| Consciousness in Humans and in Other Things |
How do conscious experiences arise from brains and bodies? What is the ‘self’? Anil Seth sheds light on these questions through the idea of the brain as an embodied ‘prediction machine’. The Charles Simonyi Lecture 2024. |
Anil Seth, Marcus du Sautoy |
7 November, 2024 |
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| Why digital health and care interventions fail and what we can do about it |
Unfortunately, many digital health interventions fail to realize their potential. Although there is no recipe for success, there are ways in which developers, implementers, and adopters can help to maximize successful implementation, adoption, and scaling |
Professor Kathrin Cresswell |
25 October, 2024 |
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| The changing dynamics of mixed health systems in low and middle-income countries (LMIC) |
Professor Kabir Sheikh discusses how social trends shape health systems in low- and middle-income countries, focusing on the complex mix of public-private, traditional-modern, and digital-nondigital axes. |
Kabir Sheikh |
26 June, 2024 |
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| Healthcare Within a Humanitarian Crisis: Experiences from Gaza |
Mr Khaled Dawas shares his recent experiences of working in Gaza as a surgeon providing emergency care. |
Khaled Dawas, Brenda Kelly, Jane Crawley |
29 April, 2024 |
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| Politics, Innovation and Change: The Path to Net Zero |
Professor Nick Watts explores net zero in the context of health care. |
Nick Watts |
3 April, 2024 |
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| Social enterprisers and their role in addressing future challenges |
Adopting a critical perspective, Dr Orsolya Ihasz outlines what makes social enterprisers valuable, and how could they contribute to the creation of important services and products to marginalised and disenfranchised communities. |
Orsolya Ihasz |
12 December, 2023 |
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| Health Technology Assessment (HTA) in Resource-Constrained Settings: A Case Study of Ghana |
Dr Brian Adu Asare discusses Health Technology Assessment (HTA) using Ghana as a case study. |
Brian Adu Asare |
12 December, 2023 |
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| What kind of a problem is loneliness? Studying technology to understand policy concerns |
This talk by Dr Gemma Hughes is intended to show how problems, such as loneliness, can be understood and researched in multiple ways. |
Gemma Hughes |
12 December, 2023 |
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| Knowledge for bright ideas – how research can support innovative health systems |
Guest lecturer Dr Nick Fahy is a research group director for health and wellbeing at RAND Europe, where he oversees research in such areas as health systems and healthcare innovation, and the behavioural and social determinants of health and wellbeing. |
Nick Fahy |
7 March, 2022 |
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| Justice and the Egalitarian Research Imperative |
In his new book, 'For the Common Good: Philosophical Foundations of Research Ethics' (Oxford University Press), Prof Alex John London argues that there is a moral imperative to carry out research with human subjects... |
Alex John London |
18 February, 2022 |
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| Using theory, evidence and person-based co-development to improve infection control during COVID-19 |
Until a vaccine can prevent COVID-19, protective behaviours (such as social distancing, handwashing, cleaning/disinfecting) must be used to limit the spread. |
Ben Ainsworth |
17 December, 2021 |
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| Health Technology Assessment: Global alignment of systems, stakeholders and emerging trends |
This talk will introduce and explore, the global mechanisms and initiatives that align process, strategy and methodology for Health Technology Assessment (HTA). |
Neil Bertelsen |
17 December, 2021 |
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| 'Why would anyone hesitate to help kids with cancer?' or: understanding competing perspectives on innovations |
'Homebound' students are unable to attend school for health-related reasons. To lessen their predicament, schools have begun experimenting with 'telepresence robots' for remote participation. |
Lars Johannessen |
4 November, 2021 |
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| Why be a Lunatic |
Dr Maggie Adarin-Pocock delivers the 2019 Simonyi Lecture at the Oxford Playhouse |
Maggie Adarin-Pocock |
19 December, 2019 |
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| The future of the planet: life, growth and death in organisms, cities and companies. Geoffrey West |
In this year’s Simonyi Lecture Geoffrey West discusses universal laws that govern everything from growth to mortality in plants, animals, cities and companies. |
Geoffrey West |
9 May, 2018 |
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| Philosophy and the Future of Warfare |
Can there be such a thing as a ‘moral’ war? Can it ever be right to kill innocent people, even in self-defence? |
Helen Frowe, Alex Leveringhaus, James Pattison, Marianne Talbot |
12 December, 2016 |
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| Hope |
What is Hope? This seminar explored what hope is and invited us to consider what hope means to people in different circumstances. |
Peter Hinton, Carl Heneghan |
21 November, 2016 |
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| Mathematics: Navigating Nature's Dark Labyrinth |
The Inaugural Lecture of the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, 2009. |
Marcus du Sautoy |
18 November, 2016 |
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| Can robots be made creative enough to invent their own language? |
Luc Steels delivers the 2012 Simonyi lecture and asks can machines be creative enough to invent their own language? |
Luc Steels, Marcus du Sautoy |
18 November, 2016 |
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| Why climate change action is difficult and how we can make a difference |
2014 Charles Simonyi Lecture with David MacKay. David discusses how the laws of physics constrain our energy options, and describes what happened when his reflections on energy arithmetic propelled him into a senior civil service role. |
David MacKay |
18 November, 2016 |
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| Putting the Higgs Boson in its Place |
Professor Melissa Franklin talks about her experiences working towards the discovery of the Higgs Boson and her work today at the Large Hadron Collider |
Melissa Franklin, Marcus du Sautoy |
18 November, 2016 |
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| Autism and Minds Wired for Science |
Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, Cambridge, and Director of the Autism Research Centre, gives the 2016 Charles Simonyi Lecture on new research into autism. |
Simon Baron-Cohen, Marcus du Sautoy |
18 November, 2016 |
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| Right Place, Right Time |
Women composers and their creative communities. |
Anna Beer |
30 June, 2016 |
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| Time and Causation |
Both time and causation seems to have the same 'direction’ . Can we explain this? |
Marianne Talbot |
9 June, 2016 |
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| Mental Causation |
We do what we do because we believe what we believe. Or do we? How does mental causation work? |
Marianne Talbot |
9 June, 2016 |
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| The necessary connection analysis of causation |
The idea that there are real metaphysical necessities relating cause and effect. |
Marianne Talbot |
9 June, 2016 |
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| The singularist theory of causation |
The idea that causation is a relation science will one day discover. |
Marianne Talbot |
9 June, 2016 |
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| The regularity theory of causation |
Hume's famously influential account of causation |
Marianne Talbot |
9 June, 2016 |
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| The counterfactual theory of causation |
The idea that event c causes event e if and only if had c not had occurred e would not have occurred either. |
Marianne Talbot |
9 June, 2016 |
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| Ordering Disorder: Mental Disorder, Brain Disorder and Therapeutic Intervention |
This event will explore the areas in which the philosophy of mind and ethics or the philosophy of value come into contact with issues about mental health. |
George Graham |
11 February, 2016 |
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| Karl Jaspers and the Ethics of Incomprehensibility |
This event will explore the areas in which the philosophy of mind and ethics or the philosophy of value come into contact with issues about mental health. |
Giovanni Stanghellini |
11 February, 2016 |
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| Mental Health and Moral Virtue |
This event will explore the areas in which the philosophy of mind and ethics or the philosophy of value come into contact with issues about mental health. |
Terence Irwin |
11 February, 2016 |
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| False Perceptions and False Beliefs: Understanding the Symptoms of Schizophrenia |
This event will explore the areas in which the philosophy of mind and ethics or the philosophy of value come into contact with issues about mental health. |
Chris Frith |
14 January, 2016 |
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| Impact |
What is the impact we create? How is it measured, justified, used? Three speakers from a social, historical and professional background examine what impact means in different scenarios, both for academics themselves, and the public at large. |
Gorgi Krlev, Matt Smart, Jonathan Healey |
3 December, 2015 |
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| Award Ceremony 2014: speech by Professor Sally Mapstone |
Professor Mapstone is Oxford University's Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education. Each year she welcomes and congratulates the award recipients and their guests, and acknowledges the commitment to study that brings this assembly together. |
Sally Mapstone |
15 April, 2015 |
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| Award Ceremony 2014: guest speaker Joanne Pearce |
RSC actress Joanne Pearce is an alumna of our Foundation Certificate in History. In her speech for our award cermeony she urged award recipients to ‘mark the moment... go on, climb higher, do more.’ |
Joanne Pearce |
15 April, 2015 |
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| Award Ceremony 2014: Students interviewed |
Four students speak of their experience on the Department's undergraduate award courses, and anticipate receiving their award in Oxford's famous and historical Sheldonian Theatre. |
Various students |
15 April, 2015 |
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| Back to Downton Abbey? Is the rise in inequality sustainable? |
Political Economy - Professor Jonathan Michie |
Jonathan Michie |
15 April, 2015 |
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| Party games: coalitions in British politics |
History - Professor Angus Hawkins |
Angus Hawkins |
15 April, 2015 |
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| Discoveries in Theology and Religion: Middle Eastern Christianity explored! |
Theology and Religious Studies - Rev'd Canon Dr Robin Gibbons |
Robin Gibbons |
15 April, 2015 |
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| Art, Design and World War |
History of Art - Dr Claire O'Mahony |
Claire O'Mahony |
15 April, 2015 |
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| Oxford University’s MSt in Creative Writing |
Learn more about the Master's in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford |
Clare Morgan, Alice Jolly, Jane Draycott, Frank Egerton, Jonathan Evans, Jenny Lewis |
3 February, 2015 |
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| The Arrow of Time |
In the fourth lecture, Harvey Brown asks why real-world events always proceed in the direction of increasing entropy, even though the laws of physics don’t require it. |
Harvey Brown |
7 January, 2015 |
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| The Probability Puzzle |
In the third lecture, David Wallace asks how we make sense of probability in the Many-Worlds theory. |
David Wallace |
7 January, 2015 |
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| The Life of Psi: More on the Superposition Principle |
In the second lecture, Harvey Brown discusses in more depth the superposition principle of quantum mechanics. |
Harvey Brown |
7 January, 2015 |
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| The Plurality of Worlds |
In this first lecture, David Wallace examines the justification for interpreting the superposition states as multiplicities. |
David Wallace |
6 January, 2015 |
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| Mapping Nijinsky’s Cross - Cultural Legacy: Min Tanaka’ s Le Sacré du Printemps (1987) |
Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps is arguably the most influential score composed for dance in the last century. |
Lucy Weir |
5 December, 2014 |
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| The Chosen One: Massine’s Choreographic Rite of Passage |
Seven years after the succès de scandale of the Stravinsky-Nijinsky-Roerich ballet Le Sacre du printemps, Serge Diaghilev decided to revive the ballet with new choreography by his young protégé, Léonide Massine. |
Lisa Fusillo |
5 December, 2014 |
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| The Spanish Reception of The Rite of Spring : Ballet, Music, Fine Arts (1913-33) |
This study analyses the reception of The Rite of Spring in the Spanish cultural networks. Although the ballet was only performed in 1913, three years before the first visit of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes to Spain, its influence became notorious among some |
Idoia Murga Castro |
5 December, 2014 |
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| D H Lawrence’s Rite |
In a notable scene from Women in Love (1920), D. H. Lawrence draws attention to the popularity of Diaghilev’s enterprise as representative of the avant garde in the arts in contemporary Britain. |
Sue Jones |
5 December, 2014 |
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| A Bardic Rite? Designing the Savoy Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream |
For a few nights in March 1914 if contemplating buying a theatre ticket in London, there was a brief chance when one could have seen Nijinsky dance at the Palace Theatre one night and the next the new Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the |
Claire O'Mahony |
5 December, 2014 |
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| Divining the 1920s: Precious Body Image in Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1913 Ballets |
This paper examines the ways in which dancers’ body image in Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1913 ballets The Rite of Spring and Jeux looked forward to 1920s developments in ballet and fashion. |
Katerina Pantelides |
5 December, 2014 |
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| Disruption in Continuity: The Use of Ornament in The Rite of Spring |
Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography for the Rite of Spring was structured by movement patterns based on simple geometrical forms – such as circles, triangles, lines and angles – which his dancers incorporated with their bodies and limbs. |
Alexander Schwan |
5 December, 2014 |
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| A Century of Rites : The Making of an Avant - Garde Tradition |
A historiography of a century of productions of the Rite of Spring. |
Lynn Garafola |
5 December, 2014 |
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| Prehistoric Ballets: L’Après Midi d’un Faune as precursor of The Rite of Spring |
On the 29th of May 1912, exactly a year earlier than the premiere of The Rite of Spring, Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes had scandalized Parisian audiences with the first performance of another |
Nicoletta Momigliano |
5 December, 2014 |
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| Decorated Handkerchiefs: cotton, colours and conflict ‘in and about’ Northern Ireland |
This paper examines a cotton handkerchief decorated by women republican prisoners Armagh Jail in 1976. It considers the power of cloth, its appropriation and circulation through in prisons of the conflict ‘in and about’ Northern Ireland. |
Louise Purbrick |
5 December, 2014 |
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| Questions and Answers Session |
Marianne answers questions from the audience about the four talks in this series. |
Marianne Talbot |
11 November, 2014 |
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| The Philosophy of Science |
In the fourth and final lecture, we examine the notion of ‘objective fact’ on which scientific theories are built; what sort of fact is such that we can build a scientific theory on it? |
Marianne Talbot |
11 November, 2014 |
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| Epistemology and Metaphysics |
In the third lecture we examine first the so-called “Gettier Problems” for the traditional account of knowledge, the arguments for saying that possible worlds exist and finally we ask whether there really are unactualised possibles. |
Marianne Talbot |
11 November, 2014 |
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| Moral and Political Philosophy |
In the second lecture we examine first the famous ‘Wilt Chamberlain’ thought experiment that demonstrates a retention between freedom and equality, then arguments for and against two famous moral theories; deontology and utilitarianism. |
Marianne Talbot |
11 November, 2014 |
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| Logic and Argument: the Methodology of Philosophy |
In this first lecture, using Descartes famous argument for the claim “I think therefore I am’, we examine how to identify and evaluate arguments. |
Marianne Talbot |
11 November, 2014 |
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| A Jewish Teenager in Hiding: Representations of Anne Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank |
Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl (1952) chronicles the two years that Anne, her family, and four other Jews spent in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. |
Sarach Lichtman |
21 October, 2014 |
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| Design for the Reconstruction: housing Exhibitions and the QT8 Model District at the ninth Triennale in Milan (1947) |
The reconstruction in Italy is perceived as a call by architects who, after the fall of Fascism and the Civil War. The first postwar Triennale in 1947 is the test for the new design, architecture and urban planning in Italy. |
Elena Dellapiana |
21 October, 2014 |
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| Clothing Soldiers: Development of an organised system of production and supply of military clothing in England between 1645 and 1708 |
This paper will set up and identify certain needs that a soldier's clothing of this period had to satisfy |
Katherine Elliott |
21 October, 2014 |
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| How Disabled Design Changed the History of Modernism. |
This lecture explores disabled design as an alternative to canonical aesthetic and political histories of |
David Serlin |
16 October, 2014 |
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| Trapped in Shells: Mindset and Materiality in First World War Trench Art and Beyond |
First World War Trench Art. |
Nicholas Saunders |
16 October, 2014 |
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| Designed to Kill: The Social Life of Weapons in Twentieth Century Britain |
Weapon design and modern warfare. |
Joanna Bourke |
16 October, 2014 |
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| Arthur Wragg: Pacifist Polemics in Black and White |
Arthur Wragg |
Damon Taylor |
9 October, 2014 |
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| “Not for Glory, not for Gain!” The Czech Glass Spartakiad Figurine, 1955 |
This paper looks at the glass figurines of Czech artist Miloslav Klinger, made to commemorate the 1955 Prague Spartakiad, as complex sites of memory, craft and political propaganda. |
Rebecca Bell |
7 October, 2014 |
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| “Design, Domesticity and Revolution: Transitioning the Cuban Ideal Home” |
Through an examination of domestic advice and advertisements found in Cuban popular magazines, this paper explores the relationship between politics and popular media during the period 1950 to 1970. |
Sara Desvernine-Reed |
30 September, 2014 |
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| The Politics of Memory: Designing the Ganatantra Smarak (Republic Memorial), Kathmandu, Nepal |
Examination of the design competition of Nepal's republic memorial. |
Bryony Whitmarsh |
30 September, 2014 |
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| War on Wheels |
First World War vehicles as instruments of order and chaos. |
Gregory Votolato |
30 September, 2014 |
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| ‘Help to win the war’: an analysis of the typographic posters produced by the New Zealand Government 1914-1918 |
This paper analyses typographic posters produced by the New Zealand Government in WWI to recruit men and money to the war effort. They chart the progress of recruitment strategies from voluntarism through to the contested years leading to conscription. |
Patricia Thomas |
30 September, 2014 |
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| ‘Public memory and everyday memorials: work of the Imperial War Graves Commission’ |
The paper highlights tensions that appeared in the near routine collection of trophies for memorials and the design of war cemeteries between British imperial offices and those of former colonies, particularly Australia’s War Records Section. |
William Taylor |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Images of Women in a Changing Colonial Taiwanese Society during the Period of World War I |
Propaganda: graphic design and print culture |
Chu-Yu Sun |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Funky Bunkers: The Post-Military Landscape as a Readymade Space and a Cultural Playgound |
On adapted reuse of military establishments. |
Per Strömberg |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Cultural Trauma: Kós, Kozma, and Hungarian Design in the First World War |
By comparing the work and career trajectories of these two architect-designers, this paper explored the changes in taste, style and cultural meaning of the dominant trends in Hungarian interior design before and after World War 1. |
Paul Stirton |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Furniture in Portugal, 1940-1974: between tradition, authoritarianism and modernity |
Portuguese design furniture (1940-1974) and the industrial policies of the New State's dictatorship. |
Helena Maria Souto, Eduardo Cortês Real |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Authenticity and commemoration: an analysis of Otto Weidt Worshop for the Blind and the Jewish Museum in Berlin |
This paper will analyse both spaces according to their scale, location in the city, authenticity, phenomenology and prosthetic memory, in order to determine whether design can enhance and protect our collective memory. |
Ana Souto |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Collective Memory and Conflict Representation: War and Peace in Colombian Museums |
This paper studies some Colombian museums that are reflecting upon war. |
Andrés Pardo Rodriguez |
30 September, 2014 |
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| 'Ambassador of Good Will': Three Centuries of American Art in 1930s Europe |
The 1938 exhibition, Three Centuries of American Art, on display in Europe and the United States. |
Caroline Riley |
30 September, 2014 |
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| South African poster propaganda during the Second World War |
The paper examines poster propaganda produced in South Africa during the Second World War. |
Deirdre Pretorius |
30 September, 2014 |
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| The AIDS Memorial Quilt: Mourning an Ongoing War |
Contemporary Design History; History of the AIDS Crisis |
Clementine Power |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Syonan Shimbun: Singapore's Wartime Newspaper |
The presentation looks at the design and production of this propaganda paper as part of the wider history of the Singaporean Straits Times, the newspaper it briefly replaced. |
Jessie O'Neill |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Designed to Kill : The Difficult Study of Military Design |
Design is perceived by most as a positive concept meant to improve people lives. But it is first a means to answer efficiently a specific purpose. How can we morally accept that the act of killing led to the development of an important design industry? |
Marie-Anne Michaux |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Camouflage for peace: disruptive pattern material and dazzle painting in contemporary design and art |
The aim of this paper is to analyse the consequences of this change, in other words, the examination of the ways, the strategies, the semiotics and the social uses of the objects which conform the so-called camouflage for peace. |
Maite Méndez-Baiges |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Draw me an AK-47: Transnational imaginaries in the trenches of the cold war |
This paper examines the image of the Kalashnikov in the cold war period through two intersecting lenses that cut across disciplines of design –– the object in its public mediation and the image in its transnational circulation through print culture. |
Zeina Maasri |
30 September, 2014 |
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| "Good Housing depends on You”: Wartime Housing, 1942 |
MoMA’s 1942 Wartime Housing exhibition demonstrated that housing contributed to the war effort. Through innovative display, the museum proposed that new materials, modern techniques, and community planning would create lively permanent communities. |
Erin McKellar |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Quiet, Humane and ‘Anonymous’: Pevsner’s art-historical response to wartime |
This paper focuses on Pevsner’s wartime writings. |
Ariyuki Kondo |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Furniture Behind the Wire |
An examination of the material culture and social history of the German internees held on the Isle of Man, who made furniture designed by CR Mackintosh for the Northampton home of the Bassett-Lowke family between 1916 and 1919. |
Jake Kaner, Yvonne Cresswell |
30 September, 2014 |
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| The secret dollhouse: craft and resistance in Stalinist Estonia |
My presentation will focus on the subject of nonprofessional craft as a tool of resistance against the official power. I will be concentrating on one particular case study from Soviet Estonia, dating from the 1940s. |
Triin Jerlei |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Material objects and visual web presentation: the Virtual Peace Palace Museum |
Material objects and visual web presentation: the Virtual Peace Palace Museum. |
Marjan Groot |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Conflicting Views: Print Propaganda Depicting Tourism in a Landscape of War |
An analysis of Ruth Taylor White’s “cartograph” for the 1945 guidebook A G.I. View of American Red Cross China, India and Burma, published by the American Red Cross. |
Dori Griffin |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Prints of Peace: Elihu Burritt and the graphics of reform |
This talk examines the propaganda campaign conducted by mid-nineteenth century American reformer Elihu Burritt and a group of engravers and artists who used the graphic potential of postal items, such as envelopes, to pressure politicians for peace. |
Peter Gilderdale |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Book and musket | graphic design of Italian school reports and diplomas during the Fascism |
In the interwar period, the Italian school reports and diplomas turned into a direct expression of the most advanced artistic research. Fascism revolutionized institutional graphic design to achieve a modern effective communication. |
Caterina Franchini |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Modernising the V&A: From War to Reconstruction 1918-51 |
In the aftermath of two world wars, the V&A struggled to reconstruct a national view of contemporary art and design in which Britain’s industrial past and contemporary developments could be reconciled. |
Laura Elliot |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Dressed to Dissent: 'Catch-22' Clothing |
This paper examines dress as a form of anti-war Vietnam protest using the cross dressing character of Corporal Maxwell Klinger on the long-running American sitcom MASH as its focus. |
Marilyn Cohen |
30 September, 2014 |
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| Design during the War: the seventh Triennale in Milan and the Mostra della produzione in serie (Serial production exhibition, 1940) |
The Serial production exhibition, by Giuseppe Pagano, opens a new attitude in Italian design. The most advanced industrial products are shown to the public: typewriters, calculators, metal furnitures, microscopes, optical instruments, raincoats and so on. |
Alberto Bassi |
28 September, 2014 |
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| ENIAC versus Colossus and the early presentation of electronic computers |
A description of the concurrent yet different development of electronic computers during WWII in the UK and US– most notably the secrecy of the UK development compared to the widely known work in the US and the consequent effects on the computing industry |
Paul Atkinson |
28 September, 2014 |
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| ‘Propaganda in Three Dimensions’: British Ministry of Information Exhibitions During World War Two |
Exhibitions designed by the British Ministry of Information exhibitions branch during World War Two as official propaganda: their methods and impact. |
Harriet Atkinson |
28 September, 2014 |
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