professors

Over the winter of 1610-11, a magnificent telescope was built in London. It was almost two metres long, cast in silver and covered with gold. This was the first telescope ever produced in such an extraordinary way, worthy of a great king or emperor. Why was it made, what was its political significance and who was it going to? In this talk, Timon Screech explores why the East India Company, which became the world's biggest trading organisation until the 20th century, prepared this special gift to court favour with the Shogun of Japan, how the Japanese viewed Europeans during this time and the impact on England’s maritime rivalry with Portugal and Spain.

His most recent books are
The Shogun’s silver Telescope; God, Art, and Money in the English Quest for Japan, 1600-1625 and
Tokyo before Tokyo; Power and Magic in the Shogun’s City of Edo (both published in 2020).

Speaker:
Professor Timon Screech FBA, Professor of the History of Art, SOAS University of London

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur (1735-1813) was a farmer as well as a complex thinker of the contradictions of American identity as described in his famous Letters from an American Farmer and, more strikingly, in his French texts which develop his description and analysis of the New World and its peoples. Many readers of his English work have focused on his wishful story of the land of the free, a hospitable refuge to the dispossessed of Europe, a glorious melting pot where the American is born: a man who works hard, who can provide for his family, and be treated with respect whatever his origins and whatever his religious beliefs. Yet, as Judith Still discusses in this talk, Crèvecœur reveals in his French work the original sins of British colonization and of the new United States, sins which still haunt us today: genocide of indigenous peoples, enslavement of Africans and environmental devastation.

She is the author of Derrida and Other Animals: The Boundaries of the Human (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) and ‘Slavery in Enlightenment America – Crèvecœur's Bilingual Approach’, Journal of Romance Studies (2018) 18:1, 103-29.

Goods and possessions offer us ways into understanding how late medieval people saw the world and their position in it. In this talk, Christopher Woolgar discusses objects of daily life, their significance and the meaning of material culture (what we might understand as ‘people’s stuff') in late medieval England, to reveal changes in mentality that came with a long-term social revolution, in the quantities and types of goods people had, and the lengths to which elites in particular went to ensure continued possession of prestigious items within their families.

Speaker: Professor Christopher Woolgar FBA,  Emeritus Professor of History and Archival Studies, University of Southampton

The British Academy is the UK's national academy for the humanities and social sciences and was founded in 1902. In this talk, Professor Sir David Cannadine discusses undertaking the task of writing the history of the Academy and why it is worth doing so, the importance of engaging with the challenging moments it has faced and how these were navigated, and if the history of the Academy is merely the history of a single institution or if it sheds light on how institutions more widely can enhance public understanding of people, cultures and societies.

Speaker: Professor Sir David Cannadine PBA, President, the British Academy; Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University

In this talk Stuart Elden discusses his new book, The Early Foucault and the research he did on the first period of Michel Foucault’s career. In particular, he highlights what Foucault did before the History of Madness in 1961 and how he came to write that book as well as the way newly available archival materials help to make sense of the period.

His book, The Early Foucault, was published in June 2021.

Speaker: Professor Stuart Elden FBA, Professor of Political Theory and Geography, University of Warwick

George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland and Elector of Hanover from 1727-60, was considered short-tempered and uncultivated, but during his reign presided over a great flourishing in his adoptive country - economic, military, and cultural. In this talk, Norman Davies places George II in the unfamiliar framework of a composite state, stressing the monarch's conviction that his native German possessions were no less important than his British ones, together with the unfamiliar story of how his German Electorate was governed from St. James’s Palace in London. He also discusses his book, George II: Not Just a British Monarch, and its use of unconventional terminology, calling the monarch 'George Augustus' (not just George II), insisting that he was 'King-Elector' not just a mere King, that he belonged to the dynasty of Von Welf (the Guelphs) not to the invented tribe of 'Hanoverians', and that his coat-of-arms, which, inter alia, bore the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, was 'royal and electoral', not just, as the British always say, 'royal'.

Speaker: Professor Norman Davies FBA, Professor Emeritus of History, University of London; Honorary Fellow, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford; Honorary Fellow, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge

Tražite li novi posao ili spremni ste za napredak u karijeri?

Kao i sve velike kompanije, i mi težimo zapošljavanju najboljih i cijenimo izvrsnost, stabilnost, društvenu odgovornost, rast i razvoj.

Kako je ovo relevantno za vas? Pa, kada odlučite aplicirati na poziciju koja vam je primamljiva, visina plate I sama hijerarhiska postavka više nije toliko važna. Veoma je bitno da vam ta pozicija dopušta napredak unutar kompanije, kakve benefite nudi a svi želimo  radni dan započeti s osmijehom.

Želimo da uživate u svom poslu i osjećate da ste važni!

Na mnogo je načina kultura naše kompanije dio identiteta AP-a, stoga je važno da to shvatite. Zbog toga smo među izvrsnim uvidima o AP kulturi koje možete pronaći na našoj web stranici odlučili dublje zaroniti u nju s AP Podcastom.

U prethodnoj epizodi 14. razgovarali smo o AP kulturi: Kako znati da li ste pravi izbor za našu kompaniju, a u epizodi 9. dali smo vam savjete i trikove o tome kako se pripremiti za intervju, jednom kada aplicirate. Sada je vrijeme da razgovaramo o kulturi Feedbacka u AP-u, gdje će Amila Kurtović, voditeljica upravljanja talentima u AP-u, govoriti o tome zašto je Feedback vruća tema u današnjem poslovnom svijetu i zašto nam je Feedback važan. Takođe ćete saznati više o našem interno dizajniranom sistemu  Feedbacka o učinku i o tome šta STAR model predstavlja.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this podcast are the speaker’s own and do not reflect the view of Authority Partners.

Why was there no alliance to block Hitler from launching aggression in Europe? The usual explanation given is that the British led by Neville Chamberlain were so averse to the thought of war that appeasement had no alternative. In this talk, Jonathan Haslam argues that the real reason was that they - as did the Poles and the Czechs - feared communism more than fascism and that an alliance with Stalin's Russia against Germany would bring the Reds into Central Europe. As Moscow supported Communist efforts in France, Spain, China, and beyond, opponents such as the British feared for the stability of their global empire and viewed fascism as the only force standing between them and the Communist overthrow of the existing order.

His book, The Spectre of War: International Communism and the Origins of World War II is published in May 2021.

Speaker: Professor Jonathan Haslam FBA, George F. Kennan Professor, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study

Image: Photograph of German soldiers advancing on Poland during World War II.

During the COVID-19 pandemic women’s mental health has been a topic of concern as women have disproportionately carried the burden of care. In this talk, Lynn Abrams explores the links between a revolution in feelings amongst women in the 1960s and today’s mental health crisis. She shows how talking about feelings and self-help were alternatives to the ‘little yellow pill’ for many women struggling with loneliness and stress.

Speaker: Professor Lynn Abrams FBA, Professor of Modern History, University of Glasgow

Director of the V&A and former Labour MP Tristram Hunt joins Conor Gearty to discuss his life and career.

Tristram Hunt is the Director of the V&A – the world’s leading museum of art, design and performance. Since taking up the post in 2017, Hunt has championed design education in UK schools, encouraged debate around the history of the museum’s global collections and overseen the transition to a multi-site museum, with V&A Dundee, the redesign of the Museum of Childhood, and the development of a new museum and open access collections centre in Stratford, East London. Prior to joining the V&A, Hunt was Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central and Shadow Secretary of State for Education. He has a doctorate in Victorian history from Cambridge University, has worked as a Senior Lecturer in History at Queen Mary University of London, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In addition to numerous radio and TV programmes for the BBC and Channel 4, he is the author of several books, including Ten Cities That Made an Empire (2014) and The Lives of the Objects (2019) telling the story of the V&A collection.

Speaker: Dr Tristram Hunt, Director, V&A

Chair: Professor Conor Gearty FBA, Vice-President (Social Sciences), The British Academy; Professor of Human Rights Law, London School of Economics

SHAPE (Social sciences, humanities & the arts for people and the economy) is a new collective name for those subjects that help us understand ourselves, others and the human world around us.

Episode 17 contains tips and insights regarding your college faculty discussions around your disability and the accommodations you are requesting.  You  will learn  information to help  a new college student avoid some of the common mistakes students make when sharing their accommodations with the professor.  You will also gain some insights into whether or not you should share your disability information with faculty, and if so, how much information is best. 

Napoleon had no religion, but he spent much of his career dealing with it. In this talk to mark the bicentenary of his death, William Doyle discusses how Napoleon saw that the upheavals of the French Revolution could never be ended unless its quarrel with the Catholic Church could be settled. This meant negotiating with the pope. Most of Napoleon's henchmen opposed the concordat which he concluded with Rome in 1801, but most French people welcomed it. Later, emperor and pope fell out, but public worship was never threatened again, as the pope always acknowledged with gratitude.

He is the author of The Oxford History of the French Revolution.

Speaker: Professor William Doyle FBA, Professor Emeritus of History and Senior Research Fellow, University of Bristol

By late 1859, when she had almost finished writing her second novel, The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot was still unsure of its final title. Two other possible titles, ‘Sister Maggie’ and ‘The House of Atreus’ were under consideration almost up to the time of printing and in this talk, Rosemary Ashton discusses the case of The Mill on the Floss in the wider context of novel writing and title choosing.

She is the author of several books which include discussion of George Eliot's writings, including the biography of her, George Eliot: A Life .

Speaker: Professor Rosemary Ashton FBA, Emeritus Quain Professor of English Language and Literature and Honorary Fellow, University College London

Please be aware that this episode discusses topics such as online abuse and sexual violence, which some might find triggering.

Bestselling writer and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project Laura Bates joins Conor Gearty to discuss her life and career.

Laura Bates founded the Everyday Sexism Project in 2012, creating a website where women could share stories of sexism from street harassment and workplace discrimination to sexual assault and rape. A viral sensation, the project has now collected over 100,000 testimonies from people across the world and has been credited with helping to spark a new wave of feminism. Bates works closely with politicians, businesses, schools, police forces and organisations, from the Council of Europe to the United Nations, to tackle gender inequality. She is also an author and writes regularly for the press including the New York Times, Guardian and the Telegraph. Her books include Everyday Sexism: The Project that Inspired a Worldwide Movement (2014), Girl Up (2016) and most recently Men who Hate Women (2020). Bates was awarded a British Empire Medal for services to gender equality in the 2015 Queen's Honours List.

Speaker: Laura Bates, Writer; Founder, The Everyday Sexism Project

Chair: Professor Conor Gearty FBA, Vice-President (Social Sciences), The British Academy; Professor of Human Rights Law, London School of Economics

SHAPE (Social sciences, humanities & the arts for people and the economy) is a new collective name for those subjects that help us understand ourselves, others and the human world around us.

Research shows that multilingualism in any languages, regardless of prestige or worldwide diffusion, can provide a range of linguistic, cognitive, and social benefits at all ages. It enables communication with international partners and understanding of local cultures as well as enhancing metalinguistic awareness, focusing, seeing both sides of an argument, and flexibly adapting to changing circumstances. However, as Antonella Sorace outlines in this talk, there are still many misconceptions about multilingualism and this contributes to the lack of language skills in countries, like the UK, that rely on ‘privileged monolingualism’ in English, which can undermine social cohesion and economic growth.

Given what is at stake, it is important to bridge the gap between research and communities to enable informed decisions in society regarding the benefits of speaking more than one language.

The British Academy, working with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Association of School and College Leaders, the British Council and Universities UK, published 'Towards a National Languages Strategy: Education and Skills' for the education and skills component of a UK-wide national languages strategy in July 2020.

Speaker: Professor Antonella Sorace FBA, Professor of Developmental Linguistics and Director of Bilingualism Matters, University of Edinburgh

The miners’ strike of 1984-85 can be considered the last great battle of the organised industrial working class in the UK. The defeat of the strike led to deindustrialisation, the rapid closure of pits, the redundancy of the miners and the hollowing out of mining communities which impacts politics to this day.

In this talk, Robert Gildea examines the miners’ strike through the lenses of class, community, and family, how it was both a performance and crisis of masculinity, and how the men and women involved reinvented themselves afterwards.

He is currently writing an oral history of the 1984-85 miners' strike based on the research project, ‘Class, community and family: the 1984-1985 miners’ strike in history and memory’.

Speaker: Professor Robert Gildea FBA, Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford

Image: Demonstrators during the National Miners Strike in 1984 out in force at Sunderland's Wearmouth Colliery, demonstrating their solidarity as an NCB deadline to abandon the pit approached on 11 October 1984. Photo by NCJ Archive / Mirrorpix / Getty Images.

What is it to be friends with someone? Why do we have friends? What do they do for us? In this talk, Robin Dunbar provides evidence that friendships are good for us, the relationship between the number and quality of close friendships and our psychological and physical health, and on what basis we select our friends.

His book, Friends. Understanding the power of our most important relationships was published in March 2021.

Speaker: Professor Robin Dunbar FBA, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology, University of Oxford

Philosophy, as Spinoza understands it, is the art of learning to live as joyfully and securely as we can.  But because we can only practice this art collectively, philosophising is always a partly political project - a matter of learning to live together peacefully and harmoniously. What enables us to do this? In this talk Susan James discusses how some of Spinoza’s answers, especially his analysis of natural right, jolt our assumptions and make us reconsider the problem.

Her book, Spinoza on Learning to Live Together was published in 2020.

Speaker: Professor Susan James FBA, Professor of Philosophy, Birkbeck, University of London

Image: Portrait of Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677) circa 1665. Gemäldesammlung der Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dealing with the past in relation to the Northern Ireland conflict is a politically sensitive topic often characterised by more heat than light. In this talk, Kieran McEvoy discusses the UK government’s commitment to introduce legislation regarding legacy issues now complicated by the parallel drive to protect British Army veterans from historical allegations arising out of their service in Northern Ireland.

Speaker: Professor Kieran McEvoy FBA, Professor of Law and Transitional Justice, School of Law and Senior Research Fellow, Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen’s University Belfast; Principal Investigator, Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland project.

This talk was part of the Imagine! Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics.

Image: British soldier on patrol along Falls Road in West Belfast. © Photo by Andrew Holbrooke / Corbis Historical via Getty Images.

As the Good Friday Agreement moves closer and closer to centre stage in Anglo-Irish relations, and potentially to UK-EU relations post-Brexit, how it is interpreted will become even more contentious. In this talk, Christopher McCrudden engages with the differing (and conflicting) historical, legal, and political interpretations as well as considering more broadly, what exactly is the Agreement?

Speaker: Professor Christopher McCrudden FBA, Professor of Human and Equality Law, Queen’s University Belfast

This talk was  part of the Imagine! Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics.

Image: British Prime Minister Tony Blair (right) US Senator George Mitchell (centre) and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern (left) shaking hands after they signed the historic Good Friday Agreement for peace in Northern Ireland. © Dan Chung / AFP via Getty Images.