Contemporary poets read from their translations of the Purgatorio and from their poems about Dante. After Dante: Poets in Purgatory, edited by Nick Havely with Bernard O'Donoghue, was published by Arc Poetry in July and marks the 700th anniversary of the poet's death in exile at Ravenna on 14 September 1321. This new complete version of Dante's Purgatorio is by sixteen contemporary poets who enter into dialogue with the original by rendering it into a variety of Anglophone voices: American, Aust...
Dec 17, 2021•1 hr 15 min
A Climate Crisis Thinking in the Humanities and Social Sciences event. Shifting the question from ‘how should climate change be put into the curriculum?’ to ‘how does it transform the curriculum?’ opens up the subject in new ways across the world. How does it change the way in which each subject (including humanities) is conceptualised, taught and related to other subject areas? What education do students need to equip them with the information, critical abilities and practical adaptability to b...
Dec 15, 2021•1 hr 32 min
Keynote lecture in the Diversity and the British String Quartet Symposium, day 3, held on 16th June 2021. Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Chair: Dr Nina Whiteman Speaker: Dr Des Oliver On our final day, we begin with a keynote lecture from composer Dr Des Oliver on his ‘Diasporic Quartets’ projects. You can learn more here https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/diversity-and-the-british-string-quartet-0#/...
Sep 02, 2021•1 hr 18 min
Keynote lecture in the Diversity and the British String Quartet Symposium, held on 14th June 2021. Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Lecture by Professor Laura Tunbridge (University of Oxford) Chair: Dr Wiebke Thormählen (Royal College of Music) We will hear from Beethoven and string quartet expert Prof Laura Tunbridge on the history of performing quartets working in UK universities.
Sep 02, 2021•1 hr 25 min
Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. In his autobiography, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah (2018), award-winning poet, lyricist, musician, and activist Benjamin Zephaniah speaks out candidly about the writer’s responsibility to step outside the medium of literature and engage in political activism: “You can’t just be a poet or writer and say your activism is simply writing about these thing...
Aug 31, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held weekly during term-time, with commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all. About the book: The emancipatory promise of liberalism - and its exclusionary qualities - shaped the fate of Jews in many parts of the world during the age of empire. Yet historians have mostly understood the relationship between Jews, liberalism and antisemitism as a European story, defined by the collapse of lib...
Jul 23, 2021•1 hr 4 min
A TORCH Book at Lunchtime webinar on ‘Born to Write: Literary Families and Social Hierarchy in Early Modern France’ by Professor Neil Kenny. Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held weekly during term-time, with commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all. About the book: It is easy to forget how deeply embedded in social hierarchy was the literature and learning that has come down to us from the early modern European world. Fr...
Jun 29, 2021•1 hr 6 min
TORCH Book at Lunchtime webinar on Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of my City by Durs Grünbein, translated by Professor Karen Leeder. Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held weekly during term-time, with commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all. About the book: Porcelain is a book-length cycle of forty-nine poems written over the course of more than a decade that together serve as a lament for Durs Grünbein’s hometown, Dres...
Jun 25, 2021•1 hr 10 min
A TORCH Book at Lunchtime webinar on ‘China's Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism’ by Professor Rana Mitter. Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held weekly during term-time, with commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all. About the book: For most of its history, the People’s Republic of China limited public discussion of the war against Japan. It was an experience of victimization - and one that saw Mao Z...
Jun 25, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. This panel discussion and conversation with artist Khaled Kaddal examines The Formula of Giving Heart as a piercing study of our contemporary socio-political environment. Drawing from a variety of theoretical and creative perspectives, the panellists variously explore such themes as the global increase in physical confinement(s), the rise of cybernetics and biodat...
Jun 18, 2021•1 hr 9 min
TORCH Goes Digital! presents a series of weekly live events Big Tent - Live Events! Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Under the Rainbow: Voices from Lockdown will feature the author James Attlee in discussion with Marina Warner and Professor Pablo Mukherjee (Warwick University). Chaired by Professor Wes Williams, TORCH Director. This event is also in collaboration with Blackwell's of Oxford. Black...
Jun 18, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Named after the original title of Richard Rathbone's book on Nana Ofori Atta I, the King of Akyem Abuakwa in Ghana, this talk will be the first that celebrates the paperback edition of Nana Oforiatta Ayim's celebrated novel The God Child. Both books have the kingdom as their centre, with Nana Oforiatta Ayim's book drawing on that of Richard Rathbone, as well as on...
May 24, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Elise Busset, an undergraduate at Oxford University, reads an extract from Madam Bovary in french. Blog post by Professor Jennifer Yee. The heroine of Gustave Flaubert’s 1857 novel Madame Bovary, Emma, is the daughter of a farmer, who has been educated ‘above her station’ alongside aristocratic girls in a convent. She read Romantic novels, some of them smuggled into the convent illicitly, and her reading has filled her with vivid, unrealisable fantasies and less clearly defined aspirations to a ...
May 21, 2021•2 min
Eleanor Gilbert, an undergraduate at Oxford University, reads an extract from Madam Bovary in english. Blog post by Professor Jennifer Yee. The heroine of Gustave Flaubert’s 1857 novel Madame Bovary, Emma, is the daughter of a farmer, who has been educated ‘above her station’ alongside aristocratic girls in a convent. She read Romantic novels, some of them smuggled into the convent illicitly, and her reading has filled her with vivid, unrealisable fantasies and less clearly defined aspirations t...
May 21, 2021•2 min
Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future, Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities on Thursday 13th May 2021. Join us for a fascinating evening with award-winning playwright and actress Lolita Chakrabarti in conversation with journalist Matt Wolf. Streamed live from an Oxford venue and chaired by Dr Sos Eltis, the event will cover Lolita’s wide-ranging career and hone in on her most recent play, Hymn, at the Almeida Theatre. Lolita Chakrabarti i...
May 21, 2021•1 hr 22 min
TORCH Goes Digital! presents a series of weekly live events Big Tent - Live Events! Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Oliver Ready (St Antony’s College) and Sasha Dugdale (Writer in Residence, St John’s College, Cambridge), two leading translators from the Russian, will discuss their work This event is part of the Russian and Slavonic Research Seminar series which is kindly supported by the Ilches...
Mar 22, 2021•1 hr 21 min
Held on International Women's Day 2021, Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future, Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities - in collaboration with Lincoln College, Oxford. Talk and Performance from Dr Samantha Ege, Lincoln College Oxford. In celebration of International Women’s Day (8 March 2021), Dr. Samantha Ege presents an hour-long lecture-recital. Therein, she traces the lives and legacies of Black women composers in Chicago. The music of F...
Mar 22, 2021•49 min
Professor Emily C. Burns, Terra Foundation Visiting Professor in American Art, gives the first in the series of The Terra Lectures in American Art: Performing Innocence: US Artists in Paris, 1865-1914. Between the end of the US Civil War and the start of World War I, thousands of American artists studied and worked in Paris. While popular thought holds that they went to imbibe culture and attain artistic maturity, in this four-part lecture series, Professor Emily Burns explores the various ways ...
Mar 18, 2021•1 hr 18 min
Professor Emily C. Burns, Terra Foundation Visiting Professor in American Art, gives the third in the series of The Terra Lectures in American Art: Performing Innocence: US Artists in Paris, 1865-1914. Performing Innocence: Primitive / Incipient The Terra Lectures in American Art: Performing Innocence: US Artists in Paris, 1865-1914 Moderator: James Smalls, Professor and Chair of Visual Arts, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Between the end of the US Civil War and the start of World War ...
Mar 15, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Professor c, Terra Foundation Visiting Professor in American Art, gives the second lecture in the The Terra Lectures in American Art: Performing Innocence: US Artists in Paris, 1865-1914 series. Moderator: Wanda M.Corn, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in Art History, Stanford University Between the end of the US Civil War and the start of World War I, thousands of American artists studied and worked in Paris. While popular thought holds that they went to imbibe culture and attain arti...
Mar 15, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Professor Emily C. Burns, Terra Foundation Visiting Professor in American Art, gives the fourth in the series of The Terra Lectures in American Art: Performing Innocence: US Artists in Paris, 1865-1914. Content Warning: This talk will include references to historic racist language and imagery. Viewer discretion is advised. Performing Innocence: Baby Nation Moderator: Professor Alastair Wright, Associate Professor in the History of Art, St John's College Between the end of the US Civil War and th...
Mar 15, 2021•1 hr 5 min
TORCH Book at Lunchtime webinar on Charles Dickens and the Properties of Fiction: The Lodger World by Dr Ushashi Dasgupta. Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held weekly during term-time, with commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all. When Dickens was nineteen years old, he wrote a poem for Maria Beadnell, the young woman he wished to marry. The poem imagined Maria as a welcoming landlady offering lodgings to let. Almost fo...
Mar 10, 2021•1 hr
TORCH Book at Lunchtime event on Sophocles: Antigone and other tragedies by Professor Oliver Taplin. With panellists Professor Karen Leeder and Dr Lucy Jackson. Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held during term-time, with commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all. Sophocles stands as one of the greatest dramatists of all time, and one of the most influential on artists and thinkers over the centuries. His plays are deeply ...
Mar 01, 2021•1 hr 6 min
At around 11am on Thursday 18 February 1943 two students in Munich were arrested for distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets. By Monday they had been interrogated, tried, and executed along with another member of the resistance circle. Further arrests followed. From 15-27 February 2021 the White Rose Project will be following the events as they happened in real time through daily posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. This year marks the 78th anniversary of the first White Rose trials. It’s also a ...
Mar 01, 2021•1 hr 23 min
TORCH Goes Digital! presents Big Tent - Live Events! Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. In this joint event between St Peter's College and TORCH, distinguished and multi-award-winning British filmmaker, social campaigner and St Peter’s College alumnus, Ken Loach (Jurisprudence, 1957), will discuss his filmmaking career with Professor Judith Buchanan, Master of St Peter’s College Oxford. Their conve...
Feb 12, 2021•1 hr 11 min
Internationally-renowned composer Anne Boyd is in conversation with composer Thomas Metcalf, discussing her life and music ahead of a performance of her String Quartet No. 2 ’Play on the Water’ later this year. This is part of the TORCH project ‘Pixelating the River’: Engagement with Contemporary Music through Graphical Inputs, played by the Kreutzer Quartet, alongside a new work by Thomas Metcalf. Professor Anne Boyd AM is one of Australia’s most distinguished composers and music educators. Her...
Feb 05, 2021•1 hr
TORCH Book at Lunchtime webinar on The Political Life of an Epidemic – Cholera, Crisis and Citizenship in Zimbabwe written by Professor Simukai Chigudu. About the book: Zimbabwe's catastrophic cholera outbreak of 2008–9 saw an unprecedented number of people affected, with 100,000 cases and nearly 5,000 deaths. Cholera, however, was much more than a public health crisis: it represented the nadir of the country's deepening political and economic crisis of 2008. This study focuses on the political ...
Feb 04, 2021•1 hr 6 min
TORCH Book at Lunchtime webinar on Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire, written by Dr Priya Atwal. Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held weekly during term-time, with commentators from a range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all. In late-eighteenth-century India, the glory of the Mughal emperors was fading, and ambitious newcomers seized power, changing the political map forever. Enter the legendary Maharajah Ranjit Singh,...
Jan 28, 2021•1 hr 4 min
TORCH Goes Digital! presents a series of weekly live events Big Tent - Live Events! Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. In collaboration with the Voltaire Foundation, TORCH is delighted to support the Annual Besterman Lecture, 2020 Lecture by Professor William Doyle. Introduced by Karen O'Brien (Head of Humanities Division, Oxford University) and Gregory S. Brown (General Editor of Oxford University...
Dec 07, 2020•1 hr 26 min
This event is supported by TORCH as part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones of the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. Supported by TORCH through the Humanities Cultural Programme. Join us for an online in-conversation with Prof Geoffrey Batchen and Dr Lena Fritsch, discussing the work of pioneering British photographer and botanist Anna Atkins (1799-1871). Her innovative use of new photographic technologies linked art and science, and exemplifie...
Nov 20, 2020•56 min
