Think Human Festival is proud to host this panel on Writing Working-Class Fiction.
Kerry Hudson, Kit de Waal and Alex Wheatle are celebrated contemporary British novelists who have all written working-class experience into their fiction. At this event, the novelists are hosted by writer and critic Boyd Tonkin.

They will read from their work, and then discuss the problems they have encountered in being working-class writers, the creative responses they have formulated in their writing of working-class experience, and the wider issues of publishing and literary culture in relation to working-class writing and authorship. The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Oxford Brookes has a rich tradition of research into working-class life and culture, across literature, history and the social sciences.

From 19.15 the hall is open for help with computer advice on searching for relatives’ documentation, free tea/coffee, new books available to browse. Talks begin in the big hall at 20.00.

Liberal Democrat candidates for the St. Margaret’s and North wards on 3 May 2018

Carrie Gracie grew up mostly in North-East Scotland and set up a restaurant before taking a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. She spent a year teaching in two Chinese universities and then built a small film business before joining the BBC in 1987 as a trainee producer.

She went back to China as the BBC’s Beijing reporter in the early 1990s and served as China correspondent and Beijing bureau chief until 1999 when she returned to the UK to focus on presenting. For several years she anchored the morning slot on the BBC News Channel and hosted the weekly BBC World Service programme, The Interview. In April 2014, she took up a newly created post as BBC China Editor and has since covered many news stories in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. She has also made documentaries about China for TV and radio, winning prizes including a Peabody and an Emmy.

In January 2018, she left her post as BBC China editor in protest at unequal pay. She published an open letter to BBC audiences on the subject and appeared before a parliamentary select committee. She has since returned to BBC HQ as a news presenter and continues to campaign for an equal, fair and transparent pay structure.

There are over 30,000 students living and studying at the universities in Oxford. Options for accommodation are usually university accommodation or renting from private landlords with very few being able to afford their own home. Shared living is a popular option but is often expensive, of poor quality and lacks any shared living space at all. Oxford is one of the most expensive places to live in the UK with cost of living often matching that of London; however wages and student loans are not equivalent to London ones.

This session offers an insight into alternative solutions for student housing as we hear from a student housing cooperative in the UK; their journey and lived experience and how their principles might work in Oxford. Their presentation will be followed by an interactive panel discussion from an Oxford housing cooperative, student housing cooperative and others.

Join us in the discussion to learn more about student-led housing that is more affordable, sustainable, community orientated and of better quality as alternatives options to Oxford’s unaffordable rents and poor housing conditions. The session will also provide a platform for you to express your interest in other housing options, ask questions and to understand better what options are available to you so you can take control of your own living conditions.

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

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.

The Oxford Guild and its Collegium Global Network in association with the Oxford PPE Society is delighted to welcome a very special guest – Tawakkol Karman, one of the most famous and most decorated Nobel Peace Prize Winners of all time (https://www.facebook.com/events/108829703317881/). 100% FREE AND OPEN TO ALL INCLUDING NON STUDENTS – Mrs Karman is keen to speak to members of the public as well! Mrs Karman will be speaking in a specially organised event at 6.30pm on Monday 7th May in prestigious and comfortable Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre in St Catherine’s College. She will be discussing ‘Terrorism – The Problems & Solutions’, sharing her insights into how to tackle this global issue in 2018 and beyond and her experiences of the Arab Spring, the Yemeni Civil War and the political landscape in the Middle East. THIS IS A TRULY UNIQUE AND UNPRECEDENTED OPPORTUNITY TO HEAR FROM SUCH A HIGH PROFILE SPEAKER. THE EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE – this will undoubtedly be one of the biggest and most fascinating events of the year – do not miss out on your seat! SIGN UP FOR THE BALLOT HERE TO SECURE YOUR PLACE: https://tinyurl.com/TawakkolKarmanOxford You may ballot for up to two seats. Names will be chosen at random from the ballot and we have several daily releases before Monday 7th May – you will only be notified by email if you have been successful in the ballot.

The will be an opportunity for questions and if you would like to ballot for the chance to meet Mrs Karman and speak to her directly in a private reception please email president@theoxfordguild.com ASAP. THIS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST NOBEL PRIZES WINNERS AND MINDS AND WE HAVE SPENT A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF TIME AND EFFORT SECURING MRS KARMAN AS A KEYNOTE GUEST.

Mrs Karman is a globally renowned Yemeni human rights activist, journalist and politician. She became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising that constituted part of the Arab Spring, and has been dubbed ‘Mother of the Revolution’, ‘Lady of the Arab Spring’ and ‘Iron Woman’. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 in recognition of her achievements in the non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work in Yemen. She became the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, as well as the youngest Nobel Peace Laureate at the time, at the age of 32 (she is now second youngest). She has been recognised by TIME Magazine as the Most Rebellions Woman in History, and been selected by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for many years.

A mother of three, Mrs Karman is the President and Founder of the NGO Women Journalists without Chains (WJWC), Founder of the Peaceful Youth Revolution Council and a board member of Nobel Women Initiative. Bold and outspoken, she has been imprisoned on numerous occasions for her pro-democracy and pro-human rights protests. She has vowed with other Laureates and global leaders to end child slavery. She has been widely recognised by many other awards and accolades around the world including the Courage Award granted by the US Embassy in Sana’a in 2008, the Galileo Galilei Award in Florence, Italy and was a Winner of the Freedom Award granted by the US National Civil Rights Museum. Inspired by non-violent leaders Martin Luther King, and Mahatma Gandhi, Mrs Karman is one of the pioneers promoting peaceful protest in the Middle East as a means for change.

WHEN: 6.30pm, Monday 7th May 2018
WHERE: Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre, St Catherine’s College
SIGN UP FOR THE BALLOT TO SECURE YOUR PLACE: https://tinyurl.com/TawakkolKarmanOxford
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/108829703317881/

We highly recommend you all attend this historic and invaluable occasion which will be one of the most interesting, topical, high profile and exciting events of the year from our truly fascinating and inspiring guest. SIGN UP FOR THE BALLOT HERE TO SECURE YOUR PLACE: https://tinyurl.com/TawakkolKarmanOxford

Despite the non-recognition of caste identity by the Pakistani state, caste relations are a pervasive feature of everyday life, particularly in small-town and rural Pakistan. Using the case of the transformation of a formerly lower caste of potters into an important mercantile group in Pakistani Punjab, the speaker argues how changes in caste relations manifest themselves as processes of cultural change occurring at an everyday level. These changes are best understood through the intersection of processes of economic mobility, Islamic piety and emulation of certain high caste practices, encapsulated in the concept of Ashrafization, the Muslim equivalent of Sanskritization.

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.

Speaker: Carlo van de Weijer

Digitisation has entered the mobility arena. The car has evolved from a mechanical device into a “data producing embedded software platform”, and the internet is quickly linking the supply and demand to effectively fulfil our transport needs. And just like every industry that is confronted with digitisation, the changes come faster than most traditional players can prepare for. Yet, with all unpredictability that comes along with disruption there are some fixed rules that one can prepare for. This makes mobility a real example of an industry in the midst of disruption. Carlo van de Weijer will highlight the most important future trends within mobility, from uberization to self driving vehicles, electrification and the impact on cities and society.

Film Screening with Director: Kit Hung’s Soundless Wind Chime (無聲風鈴)

The Shulman Auditorium, The Queen’s College, Oxford
*Multilingual dialogue with English subtitles
Open and free of charge for all, please register on Eventbrite

Supported by: Oxford Chinese Studies Society (OCSS)

OCSS is proud to present our big film screening event of the term: Kit Hung’s Soundless Wind Chime! The film has a unique place in queer Asian cinema as it interweaves multiple journeys of identity and love together. The central figure of the young handsome migrant from mainland China, his intricate relationship with a Swiss expat, as well as Hong Kong as a kaleidoscopic space where all these take place, form the elements that guarantee the critical reflections this film provokes in the audiences. This event will be of interest to those of you in queer culture, translation studies, migration, Hong Kong, and film studies in general. The film is 110 minutes long and will be followed by a conversation between Director Kit Hung and Dr. Victor Fan from King’s College London, and we will leave plenty of time for critical dialogues, Q & A and discussions.

Synopsis of Soundless Wind Chime:

Soundless Wind Chime is the poetic journey of Ricky, searching for the lost soul and the past of his deceased Swiss lover – Pascal. The film shows a battle of love, lust, reality, memory and illusions and the grief everybody bears every day. The two young men Pascal and Ricky are both foreigners living in Hong Kong. While Pascal, a Swiss, ekes out a living from street theatre and petty crime, Ricky, who comes from Beijing, is a dependable helper in a humble restaurant. One fateful day their paths cross and they fall head over heels in love with each other and boldly decide to move in together. But their love is soon put to the test – the fickle Pascal makes high demands on gentle Ricky. Years later, long after their relationship comes to a sudden end, Ricky sets off in search of his former lover, and not far from Lucerne he meets a young man who looks just like Pascal. Like the broken melody of a wind chime, the secret of this poetic love story is gradually revealed in brief flashbacks. Archaic images of an austere Switzerland with its rugged mountains and rustic restaurant culture reflect not only the loneliness and pain of the lovelorn protagonist Ricky, they also stand in stark contrast to the vitality and colourfulness of life in Hong Kong where, transcending all cultural barriers, the couple experienced moments of profound happiness. (from the Chinese Visual Festival)

Speaker biography:

Kit Hung (洪榮傑) graduated with an M.F.A. from the Department of Film, Video and New Media, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Lecturer of the Academy of film, Hong Kong Baptist University, his films have won numerous international awards and were screened at over 120 international film festivals. His debut feature Soundless Wind Chime was nominated for the Teddy Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, released in more than 16 countries in 6 languages. He is currently a research student in the department of Media and Communication in the Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK.
Dr. Victor Fan (范可樂) graduated with a Ph.D. from the Film Studies Program and the Comparative Literature Department of Yale University, and an MFA in Film and Television Productions at the University of Southern California. He was Assistant Professor at McGill University, Department of East Asian Studies between 2010 and 2012, where he was also Chair of the Equity Subcommittee on Queer People. Fan has publications in peer-reviewed journals and anthology including The World Picture Journal, Camera Obscura, A Companion to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Screen, Film History and CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. Further, his monograph Cinema Approaching Reality: Locating Chinese Film Theory was published by University Of Minnesota Press in 2015. In addition, his thesis film from USC, The Well (2000), was screened in the Anthology Film Archives, São Paolo International Film Festival, the Japan Society (NYC) and the George Eastman House. It also won the third prize in the Long Narrative category in the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.

We are now in the Anthropocene – human activity has become a major influence on the climate and ecosystems of the earth. It has never been more important that the public are aware of the human impact on the environment, and that scientific research about the state of the earth is communicated accurately and truthfully.

Yet we are now in the Post-Truth World where objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. The question we want to address in this panel discussion is: What does the post-truth world mean for the future of our environment?

This seminar is part of the University of Oxford Environmental Research DTP’s Grand Challenge Seminar Series, and is open to all.

We will be releasing speaker announcements in the run up to the seminar.

Please join us for a drinks reception afterward to discuss the topic further and speak with the panel. Drinks will be provided.

Reserve your free ticket on Eventbrite

Speaker(s):
Monika Bickert (Head of Product Policy, Facebook)
Yvette Cooper (Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee)
Louise Richardson (Vice-Chancellor, University of Oxford)
Convenor:
Timothy Garton Ash (St Antony’s College)

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

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

Blackwell’s is thrilled to announce a special event with BAFTA and MOBO- award-winning musician, poet, activist and political commentator Akala, who will be discussing his searing modern polemic ‘Natives’ at the Sheldonian Theatre in conversation with Shaista Aziz..

From the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers – race and class have shaped Akala’s life and outlook. In his unique book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have left us where we are today.

Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, ‘Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire’ will speak directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialised empire.

Akala
MOBO award-winning hip hop artist, writer, poet and educator Akala is a label owner and social entrepreneur who fuses his unique rap/rock/electro-punk sound with fierce lyrical storytelling. He is more recently known for his compelling lectures/seminars, journalism (The Guardian, Huffington Post UK, New Internationalist and The Independent), TV presenting and script-writing and has gained a reputation as one of the most dynamic and literate talents in the UK.

Akala has also featured on numerous TV programmes across Channel 4, ITV2, MTV, Sky Arts and the BBC promoting his music, poetry as well as speaking on wide ranging subjects from music, youth engagement, British / African-Caribbean culture, African History, World History and the arts as a whole.

In 2009, Akala launched the ‘The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company’, a hotly-tipped music theatre production company.

Shaista Aziz is a freelance journalist specialising on race, gender and identity and is a women’s rights and anti racism campaigner. She is the founder of the anti racism digital platform ‘The Everyday Bigotry Project’, Co-founder of the ‘Women’s Advancement Hub (WAH)Pakistan’, co-founder of the Oxford Labour Muslim Network and currently serves as Women’s Officer for Oxford and District Labour Party. She is an award-winning stand up comedian and broadcaster. Shaista contributed to the 2017 anthology, ‘The Things I would Tell You, British Muslim Women Write’.

Tickets cost £20 including a copy of ‘Natives’ and entry for one or £8 entry only. Doors for this event will open at 6:30pm. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.

Blackwell’s is thrilled to announce a special event with BAFTA and MOBO- award-winning musician, poet, activist and political commentator Akala, who will be discussing his searing modern polemic ‘Natives’ at the Sheldonian Theatre in conversation with Shaista Aziz.

From the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers – race and class have shaped Akala’s life and outlook. In his unique book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have left us where we are today.

Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, ‘Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire’ will speak directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialised empire.

Akala
MOBO award-winning hip hop artist, writer, poet and educator Akala is a label owner and social entrepreneur who fuses his unique rap/rock/electro-punk sound with fierce lyrical storytelling. He is more recently known for his compelling lectures/seminars, journalism (The Guardian, Huffington Post UK, New Internationalist and The Independent), TV presenting and script-writing and has gained a reputation as one of the most dynamic and literate talents in the UK.

Akala has also featured on numerous TV programmes across Channel 4, ITV2, MTV, Sky Arts and the BBC promoting his music, poetry as well as speaking on wide ranging subjects from music, youth engagement, British / African-Caribbean culture, African History, World History and the arts as a whole.

In 2009, Akala launched the ‘The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company’, a hotly-tipped music theatre production company.

Shaista Aziz is a freelance journalist specialising on race, gender and identity and is a women’s rights and anti racism campaigner. She is the founder of the anti racism digital platform ‘The Everyday Bigotry Project’, Co-founder of the ‘Women’s Advancement Hub (WAH)Pakistan’, co-founder of the Oxford Labour Muslim Network and currently serves as Women’s Officer for Oxford and District Labour Party. She is an award-winning stand up comedian and broadcaster. Shaista contributed to the 2017 anthology, ‘The Things I would Tell You, British Muslim Women Write’.

Tickets cost £20 including a copy of ‘Natives’ and entry for one or £8 entry only. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.

For many people science in the media is lovely science stories like gravitational waves, the God particle and incredible discoveries about our natural history. But science is also to be found in messy, politicised and contentious stories like the coverage of climate-gate, Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans and rows about the safety of statins, e-cigarettes and anti-depressants. And it is essential that the wider public and policy makers have access to the best evidence when these controversies rage on our front pages.

How can scientists get their voices heard more loudly on these sensitive and contested issues? Is science in the headlines an opportunity or a threat? How can we help the public to assess where the weight of good evidence lies on issues when the media’s love of ‘balance’ and the maverick make it look like science is divided. The Science Media Centre sits on the front line between the research community and the 24 hour news media. Its remit is to get the media to do science better by getting scientists to do the media better. The CEO Fiona Fox will describe the philosophy of the Centre and show through real case studies how scientists changed what the public saw by engaging.

Speaker: ANAND MENON, Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at Kings College, London, directs the ESRC Initiative ‘The UK in a Changing Europe’.

Anand Menon has written for the Financial Times, Prospect, The Guardian,The Daily Telegraph, The Times and Le Monde. He is a frequent commentator on national and international broadcast media and has made several radio documentaries on contemporary politics.
He is a member of the Council of the European Council on Foreign Relations and an associate fellow of Chatham House.

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

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

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

Join us for live music in the Forum of the John Henry Brookes Building from 17:00 before the panel discussion in the John Henry Brookes Lecture Theatre at 18:00.

Most political movements are accompanied by protest songs. This Think Human Festival event aims to explore their rich tradition and assess their meaning and impact over time. Peggy Seeger, Andrew Scheps, Dr Angela McShane and Professor John Street will shed light on the historical context of protest songs, their production and sound, their political meaning and power, and their personal performance.

Our panel will examine the historical roots of protest songs, explore their impact on social and political movements, and explain what makes a song effective as protest. They’ll also discuss whether protest music is a dead or thriving art, and ask how far gender plays a role in their creation and performance.

Peggy Seeger is a celebrated singer of traditional Anglo-American songs and activist songmaker whose experience spans 60 years of performing, travel and songwriting. Dr Angela McShane leads the Research Development Team for the Wellcome Collection, an expert on early modern protest songs. Andrew Scheps is a Grammy award winning mix engineer, recording engineer, producer, and record label owner. John Street is Professor of Politics at the University of East Anglia and specialises in the politics of popular music.

Listen to professional actors perform short stories written by Chris Powers and Alex Reeves. Afterwards, Short Stories Aloud founder and host Sarah Franklin will be interviewing Chris and Alex about their new publications, ‘Mothers’ and ‘The House on Half Moon Street’, alongside taking questions from the audience.

Chris Power’s debut short stories collection ‘Mothers’ was published by Faber & Faber in February 2018. In ‘Mothers’ Chris Power’s stories are peopled by men and women who find themselves at crossroads or dead ends – characters who search without knowing what they seek. A woman uses her mother’s old travel guide to navigate nowhere; a stand-up comic with writer’s block performs a fateful gig at a cocaine-fulled bachelor party; on holiday in Greece, a father must confront the limits to which he can keep his daughters safe.

From remote and wild Exmoor to ancient Swedish burial sites and hedonistic Mexican weddings, these stories lay bare the emotional and psychic damage of life, love and abandonment.

Alex Reeve’s debut novel ‘The House on Half Moon Street’ is the first in a series of books featuring Leo Stanhope, a Victorian transgender coroner’s assistant who must uncover a killer without risking his own future

Leo Stanhope. Avid chess player; assistant to a London coroner; in love with Maria; and hiding a very big secret.

For Leo was born Charlotte, the daughter of a respectable reverend. But knowing he was meant to be a man – despite the evidence of his body – and unable to cope with living a lie any longer, he fled his family home at just fifteen and has been living as Leo: his secret known to only a few trusted people. But then Maria is found dead and Leo is accused of her murder. Desperate to find her killer and under suspicion from all those around him, he stands to lose not just the woman he loves, but his freedom and, ultimately, his life.

Tickets for this event cost £5. Please note doors for this event open at 6.45pm, where there will be a bar offering range of alcoholic and soft drinks that can be purchased before the event. For all enquiries please contact events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or call 01865 333623

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

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

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

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

The digital revolution marks a profound transformation of society, on par with the great general purpose technologies of the past two centuries: the steam engine, internal combustion engine, and electrification. Each reshaped the economy, nature of work, geography of human settlements, and politics. So too is the digital revolution reshaping 21st century society. Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs’ talk will focus on the basic economics of the digital revolution and the implications for jobs and the distribution of income. Professor Sachs will discuss several key economic policy implications of the digital era.

Kerry Hudson, Kit de Waal and Alex Wheatle are celebrated contemporary British novelists who have all written working-class experience into their fiction. At this event, the novelists are hosted by writer and critic Boyd Tonkin.

They will read from their work, and then discuss the problems they have encountered in being working-class writers, the creative responses they have formulated in their writing of working-class experience, and the wider issues of publishing and literary culture in relation to working-class writing and authorship. The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Oxford Brookes has a rich tradition of research into working-class life and culture, across literature, history and the social sciences.

Blackwell’s is delighted to announce an event with Laura Bates, where she will be in discussion on her latest book ‘Misogynation’ in the Sheldonian Theatre.

In this collection of essays, originally published in the Guardian, Laura Bates uncovers the sexism that exists in our relationships, our workplaces, our media, in our homes and on our streets, but which is also firmly rooted in our lifelong assumptions and in the actions and attitudes we explain away, defend and accept. Often dismissed as one-offs, veiled as ‘banter’ or described as ‘isolated incidents’, ‘Misogynation’ joins the dots to reveal the true scale of discrimination and prejudice women face.

A bold, witty and incisive analysis of current events, Misogynation makes a passionate argument for stepping back, opening our eyes and allowing ourselves to see the bigger picture.

Laura Bates is a pioneering feminist, activist and the bestselling author of ‘Everyday Sexism’ and ‘Girl Up’. Laura has given voice to hundreds of thousands of women through her international Everyday Sexism Project. She has written for the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, Red Magazine and Grazia among others. Laura is also contributor at Women Under Siege, a New-York based organisation working to combat the use of sexual violence as a tool of war in conflict zones worldwide. In 2015, Laura was awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the Birthday Honours for services to gender equality.

Tickets for this event cost £8. Seating is allocated on a first come first seated basis. Doors will open at 6:30pm. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.

The growth of populism has led to a widening of rights and power of the people to question all elites – those holding leading positions not only in politics, but also in the media, arts and science. It is essential that those working in science and academia facilitate a deeper public understanding of the complexities of evidence. This is particularly acute given the increasing use of rhetoric or unrealistic proposals, including the questioning of scientific evidence, by those wishing to gain and retain popularist power.

With climate change being demoted to “weather events” by the US administration and Bank of England economic forecasts being labelled “Project Fear”, public understanding of the scientific process, the complexities of data analysis, and the often ambiguous, even opaque nature of scientific findings, is needed more than ever.

In the first of two panels exploring these complex issues, Emily Wilson, Editor of the New Scientist and Katherine Mathieson, Chief Executive, British Science Association will discuss and debate with Prof Sarah Haper, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, and the audience on communicating science in an era of increasing populism.

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is increasingly recognised as a national priority, as issues related to behavioural and emotional disorders within society have escalated over recent years. Particular focus has been on how the education system, schools and colleges could better support mental health and wellbeing, including the suggestion that every school and college should have a designated lead in mental health by 2025*.

This raises important questions: How can educational settings best support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people? How can professionals be trained to do this? How can they work effectively with other professionals? How can they work with families and communities and what are the challenges? How can they foster emotional resilience for all children and young people in their settings?

As part of Think Human Festival a panel of distinguished experts from the education and allied professional sectors will consider and debate the opportunities for, and the challenges to, effective practice to strengthen emotional resilience and support positive mental health and wellbeing amongst our children and young people.

*gov.uk 2017: Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision: a green paper

Discover how propaganda images and literature during the First World War marked a change in women and their roles in society.