The Keble Debates are termly conversations bringing together leading figures from the worlds of theatre, fiction and poetry to explore contemporary issues in the arts, and the way the arts engage with contemporary issues in wider society. David Haig MBE is an actor and playwright whose career on stage and screen has spanned almost four decades. Most recently, he appeared in the ‘Downton Abbey’ feature film, and in the highly acclaimed TV series ‘Killing Eve’. He also appeared in ‘Four Weddings a...
Jan 06, 2020•1 hr 3 min
The Different Scales of Modern History. William Whyte (Professor of Social & Architectural History, St John's College) delivers a lecture about the legacy of Ralph Walter.
May 15, 2018•1 hr 2 min
The Keble Debates are termly conversations bringing together leading figures from the worlds of theatre, fiction and poetry to explore contemporary issues in the arts, and the way the arts engage with contemporary issues in wider society. The second debate focuses on Talent Management and features Peter Bennett-Jones. Hosted by Honorary Fellow Robin Geffen (1976) The panel: Peter Bennett-Jones, Founder, PBJ Management Barney Norris (2006), Playwright in Residence Laura Williams, Agent, The Peter...
Apr 09, 2018•1 hr 13 min
An interview with Nick Starr (founder of the London Theatre Company and Executive Director of the National Theatre 2002-2014), preceding the first of the Keble Debates. The Keble Debates are a new programme of termly conversations, bringing together leading figures from the worlds of theatre, fiction and poetry to explore contemporary issues in the arts, and the way the arts engage with contemporary issues in wider society. The debates will focus on a different artistic form each term in rotatio...
Dec 08, 2017•1 hr 2 min
The first of the Keble Debates bringings together leading figures from the world of theatre to explore contemporary issues in the arts and the way the arts engage with contemporary issues in wider society. The debates will focus on a different artistic form each term in rotation, beginning with the theatre in Michaelmas 2017. Barney Norris (2006), Playwright in Residence Nadia Fall, Artistic Director, Theatre Royal Stratford East Nick Starr, Founder, London Theatre Company Ben Power, Deputy Arti...
Dec 08, 2017•1 hr 19 min
Professor Terry Hunt, University of Oregon, gives the ASC Annual Lecture on Easter Island. Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, has become widely known as a case study of human-induced environmental catastrophe resulting in cultural collapse. In this lecture, Professor Hunt assembles the evidence for the island’s astonishing prehistoric success, and explores how and why this most isolated and remarkable culture may have avoided collapse. Based on extensive archaeological fieldwork, he also offers a compe...
May 11, 2016•53 min
The ASC Trinity Term Lecture delivered by Professor Tom Gilbert, exploring the analysis of bird genomes and evolution. Prof Tom Gilbert (University of Copenhagen) and colleagues have recently solved several major problems regarding bird evolution through analysing the genomes of over 48 bird species. Their work has been published in a significant series of papers in Science and other journals which together are considered the most comprehensive genome study of any major branch of the tree of lif...
May 27, 2015•48 min
The acclaimed director, Rufus Norris, has just taken over as Artistic Director of the National Theatre – a role that is widely regarded as the biggest job in British theatre. Here he is in discussion with Robin Geffen.
May 18, 2015•1 hr 5 min
Prof. Andrew Beeby, Durham University and Keble Senior Academic Visitor, discusses his current project on the chemical analysis through Raman spectroscopy of Medieval manuscripts, and how his work can contribute to the historical record.
Mar 02, 2015•51 min
Professor Angus Hawkins gives a talk about the history of coalitions in British politics as well as the current Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
Feb 23, 2015•34 min
Professor Svante Paabo, Director of the Department of Genetics at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany delivers the ASC Annual Lecture. In 2010, the first draft version of the Neandertal genome revealed that Neandertal have contributed genetic material to present-day humans living outside Africa. Recently, we have completed a genome sequence of high quality of a Neandertal individual and also of a Denisovan individual, representing a hitherto unknown Asian group related to...
Dec 01, 2014•51 min
How and how far did orality play a part in the circulation of literature in early modern Italy? A lecture by Professor Brian Richardson. The literary culture of the period can be seen, in the terms of Walter Ong, as ‘residually oral’, since many kinds of compositions were diffused through the voice, in speech or song, as well as, or rather than, in writing. This paper will consider which kinds of texts might be performed, the occasions on which they were performed in public or in private, the pr...
Jun 16, 2014•58 min
Dr. Misra, Lecturer in Modern History at Oxford University and a Fellow of Keble College, gives a talk on The Raj in Modern Indian Memory.
Feb 28, 2014•1 hr 2 min
Professor Stephen Faulkner, Tutorial Fellow at Keble College, delivers the Richardson Lecture, entitled "Boxing Clever, or Just Boxed In? Developing Metal Complexes for Biological Imaging“.
Feb 28, 2014•59 min
Professor José Francisco Rodrigues, Lisbon/CMAF, delivers the ASC Complexity Cluster Lecture entitled 'Some Mathematical Aspects of Planet Earth' at Keble College. The Planet Earth System is composed of several sub-systems including the atmosphere, the liquid oceans and the icecaps, the internal structure and the biosphere. In all of them Mathematics, enhanced by the supercomputers, has currently a key role through the "universal method" for their study, which consists of mathematical modeling, ...
Feb 28, 2014•1 hr 1 min
Professor Colin Renfrew, University of Cambridge, gives a talk that explores human creativity and the engagement between the individual and the material world.
Feb 28, 2014•57 min
The ASC Networks cluster visiting researcher Prof. Richard Wilson (Department of Computer Science, University of York) gives a public lecture on his work on networks at Keble College. A characterisation of a network is a number which describes some structural property of the network; a good example is the number of edges. In this talk I will discuss a wide range of characterisations of networks which we have developed at York over the past decade. The inspiration for these comes from diverse are...
Apr 10, 2013•48 min
Cities are epicentres of creativity and innovation but are also easily locked into patterns of infrastructure and behaviour that may not serve them best. The Co-Director of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities looks at these phenomena and considers ways to enhance the ability of cities to adjust to changes in their natural, political and financial environments.
Oct 02, 2012•50 min
Professor Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford discusses the opportunities and challenges facing Africa.
Jun 28, 2012•32 min
Professor Eric F. Clarke gives a talk for the Keble College Creativity series on creativity in musical performances.
May 17, 2012•45 min
Professor Robin Dunbar, Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, Oxford, gives a talk as part of the Keble College Creativity Lecture series.
Mar 28, 2012•1 hr 7 min
Professor Chris Gosden talks about what it means to be English with reference to a project at the Pitt Rivers Museum called 'The Other Within'.
Feb 27, 2012•49 min
Sir Jonathan Phillips of Keble College, Oxford, chairs a debate between Professor Nigel Biggar, Theology Faculty, University of Oxford, and Islamic Studies lecturer, Tim Winter, University of Cambridge; on the topic : Can the West Live with Islam?
Feb 17, 2012•58 min
Professor Susan Greenfield explains how neuroscience can make innovative contributions to creativity by offering a perspective at the level of the physical brain.
Feb 06, 2012•58 min
Richard Darton gives a talk for the 2011 Oxford Alumni Weekend on the developments in the science of Geoengineering and looks at how close we are to be able to do it.
Oct 03, 2011•58 min
Professor Steve Rayner (University of Oxford) presents creative and innovative potential solutions to the energy crisis and problems caused by climate change. Steve Rayner is Director of the Insitute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS) at the Saïd Business School of the University of Oxford, from where he also directs the Oxford Programme on the Future of Cities. He is also a Professorial Fellow of Keble College, Oxford and Honorary Professor of Climate Change and Society at the Universi...
Jul 07, 2011•57 min
Tim Ingold (University of Aberdeen) discusses his current research, on the comparative anthropology of the line, exploring issues on the interface between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Tim Ingold is Professor of Social Anthropology and Head of the School of Social Science at the University of Aberdeen. He has carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Lapland, and has written on the role of animals in human society, on language and tool use, and on environmental perception and skil...
Jun 20, 2011•41 min
Professor Richard Harper (Microsoft Research, Cambridge) presents on how to design for 'being human' in an age when human-as-machine type metaphors, deriving from Turing and others, tend to dominate thinking in the area. Richard Harper is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge and co-manages the Socio-Digital Systems group. Trained as a sociologist, he has recently published his book, Texture: Human expression in the age of communication overload, (MIT Press).Amongst his prior b...
Jun 20, 2011•41 min
Nicholas Humphrey, a theoretical psychologist based in Cambridge, presents his work on the evolution of human intelligence and consciousness. Part of the Creativity Lecture Series by the Keble College Advanced Studies Centre. Nicholas Humphrey studied mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda, he was the first to demonstrate the existence of "blindsight" after brain damage in monkeys, he proposed the celebrated theory of the "social function of intellect". His books include Consciousness Rega...
May 23, 2011•1 hr 9 min
Professor Gui-Qiang G. Chen presents in his inaugural lecture several examples to illustrate the origins, developments, and roles of partial differential equations in our changing world. While calculus is a mathematical theory concerned with change, differential equations are the mathematician's foremost aid for describing change. In the simplest case, a process depends on one variable alone, for example time. More complex phenomena depend on several variables - perhaps time and, in addition, on...
Dec 22, 2010•52 min
