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

TORCH Newsletter

19 February 2015

This week we turn our attention to the relationship between arts and science, with the next in our "Humanities and Science" series looking at the representation of science through theatre and the visual arts. This week's "Book at Lunchtime" also explores this theme, as we feature Omar Nasim's Observing by Hand: Sketching the Nebulae in the Nineteenth Century.

We are also pleased to announce that applications are invited for two DPhil studentships as part of an interdisciplinary project on childhood maltreatment and lifetime resilience. There are also opportunities to pursue an individual research project at the Cini Foundation in Venice, and to develop an interdisciplinary research network at TORCH.

Funding Opportunities

Collaboration with Cini

An opportunity for Oxford researchers to pursue individual research projects at The Fondazione Giorgio Cini, one of Venice’s principal cultural and research institutions.

Deadline: 11 March

For more information please click here.

New Network Scheme

The scheme provides seed funding of up to £2,500 for new research networks that will develop an interdisciplinary research agenda.

Deadline: midday Friday 20 February

For more information please click here.

Doctoral Studentships

Applicants are now sought for two DPhil studentships as part of an interdisciplinary project on ‘Childhood maltreatment and lifetime resilience’. One student will work in the Faculty of History on ‘Child abuse and neglect in mid-twentieth-century Britain’. The other student will work in Department of Experimental Psychology on ‘Child maltreatment and psychopathology: an investigation of risk and resilience’.

These studentships are part of TORCH's Humanities and Science programme, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Deadline: 13 March 2015

For more information please click here

Watch again

Humanities and Science: Mental Health

Pyschiatrists and humanities scholars discuss how mental health and the humanities can, or should, re-engage, and the challenges that relationship may bring.

Please click here for the video.

The Stressed Sex: Men, Women and Mental Health

An interdisciplinary panel of scholars discuss Daniel Freeman's book, which explores the relationship between gender and mental health.

Please click here for the video.

Humanitas: How Playwrights Collaborate

A conversation with playwrights David Edgar, Howard Brenton and Bryony Lavery about how playwrights collaborate with directors, performers and each other.

Please click here for the video.

Featured events

All these events seek to bring together people from different disciplines who are interested in the same research area, and they actively welcome new people to come along. These are just a snapshot of the many fantastic events taking place, so please visit our events calendar for a full listing.

Please click here to visit our events calendar

Perspectives on Poetry

Sunday 22 February, 19:30

Acclaimed German poet Ulrike Sandig is joined in conversation by the artist Sebastian Reuter and her UK translator Karen Leeder (TORCH KE Fellow).

More information

Representing Science

Tuesday 24 February, 13:00 - 14:00 (lunch from 12:45)

A "Humanities and Science" seminar, with an opening presentation by Kirsten Shepherd Barr (Professor of English Literature) and responses from an artist, a neuroscientist and an art historian. Chair: Dan O'Connor (Wellcome Trust)

More information

Observing by Hand

Wednesday 25 February, 13:00 - 13:50

Omar Nasim (Lecturer in History, University of Kent & TORCH Research Fellow 2013-14) discusses his book with: Stephen Johnston (Director, Museum of the History of Science), Martin Kemp (History of Art, University of Oxford) and Chris Lintott (Astrophysics, University of Oxford). Lunch available from 12:45.

More information

Voltaire and the Newtonian Revolution

Saturday 28 February, All day

This conference explores how Voltaire and Emilie du Châtelet (his long-time companion and leading woman scientist of her era) promoted Newtonian theory.

More information

Feminism and Modernism in Norway

Friday 6 March, 14:00

An Ibsen Network event with Janet Garton, “Amalie Skram: ‘A Woman Who Writes Like a Man’”; Eveliina Pulkki, “Women and modernity in Knut Hamsun’s Sult”; Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, “What Ibsen Really Said about Women”.

More information

International Women's Day 2015

Friday 6 March, 17:15 - 19:15

Reflect on feminism's achievements and future path. With only two months to the General Election, this is your chance to hear about the state of women's rights and feminism from informed and diverse speakers.

More information

Latest news from the Humanitas Programme

We are pleased to announce that John McLaughlin will visit Oxford in Trinity Term as Humanitas Visiting Professor in Intelligence Studies. John MacLaughlin is the Distinguished Practitioner in Residence in the Merrill Center for Strategic Studies and served as Acting Director of Central Intelligence from July to September of 2004 and as the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence from 2000 to 2004. Further information will be available shortly. You can find out more about the series here: http://torch.ox.ac.uk/themes/intelligence-studies.

All of the events from the celebrated playwright David Edgar's Visiting Professorship are now available to watch again. Please click here to view the videos.

From the archive...

With the announcement of our new Intelligence Studies Visiting Professor, we look back at a lecture given by General Hayden, Former Director of the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency, on "My Government, My Security and Me”.

Events Calendar, Weeks 5 - 7

Friday 20 February

12:30 - 14:00 | History of Capitalism Reading Group

"The Philosophy of Railways: The Transcontinental Railway Idea in British North America", A. A. den Otter

12:30 - 14:00 | Music in Anti-Colonial Movements

Part of the "Critical theories and world politics" interdisciplinary student discussion group

12:45 - 14:00 | Research Presentations

By members of the 'Race and Resistance' network

13:00 - 15:00 | The Role of Epigenetics in the Major Transitions

Guest speaker Professor Eva Jablonka (Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv).

17:00 - 18:30 | Anglo-Norman Reading Group

This group provides a relaxed and collaborative forum in which to hear about, read, translate and comment upon a wide variety of Anglo-Norman texts.

Sunday 22nd February

19:30 | Perspectives on Poetry: Ulrike Almut Sandig performs in London

Acclaimed German poet Ulrike Sandig is joined in conversation by the artist Sebastian Reuter and her UK translator Karen Leeder (TORCH Knowledge Exchange Fellow).

Monday 23rd February

12:15 - 13:30 | 90 Seconds, 5 Questions

With Hannah Kinney, DPhil Candidate History of Art, University of Oxford

12:30 | Between 'Progress' and 'Grandeur': The Circulation of Brazilian Culture During the Early Decades of the Cold War

With guest speaker Professor Darién Davis (Middlebury College)

14:00 | History of Medicine seminar series

Picturing the unusual: Medical photography from plague to AIDS

17:00 | Besterman Enlightenment Workshop

John Stevenson (University of Oxford), ‘William Cobbett: a Child of the Enlightenment?’

Tuesday 24th February

12:00 - 13:00 | Gender, Women and Culture Seminar

Susan Grayzel (University of Mississippi) – ‘Did women have a Great War?’