Welcome back – after a rather long summer break and a relatively late start to the new academic year. We have been recording again since September, but not enough material was there to merit a newsletter then, so now you will get even more in this newsletter.
We have started recording some music, for a change, and let’s start with a concert at the Royal Asiatic Society, of a Japanese band playing traditional Afghan music (yes, I know that’s a bit strange), so here it is:
There were quite a number of contributions from the Royal Asiatic Society, so here’s the rest of them:
Omar Khan – Paper Jewels: Postcards from the Raj
George Michell and Helen Philon in conversation – The Islamic Architecture of the Deccan
Peter Hibbard – More than a Stuffed Bird Show: The RAS Legacy in Shanghai
Rosie Llewellyn-Jones – ‘My Dear Schomberg’: Letters from Sir Aurel Stein
The Royal Historical Society at UCL had another one of their public lectures – a fascinating look at the East from a non-European perspective:
Three from the Aristotelian Society:
Jonathan Wolff – Equality and Hierarchy
Sarah Fine – Refugees, Safety and a Decent Human Life
Fabienne Peter – Normative Facts and Reasons
And two rather unusual ones from the Warburg Institute:
Peter Adamson – Why Should Historians of Philosophy Care about Astrology?
Jhumpa Lahiri and Bill Sherman – A Conversation About Risk and Bob Dylan, with Bill Sherman
Scientists also get a look in:
Peter Crane – Dinosaur Landscapes and the Beginnings of Flowers
Joe Walding – Diary of a WIMPy Kid: Using Light to Search the Dark
The new head of the History department at Royal Holloway, Professor Kate Cooper, with her inaugural lecture:
Kate Cooper – History and fiction in the age of “fake news”
The History Workshop contributed with:
Rebecca Spang – The Money Of The Poor: Financial Inclusion In Historical Perspective
The Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy also contributed with three seminars:
Gordon Finlayson – Solidarity in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics
Julia Christ – The Concept of Domination and the Forgetting of the Defeated
Antonia Birnbaum – Radical Equality: The Material Reason of Emancipation
The Leo Baeck Institute has started it’s new season of public lecture with the theme of ‘Seeing Jews in Art: Networks, Fantasies and Dreams’ and the first in this lecture series is a talk about a 14th century (remarkably accurate) map of the (known) world:
Katrin Kogman-Appel – A Jewish Look on World Politics: The Catalan Mappamundi (1375)
On the topic of photography (from Birkbeck):
Steve Edwards – Photography as Social Research
Now to the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism – two from them, very topical and appropriate:
After Multiculturalism? Conversations between History and Sociology
Challenging Denial: from Slavery to the Holocaust
One from the Politics department at Birkebck:
In Conversation with Jacqui Smith: Editor of The Honourable Ladies
Now a fascinating talk from the Cañada Blanch Centre at the LSE, on the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath:
And now, as usual in November, the obligatory talks to oil the wheels of the Zizek industry:
Agon Hamza, Frank Ruda, and Slavoj Žižek – Reading Marx
Slavoj Žižek – Sex and the Failed Absolute – Masterclass I+ II
(please note that the second master class is not up yet, but will be once it has been checked.)
And, as we are nearing the end of this newsletter, the other concert we recorded, this time for the Institute of Historical Research and Senate House Libary. Anyone who has been in Senate House (London) recently, will have noticed the posters and advertisements for the concert and talks celebrating 100 years of votes for women in the UK (although strictly speaking it was not until 1928 that all women in the UK had the vote). We were asked to record the concert of music composed by the suffragette pioneers, performed by the Berkeley Ensemble, with narration from the broadcaster Dr Kate Kennedy:
Songs of Suffrage – music & readings 1900-1930, with the Berkeley Ensemble
And finally, the most topical and eloquent talk on the Brexit issue was delived by the award -winning journalist and writer Fintan O’Toole. Highly recommended and listen to it here:
Fintan O’Toole – The Nightmare of History
For comments and bookings, please email meor use the contacts pageon the website – you can phone too if you prefer (UK 01865 240009).
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All the best,
René