10-Minute Talks

In this talk, Ato Quayson shares insights drawn from his book Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature. He argues that disputatiousness is one of the starting points that connects Greek and postcolonial tragedy.

Speaker: Professor Ato Quayson FBA, Professor of English, Stanford University 

Image: Tragic mask in hand of greek statue of Melpomene. Via Getty Images 

In this talk, Georgina Waylen discusses hypermasculine leadership within the context of the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaker: Professor Georgina Waylen FBA, Professor of Politics, University of Manchester

Image: Donald Trump Holds Rally At Iowa State Fairgrounds. © photo by Scott Olson via Getty Images

The modern history of humiliation is different from the history of public shaming; both share certain features and practices, but differ as to intentions and goals. In this talk, Ute Frevert argues that liberal societies have made some progress in abolishing public shaming. But they have failed to bring about “decency“ in Avishai Margalit’s terms – a general refusal to humiliate others.  

She is the author of The Politics of Humiliation. A Modern History. 

Speaker: Professor Ute Frevert FBA, Director, Max Planck Institute for Human Development

Image: Daniel Defoe in the Pillory. Credit duncan1890 via Getty Images.

In this talk, Professor Kathleen Coleman FBA highlights certain paradoxes at the root of Roman civilisation, specifically those related to the staging of violent displays in the arena. Virtually everything that fueled Roman society can be implicated: ideology, religion, class structure, environment, economy. The Romans, evidently, tolerated these paradoxes. Can we learn anything from them?

Speaker: Professor Kathleen Coleman FBA, James Loeb Professor of Classics and the Departmental Chair, Harvard University 

Image: The Colosseum in Rome. Credit Anna Kurzaeva via Getty Images

In this talk, Professor Julian Hoppit FBA introduces his new book, The Dreadful Monster and its Poor Relations. Taxing, Spending, and the United Kingdom, 1707-2021, which explores the geography of public finances in the United Kingdom over the last three centuries. Why do some places feel they pay too many taxes and get too little public expenditure? Public finances have been at the heart of the making and the unmaking of the United Kingdom, but without much of a clear plan, allowing opposing caricatures of arrangements to become politically powerful. 

Speaker: Professor Julian Hoppit FBA, Astor Professor of British History, University College London

Image: The Chancellor Of The Exchequer Delivers The 2021 UK Budget. © photo by Chris J Ratcliffe via Getty Images

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) is, in terms of sheer achievement, the greatest English commoner of all time and yet remains a deeply controversial figure. He represented himself, apparently compellingly, as an honest, pious, modest, and selfless servant of God and his nation, and yet most of his contemporaries found him ruthless, devious, and self-promoting. In this talk, Ronald Hutton sums up the findings of his latest book, The Making of Oliver Cromwell, which examines his actions and words in full context up until the end of the English Civil War in 1651, and proposes an answer to this apparent paradox.

Speaker: Professor Ronald Hutton FBA, Professor of History, University of Bristol

Image: Statue of Oliver Cromwell in front of the Palace of Westminster, London, UK. Via Getty Images

In this talk, Derek Attridge addresses the question: "What is a poem's mode of existence?" Using a poem by William Wordsworth as an example, he argues that poems are not fixed lines of words but human experiences of language and the power of language.
 
He is the author of The Experience of Poetry. From Homer's Listeners to Shakespeare's Readers. 

Speaker: Professor Derek Attridge FBA, Professor Emeritus of English, University of York  

Image: William Wordsworth engraving, 1873. Credit traveler1116 via Getty Images 

In this talk, Jane Lightfoot considers what a particular corner of the classical world, astrology, thought about disease – how it classified it, what mental models it built around it, and how it might have coped, or failed to cope, with the situation that is facing us today.

Speaker: Professor Jane Lightfoot FBA, Professor of Greek Literature; Charlton Fellow and Tutor in Classics, New College, University of Oxford 

Image: Waning gibbous moon and Mars. © photo by japatino via Getty Images

In this talk, Peter Gatrell discusses the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, signed in Geneva on 28 July 1951. He explains the circumstances leading up to the Refugee Convention and considers what it was designed to achieve: a commitment to recognise and protect refugees who have a well-founded fear of persecution. At present, although many of the world’s refugees live in non-signatory states, the Refugee Convention remains a crucial element of international refugee law.

His latest book is The Unsettling of Europe: the Great Migration, 1945 to the Present (Penguin, 2021). Details of his current collaborative research project, "Reckoning with refugeedom: refugee voices in modern history, 1919-75" are also available.

Speaker: Professor Peter Gatrell FBA, Professor of Economic History, University of Manchester

Image: New Temporary Refugee Camp In Lesbos Island. © Photo by Nicolas Economou / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Syntax is the cognitive system that underlies the patterns found in the grammar of human languages. In this talk, David Adger explains what syntax as an area of study is, why he finds it important and fascinating, and why it is central to what it means to be human.

The paperback edition of his book, Language Unlimited. The Science behind our most creative power was published in July 2021. His British Academy article, What is linguistics? is also available. 

Speaker: Professor David Adger FBA, Professor of Linguistics, Queen Mary University of London