Keeping you up to date with all the goings-on at TORCH

End of term newsletter

20 March 2015

The 'Humanities and Science' series continues over the holiday and next term with events including 'That Other Place', an exhibition exploring the representation of Alzheimer's in collaboration with the O3 Gallery, and 'Leviathan and the Air Pump: Thirty Years On', which re-visits the foundations of the Royal Society. In the meantime, all of this term's Humanities and Science events are available to watch again here.

That Other Place, 4 - 26 April

Exhibition in collaboration with the O3 Gallery

As the social, emotional and welfare costs of Alzheimer’s disease gain prominence, and with the number of sufferers predicted to reach one million by 2025, exploring the ways in which the disease affects the lives of the sufferers and those around them becomes an ever more important task. Responding to this the O3 Gallery in partnership with TORCH present That Other Place, an exhibition exploring Alzheimer’s disease in its various neuropathological manifestations, from the dual perspectives of sufferer and carer.

Preview: Friday 3^rd April, 6-8pm

Please click here for more information

Leviathan and the Air Pump: Thirty Years On

17:30, 1 May, Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Robert Boyle’s air-pump experiments in 1659 provoked a lively debate over the possibility of a vacuum and became an emblem of the new experimental science that was promoted by the Royal Society. However, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes challenged both the validity of Boyle’s experiment and the philosophical foundations of this new approach to science.

The historian of science David Wootton will review this controversy and present a new view of the dispute between Boyle and Hobbes. His lecture will be followed by a reply from Michael Hunter, the biographer of Robert Boyle.

Free to attend, please register here

Hughenden Speaks

23 & 24 April, Hughenden Manor

An inaugural series of talks and speeches has been announced by the National Trust, to be held in late April at Hughenden Manor, near High Wycombe, country home of the Victorian Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli.

The events, taking place on the evenings of 23^rd and 24^th April, are the result of an exciting new collaboration between the National Trust and University of Oxford, and intended to celebrate the power of oratory.

Please click here to register

Opportunities

Music and Machines

Call for musical contributions inspired by computer visionary Ada Lovelace for a one-day event hosted by the Oxford e-Research Centre to celebrate the 200th anniversary of her birth.
Deadline: 1 September 2015

Digital Manuscripts Toolkit

The Bodleian Libraries are seeking proposals from University of Oxford students and staff for up to £5000 for small projects to test the functionality of the Digital Manuscripts Toolkit.
Deadline: 24 April 2015

More information

Highlighted blogs

Gillray, Sarah Siddons & the history of celebrity backlash

Ruth Scobie, who co-leads the Celebrity Research network, explores 'the fame game' from Sarah Siddons and the eighteenth century theatre to Kim Kardashian and reality TV.
Please click here to read the blog.

Homer in Harlem

In the latest 'Voices Across Borders' blog post, Justine McConnell explores how Harlem artist Romare Bearden uses Homer's Odyssey to reflect on African-American life.
Please click here to read the blog.

From battered wife to major writer

For International Women's Day the Voltaire Foundation celebrates Madame de Graffigny, an exceptional eighteenth-century woman who overcame many obstacles to become the most famous woman writer of her day.
Please click here to read the blog.

Watch again

Oxford University International Women's Day

Melissa Benn (author of What Should We Tell Our Daughters?), Trudy Coe (Head of Oxford University's Equality and Diversity Unit), Caroline Criado-Perez (feminist campaigner and journalist) and Imaobong Umoren (DPhil Candidate, University of Oxford) discuss feminism and the state of women's rights.

Please click here for the video

Funding Opportunities Reminder

Studentship Offered

Applicants are sought for two DPhil studentships as part of an interdisciplinary project on ‘The mental and material laboratory of 13th Century Science’. Funded by the Mellon Foundation through TORCH.

Deadlines: 7 April

More information is available here.

Medieval Studies Grants

Small grants to support conferences, workshops, and other forms of collaborative research activity organised by postgraduate or postdoctorate students at the University of Oxford.

Deadline: 1 May 2015

More information is available here.

Latest news from the Humanitas Programme

St Anne's College will be hosting Javier Cercas, the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor in Comparative European Literature, for a series of events in Trinity Term 2015.

Javier Cercas is one of Europe’s most distinguished contemporary writers. His works, which have been translated into more than twenty languages, include the acclaimed, Solados de Salamina (Soldiers of Salamis, 2001), which was made into a film by David Trueba in 2003, La Velocidad de la Luz (The Speed of Light, 2005), Anatomia de un Instante (The Anatomy of a Moment, 2009) and Las Leyes de la Frontera (Outlaws, 2012).

In this sequence of lectures, Javier Cercas will reflect on the nature of the novel as a genre, including discussions of The Anatomy of a Moment, as well as works by Vargas Llosa, Cervantes, Melville, James and Kafka. The final lecture will address the question of whether it makes sense to talk about intellectuals nowadays. Please click here for more information.

From the archive...

This week we revisit celebrated poet Don Paterson's lecture on 'The Domain of the Poem: Lyric, Sign, Meaning and Rhythm in Contemporary Ars Poetica'.

The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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www.torch.ox.ac.uk

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