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

Apr
18
Wed
WHY BE REAL? the anxieties of contemporary authenticity @ JHB Lecture Theatre, Oxford Brookes University
Apr 18 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Apr
19
Thu
CANCELLED – The Convergence of Machine Learning, Big Data, and Supercomputing @ Oxford e-Research Centre
Apr 19 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SEMINAR HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO ILLNESS

The Oxford e-Research Centre welcomes Dr. Jeremy Kepner, MIT Lincoln Laboratory Fellow and MIT Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center Founder. He will present a seminar entitled ‘The Convergence of Machine Learning, Big Data, and Supercomputing’.

Apr
24
Tue
Seminar on Reproducibility & Open Research — Dr Laura Nelson, “Data Science with Meaning: Reproducibility and Replicability in the Interpretative Social Sciences” @ Wharton Room, All Souls College
Apr 24 @ 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Seminar on Reproducibility & Open Research -- Dr Laura Nelson, "Data Science with Meaning: Reproducibility and Replicability in the Interpretative Social Sciences" @ Wharton Room, All Souls College | England | United Kingdom

Multi-disciplinary seminar series on Reproducibility and Open Research practices. All very welcome!

April 24: Dr Laura Nelson, Northwestern University

“Data Science with Meaning: Reproducibility and Replicability in the Interpretive Social Sciences”

While reproducibility best-practices and tools developed in the natural sciences can be directly applied to many branches of the social sciences, these tools are often ill-suited for the specific type of research done in the interpretive social sciences. The interpretive social sciences acknowledge the importance of interpretation and meaning in behavior and the construction of the social world, but in line with science more generally, the goal is to understand this meaning in a way that is reproducible and intersubjectively valid. In this talk I will discuss how computational methods enable us to move the interpretive social sciences closer to fully transparent, reproducible, and open methods. Specifically, I will discuss a three-step methodological framework I call computational grounded theory. This approach combines the substantive knowledge and hermeneutic skills of trained researchers with the processing power and pattern recognition of computers, to produce a more methodologically rigorous, open, reproducible, but interpretive approach to the social sciences. I will demonstrate this framework via two empirical examples, historical feminist movements and the contemporary environmental movement, using the reproducibility tool Binder.

Apr
25
Wed
Against ‘Iberic Crudity’: Balliol MS 238E, Bodleian MS Douce 204, and Laurentius Dyamas – transmission of style in fifteenth-century Catalan manuscript production. @ Balliol College Historic Collections Centre - St Cross Church, next door to Holywell Manor
Apr 25 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Against ‘Iberic Crudity’: Balliol MS 238E, Bodleian MS Douce 204, and Laurentius Dyamas - transmission of style in fifteenth-century Catalan manuscript production. @ Balliol College Historic Collections Centre - St Cross Church, next door to Holywell Manor | England | United Kingdom

Anna Espínola Lynn, MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture (Wadham College, Oxford), will be speaking on the transmission of style in fifteenth-century Catalan manuscript production.

All welcome! Feel free to bring your lunch. The talk will last about half an hour, to allow time for questions and discussion afterwards, and a closer look at the Balliol manuscript discussed.

Unlocking Archives is an interdisciplinary graduate seminar series of illustrated lunchtime talks about current research in Balliol College’s historic collections: archives, manuscripts and early printed books, and the connections between them.

Talks take place at 1pm in Balliol’s Historic Collections Centre in St Cross Church, Holywell. St Cross is next door to Holywell Manor and across the road from the English & Law faculties on Manor Road; directions http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/Services/visit.asp#f.

TISSUE STEM CELLS AND CANCER STEM CELLS: INTERPLAY BETWEEN TIME, DIET AND EPIGENETICS @ The Oxford Retreat
Apr 25 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
TISSUE STEM CELLS AND CANCER STEM CELLS: INTERPLAY BETWEEN TIME, DIET AND EPIGENETICS @ The Oxford Retreat | England | United Kingdom

Adult stem cells are a rare population of undifferentiated cells found throughout our bodies which are able to divide infinitely and give rise to the different types of cells that maintain the body’s tissues and organs. Salvador Aznar’s laboratory is interested in studying how these adult stem cells maintain tissue homeostasis and why they fail to function properly during ageing and tumorigenesis.

Prof Aznar will present their latest data regarding the impact our diet has on the timing of stem cell function and its profound effects on stem cells ageing. He will also discuss their recent findings on the influence that the fatty acid content of our diet has on metastatic-initiating cells, as well as recent work indicating that our diet exerts striking epigenetic effects on metastatic stem cells which can be therapeutically targeted.

Apr
26
Thu
SIU Career Sessions 1: The path to industry @ New Biochemistry Building
Apr 26 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
SIU Career Sessions 1: The path to industry @ New Biochemistry Building | England | United Kingdom

What if I like research but not teaching? What if I do not like any of them? What alternatives to academia do I have?

We would like to introduce the “SIU Career Sessions”, a termly round of talks focusing on alternative careers for PhD students and postdocs, which will definitely help you with these questions. Get ready to hear from experts and explore new career paths! If you are not sure what is next after your PhD or would just like to be aware of your options, these events are for you!

Our first session will focus on a promising field for PhD-level scientists: industry. In this event, attendees will have the opportunity to hear from high profile speakers from two pharmaceutical companies with different focuses: Novo Nordisk and Immunocore. The speakers will bring not only information about the attributes they seek in potential employees, but also the daily life in industry and opportunities for a successful and stable career in big pharmaceutical companies. We will also learn from their first-hand experience how they took the career transition path to industry.

Is industry for you? Come find out with us!
As always, this event is completely free and everyone is welcome.

When dinosaurs ruled the imagination @ Oxford Town Hall
Apr 26 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
When dinosaurs ruled the imagination @ Oxford Town Hall | England | United Kingdom

Talk followed by questions and discussion

Apr
27
Fri
Surgical Grand Rounds – “Deep brain stimulation for human brain disorders: Expanding indications and the brain machine interface” @ Lecture Theatre 1, Academic Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford
Apr 27 @ 8:00 am – 9:00 am
Surgical Grand Rounds - "Deep brain stimulation for human brain disorders: Expanding indications and the brain machine interface" @ Lecture Theatre 1, Academic Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford | England | United Kingdom

As part of Surgical Grand Rounds lecture series, Professor Peter Silburn from Queensland Brain Institute in Australia will present “Deep brain stimulation for human brain disorders: Expanding indications and the brain machine interface”.

“Deep water, shallow understanding: managing the risk from sea level rise” with Prof Michael Oppenheimer @ Mathematical Institute (Lecture Theatre L2)
Apr 27 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

This is a joint event between the Oxford Martin School and the Oxford Climate Research Network

Managing the risk to coastal populations, infrastructure, and ecosystems resulting from sea level rise presents unique and daunting challenges. Sea level rise lags behind global warming due to inertia in the ocean-ice system; likewise, the response of sea level to stabilisation of the climate will lag behind the temperature response, making emissions reduction policy relatively ineffective through midcentury in reducing the rate of rise. Consequently, anticipatory adaptive responses are the key to lowering risk in the near term. On a century scale or longer, emissions mitigation can substantially reduce risk but century-scale projections of sea level rise are deeply uncertain due to a lack of knowledge and expert disagreement about the future contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet. On the latter timescale, effective responses would include a mixture of hard protection such as surge barriers and sea walls, flexible measures such as enhancement of natural defences and buildings that can withstand episodic flooding, and permanent, managed withdrawal of populations from many areas.

However, inertia in the policy system arising from perverse incentives, short-term perspectives, and behavioural biases, exacerbated by scientific uncertainty, virtually guarantee a response to this threat which will be far below the optimum. In many countries, including wealthy ones, a large gap between adaptation capacity and implementation is already apparent, putting lives and property continually under threat from temporary flooding and eventually, permanent inundation. Professor Michael Oppenheimer’s, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University, talk will elucidate the increase in coastal hazard accompanying sea level rise to date, the rapid increase in the threat projected for the future, and means to overcome, at least partially, the dual problem of physical and policy inertia.

This talk will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome.

Apr
30
Mon
‘The Politics of Greece’s Theatrical Revolution, ca. 500 – ca. 300 BCE’ @ Ioannou Centre
Apr 30 @ 2:15 pm – 3:15 pm

A public lecture by Peter Wilson (University of Sydney). Free, all welcome, no booking required.

‘Climate change: past, present and future’ with Prof Sir David Hendry @ Oxford Martin School
Apr 30 @ 5:00 pm – 6:15 pm

This talk draws on findings from applying novel empirical approaches to understanding climate change and its impacts in the past, present, and future. The talk will highlight the impact major ‘natural’ changes in global climate have had on the five largest mass extinctions over the last 500 million years, and will explain modelling of recent CO2 emissions and concentrations which confirm the impact of human activity, with a focus on UK CO2 emissions over the period 1860 – 2016. The role of major policy interventions which have reduced the UK’s per capita annual emissions below any level since 1860 when the UK was the ‘workshop of the world’ will be investigated.

Professor Sir David Hendry, INET Oxford and Climate Econometrics, will illustrate how to investigate the costs of ‘mis-forecasting’ extreme climate events by studying the economic impacts of inaccuracies in hurricane forecasts and will discuss empirical evidence on local climate impacts of emissions and what influences climate-change scepticism. Future climate is illustrated by projecting the impacts of 1.5°C versus 2°C on temperature and sea-level rise.

This talk will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome.

May
1
Tue
‘Organic chemistry’s role in the future of screens and energy conversion’ with Prof Seth Marder @ Oxford Martin School
May 1 @ 12:15 pm – 1:15 pm

Plastics (polymers) and other organic materials are typically thought of as insulating materials that surround conducting metals (e.g. copper) to protect us from shocks. However, through careful design, a class of so-called “pi-conjugated” organic compounds and polymers can be both semiconducting and conducting, and can be processed as flexible and in some cases stretchable thin films. In addition, these materials can be tuned to absorb and emit light across the visible spectrum. These pi-conjugated materials have been incorporated into devices such as organic light emitting diode (OLED) based displays common in cell phones (e.g. Samsung phones and the iPhone X) and now televisions (LG). OLEDs are now a multi-billion dollar market (> $10 billion expected in 2018), that is forecasted to grow rapidly over the next decade. OLEDs are now under active development for a variety of high efficiency light applications, with high-end lumenaires being marketed by a variety of companies. In addition, these materials have found use in organic solar cells, and also as components in a new class of highly efficient “perovskite” solar cells.

In this presentation, Professor Seth Marder, Visitor to Oxford Martin Senior Fellow, Professor Henry Snaith, will provide a brief introduction to how chemists develop these materials, introduce the basic working concepts of OLEDs and photovoltaics, show how organic compounds have been used in these technologies, and touch on both the strengths and weaknesses of organic materials for these various applications.

The Cultural Revolution and Me: Talk by Professor Li Ruru @ Lecture Theatre, China Centre
May 1 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
The Cultural Revolution and Me: Talk by Professor Li Ruru @ Lecture Theatre, China Centre | England | United Kingdom

Professor Li Ruru: The Cultural Revolution and Me
Tuesday, May 1, 5-7PM Lecture Theatre, China Centre, St Hugh’s College, Oxford

Open and free of charge for all

Supported by: Oxford Chinese Studies Society

2016 witnessed the 50th anniversary of the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution. BBC Chinese invited Professor Li Ruru to write about her own life during that time. Having considered the invitation for a long time, Li finally wrote, from a point of view why she decided to teach a module at Leeds: ‘The Post-Cultural Revolution Literature.’ Based on the BBC article, the talk tells stories about her own experience and people’s lives around her. It also attempts to tease out what the Cultural Revolution meant to the young people at that time and what impact it has had on her generation, a large group of teenagers.

The English translation of the article is available at:
Why I teach ‘Post-Cultural Revolution Chinese Literature’ at a British university by Li Ruru, Translated by Thomas Markham

This event will be of interest to those of you who work on Chinese history, Chinese literature, politics, and education. Professor Li’s talk will last around 40 minutes and we will leave plenty of time for critical dialogues, Q & A and discussions.

About the speaker
Li Ruru is Professor of Chinese Theatre Studies in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds, UK. She has written extensively on Shakespeare performance in China (including a monograph Shashibiya: Staging Shakespeare in China (2003)) and on Chinese theatre (modern/traditional). Her recent work includes Staging China: New Theatres in the Twenty-First Century (ed. 2016), The Soul of Beijing Opera: Theatrical Creativity and Continuity in the Changing World (2010), Translucent Jade: Li Yuru on Stage and in Life ([in Chinese] 2nd edition 2015), and a photographic exhibition Cao Yu (1910-1996): Pioneer of Modern Chinese Drama (2011-16). Li runs traditional song-dance theatre workshops for both students and theatre professionals because she regards regular contact with the theatre as essential to her academic work.

https://www.facebook.com/events/367687450399248/?ti=icl

May
2
Wed
‘Planetary health: does our planet have boundaries?’ with Prof Yadvinder Malhi & Kate Raworth @ Oxford Martin School
May 2 @ 5:00 pm – 6:15 pm

There is mounting evidence that the planet’s capacity to sustain a growing human population, expected to be over 8 billion by 2030, is declining. The degradation of the planet’s air, water and land, combined with significant loss in biodiversity, is also resulting in substantial health impacts, including the reduction of food security and nutrition, and the spread of disease. Will our planetary boundaries be surpassed if current trends continue?

In this talk, Professor Yadvinder Malhi, Co-Director, Oxford Martin TNC Climate Partnership, will discuss the metabolism of a human – dominated planet, while Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics, will ask if it is possible – as she puts it – “to live well without trashing the planet”.

There will be a drinks reception and book signing after the talk, all welcome.

May
3
Thu
Launch of Susan Gillingham’s “Psalms Through the Centuries: Volume 2” @ Nazrin Shah Centre, Worcester College, Oxford
May 3 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Book launch followed by reception and performance by Worcester College Choir – all welcome!

Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again @ Wesley Memorial Church
May 3 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Silicon Valley startups: being evil, again and again @ Wesley Memorial Church | England | United Kingdom

Talk followed by questions and discussion

May
4
Fri
Surgical Grand Round: “Prospective assessment of an innovative and multidisciplinary treatment protocol for chronic tinnitus” @ Lecture Theatre 1, Academic Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital
May 4 @ 8:00 am – 9:00 am
Surgical Grand Round: "Prospective assessment of an innovative and multidisciplinary treatment protocol for chronic tinnitus" @ Lecture Theatre 1, Academic Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital |  |  |

As part of the Surgical Grand Rounds lecture series, ENT Surgeon Dr Gerald Fain will discuss “Prospective assessment of an innovative and multidisciplinary treatment protocol for chronic tinnitus”.

May
7
Mon
Book Launch with Author and Translator: The Chilli Bean Paste Clan, by Yan Ge & translated by Nicky Harman @ Ho Tim Seminar Room, China Centre, Oxford
May 7 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Book Launch with Author and Translator: The Chilli Bean Paste Clan, by Yan Ge & translated by Nicky Harman @ Ho Tim Seminar Room, China Centre, Oxford | United Kingdom

Book Launch with Author & Translator: Yan Ge (顏歌)’s The Chilli Bean Paste Clan, translated by Nicky Harman

https://www.facebook.com/events/605485149803274/

2018/May/07 Monday 5-7PM Ho Tim Seminar Room, China Centre, St Hugh’s College, Oxford

Open and free of charge for all

Supported by: Oxford Chinese Studies Society

To welcome everyone back to Oxford in this Trinity Term, we have invited one of the most important writers of China’s post-1980 generation, Yan Ge, to share with us her experiences as a young writer in China and abroad. She will bring her seminal work, The Chilli Bean Paste Clan (《我們家》in Chinese, published in 2013), and discuss issues of family, language, morality, capitalism and more, with the novel’s English translator Nicky Harman. The Chilli Bean Paste Clan the English translation will be published by Balestier Press and available on the market from the 1st of May, 2018, adding a fresh voice in the growing field of literature in translation.

Synopsis of The Chilli Bean Paste Clan:

Set in a fictional town in West China, this is the story of the Duan-Xue family, owners of the lucrative chilli bean paste factory, and their formidable matriarch. As Gran’s eightieth birthday approaches, her middle-aged children get together to make preparations. Family secrets are revealed and long-time sibling rivalries flare up with renewed vigour. As Shengqiang struggles unsuccessfully to juggle the demands of his mistress and his wife, the biggest surprises of all come from Gran herself……

Professor David Der-wei Wang 王德威 of Harvard University has commented on Yan Ge and her work and hinted that she might signal a generational shift in the Chinese literary scene:
“She writes about her hometown. The stories in a small Sichuanese town are greatly done. She has her own worldviews, and frankly speaking, she is of a very fortunate generation. What she may have encountered as she grew up is not as tumultuous or adventurous as the writers that came before her, and therefore the factor of imagination has gradually come to matter more than experiences in reality.
她写她的故乡,四川一个小城的故事,写得很好。她有她的世界观,但坦白地讲,他们都是有幸的一代,在她成长的过程里面,她所遭遇的不如过去那辈作家有那么多的坎坷或者冒险性,所以,想象的成分已经逐渐地凌驾了现实经验的体会。”

This event will be of interest to those of you who work on contemporary China, Chinese literature, translation studies, and publishing. The conversation between Yan Ge and Nicky Harman will last around 30 minutes and we will leave plenty of time for critical dialogues, Q & A and discussions.

Books available for purchase at a discounted rate.

Speaker biography:

Yan Ge was born in Sichuan Province, China in 1984. She is a writer as well as a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature. Publishing since 1994, she is the author of eleven books in Chinese. Her works have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Hungarian. She was a visiting scholar at Duke University from 2011 to 2012 and a residency writer at the Cross Border Festival in Netherlands in November 2012. Named by People’s Literature magazine as one of twenty future literature masters in China, she is now the chairperson of China Young Writers’ Association and a contract writer of Sichuan Writers’ Association. She recently started writing in English. Her English stories could be seen on Irish Times and Stand Magazine. She lives in Dublin with her husband and son.

Nicky Harman is a British translator of Chinese literature, and one of the most influential figures in the field. She is co-Chair of the Translators Association (Society of Authors) and co-founded Paper Republic 纸托邦, one of the most important online forums for Chinese literatures in translation. She taught on the MSc in Translation at Imperial College until 2011 and now translates full-time from Chinese. The authors she has translated include Jia Pingwa贾平凹,Yan Geling 严歌苓,Chan Koon-chung 陈冠中,Annibaobei 安妮宝贝,Chen Xiwo陈希我,Yan Ge颜歌,and Han Dong韩东, to name just a few. She has won several awards with her translations.

Science, Medicine and Culture in the Nineteenth Century Seminars in Trinity Term 2018 @ St Anne's College
May 7 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Science, Medicine and Culture in the Nineteenth Century Seminars in Trinity Term 2018 @ St Anne's College | England | United Kingdom

Professor Harriet Ritvo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Gone but not Forgotten: Coming to Grips with Extinction
5.30—7.00, Seminar Room 3, St Anne’s College

Extinction is a timely and controversial topic now, as it has been for centuries. That is not, of course, to say that the focus of contention has remained constant. At first the main question, couched at least as much in theological as in scientific terms (that is, in terms resonant with later debates about evolution), was whether it could happen. Localized anthropogenic extinctions, most famously that of the dodo, were noticed by European travelers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (the intentional extermination of undesirable animals like wolves at home did not figure in such debates). The dwindling and disappearance of more populous and widespread species, including the passenger pigeon, the quagga, and (nearly) the American bison, in the nineteenth century sparked a different kind of concern among the overlapping communities of hunters, naturalists, and conservationists, which helped to inspire the earliest national parks and wildlife reserves.

Margaret MacMillan In Conversation with Alan Rusbridger @ Simpkins Lee Theatre, LMH
May 7 @ 5:45 pm – 6:45 pm
Margaret MacMillan In Conversation with Alan Rusbridger @ Simpkins Lee Theatre, LMH | England | United Kingdom

Distinguished modern historian and former Warden of St Antony’s College, Professor MacMillan recently became an Honorary Fellow of LMH. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada, and will be this summer’s BBC Reith Lecturer. Her area of particular interest is the tangled history of war and society, our feelings towards conflict, and those who engage in it.

May
8
Tue
From Cult to Classic: Reimagining Medea before and after Euripides @ Ioannou Centre
May 8 @ 2:15 pm – 3:15 pm

A public lecture by Ben Morgan (University of Oxford). Free, all welcome, no booking required.

St Cross Talk: Feminist Foreign Policy @ West Wing Lecture Theatre, St Cross College
May 8 @ 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm
St Cross Talk: Feminist Foreign Policy @ West Wing Lecture Theatre, St Cross College |  |  |

Join St Cross alumna Kristina Lunz (MSc Global Governance and Diplomacy, 2014), co-founder of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, for a panel discussion on diplomacy, feminist foreign policy and social entrepreneurship. Joining her will be CFFP co-founder Marissa Conway, head of CFFP in the UK, and Dr Jennifer Cassidy, Editor of “Gender and Diplomacy” (Routledge, 2017) and Lecturer in International Relations, University of Oxford (St Peter’s College).

This talk is free to attend, all welcome.

About CFFP

The Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP) is a research and advocacy organisation promoting a feminist approach to foreign policy. With its vision to challenge the status quo of foreign policy, the CFFP puts people instead of special interest at the core of policy initiatives.

CFFP was founded in 2016 by Marissa in London, where she is heading the UK section of CFFP. Kristina, a St Cross alumna (2014-2015), joined Marissa as a co-founder and also brought the organisation to Germany, where she is heading the German team. Dr Jennifer Cassidy joined CFFP’s Advisory Council recently.

Beatrice Groves, ‘”Mark this”: Recovering early modern readers through Psalm marginalia’ @ Ursell Room, Pusey House
May 8 @ 6:15 pm – 7:30 pm
May
9
Wed
Sweet voice and round taste: Cross-sensory metaphors and linguistic variability by Francesca Strik Lievers @ Jesus College - Ship Centre Lecture Theatre
May 9 @ 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

How do we define a sound or a taste for which our language does not have a dedicated word?

Typically, we borrow words from another sensory modality. Wines, for example, are often described by words that belong to other sensory perceptions: a “soft flavour” borrows the adjective soft from the domain of touch, and a “round taste” borrows the adjective round from the domain of sight.

It remains an interesting open issue to what extent these cross-sensory metaphors are universal across languages, and to what extent they are language-specific.

Dr Francesca Strik Lievers will address these questions and provide an overview of the latest scientific discoveries in the field, using examples taken from different languages. Her talk will be followed by an opportunity for questions.

The event is organised and hosted by Creative Multilingualism in collaboration with TORCH. Creative Multilingualism is a research programme led by the University of Oxford and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of the Open World Research Initiative.

Participation is free and open to the public. We provide FREE LUNCH to all participants.

12.30-13.00 – lunch and mingling

13.00-14.00 – talk and discussion

Southeast Asia Seminar – Postgraduate Research Session @ Deakin Room, St Antony's College
May 9 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Southeast Asia Seminar - Postgraduate Research Session @ Deakin Room, St Antony's College | England | United Kingdom

The Making of the Indonesian Migrant Labour Movement
Junko Asano (St Antony’s, International Development)

The Bold and Brave of Burma:
A Micro-Level Study of the first Movers of Dissent between 1988-2011
Jieun Baek (Hertford, Blavatnik School of Government)

The Politics of Language and Rodrigo Duterte’s Populism
Adrian Calo (School of Oriental and African Languages, London)

Seeing Through the World: Phenomenology in Blanchot’s Thomas Novels (Dr John McKeane, University of Reading) @ TORCH - The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (Colin Matthew Room)
May 9 @ 5:15 pm – 6:15 pm
Seeing Through the World: Phenomenology in Blanchot’s Thomas Novels (Dr John McKeane, University of Reading) @ TORCH - The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (Colin Matthew Room) | England | United Kingdom

This paper aims to provide a close reading of passages from Maurice Blanchot’s early fictional writing in the light of phenomenology. This will involve following various threads. For instance, is greater emphasis placed upon the protagonist Thomas thinking the world abstractly, or perceiving it visually? Does this situate him as a consciousness able to negate the world from afar, or as one always already situated within it? Second, what is the role of the imperfect or impossible perception that is repeatedly invoked? Should this be aligned with the critique of vision shared by much French twentieth-century thought? And third, how far do the novels repeat the phenomenological claim to scientificity? Does Thomas represent anything more than an individual subjectivity – if so, in what ways is the claim to the general made?

Speaker: Dr John McKeane (University of Reading)

How can “experts” help government think? @ JHB Lecture Theatre, Oxford Brookes University
May 9 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Professor Glen O’Hara will examine why governments get things so wrong, so often. He will ask how history can be used to improve public policy making.

Britain’s exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 and the Second Iraq War in 2003 are two infamous examples of disastrous policy, but governments blunder all the time – whatever party is in power. Infrastructure projects overrun. The aims and techniques of different departments clash. Scandals erupt among officials and politicians. Controversies stymie attempts at agreement and consensus. But why exactly do these failures happen? Are they more or less widespread than in the private sector? And can studying British governments’ decision-making across the twentieth century improve it in the future?

Glen will recommend a slow, deliberative, transparent, democratic and above all humble and sensitive approach in order to avoid another Black Wednesday or ruinous war.

May
10
Thu
“Government needs to get better at policy-making; more open and connected with people” with Dr Andrea Siodmok @ Oxford Martin School
May 10 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

In today’s fast changing, highly interconnected, culturally diverse world our current approaches to policy need to become more responsive to change. Currently the dominant mode of policy making is still based on what we might term ‘intelligent choice’. This retains the premise that problems can be resolved through ‘best practice’ evidence-based approaches using empirical methods. We need to move however to ‘next practice’ a method which seeks to create entirely new propositions and then testing them in context so that we may learn, adapt and actively shape our understanding of the problem-solution space itself.

New methods are at the heart of some of that Lab’s latest projects, including a unique collaboration with the Government’s Office for Science, applying Speculative Design and advanced visualisation in the run up to the Industrial Strategy Ageing Grand Challenge.

Social media: news, democratized? @ Wesley Memorial Church
May 10 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Social media: news, democratized? @ Wesley Memorial Church | England | United Kingdom

Talk followed by questions and discussion

May
11
Fri
Surgical Grand Round – ‘Medicine in Art’ @ Lecture Theatre 1, Academic Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford
May 11 @ 8:00 am – 9:00 am
Surgical Grand Round - 'Medicine in Art' @ Lecture Theatre 1, Academic Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford | Headington | England | United Kingdom

As part of the Surgical Grand Round lecture series, Professor David Cranston from the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences at the University of Oxford will discuss ‘Medicine in Art’.