour is used to distinguish between crimes committed by the same person and crimes committed by different people. The presentation will introduce this evidence-based approach to the detection of serial offenders and will be a brief introduction to the theory behind crime linkage as well as exploration of some of the empirical research that investigated behavioural consistency and change within a series of crimes perpetrated by serial offenders.

The talk will be held in the function room in Wig & Pen pub.
The venue is wheelchair accessible.

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.

Jonathon Porritt and Shaun Chamberlin celebrate the launch of the late Trinity alumnus David Fleming’s extraordinary book, ‘Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy’.

This intimate event will be held in the Sutro Room at Trinity College, Oxford University, and will be recorded for a short film. Various themes in Fleming’s wonderfully diverse work – from carnival to climate change, religion to resilience, manners to markets – may be explored in response to the interests of those present.

Interview with Shaun Chamberlin on David Fleming, Brexit and the book: http://www.darkoptimism.org/2016/08/21/interview-on-david-fleming-music-and-hippos/

More information on David Fleming’s books:
http://www.chelseagreen.com/surviving-the-future
http://www.chelseagreen.com/lean-logic

Copies of both books will be on sale on the day.

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“David Fleming was an elder of the UK green movement and a key figure in the early Green Party. Drawing on the heritage of Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful, Fleming’s beautifully written and nourishing vision of a post-growth economics grounded in human-scale culture and community—rather than big finance—is both inspiring and ever more topical.”
~ Caroline Lucas MP, co-leader, Green Party of England and Wales; former Member of the European Parliament

“I would unreservedly go so far as to say that David Fleming was one of the most original, brilliant, urgently-needed, underrated, and ahead-of-his-time thinkers of the last 50 years. History will come to place him alongside Schumacher, Berry, Seymour, Cobbett, and those other brilliant souls who could not just imagine a more resilient world but who could paint a picture of it in such vivid colours. Step into the world of David Fleming; you’ll be so glad you did.”
~ Rob Hopkins, cofounder of the Transition Network

“Why do some of the truly great books only emerge and exact their influence upon us after the death of their authors? Perhaps it takes a lifetime to accrue and refine the necessary wisdom. Or perhaps it simply takes the rest of us too long to catch up. Like Thoreau, Fleming’s masterpiece brims not only with fresh insight into every nook and cranny of our culture and what it means to be human, but with such wit and humour that its challenging ideas and radical perspectives become a refreshing delight. If we’re to have a future worth surviving, this book demands to be read, re-read, and—ultimately—acted upon.”
~ Mark Boyle, author of The Moneyless Manifesto and Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi

Join Cyclox and the Broken Spoke Bike Co-op along with Happy Cakes, Jimbobs Baguettes, I Scream Oxford, Pedal and Post, Oxford Mobile Cycle Repairs, Quarry Cycle Services, and Stig to discuss how they got started with cargo bikes and the future of intra urban transport in Oxford.

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/

Country: USA

Year: 2015

Director: Michael Moore

Producers: Michael Moore, Carl Deal, Tia Lessin

Runtime: 120 mins

Language: English

BBFC: 15 A

Click here for trailer and Official Website

Overview /Sypnosis

To show what the USA can learn from rest of the world, director Michael Moore playfully visits various nations in Europe and Africa as a one-man “invader” to take their ideas and practices for America. Whether it is Italy with its generous vacation time allotments, France with its gourmet school lunches, German with its industrial policy, Norway and its prison system, Tunisia and its strongly progressive women’s policy and Iceland and its strong female presence in government and business among others, Michael Moore discovers there is much that American should emulate.

SCREENING AND Q&A WITH EUROPEAN DIRECTOR OF MUSIC

&MEMORY

Country: USA

Year: 2014

Director: Michael Rossato-Bennett;

Producers: Michael Rossato-Bennett, Alexandra McDougald

Runtime: 78 mins

Language: English

BBFC: n/a

Click here for trailer and Official Website

Overview /Sypnosis

The documentary follows social worker Dan Cohen, founder of the nonprofit organization Music & Memory, as he fights against a broken health-care system to demonstrate music’s ability to combat memory loss and restore a deep sense of self to those suffering from it. Rossato-Bennett visits family members who have witnessed the miraculous effects of personalized music on their loved ones, and offers illuminating interviews with experts including renowned neurologist and best-selling author Oliver Sacks (Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain) and musician Bobby McFerrin (“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”).

Followed by a Q&A session with Manon Bruinsma – European Director of Music & Memory and Music Therapist.

Geoffrey Davison, the great nephew of Emily Wilding Davison, will open the seminar with a personal insight into Emily’s life and the Suffrage movement. He will be joined by panel members who will include Professor Senia Paseta, Anneliese Dodds MEP & Lyndsey Jenkins who is researching the Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) who will discuss the history of the Suffrage movement and its importance for today and the future.
Part of the series, A Festival of Anniversaries

Between 1995 and 2011, remittances to developing world economies, that is, money sent by emigrants to family and friends in their country of origin, grew from US$55 billion to over US$372 billion, to exceed all overseas development assistance to the developing world, and all private debt and portfolio equity flows.
Latin America is a major recipient of remittances. Over 5.2 per cent of the region’s population are migrants and in 2011 alone, US$62 billion was remitted to Latin American households. Despite the scale of these transfers however, we still do not know how remittances might affect political preferences and political behaviour among recipients, what this might mean for policy outcomes, and how these dynamics might shape the political system in countries heavily dependent on this capital.
In this talk, Professor Doyle will outline how the regular receipt of remittances is changing the political preferences of recipients, which will have long-lasting effects on politics and policy in Latin American countries dependent upon remittances, relative to countries that are not.

Professor Doyle is the Tutorial Fellow in the Politics of Latin America and Associate Professor of Comparative Politics Department of Politics and International Relations. He is a member of the Latin American Centre.

The First Amendment has had a mixed pedigree and a difficult birth. In this lecture, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Dan Robinson will demonstrate that, in offering protection of the basic liberties — freedom of religion, speech, press, petition, and assembly — the clear language of the First Amendment’s final form has been no bar to diverse and conflicting interpretations. This leaves unsettled the question of just what constitutes ‘speech’ and the grounds on which it loses the Amendment’s protection.

Professor Robinson will chart the development of philosophical thought on these freedoms from John Locke to the present day, and address the question of how courts navigate these conflicting interpretations. Operating as they do within the wider cultural climate of the day, he will assess whether the courts do, and should, remain immune to its fluctuating pressures.

This lecture forms part of a series on Free Speech convened by Professor Sir Richard Sorabji.

Professor Dan Robinson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Georgetown University and a Fellow of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford.

Get your game face on – it’s poker night at Science Oxford.

Brush off your pack of cards and outplay Lady Luck with an evening of poker probability and psychology. Learn more about the head games that define what happens at the poker table with mathematician and author of The Perfect Bet Adam Kucharski and psychologist Danielle Shore, who’ll show how your poker face can affect your opponents’ decision-making. Their talks will be followed by a friendly poker tournament – the perfect opportunity to put into practice the science of poker.

Chips included as part of ticket price.

Delivering reliable drinking water to millions of rural people in Africa and Asia is an elusive and enduring global goal. A systematic information deficit on the performance of and demand for infrastructure investments limits policy design and development outcomes.

Since 2010, the ‘Smart Handpump’ project has been exploring new technologies, methods and models to understand and respond to this challenge. A mobile-enabled data transmitter provides foundational data on hourly water usage and failure events which has enabled the establishment of performance-based maintenance companies in Kenya that are improving handpump reliability by an order of magnitude.

The research is a collaboration between the School of Geography and the Environment and the Department of Engineering Science with a range of partners including government, international bodies such as UNICEF and the private sector. New research involves modelling the accelerometry data from the handpumps to predict aquifer depth. We invite you to test the Smart Handpump in the car park and debate how the ‘accidental infrastructure’ of rural handpumps can spark bolder initiatives to deliver water security for millions of poor people in Africa and Asia.

Recollection Lecture: The Rev’d Dr Mark Clavier (St Stephen’s House, Oxford)
To churches struggling to challenge both the excesses and the underlying potency of consumerism, Augustine offers a God whose Eloquent Wisdom can supersede all worldly rhetoric. By reading consumer culture through the lens of his rhetorical theology, Christians can be awakened to the true destiny of their restless hearts.

Event starts with tea and coffee at 3.30