There seems to be a growing consensus that previous assumptions about the long term consequences of China’s rise have turned out to be misplaced. Rather than China becoming ‘socialised’ into the liberal global order (and democratising at home), a China challenge to that order is instead being identified. This is seen not just as a challenge to the distribution of power within the current system, but to some of the fundamental norms and principles that underpin it, as well as to the theories and concepts that are used to try to understand it and predict future behaviour.  Of course, some always expected it to be this way; however, others now see a Chinese ability and willingness to promote alternatives that they didn’t envisage even a decade ago.
This presentation explores how what were originally designed as defensive norms and theories for China itself have transformed into putative platforms that might have salience and utility for others outside China. The paper suggests that the Chinese position may better be understood as a critique of universalism rather than the basis of an alternative world order. It also asks whether there is more than just an aspirational dimension to new Chinese thinking on international relations built on a form of “Occidentalism”, or if we can identify a real and distinct Chinese approach to both its own international relations and the nature of the world order itself.
—
Shaun Breslin is Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick and a leading British academic expert on Chinese politics and economy, globalization, regionalism, global governance, and International Political Economy. Professor Breslin is also an Associate Fellow of the Asia Research Centre based at Murdoch University and an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Centre for European Studies, Renmin University. In 2010, he became an Associate Fellow in the Asia Programme of Chatham House. Professor Breslin is Co-Editor of The Pacific Review and sits on the Editorial Committee of the Review of International Studies, China and World Economy, and the Fudan Review of International Relations.

– GPES Seminar Series – Oxford Brookes

In this alternative Valentine’s Day event Dr María del Pilar Blanco (University of Oxford) discusses the art of geriatrics and degeneration in Spanish America at the end of the 1800s, and how it entered the cultural imagination.

Abingdon Area Archaeological & Historical Society members will give FREE talks at Abingdon County Hall Museum every third Saturday of the month starting in February 2019. Each will last 30 minutes and be about a different subject or object in the museum collection.

Talks Schedule:

11am: ‘The Crossley Engine’, by Ruth Weinberg.
This talk will take you back in time to the first half of the twentieth century when Abingdon’s water supply relied on two gas engines and a pump situated in the basement of the County Hall, now Abingdon County Hall Museum. After the refurbishment of the County Hall in 2012, the pump and the water inlet are still in their exact original places and today part of the Museum’s displays.

1pm: The Abingdon Monks’ Map’, by Manfred Brod
The “Monks’ Map” as an example of early English map-making is probably the most important single artefact in the museum. Its origin has long been obscure, but recent work has shown when and why it was made, and by whom.
This talk will discuss the evidence, and consider what the map teaches us about local affairs at the time of its production.

3pm: THE ABINGDON OPHTHALMOSAUR: The Discovery of a Jurassic Sea Beast’ by Jeff Wallis.
Why do archaeologist spend cold and wet winter afternoons trudging around muddy gravel pits? On one particular visit to a quarry near Abingdon just before Christmas 1982 pale grey tell tale signs of weathered rib bones from a 155 million year old marine reptile led to the excavation of a two thirds complete skeleton.
We will describe the process of how this wonderful fossil from the age of Dinosaurs arrived into its current home in Abingdon Museum. We may then proceed to the archaeology showcases downstairs crossing 155 million years ago into the ages of Ice and the first visits by early Humans to what is now Abingdon.
We can look at some of the earliest stone tools to be found in the UK and view a unique flint tool made by some of the last surviving Neanderthal hunters or one of the first modern human groups to range across the Upper Thames Valley.

FREE TALKS
No booking required

Abstract:
Current commentary in legal and political philosophy conceptualises political parties either as private organisations, immune from legal regulation in their internal affairs, or as quasi-public institutions, where the state may justifiably mandate certain internal regulations. I argue that, in jurisdictions with anti-defection laws, neither conception accounts for the normative status of the political party. Instead, the party ought to be conceptualised as a legislative actor. This paper then examines how conceptualising the party in this way can affect the way in which we understand the relationship between the law and a party. I explore three possible avenues of legal regulation of parties: the process of candidate selection, the selection of party leaders, and interaction between a party and its parliamentary wing. I argue that conceptualising the party as a legislative entity has the most salient implications for the third of these: the interaction between the extra-parliamentary organisation and the parliamentary party.
About the Speaker:
Udit Bhatia is a Junior Research Fellow in Politics at Jesus College and Lecturer in Political Theory at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. His research interests lie at the intersections of democratic theory, social epistemology and constitutional law. He is currently working on the ethics of partisanship and the regulation of political parties.

Stories for Our Times: Retelling the Norse Myths

The Norse Myths, published by Quercus in 2018, is the latest in a long line of retellings of the myths and legends of medieval Scandinavia; tales that, as the publisher’s blurb rightly points out, ‘have captured the imagination of storytellers and artists for centuries’. Reworking the Norse myths for a commercial press offered an opportunity to reflect on both the longstanding creative appeal of the myths and also the extraordinary resurgence of interest in recent years: what exactly is it about the Vikings and the stories of the Norse gods that resonates with our current cultural climate? This talk will draw out some of the points of connection, and fracture, that a popular retelling rests upon, and suggest some of the ways that a reworking of traditional material can be used to speak to contemporary concerns – including environmental change, gender politics, and the resurgence of the far-right – whilst also seeking to remain faithful to the medieval sources and to the contradictions and plurality of the myths that have come down to us.

About Dr Tom Birkett

Tom Birkett is a graduate of Oxford and St Cross College, where he completed his MA in 2008 and PhD in 2011. He has held a lectureship in Old English at University College Cork since 2012, where he has also introduced Old Norse to the curriculum. He publishes on Old English and medieval Icelandic textual and literary culture, and has recently led two IRC-funded projects in Cork on the translation of medieval poetry, and on the popular perception of the Vikings (the World-Tree Project). His illustrated retelling of the Norse myths was published by Quercus in December.

Two-thousand and nineteen marks the centenary of the Addison Act, the housing legislation which realised Lloyd-George’s ‘Homes fit for Heroes’ and the start of a nationwide system of state-owned housing that has lasted most of the 20th Century. Half a million homes were promised and a system of open-ended Treasury grants were made available to local councils to build.

One hundred years have now passed since local authorities in the UK where given the responsibility and the resource to provide decent housing for the working person. Whilst the responsibility remains, the conditions under which housing is to be provided have undergone a seismic shift.

Join us from 19.30 – 21.00 on Thursday 21st February as we explore how the cities of London and Oxford are working to meet this responsibility and provide decent housing for working class people.

We’ll be joined by Sian Berry, Co-Leader of the Green Party, Local Councillor for Camden and Chair of the London Assembly’s Housing Committee and Stephen Clarke, Head of Housing and Property Services for Oxford City Council.

Tickets are free but you must register to attend.

We strive to make all events at Open House as accessible as possible. You can read more about the venue on our website. If there is anything we can do to make your visit more comfortable then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Talk followed by questions and discussion

All welcome

This is the latest in a series of eight weekly talks. The full list is:

Brexit: archaic techniques of ecstasy
Thursday 17 January: 7:30pm–9:00pm
Wesley Memorial Church (New Inn Hall St)

Shamanism: taking back control
Thursday 24 January: 7:30pm–9:00pm
Wesley Memorial Church (New Inn Hall St)

Tithe, timber, and the persistence of the ancien régime
Thursday 31 January: 7:30pm–9:00pm
Oxford Town Hall (St Aldates)

Hegelian dialectics and the prime numbers (part 2)
Thursday 7 February: 7:30pm–9:00pm
Wesley Memorial Church (New Inn Hall St)

Christopher Caudwell (1907–1937) and ‘the sources of poetry’
Thursday 14 February: 7:30pm–9:00pm
Wesley Memorial Church (New Inn Hall St)

Television: remote control
Thursday 21 February: 7:30pm–9:00pm
Wesley Memorial Church (New Inn Hall St)

Fascism and populism: can you spot the difference?
Thursday 28 February: 7:30pm–9:00pm
Wesley Memorial Church (New Inn Hall St)

The epos of everyday life
Thursday 7 March: 7:30pm–9:00pm
Wesley Memorial Church (New Inn Hall St)

The day will consist of a range of events, hosted by speakers from different areas of STEM and industry. Expect to hear from keynote speakers, engage with panel discussions, and get hands on experience in smaller workshops focusing on entrepreneurship, outreach, disabilities and more.

Don’t miss out on hearing from a range of speakers, including: Dr. Chonnettia Jones, Director of Insight and Analysis at the Wellcome Trust; Prof. Daniela Bortoletto, Professor of Physics at Brasenose; plus Oxford’s own Vice Chancellor, Louise Richardson.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of gender, year and subject.

For more information visit OxFEST’s facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/294126621288050/

An afternoon of celebration and debate marking the legacy of former Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood.

– GPES Seminar Series, Oxford Brookes University

The beginnings of a celebrity or star culture in the theatre of Shakespeare’s time.
How many women went to Shakespeare’s plays? This talk explores the evidence and significance of female theatre going in the early modern period.

Professor Smith will discuss the beginnings of a celebrity or star culture in the theatre of Shakespeare’s time, discussing notable actors and, in particular, their appeal to women spectators. She’ll look at the evidence, often negative and satirical, about how women at the theatre were perceived, and trace their changing place in audiences as theatre went upmarket in the seventeenth century. Drawing on histories of consumerism and of celebrity, Smith will identify women theatregoers as crucial to the development of the playhouses within the early modern experience economy.

Professor Smith has been a Fellow of Hertford College and Lecturer in the Faculty of English since 1997. She teaches part of the first year paper ‘Introduction to Literary Studies’, the Renaissance paper to second years and Shakespeare. She lectures in the English Faculty on these topics with some of these lectures available as free podcasts from iTunesU. She also teaches on the English Faculty MSt course 1550-1700 and supervises research students on early modern topics.

Schedule:
12:15 – On-site registration & buffet lunch
12:30 – Talk commences
13:30 – Event close

The seminar is open for anyone to attend, registration is essential so please use the register button to confirm your attendance.

Talk followed by questions and discussion

We need to talk about Brexit. This crisis which affects all our lives is now evolving day by day, in the balance between danger and hope. Our actions can still affect the outcome. Join us to discuss how.
Oxford for Europe, while now preparing for what may be the greatest ever UK public demonstration on March 23rd, is hosting the latest in its series of high-profile public panel debates on Brexit, the impact of Brexit and how Brexit can be stopped.

This is a joint lecture with The Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health at the Oxford Martin School

Cooling is critical for many of the sustainable development goals, including those relating to health, shelter, livelihoods, education and nutrition. As the world’s population grows, as disposable incomes grow and as urban areas grow, the need for cooling is booming. However cooling uses super polluting gases and large amounts of energy and is therefore a significant cause of climate change. More efficient, clean cooling has the potential to avoid up to a degree of warming by the end of the century and recently all governments came together to agree action to try to maximize this opportunity. Cooling sits at the intersection of the UNFCCC, the SDGs and the Montreal Protocol, but can these forces ensure success?

Dan Hamza-Goodacre will explain the risks and possibilities in the search for sustainable cooling for all.

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

This talk has been cancelled. Sorry.

Talk followed by questions and discussion

DANSOX presents a one-day conference on the life and work of the great 20th-century choreographer, Sir Kenneth MacMillan (1929-1992). MacMillan stands among the great innovators of his time in theatre, film, art, and music. The conference will discuss his work, the challenges of preserving the record, explore little known early work, his literary and musical choices, design, and choreographic method.

Guest speakers include: the artist and widow of Sir Kenneth, Lady MacMillan; the former Principal and Director of the Royal Ballet, Dame Monica Mason; the music expert, Natalie Wheen; and choreologist, Anna Trevien. Dancers, artists, and filmmakers who worked with Kenneth will join the conversation. A performance/lecture of the reconstruction of ‘Playground’ with Yorke Dance will be held in the JdP at the end of the conference.

The Global Politics, Economy and Society (GPES) Research Centre at Oxford Brookes will be hosting its first annual lecture, given by the writer and activist George Monbiot. All welcome, but please book via the registration link.

St Hilda’s Writers’ Day 2019 marks its 10th year as the only College to hold its own day of lectures at the Oxford Literary Festival. All authors are College members or alumnae.

CLAIRE HARMAN – Murder By The Book: A Sensational Chapter In Victorian Crime. chaired by Claire Armitstead (The Guardian and the Observer)
When the accused murderer of Lord William Russell blamed the crime on his reading, he fueled an ongoing debate about the appalling damage ‘low’ books could do. This fascinating study details the controversy around William Harrison Ainsworth’s Jack Sheppard, the murder of Russell and the way it affected many of the leading writers of the day, including Dickens and Thackeray. Harman unpacks the evidence, reveals the gossip and the surprisingly literary background to this gory crime.

Chair: Claire Armitstead (The Guardian and the Observer)

What role does the imagination play in science? Do our notions of scientific genius rest on ideas about the creative imagination? How do we know when the imagination has overreached itself and entered the realm of fanciful speculation — of science fiction?
Professor Rob Iliffe explores these questions, and how ideas about imagination have shaped science and scientists.

Rob will be available to sign copies of his book ‘Newton: a very short introduction’ after the talk. The Museum’s shop will stock copies of the book.

Organised by Oxford Civic Society @oxcivicsoc. Should we prioritise the Green Belt or new homes for Oxford? In this, the first of a series of public debates to mark the 50th anniversary of Oxford Civic Society, Bob Price, former leader of the City Council, will argue that the release of Green Belt land to meet housing need can benefit the common good without undermining the enduring purposes of the Green Belt. His view will be keenly contested by Mike Tyce, Trustee of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) Oxfordshire. The audience will have a chance to have their say before the two opposing speakers wind up the debate.

Doors open 7.00pm; debate starts 7.30pm. Tickets required – no entry on the door.

Tickets for this event are £7 via Eventbrite – see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-battle-for-the-green-belt-tickets-54594574843

Emily Wilson will be at Blackwell’s to discuss her best selling translation of Homer’s The Odyssey.

Past Times, Blackwell’s series of free history talks, continues with Mark Honigsbaum discussing his new book The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris.

Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet, despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From pneumonic plague in LA and ‘parrot fever’ in Argentina to the more recent AIDS, SARS and Ebola epidemics, the last 100 years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated outbreaks and scares. Like man-eating sharks, predatory pathogens are always present in nature, waiting to strike; when one is seemingly vanquished, others appear in its place. The Pandemic Century exposes the limits of science against nature, and how these crises are shaped by humans as much as microbes.

The Lecture will analyse the phenomenon of Donald Trump’s presidency against the backdrop and contrast of the European Enlightenment’s influence on the Founders of the United States. It will also explain why his stark antithesis to Enlightenment values was a winning strategy in the 2016 presidential election and how it resonates with a shift from liberalism to populism, nativism, and authoritarianism. Finally, the lecture will examine political forces in the U.S. that are opposing Trump as he ramps up his campaign for a second term.

A presentation by Professor Irad Malkin of Tel-Aviv University: What does it mean to be “fair” in circumstances of taking possession of land, often by conquest, and settling it? And how did Archaic city-states (ca 750-500 BCE) apply the lot as the means of implementing what they understood to be equality and fairness? There will be discussion and drinks after the presentation.

Talk followed by questions and discussion. All welcome.

Talk followed by questions and discussion. All welcome

In our first of two seminars on the future of work after automation Dr Brendan Burchell will investigate the potential for a five-day weekend society.

Machine-learning and robotics technologies promise to be able to replace some tasks or jobs that have traditionally been performed by humans. Like previous technologies introduced in the past couple of centuries, this possibility has been met with either optimism that will permit liberation from the tyranny of employment, or pessimism that it will lead to mass precarity and unemployment.

This presentation will draw upon both qualitative and quantitative evidence to explore the possible societal consequences of a radical reduction in the length of the normal working week. Drawing upon the evidence for the psychological benefits of employment, we look at the evidence for the minimum effective dose of employment. The paper also considers why the historical increases in productivity have not been matched with proportionate reductions in working time.

About Brendan Burchell:

Dr Brendan Burchell is a Reader in the Social Sciences in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Dr Burchell is director of graduate education for the Department of Sociology and director of the Cambridge Undergraduate Quantitative Research Centre. He was recently Head of Department for Sociology, as well as a Director of Studies and a Tutor at Magdalene College.

Dr Burchell’s main research interests centre on the effects of labour market conditions on wellbeing. Recent publications have focussed on unemployment, job insecurity, work intensity, part-time work, zero-hours contracts, debt, occupational gender segregation and self-employment. Most of his work concentrates on employment in Europe, but current projects also include an analysis of job quality, the future of work and youth self-employment in developing countries. He works in interdisciplinary environments with psychologists, sociologists, economists, lawyers and other social scientists.

Dr Burchell’s undergraduate degree was in Psychology, followed by a PhD in Social Psychology. His first post in Cambridge was a joint appointment between the social sciences and economics in 1985, and he has been in a permanent teaching post in at Cambridge since 1990.

Register:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/future-of-work-after-automation-towards-a-five-day-weekend-society-tickets-61028132788

H.E John Mahama, former President of Ghana will give his insightful lecture at Saïd Business School in collaboration with the African Studies Centre and the Oxford Africa Business Alliance.

H.E. John Mahama was the President of Ghana from 2012 to 2017. Previously, he served as Vice President between 2009 and 2012. He is a communication expert, historian and writer and the presidential candidate of Ghana’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the 2020 presidential election. He is the author of My First Coup d’État and Other True Stories From the Lost Decades of Africa (2012).

The lecture will include an audience Q&A moderated by Prof. Wale Adebanwi, Director of the Africa Studies Centre & Rhodes Professor of Race Relations.

Schedule

16:30 – Registration opens
17:00 – Event starts
18:00 – Drinks reception
19:00 – Close

About the event

Please note once the main room is full you will be directed to an overflow room to watch the beamed talk, so arrive early to avoid disappointment;
Late arrivals will also be sent to the overflow room;
Spaces are limited and tickets are non-transferable so registration is essential so please use the Register button above to confirm your attendance;
The seminar is open for anyone to attend and will take place at Saïd Business School.

The conflictual politics of Brexit – characterized by entrenched divisions between Leavers and Remainers – can be traced back to long-standing and more recent features of the British constitution that encourage discord over dialogue; tribal loyalty rather than broad consensus.

This is the case both of the traditional system of ‘strong’ party government through parliamentary executive, and of the recent turn to binary-choice plebiscites – in referendums on Scottish independence and membership of the European Union. This kind of divisiveness has also contributed to the turn to populism – to claims by those with very particular agendas to represent ‘the People’ as a whole, with no allowance made to the views of those others, often castigated as ‘elites’, who do not share their particular agenda.

Given the state of the British constitution today, and of the political culture which it has helped to produce, how do we face up to the problems posed by the growth of populism?

Professor Neil Walker is Regius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations at the University of Edinburgh. His main area of expertise is constitutional theory, and he has published extensively on the constitutional dimension of legal order at substate, state, supranational, and international levels. In December 2008, Professor Walker was asked by the Scottish Government to conduct an independent review to assess the potential impact of the UK Supreme Court on the Scottish legal system.