– GPES Seminar Series – Oxford Brookes

Abstract:
Although early modern artistic connections between India and Ethiopia are reasonably well documented, there is little or no epigraphic or textual evidence for earlier histories of circulation across the Indian Ocean. Yet, architectural and other material from the Horn of Africa suggests a certain intensity of contacts with western Indian in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Highlighting the ‘archival’ value of extant artifacts and monuments, this lecture explores the role of medieval Ethiopia as a nexus between the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean.

About the Speaker:
Finbarr Barry Flood is director of Silsila: Center for Material Histories and William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the Humanities at the Institute of Fine Arts and Department of Art History, New York University. His publications include The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture (2000), Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter, (2009), awarded the 2011 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Prize of the Association for Asian Studies, and the 2-volume Blackwell Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture (2017), co-edited with Professor Gülru Necipoğlu of Harvard University. He is currently completing a major book project, provisionally entitled Islam and Image: Beyond Aniconism and Iconoclasm, which will form the basis of the 2019 Slade Lectures at the University of Oxford.

The challenges of setting up a business in the art world.

Philip Hoffman Founder and CEO of The Fine Art Group, will discuss changing attitudes around art as an asset class. He will discuss the growth of art investment funds and the emergence of art financing and how The Fine Art Group has responded to the evolving art market to better suit their clients’ needs.

Hoffman is Founder and CEO of The Fine Art Group. The Fine Art Fund was the first fund of its type to invest in art. Since then, Hoffman has developed the business into a market leader in both art investment and art advisory. Before launching The Fine Art Group, he spent 12 years working for Christie’s auction house. He joined from KPMG, where he became the youngest member of the Management Board, later serving as the Deputy CEO of Europe. Philip is also on the Development Boards for The National Portrait Gallery, London, and CW+, the charity for Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

Schedule:
17:15 – On-site registration
17:45 – Talk commences
18:45 – Post-talk drinks
19:45 – Event close

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

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.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, UN agencies, NGOs and the Red Cross / Crescent work to save lives and protect rights in the wake of natural disasters and armed conflict. How effective is the $27Billion sector? And what challenges does it face? The Oxford launch event of the State of the Humanitarian System report, with expert panel and Q and A

Cycling film ‘Why We Cycle’ Duration 57 minutes
There are more bicycles than people in the Netherlands. The film “Why We Cycle” gets cyclists and scientists to talk about Dutch cycling culture. These conversations uncover hidden effects of cycling on people, on societies, and on the organization of cities.

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.

Jeff Koons’s recent works explicitly reference appropriate works of art of the ancient or more recent past. This special talk, with Ashmolean Director Dr Xa Sturgis, will explore the work of Jeff Koons throughout his career and consider how he has drawn on, challenged and adopted different traditions and strategies.

From monumental balloon dogs to subversive large-scale paintings, contemporary artist Jeff Koons is known for pushing the boundaries of art. Curated with Koons himself, the Ashmolean’s spring exhibition Jeff Koons at the Ashmolean features 17 major works, from the 1980s to today, 14 of which have never been to the UK before. They include some of his most well-known series such as Equilibrium, Banality, Antiquity and his recent Gazing Ball paintings and sculptures.
Jeff Koons and the art of the Past
With Xa Sturgis, Ashmolean Director
Lecture Theatre
Fri 22 Feb, 5.45–6.45pm

Tickets for this talk are £8/£7/£6 (Full, Concessions, Members) and booking is essential.

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/

Join us at Teddy Hall next week for a fantastic event on the ‘Neuroscience of Dance’ brought to you by the Centre for the Creative Brain!

Science, dance and wine – what more could you want for a Saturday afternoon?

A few (free) tickets are still available, so be quick!

https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/discover/research/centre-for-the-creative-brain

In 2013, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne published a paper titled ‘The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?’ which estimated that 47% of jobs in the US are at risk of automation.

In this talk Dr Carl Benedikt Frey, Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment, will discuss the societal consequences of the accelerating pace of automation, and what we can learn from previous episodes of worker-replacing technological change.

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

Currently limited tools exist to accurately forecast the complex nature of disease spread across the globe. Dr Moritz Kraemer will talk about the dynamic global maps being built, at 5km resolution, to predict the invasion of new organisms under climate change conditions and continued unplanned urbanisation.

This book talk is co-organised with the Oxford Martin Programme on Collective Responsibility for Infectious Disease

Vaccination raises ethical issues about the responsibilities of individuals, communities, and states in preventing serious and potentially life-threatening infectious diseases. Such responsibilities are typically taken to be about minimising risks for those who are vaccinated and for those around them. However, there are other ethical considerations that matter when defining the responsibilities of different actors with regard to vaccination. Such ethical considerations are not often given due considerations in the debate on vaccination ethics and policy.

Thus, in this talk Dr Alberto Giubilini aims at offering a defence of compulsory vaccination taking into account not only the importance of preventing the harms of infectious diseases, but also the value of fairness in the distribution of the burdens entailed by the obligation to protect people from infectious diseases. He will offer a philosophical account of the key notions involved in the ethical debate on vaccination, of the types of responsibilities involved, of the possible types of vaccination policies ranked from the least to the most restrictive, and of the reasons why compulsory vaccination is, from an ethical point of view, the best policy available, as it is the most likely to guarantee not only protection from infectious diseases, but also a fair distribution of the burdens and responsibilities involved.

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

This talk has been cancelled. Sorry.

Talk followed by questions and discussion

Duncan Dollimore, Head of Campaigns, Cycling UK wants to hear our views on local cycle campaigning
Cycling UK has spent the last few months considering how to work with local campaign groups. Duncan is coming to Oxford because he was impressed by the energy at our conference 15 months ago. This is our chance to influence how Cycling UK relates with local groups like Cyclox.

Chief Arts Correspondent Will Gompertz: “The importance of Art and Museums”

Dung beetles in the British Isles are a vital part of their associated ecosystems but have been historically rather overlooked probably due to their chosen habitat. Now our native dung beetles are finally beginning to get some of the invertebrate limelight due to an emphasis on ecosystem services and a much more environmentally friendly farming future. However we are lacking on a great deal of base data about these vitally important species and surveying is the one of the best ways to get information. This means getting into dung and discovering these unsung heroes

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.

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

Carlos Lopes will deliver an overview of the critical development issues facing the African continent today. He will talk about a blueprint of policies to address issues, and an intense, heartfelt meditation on the meaning of economic development in the age of democratic doubts, identity crises, global fears and threatening issues of sustainability.

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

Join us at Blackwell’s to hear writer and campaigner, Caroline Criado-Perez discuss her latest book, Invisible Women.

Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued. If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you’re a woman.

Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender data gap – a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives.

Award-winning campaigner and writer Caroline Criado Perez brings together for the first time an impressive range of case studies, stories and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are forgotten, and the impact this has on their health and well-being. From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media, Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women. In making the case for change, this powerful and provocative book will make you see the world anew.

Talk followed by questions and discussion. All welcome.

The ecology and history of one of the largest atolls in the world. Aldabra, situated in the South West Indian Ocean, supports the largest population of giant tortoises worldwide. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is a stronghold for wildlife in a region that is besieged by threats.

Saïd Business School is pleased to welcome Freya Stewart, Fine Art Group’s in house lawyer on Art and Law – provenance, title and all various things that come with that.

[Originally scheduled for 15th November 2018]

Saïd Business School is pleased to welcome Freya Stewart, Fine Art Group’s in house lawyer to talk on Art and Law.

About the talk

Art-secured financing is not new, but leverage in the art market is a ‘hot’ topic and here to stay. A niche-credit service increasingly used by high net worth collectors to unlock valuable capital from their art assets for other investment or personal finance purposes.

Schedule

17:15 – Registration opens
17:45 – Event starts
18:45 – Drinks reception
19:45 – Close
The talk is open for anyone to attend, registration is essential so please use the register button to confirm your attendance.

About the Speaker:

Freya Stewart is CEO of The Fine Art Group’s art-secured lending business. The Fine Art Group is a market-leading international art advisory, investment and finance firm, who provide competitive art finance solutions to borrowers on a global basis. Freya also supports The Fine Art Group as General Counsel.

Prior to joining The Fine Art Group Freya was senior Legal Counsel at Christie’s Auction House, where she advised on all aspects of art lending, auction and private sales. Previously Freya spent 10 years at Linklaters LLP and Barclays Capital as a structured finance, derivatives and prime brokerage lawyer in London, New York, Hong Kong and São Paulo.

Freya obtained a First Class BA in History from Manchester University and completed her legal qualifications at Oxford Institute of Legal Practice.

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

This is a joint event with the Oxford Martin School and the Oxford Climate Research Network (OCRN)

Professor David Battisti, The Tamaki Endowed Chair of Atmospheric Sciences, will be talking about global climate sensitivity controlling regional warming uncertainty and its role in impacting on human health, particularly heat stress.

The 11th Annual Human Welfare Conference is entitled ‘Innovate: Balancing Interests in Resource-Constrained Settings’. The conference will focus on solutions being developed at various scales to improve human wellbeing in areas as diverse as poverty alleviation, education, health, and social welfare. The goal is to offer diverse, interdisciplinary perspectives on tackling the most pertinent issues facing our society today. Invited speakers include academics and practitioners, with experience working in government, NGOs and the commercial sector in fields as diverse as health, food, investment and education.

This is a joint event with the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food

Dr Mike Hamm will explore the opportunity for regional food systems in-and-around cities for mutual benefit. He will approach a number of issues – including vertical farming, bio-geochemical cycles, water use, new entry farmers, and healthy food provisioning – embedded in the notion of city region food systems with reference to supply/demand dynamics.

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