london’s global university
Festival of Culture
Programme 2016
23 – 27 May
UCL Festival of Culture
23 – 27 May 2016
“We are global: through our
outlook, people, and enduring
international partnerships.”
Contents
Welcome from the Vice-Provost 4
Welcome to the Faculty of Arts & Humanities 6
Welcome to the Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences 10
About the Festival Programme 14
One Day in the City 15
Mapping the Masses: What can big data tell us? 16
Programme Sessions Monday 23 May 17
Programme Sessions Tuesday 24 May 25
Programme Sessions Wednesday 25 May 37
UCL Institute of Advanced Studies 46
Programme Sessions Thursday 26 May 47
Thinking Differently About Africa at UCL 56
Programme Sessions Friday 27 May 57
Health Humanities at UCL 65
While you’re here: Ten places to visit in and around UCL 66
Getting Here 71
Sessions Index 72
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
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3
Days
Free
Over 80 free events celebrating
the breadth and vitality of the
arts, humanities and social
sciences at UCL.
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UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Welcome from the Vice-Provost
Welcome from
the Vice-Provost
“I am delighted to be able to add a few words of welcome to our 2016
Festival of Culture. The diversity of what is on offer from the Faculty
of Arts and Humanities and the Faculty of Social and Historical
Sciences is extraordinary. With exhibitions, film screenings, panel
discussions, performances, talks and walking tours, there really is
something for everyone. It is hard to imagine another programme
where in one day you could discuss phrenology around Jeremy
Bentham’s auto-icon, consider the battle for the US Constitution,
find out how to live a palaeolithically-correct life in the 21st century,
attend performances from Dyskolos (The Grouch) and consider the
medieval origins of the current British obsession with accountability.
I hope like me you will take the opportunity to celebrate the
exceptional work that is being undertaken across the two faculties.
This work enriches not only the intellectual and cultural life of UCL
but also that of London and further afield.”
Professor Anthony Smith
Vice-Provost (Education & Student Affairs)
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
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UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Faculty of Arts & Humanities
Welcome to the Faculty
of Arts & Humanities
“Arts and Humanities at UCL is a faculty of great intellectual diversity. Alongside
the traditional arts and humanities departments of English, Philosophy, Greek
and Latin, and the School of European Languages Cultural and Society (SECLS),
we also are proud to include the Slade School of Fine Art, Hebrew and Jewish
Studies, Information Studies, and the undergraduate programmes in European
Social and Political Studies, the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (the BASc), and
many inter-disciplinary MA programmes. This diversity is naturally reflected in
our teaching and our research, a small but fascinating sample of which will be on
display at this year’s Festival of Culture. For just two of many examples, students
in the Department of Greek and Latin will be performing, in translation, the Greek
Play Dyskolos: “the story of Knemon, a grouchy old man who hates the world”, and
UCL’s growing engagement with Venice will be explored in the session “Venice:
Dead or Alive”.
There will be a chance to enjoy a very wide-ranging programme of events, many
of which are taking place in the premises of our brand new Institute of Advanced
Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, of which we are justly proud.
The Institute will take further UCL’s tradition of pursuing research wherever the
investigation takes us, and I am delighted to welcome you all to share the journey
with us.”
Professor Jonathan Wolff
Dean of UCL Faculty of Arts & Humanities
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
“Where UCL really stands out among top universities
is in ‘international outlook’, which measures our
proportion of international staff and students, and our
international research collaborations. In this category
we excel. Whatever else, our ranking shows that, as
far as Arts & Humanities is concerned, UCL truly is
London’s Global University.”
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UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Faculty of Arts & Humanities
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
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UCL Faculty of Arts & Humanities
Departments, Research Centres and Institutes
Departments
Research Centres and Institutes
// Department of Arts and Sciences
// Centre for Digital Humanities
// Department of English Language
and Literature
// Centre for European Studies
// Department of European Social
and Political Sciences
// Centre for Information Behaviour
and the Evaluation of Research
// Centre for Intercultural Studies
// Department of Greek and Latin
// Centre for Italian Studies
// Department of Hebrew and Jewish
Studies
// Centre for Publishing
// Department of Information Studies
// Cultural Informatics Research Centre
for the Arts and Humanities
// Department of Philosophy
// Institute of Jewish Studies
// Slade School of Fine Art
// International Centre for Archives
and Records Management Research
and User Studies
// School of European Languages, Society
and Culture (SELCS), which constitutes:
// Department of Dutch
// Department of French
// Slade Centre for Electronic Media
in Fine Art
// Department of German
// Department of Italian
// Department of Scandinavian Studies
// Department of Spanish and Latin
American Studies
Did you know?
Arts & Humanities at UCL has been ranked 5th in the world by
The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings
2015-16. THE rankings judge universities on 13 performance
indicators, including teaching, research, knowledge transfer and
international outlook.
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UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences
Welcome to the Faculty
of Social & Historical Sciences
“The Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences includes Anthropology, Economics,
Geography, History, History of Art, the Institute of the Americas, the Institute of
Archaeology, and Political Science. As Dean of the Faculty, I am delighted that
so many of our staff and students will engage with members of the public in this
Festival of Culture, and are able to convey some of their enthusiasm for their
subjects to wider audiences.
In a dazzling array of lectures, seminars, workshops, exhibits and participatory
events, colleagues offer the opportunity to learn about just about everything that
matters to human beings: from the origins of humanity, through how to move a
Stonehenge-size monolith, to what we can learn from medieval accountability; from
how the French revolution was conveyed in the media, through nineteenth-century
death masks, to the self and contemporary social media; from amending the US
constitution, through the contemporary US presidential elections, to the impact
of Russian émigrés in London; from pre-modern techniques of forecasting the
weather to leaning how to live a ‘paleolithically-correct life’ in contemporary cities;
from political questions around Turkey and Iraq to cultural issues around the EU
referendum – and much, much more.
I hope you will explore these and other events listed in the brochure and take the
opportunity to enjoy UCL’s 2016 Festival of Culture!”
Professor Mary Fulbrook
Dean of UCL Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
“UCL Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences
encompasses an area of knowledge where
science meets the humanities. Offering a vast
range of specialisms, departments across the
Faculty are ranked within the top 20 in the world.”
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UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
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UCL Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences
Departments, Research Centres and Institutes
Departments
// Institute of the Americas
//Anthropology
// Institute of Archaeology
//Economics
//Geography
//History
// History of Art
// Political Science
Research Centres and Institutes
// Constitution Unit
// Environment Institute
// Centre for Microeconomic Analysis
of Public Policy
// NORFACE Research Programme
on Migration
// Employment Migration and Social Justice
// Centre for Transnational History
// Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies
// Centre for Research on the Dynamics
of Civilisation (CREDOC)
// China Centre for Health & Humanity
// International Centre for Chinese Heritage
and Archaeology
// Centre for Applied Archaeology
// Centre for Digital Anthropology
// Centre for Museums, Heritage
and Material Culture Studies
// Institute for Subjectivity and the Cultural
Imagination
// Centre for Audio-Visual Study
and Practice in Archaeology
// Laboratory for the Ethnography of the UK
// Environmental Change Research Centre
// Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice
// Climate and Water Research Unit
// Centre for Research and Analysis
of Migration
// Coastal and Estuarine Research Centre
// Centre for the Evaluation of Development
Policies
// Migration Research Unit
// The Equiano Centre
// Urban Lab
// Centre for Terrestrial Carbon Dynamics
Did you know?
In the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF
2014), UCL social sciences were judged to have the greatest
share of world-leading research of any university in the UK.
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UCL Festival of Culture 2016
About the Festival Programme
About the Festival Programme
Session Talk
Cultural nuts
“We’re delighted to welcome you to UCL,
and to our Festival of Culture 2016,
incorporating One Day in the City.
UCL was founded in 1826 to open up
higher education in England to those who
had been excluded from it – becoming the
first university in England to admit women
students on equal terms with men in 1878.
Academic excellence and research that
addresses real-world problems inform our
ethos to this day and are central to our
20-year strategy, UCL 2034.
The Festival of Culture offers over 80
sessions across the week, and represents
a unique insight into the breadth and quality
of research and teaching across UCL’s
Faculties of Arts & Humanities and Social
& Historical Sciences. It also provides an
opportunity to engage with UCL as a lively
centre of culture within Bloomsbury:
an area of London rich with literary and
cultural heritage.
All sessions are free, and can be booked at
ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture.
We hope you enjoy your visit.”
Catherine Thomson
Marketing and Communications Manager
Dr Nick Shepley
Director, One Day in the City
UCL English
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One Day in the City
One Day in the City is a bi-annual
celebration of London and Literature,
organised by UCL’s Department of English,
in and around our Bloomsbury campus.
This year, on Friday 27th May, we welcome
the general public to come and listen to,
question, and rub shoulders with some
of the greatest living poets, novelists,
and writers in London, in a high-octane
conclusion to the UCL Festival of Culture
(23rd-27th May).
In 2012 and 2014, we were lucky enough to
boast line-ups with John Agard, A.S. Byatt,
Alan Hollinghurst, Kazuo Ishiguro, David
Lodge, Daljit Nagra, Will Self, Iain Sinclair,
and Adam Thirlwell. This year we welcome,
amongst others, Tom McCarthy, Malika
Booker, Andrew O’Hagan, Helen Mort, Kayo
Chingonyi, Jonathan Coe, Sarah Howe,
John Lanchester, and Mary-Kay Wilmers.
And every session is free.
Design by Mobile Studio Architects
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
For those brave enough, there will also
be an interactive swing installation by
Anna Brownsted; painting with light
(Thursday night); readings of, riffs on, and
performances of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land,
throughout the day; a session on Henry
James and London; a chance to be guided
by experts through UCL Art Museum’s
collection of original prints and drawings
inspired by, or related to, the work of William
Shakespeare and Elizabethan England;
as well as dramatic interventions, book
signings, and refreshments.
UCL English Department is extremely
proud to be continuing our partnership
with First Story at One Day in the City this
year, with the National Writing Competition
Awards Ceremony. It is also wonderful to be
extending our long history with the London
Review of Books and to join forces, for the
first time, with the impressive House of St
Barnabas for our final event of the Festival.
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Mapping the Masses:
Exhibition
Panel discussion
What can big data tell us?
Each transaction, tube journey or tweet
now adds to the enormous volume of data
we generate in near real time. These data
get collated in enormous databases that
offer a rich resource for those wanting to
better understand human behaviour. Such
data can now be used by a dizzying array
of organisations to better plan transport
networks for our daily commute, send offers
from our favourite retailers or target help
to those living in fuel poverty. UCL is home
to the Consumer Data Research Centre
(CDRC) – a multimillion pound project
funded by the Economic & Social Research
Council (ESRC) to explore the ways in
which new forms of data can be used for
the public good. In a week long exhibition
we will showcase research and interactive
maps that tell us anything and everything
about the daily commute through to the age
of houses and internet usage – come and
explore what our data says about you.
Films
Reception
When: 23-27 May,
1pm to 4pm WalkingPanel
tours discussion
Where: Department
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of Geography Foyer,
Pearson Building
Q&A
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AN ESRC Data Investment
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Programme Sessions
Monday 23 May 2016
“Since 1826, we have
championed independent
thought by attracting and
nurturing the world’s best
minds.”
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Monday 23 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
© English Heritage
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Moving Stonehenge
Time: 12:00-14:00
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The London
Department Store:
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A Modernist Romance
Reception
Venue: Gordon Square Garden
Presenters: Stonehenge project team
Department: Institute of Archaeology
At the last count, the construction of
Stonehenge was estimated to have taken
over 10 million combined hours of labour.
This includes the time taken to dig the
monument’s enclosing ditch, transport the
bluestones from the Preseli hills in Wales
and lift and shape the iconic upright stones.
These figures are no doubt impressive,
but they tell us precious little about what
it was actually like to participate in this
mighty project.
The activity “Building Stonehenge” is part
experiment, part experience. Participants
are offered the opportunity to become part
of an experimental team that will attempt
to transport a large replica stone using
presumed Neolithic technology. Drawing
inspiration from preserved prehistoric Asian
sledges and non-industrialised societies
that build stone monuments today, we will
attempt to transport a 1 tonne load around
central London’s Gordon Square Garden
using only people power.
Performances
Panel
discussion
Time: 12:15-12:45
Walking tou
Venue: Seminar Room 20,
Wilkins South Wing
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Presenter: Professor Richard Dennis
Department: Geography
Walking tours
From Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames (recently
transported to television as The Paradise)
to Mr Selfridge, department stores offer a
Performances
seductive backdrop for dramas of modern
life. This talk will look behind the glitzy
facade to uncover the origins, rise, fall and
Q&A
transformation of London’s department stores.
There were once many more department
stores in the suburbs as well as the centre of
London than we have now, yet many current
stores are more like the Regency bazaars and
arcades that preceded the classic Victorian
and Edwardian department stores.
Richard Dennis is Professor Emeritus of
Human Geography. His research centres on
the ‘modernity’ of cities, including the historical
geography of the London Underground in the
years before World War I, the representation
of London in the work of Victorian novelist
George Gissing, and everyday life on the
streets and in the homes of the Victorian and
Edwardian city.
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Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
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Time: 12:30-13:30
Venue: South Cloisters,
Wilkins Building
Presenter: Why We Post Project Team
Department: Anthropology
This exhibition tells the story of how nine
anthropologists set out to examine the uses
and consequences of social media around
the world. Led by members of the project
team, the tour will highlight key questions and
discoveries about such topics as the selfie
and narcissism, the impact of secret profiles
on gender relations, and how the visual is
replacing text and voice in communication.
Why We Post is a global anthropological
research project on the uses and
consequences of social media. It is led
by Professor Daniel Miller from UCL
Anthropology and is primarily funded by the
European Research Council. The project
has recently launched a series of 11 open
access books, freely available via UCL Press.
Why We Post has its own free online course
(MOOC) in English, Chinese, Italian, Hindi,
Portuguese, Spanish, Tamil and Turkish.
There are also over 100 videos available on
a dedicated Why We Post YouTube channel.
www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post
© Cicero Moraes
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Why We Post:
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Walking Tour
of Bloomsbury
Time: 12:30-13:30
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Venue:discussion
Departing from Portico front
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steps, UCL main quad
UCL is located in the heart of Bloomsbury,
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Reception
with its garden squares, literary connections,
and numerous cultural, educational and
health-care institutions. Join us for a tour
Walking
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of UCL’s neighbourhood
and find out more
about the infamous Bloomsbury Group and
the many other great minds, brave spies
and hopeless romantics who have left their
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mark in this beautifully preserved quarter of
Georgian London.
This tour will be led by Authentic London
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Walks.
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Monday 23 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
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Visualising Time
Time: 12:45-13:30
Venue: G6 Lecture Theatre,
Institute of Archaeology
Presenter: Professor Sacha Stern
Department: Hebrew & Jewish Studies
How do we ‘see’ time? Discover how time
has been visualised throughout history, from
ancient Egypt to early modern Europe. This
talk will attempt to explain how and why time
was represented visually in some ancient and
medieval cultures, but not at all in others.
Sacha Stern is Professor of Rabbinic
Judaism, and specialises in ancient and
medieval Jewish history. He is Head of UCL
Hebrew & Jewish Studies at UCL: the only
academic department in the UK dedicated to
the wide-ranging field of Jewish Studies.
© Cicero Moraes
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What Makes
Us Human?
Time: 13:15-13:45
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Venue: Seminar Room 20,
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Wilkins South Wing
Presenter: Dr Maria Martinon-Torres
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Department: Anthropology
We call it our planet, but we haven’t
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always been the only humans on Earth.
Anthropology can give us the clues to
understand the key features of our biology
Q&A
which turned our species, Homo sapiens,
into such a successful one – indeed the only
remaining human species on Earth.
Dr Martinon-Torres is a lecturer in
Palaeoanthropology at UCL. She is based in
the Biological section of UCL’s Department
of Anthropology, one of the largest groups of
academics in Europe with a specialist focus
on the evolution and ecology of humans and
other primates. Through the study of hominin
fossils, Dr Martinon-Torres is interested in
reconstructing the evolutionary story of living
and extinct humans, and understanding the
origin, evolution and consequences of the
major physical and behavioural adaptations
of humankind.
Q&A
Reception
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Galileo: What Was
His Crime?
Time: 14:00-15:00
Venue: G6 Lecture Theatre,
Institute of Archaeology
Presenter: Dr Andrew Campbell
Department: SELCS
In April 1633 the natural philosopher,
astronomer and mathematician Galileo
Galilei (1564-1642) was put on trial by the
Roman Inquisition. The principal charge
against him concerned his support for the
Copernican hypothesis, namely that a mobile
earth orbited a stationary sun, and whether
it contradicted the Scriptures. In the end,
however, he was found only “vehemently
suspected of heresy” and placed under
house arrest for the remainder of his life. So
what was real Galileo’s crime? Was science
really defeated by religion, as legend would
have it? This session will examine the events
leading up to Galileo’s trial, as well as the trial
itself, before you, the ‘jury’, decide his fate.
Andrew Campbell is a teaching fellow in the
Italian Department at UCL. He has taught
courses on Italian Renaissance literature
and the Scientific Revolution, as well as
various language classes. His research
focuses primarily on the life and works of the
Carmelite friar Paolo Antonio Foscarini
(c. 1562-1616).
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© Wikimedia
© Wikimedia
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Films
Films
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The Politics
of Laziness
Time: 17:15-17:45
Reception
Venue: Seminar Room 20,
Walkin
Wilkins South Wing
Presenter: Dr Isabelle Moreau
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Department: SELCS
What do we understand by laziness in
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relation to culture? How is laziness affected
by gender, work and politics? Where do you
go to ‘be’ lazy? You may consider yourself to
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be (a tiny little bit) lazy, but this session may
help you to think otherwise.
Salons in Early Modern France played
an integral role in the cultural, social
and intellectual development of France,
particularly for women. One of the most
renowned female authors of 17th century
France, Madamoiselle de Scudéry, reflected
on the Salons’ craving for an allegorical
mapping of emotions and feelings to
represent laziness as an experience of leisure
and free time located somewhere away from
Court. Yet this is the period of Louis XIV’s
reign we are talking about. If laziness is a
beautiful and melancholic garden, it may also
be a place of exile from power – or even a
site of resistance.
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Films
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22
Monday 23 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Russia’s New Rich
and their Attitudes
to the West
Time: 18:00-18:30
Venue: Seminar Room 20,
Wilkins South Wing
Presenter: Dr Elisabeth Schimpfossl
Department: School of Slavonic
and East European Studies (SSEES)
Putin’s nostalgic conservatism and rhetoric of
raising Russia’s lost international power status
found a receptive national audience from
the early 2000s, and upper-class Russians
have enthusiastically adopted the narratives
of Russia as unique and superior to the
West. Despite these views, many Russians
established their second lives in the West
long ago, and the numbers of well-off émigrés
following suit has soared. This talk considers
rich Russians’ difficult relationship with the
West, London as the destination city favoured
by affluent émigrés and why many Russians
consider their culture to be morally and
intellectually superior to others.
Dr Elisabeth Schimpfossl is a Leverhulme
Early Career Fellow, teaching Russian Politics
at UCL’s School of Slavonic & East European
Studies (SSEES). Her current research
compares the philanthropic practices of British
and Russian super-rich.
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Why We Post:
The Anthropology
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of Social Media
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Time: 18:00-19:00
Films
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Venue: Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre,
Wilkins Building
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Presenters: Why We Post Project Team
Department: Anthropology
Q&A
Why do we post on social media? Is it true
that we are replacing face-to-face relationships
with on-screen life? Are we becoming more
narcissistic with the rise of selfies? Does
social media create or suppress political
action, destroy privacy or become the only
way to sell something? This talk will explore
the uses and consequences of social media
for people around the world, based on the
work of anthropologists who spent 15 months
in places such as a factory town in China, a
mining town in northern Brazil, and a politically
volatile town on the Syrian-Turkish border.
Why We Post is a global anthropological
research project on the uses and
consequences of social media. It recently
launched a series of open access books,
and has its own free online course (MOOC) in
English, Chinese, Italian, Hindi, Portuguese,
Spanish, Tamil and Turkish. There are also over
100 videos available on a dedicated YouTube
channel: www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post
Walking tou
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Q&A
Exhibition
Panel discussion
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
The EU Referendum:
Cultural Perspectives
Time: 18:30-20:00
Venue: Roberts G06 Sir Ambrose Fleming
Lecture Theatre, Roberts Building
This panel event will consider the role of the
EU and the upcoming UK-EU referendum
from a number of different perspectives
– cultural, historical, and political, among
others. We will be joined by Simon Smits, the
Dutch Ambassador to the United Kingdom
and formerly the Director-General for Foreign
Economic Relations in The Hague. The event
will follow a ‘Question Time’ style format,
with opportunity for audience questions and
discussion. Also participating in the panel are: Jane
Fenoulhet (Professor of Dutch Studies and
Director of the Centre for Low Countries
Studies), Jo Wolff (Professor of Philosophy
and Dean of Arts and Humanities), Mark
Hewitson (Professor of German History
and Politics) and Susan Collins (Professor
of Fine Art and Director of the Slade School
of Fine Art). The event will be followed by a
drinks reception.
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Food First, Morals
After: Reading Food
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and Drink in German
Culture
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Walkin
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Time: 19:00-20:00
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
Perfor
Department: German Studies
Bertolt Brecht memorably wrote in his hit
Threepenny Opera (1928): “Food is the
first thing. Morals follow on.” This session
abandons all stereotypical thoughts of beer
and Wurst to consider, more interestingly,
what Brecht meant, and why the nineteenthcentury saw the startling rise of a poetry
condemning the fashionable consumption of
pies, and endorsing a return to good, honest
bread. Why is food a moral issue in the world
of the Brothers Grimm? What do complex
rituals around food and drink mean in the
Modernist masterpieces of Thomas Mann?
And what did John F. Kennedy, a hero to so
many Cold-War West Germans, really mean
when he claimed to be ‘ein Berliner’?
Join us to explore the multiple, complex
meanings of food and drink in Germanlanguage art and culture through a swift
series of cultural snapshots, along with
commentary on the current vogue for
German food and drink in London.
Q&A
Exhibition
24
Monday 23 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Films
Panel discussion
UCL Nobel Prize
winners
Reception
Session
Talk
1904 Professor Sir William Ramsay
1913 Rabindranath Tagore
Walking nuts
tours
Cultural
1915 Professor Sir William Henry Bragg
1921 Professor Frederick Soddy
Translating Culture
Time: 19:00-21:00
Venue: Haldane Room,
Wilkins Building
Department: SELCS
How does theatre cross linguistic and cultural
boundaries? This session explores travelling
theatre from the turn of the twentieth
century to the present-day, with particular
attention to how performers translate their
material for audiences in different countries.
We look at current and historical trends in
theatrical conventions and performances for
international audiences, including AfricanAmerican performers in Germany and
Sicilian performers in Britain at the turn of the
twentieth century.
1922 Professor Achibald Vivian Hill
Exhibition
Performances
1928 Professor Owen Willans
Richardson
1929 Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins
Films
Q&A
1936 Sir Henry Hallett Dale
1936 Professor Otto Loewi
Panel
discussion
1939 Professor Cornelle Jean Francois
Heymans
1944 Professor Otto Hahn
Reception
1947 Professor Sir Robert Robinson
1955 Professor Vincent du Vigneuad
1959 Professor
Walking
tours Jaroslav Heyrovsky
1960 Professor Peter Brian Medawar
1962 Professor Francis Harry Compton
Performances
Crick
1963 Professor Andrew Fielding Huxley
1967 George Porter (Baron Porter
of Luddenham)
Q&A
Try your hand at ‘translating’ (language
assistance provided) and see the results
performed in a participatory workshop, with a
professional theatre director and actors.
1970 Professor Sir Bernard Katz
This session is part of the Café Culture series:
an ongoing programme of regular evening
events run by UCL's School of European
Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS) to
share current research themes in an informal,
participative setting.
2000 Professor James Heckman
1970 Professor Ulf Svante von Euler
1988 Professor Sir James Black
1991 Professor Bert Sakmann
2001 Sir Paul Nurse
2007 Professor Sir Martin Evans
2009 Professor Charles Kao
2013 Professor Peter Higgs
2013 Professor James E. Rothman
2014 Professor John O’Keefe
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Programme Sessions
Tuesday 24 May 2016
“UCL students are directly
involved in research,
equipping them for the
future and inspiring a
lifelong curiosity.”
25
Reception
Session
Talk
Panel discussion
26
Tuesday 24 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Behind the Mask
Time: 10:00-15:30
Exhibition talk 13:10-13:50
Venue: Jeremy Bentham Auto-Icon,
Wilkins Building
Department: Public and Cultural
Engagement
Phrenology is the study of head morphology
and the belief that this is related to a person’s
character. Simply put, the lumps and bumps
on your head can indicate if you are (or are
going to be) industrious or a criminal, a failure
or success, a drunkard or teetotal. To many
now this seems absurd, and the theories
behind it have been widely debunked, but in
the 19th and early 20th centuries this was
regarded as good science, and was very
popular. Jeremy Bentham himself was a
believer, and suggested that his auto-icon
could be used by phrenologists.
This session is your opportunity to view
a selection of plaster casts from UCL’s
collection of 35 life and death masks
gathered by the phrenologist Robert Noel
between 1837 and 1845, and to meet with
students currently researching the collection.
Visit the display between 1-2pm to discover
some of the stories behind these masks
of “poets and murderers, professors and
highwaymen, child prodigies and medics.”
Cultural
nuts
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Exhibition
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tours
Session
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Films
Session
Talk
Performances
Cultural nut
Q&A
Panel discussion
Cultural
nuts
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Exhibition
Exhibition
Reception
Films
Adaptation: Creative
Writing Workshop
Walking tours
Films
for Film, Theatre and
Other Performance
Performances
Panel
discussion
Contexts
Q&A
Reception
Time: 11:30-13:30
Panel discu
Reception
Walking tou
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 11
Presenter:
Dr Clare Foster
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tours
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Department: Greek and Latin
What is an adaptation? What kind of activity
Performances
is it to ‘adapt’? What might it teach us
about the creative process and culture more
widely? When we use that term, what are we
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signalling? Are all new versions of classics
necessarily ‘adaptations’? We are going
to explore these and other questions by
beginning to develop an adaptation – yours.
Places are strictly limited. To apply, send
(on a single page of A4) a sample of creative
work (image, poetry, prose or dramatic
writing), basic information about you and a
summary of what you would like to ‘adapt’
in this session.
Dr Foster writes and teaches writing for
theatre and film. She is currently a British
Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow researching
the history of adaptation and the concept of
‘the classic’ at UCL’s Department of Greek
and Latin.
Q&A
Reception
© Therightclicks
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
The Battle for
the US Constitution
Time: 12:15-12:45
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
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Exhibition
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Cultur
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Films
Exhibi
Panel discussion
Films
Urban Wellbeing:
How to Live a
Reception
Paleolithically-Correct
Life in a 21st Century
Walking tours
City
Panel
Recep
Presenter: Dr Adam Smith
Department: History
The Fourteenth Amendment is the keystone
of the US Constitution. Without it the history
of modern America, the very idea of an
American citizen, makes no sense. So why
is a growing movement in America fighting
to have it repealed? The answer lies in an
amazing story of unintended consequences.
Adam Smith is a senior lecturer in UCL’s
Department of History. He writes about the
United States in the mid-nineteenth century,
and is completing a book called The Stormy
Present: Conservatism and American Politics
in an Age of Revolution, 1848-1877. A regular
presenter of Radio 4 documentaries, Adam
is currently developing a programme about
the 14th Amendment, to be broadcast later
this year. His essays and book reviews have
appeared in History Today, BBC History, and
The Times Literary Supplement as well as
in academic journals. He was awarded UCL
Broadcaster of the Year in 2015. Adam is
currently serving as the Honorary Secretary of
the Royal Historical Society.
Performances
Time: 12:15-13:00
Venue: G6 Lecture Theatre,
Institute of Archaeology
Q&A
Presenter: Gustav Milne
Department: Archaeology
Towns are not our natural habitat. For some
three million years, we evolved as huntergatherers, living off the land in small tribal
societies, developing a working relationship
with nature. Culturally, society has changed at
a remarkable speed: anatomically, however,
we remain ‘palaeolithic’, much as we were
before towns or even large-scale farming were
developed around 5,000 years ago. There
is a therefore a profound mismatch between
modern urban living and our ancient biology.
Although there are major benefits in city life,
there are also costs, such as the alarming
rise in obesity, Type 2 diabetes and various
types of cancer. This session considers
how we can redress the balance between
our urbanised world and the one we are
genetically, metabolically, physiologically and
psychologically adapted for.
Walkin
Perfor
Q&A
Reception
Session
Talk
Panel discussion
28
Tuesday 24 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Cultural
nuts
Reception
Walking tou
Exhibition
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tours
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Films
Session
Talk
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Q&A
Panel discussion
Cultural
nuts
Q&A
Exhibition
Reception
Why We Post:
Artistic Impressions
of Ethnography
Performances
from Dyskolos
Walking
Films tours
(The Grouch)
Time: 12:30-13:15
Performances
Panel
discussion
Time: 12:30-14:00
Venue: South Cloisters, Wilkins Building
Presenter: Xinyuan Wang
Department: Anthropology
The Why We Post exhibition tells the
story of how nine anthropologists set out
to comparatively examine the uses and
consequences of social media around the
world. Xinyuan Wang, one of the researchers
on the project, turned her ethnography
of a factory town in China into a series of
traditional-style Chinese calligraphy paintings.
This short exhibition talk will explore how she
combined her anthropological and artistic
training to produce a visual documentation of
her experiences of fieldwork.
Xinyuan Wang is a PhD candidate in the
Department of Anthropology at UCL and
an artist of Chinese traditional painting and
calligraphy. Xinyuan obtained her MSc from
UCL’s Digital Anthropology programme. She
translated Digital Anthropology (ed. Horst and
Miller) into Chinese and contributed a piece
on digital anthropology in China.
www.visualethnographyxy.co.uk
Venue: South Cloisters, Wilkins Building
Department: Greek and Latin
Q&A
Reception
Dyskolos is the story of Knemon, a
grouchy old man who hates the world. His
Walking
tours
wife has left
him, and he lives alone with his
daughter on his farm. A city boy from Athens,
Sostratos, falls in love at first sight with his
daughter, and pretends to be a hardworking
Performances
farmer in order to impress our grouch. Hilarity
ensues in this award-winning play of 316
BC (when it won the first prize at the Lenaea
Q&A
festival in ancient Athens). We offer you a
choice of representative scenes from a
recent production in order to provide an
accessible introduction to Greek comedy
and to show its strong influence through the
history of theatre.
The UCL Classical Drama Society and
Department of Greek and Latin present a
classical play in English translation each year.
It is one of the most famous and long-running
commitments to the modern production
of ancient drama in the world, attracting
large audiences and regular reviews in the
national press.
Reception
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Accountability: from
Chilcot to Domesday
Time: 12:45-13:30
Venue: Darwin B05/B15
Presenter: Dr John Sabapathy
Department: History
Modern Britain seems both pathologically
obsessed with accountability and deeply
muddled about what it might be and what
it can do. ‘Accountability’ itself is frequently
assumed to be a monopoly of modernity. If
earlier periods had it they either used it to
repress (The Inquisition) or were gradually
working towards some more modern idea
(Domesday Book). This is mostly confused
nonsense. This session considers the strong
medieval roots of modern accountability,
and shows that the Middle Ages often had a
clearer idea of the limits and possibilities of
‘accountability’ than we appear to today.
John Sabapathy is a lecturer in Medieval
History at UCL. His book Officers and
Accountability in Medieval England, 11701300 was awarded the Royal Historical
Society’s Whitfield Prize in 2015. John’s
current project is a wide-ranging study of
thirteenth century Europe, The Cultivation of
Christendom, a volume in the new Oxford
History of Medieval Europe.
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Films
Edward Lear and
the Queerness of
Panel discussion
Nonsense Poetry
Reception
Time: 13:00-14:00
Panel
Recep
Venue: G6 Lecture Theatre,
Institute tours
of Archaeology
Walking
Walkin
Presenter: Professor Peter Swaab
Department: English
Performances
Edward Lear’s nonsense world is full of
allegories of rapturous and frustrated love.
It creates a space in which impossibly
Q&A
matched creatures can make happy romantic
couples, but also one where the sensible
world is repressive and the protagonists are
often tormented by secrecy and solitude.
Flagrantly deviant but safely disguised as
fantastical, nonsense poetry has made
itself part of the mainstream queer tradition
of English poetry. This talk will include
discussion of a selection of Lear’s limericks
and longer poems, including The Owl and the
Pussy-Cat and The Duck and the Kangaroo.
Peter Swaab is a Professor in UCL’s
Department of English. He is the editor of
the Selected Nonsense and Travel Writings
of Edward Lear, and of the first editions of
poetry and prose by Sara Coleridge. Peter’s
other publications include a BFI Film Classic
book on Bringing Up Baby and a book about
the British film director and UCL alumnus
Thorold Dickinson.
Perfor
Q&A
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Session nuts
Talk
Cultural
Reception
Tuesday 24 May 2016
Exhibition
Cultural
nuts
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Tal
Exhibition
Films
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Cultural
nut
Films
Panel discussion
Exhibition
Q&A
Panel
discussion
Reception
Revolution Under
a King
Time: 13:00-16:30
Venue: IAS Common Ground and
UCL Art Museum
Presenter: Dr Richard Taws
Department: History of Art
It is well-known that a chain of key historical
events characterised the French Revolution,
making it effectively the biggest political
media event of its time. These events were
communicated throughout Europe in print
culture, and the combination of image and
text – employed extensively in newspapers
and graphic works – made for powerful satire
and caricature. It is however often overlooked
that the pivotal moment, the Fall of the
Bastille, was in fact followed by three years
in which the king of France still nominally
presided over the dissolution of the old feudal
order. It is this period that is the focus of the
exhibition Revolution under a King in UCL’s
Art Museum. UCL Art Museum’s collections
contain over 10,000 objects, including
paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture
dating from 1490 to the present day.
Join exhibition curator Dr Richard Taws from
UCL History of Art, and others, for a panel
discussion and refreshments before taking
part in a guided tour of the exhibition.
© Fernando Serna
30
Films
Reception
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Panel discu
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Performances
Reception
Does Torture
Prevention Work?
Time: 13:15-13:45
Performances
Q&A
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
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Presenter: Dr Par Engstrom
Q&A
Department: Institute of the Americas
This session will highlight recent advances
in scholarship on the factors that contribute
to reducing the risk of torture and other illtreatment, by drawing on insights from Latin
America. The region of Latin America is an
especially instructive domain for evaluating
the phenomena of torture over time. Many
countries in the region have emerged from
protracted periods of authoritarian rule,
armed conflict and systematic human
rights violations over the past 30 years,
including the widespread use of torture.
The legacy effects of gross human rights
violations continue to resonate powerfully
among the new democracies in Latin
America. Compared to other regions of
the world, Latin America displays a robust
record of ratification of relevant international
instruments in the area of torture prevention.
However, the prevalence of torture in
contemporary Latin America remains
alarmingly high.
Dr Par Engstrom is Lecturer in Human
Rights of the Americas at the UCL Institute
of the Americas.
Performanc
Q&A
Reception
© Wikimedia
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Taking the Weather
With You
Time: 14:00-15:00
Venue: G6 Lecture Theatre,
Institute of Archaeology
Presenter: Dr Andrew Campbell
Department: SELCS
Many of the key tools of modern
meteorology, such as the thermometer
and barometer, did not come into popular
use until the seventeenth century. So how
did people forecast the weather before
then? This session will outline the nexus of
beliefs, observations and literary quotations
that formed the basis of meteorological
knowledge in the century before the advent
of instruments. Why did people believe,
for instance, that rapidly-drying parchment
signified an imminent cold snap? It will
also explore the value and uses of such
knowledge, from princely courts to the
high seas.
Sessio
Panel
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Films
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Panel discussion
Walkin
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What’s in
an Exhibition?
Time: 15:00-16:00
Reception
Venue: G6 Institute of Archaeology
Perfor
Panel
Presenters: Judith Kadee
and Lauren Chalk
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tours
Department: Archaeology
Today, everyone is curating something. From
Performances
our social media feeds to the interiors of our
bedrooms – we are all subconscious curators.
But what happens when you are made
Q&A
responsible for curating an exhibition?
And what goes on within a curatorial team?
In January 2016, twenty Museum
Studies MA students combined their
collective museum experience to create an
exhibition which would explore the mysteries
of the mind. They dealt with all different
aspects of making an exhibition: researching
content, sourcing objects, designing publicity,
as well as managing the group which made
this all happen!
In this presentation, Project Manager Judith
Kadee and Content Manager Lauren Chalk will
take you through their journey from the very
first concept, to the exhibition hosted at UCL’s
Institute of Archaeology. Curious about what
has been curated? The exhibition, Mysteries of
the Mind, is next to G6 – you are welcome to
take a look before or after the presentation!
Q&A
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32
Star Wars in
the Classroom
Time: 17:15-17:45
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
Presenter: Dr Frank Witte
Department: Economics
Frank Witte is a lecturer in UCL’s Department
of Economics. His interests include the
application of differential geometric and
Hilbert space concepts to the study of
correlations in price-fluctuations and bubbles
in markets and to extensions of game theory.
Before coming to UCL Frank was at Utrecht
University in the Netherlands and at the
University of Heidelberg in Germany.
The first Department of Economics in
England was created at UCL in 1828, in
memory of David Ricardo (1772-1823),
arguably the greatest economist of his
time. UCL’s Economics Department has an
outstanding international reputation in the
areas of game theory, industrial organisation,
econometrics, applied microeconomics,
development economics and the economics
of migration. The department is a global
leader in policy-oriented research, with
members directing and holding senior
positions in research centres involved in
policy design and evaluation.
Reception
Tuesday 24 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Walking
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Talk
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Tal
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Exhibition
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Exhibition
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Films
Films
Panel discussion
Panel discu
Reception
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Are Humans Naturally
Monogamous?
Time: 18:00-18:30
Walking
tours
Venue: IAS
Seminar Room 20
Walking tou
Presenter: Dr Kit Ople
Performances
Department: Anthropology
Divorce rates rise; single parenthood is more
common. Do you ever wonder whether
Q&A
humans are naturally monogamous – or is
monogamy culturally imposed? Dr Kit Opie
will take you on a journey deep into our
evolutionary history to reveal the forces that
shaped the way we live and love – and it’s
not pretty. Early primate social life was hard;
groups are complex, challenging places to
live. Large brains were the primate solution to
the problems of group living, but they came
at a cost. Large brains take a long time to
grow, leaving infants vulnerable; new suitors
were inclined to kill off their stepchildren.
Infanticide threatened our future, monogamy
was a revolutionary way to secure it. No other
mammal practices monogamy within large
social groups: humans are unique.
Dr Kit Opie is a Leverhulme Early Career
Fellow in UCL’s Department of Anthropology.
His interests are in the evolution of social
behaviour in human and non-human
primates. His work explores the evolution of
social systems, mating systems, marriage
and kinship.
Performanc
Q&A
Exhibi
Recep
Reception
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Films
Walkin
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Exhibition
Q&A
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Q&A
Time: 18:00-19:00
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 11
Presenter: Professor Maria Wyke
Department: Greek and Latin
Hollywood has released a number of bigbudget films set in antiquity, yet cinema has
been fascinated with the ancient world and
with Roman history in particular ever since it
emerged as a new technology more than 100
years ago. Within a few months of the first
public shows of moving images held in 1896,
Nero was brought onto the screen trying
out poisons on his slaves. The persistent
presence of ancient Rome in early cinema
raises important questions. Why did so
modern a medium as cinema have so strong
an interest in classical antiquity right from its
start? What did ancient Rome do for cinema?
And what did cinema do for ancient Rome?
Professor Wyke arrived at UCL in September
2005 as Chair of Latin. She has written
extensively on Roman love poetry and
ancient gender and sexuality, on the
reception of Julius Caesar in Western culture,
and on ancient Rome in cinema.
© Kaihsu Tai
Walking
Session tours
Talk
Films
Ancient Rome
in Silent Cinema
33
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Panel discussion
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Q&A
What is Cultural
Authenticity?
Time: 18:00-19:30
Walking
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Venue: IAS
Common Ground
Presenters: Dr Erin Goeres, Dr Annika
Lindskog and Dr Elettra Carbone
Performances
Department: SELCS
“Authenticity is valued today as an absolute
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good. It is sought in art, music, commodities,
experiences, and in persons. It can also be
claimed by nations, ethnicities, religions, and
races. All forms of authenticity are validated
by reference to shared origins or shared
content.” (Charles Lindholm, 2007).
But what is cultural authenticity? Who
decides? Does it matter? During this
session you’ll be presented with a series of
cultural objects, after which you’ll be asked
to vote on which of them is more or less
authentic. You’ll then hear a series of case
studies relating to authenticity, and have the
opportunity to construct your own definition.
This workshop will showcase the work of
the SELCS-based ‘Authenticity and Culture’
reading group, which meets regularly to
consider a range of perspectives relating to
authenticity among cultural communicators
and educators.
Exhibition
Panel discussion
Reception
Tuesday 24 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Films
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© Wikimedia
© DI Florian Fuchs
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Exhibition
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Films
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Panel discu
Venice: Dead or Alive? The Right to Health /
Madness in Society
Time: 18:00-19:00
Venue: Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre
Department: Italian Studies
The burning question in 21st-century Venice
is this: does the extraordinary lagoon city
have a viable future as a living community or
can it only and inevitably become a cultural
Disneyland? This event brings together four
people with strong personal, intellectual
and artistic links with the city: the Venetian
writer and academic Enrico Palandri, Alison
Wright, Reader in Art History at UCL, Giulia
Vio, a young Venetian studying Anthropology
at UCL and Polly Coles, broadcaster, and
author of the critically acclaimed The Politics
of Washing: Real Life in Venice.
UCL and the University of Venice are
embarking on a pioneering partnership and
will offer a double degree in Italian Studies
and Italian and History of Art from 2017.
Exhibition
Time: 18:00-19:00
Panel
Venue:discussion
G6 Lecture Theatre,
Reception
Institute of Archaeology
Presenters: Professor Sonu Shamdasani
Reception
and Dr James Wilson
Department: Health Humanities, CMII
Walking
tours explore the place of health
Health humanities
and illness in society, and how the humanities
and social sciences may be brought to bear
on biomedicine, clinical practice, the politics
Performances
of health care, and the portrayal of health and
illness in literature, film and contemporary
culture. This session will explore two key
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sets of issues relating to health in modern
society, firstly: ethical and political questions
about the role of the state in protecting and
promoting health. We will also consider
how historical conceptions and practices of
madness and psycho-emotional disorder
shape contemporary notions of well-being
and identity.
Professor Sonu Shamdasani and Dr James
Wilson are joint directors of UCL’s new Health
Humanities Centre. Drawing together staff
from disciplines engaged in matters relating
to health, illness and well-being, the Centre
runs two postgraduate degrees: MA Health
Humanities and MA Philosophy, Politics and
Economics of Health.
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Q&A
Films
Panel
Reception
Panel discussion
© Wikimedia
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
‘We are all Trojans…’:
Homer’s Poetic
Legacy
Time: 18:00-19:30
Venue: Haldane Room, Wilkins Building
Presenters: Dr Antony Makrinos
and Belinda É. S
Department: Greek and Latin
Homer is considered to be first and greatest
of the epic poets, and is best known as the
author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer’s
verses were first set down in writing around
700 BC, soon after the Greeks invented their
own alphabet. The verses had previously
been memorized and passed through the
centuries by travelling bards who earned
a living by reciting them. Whilst very little is
known about Homer’s life, there is no doubt
about the influence of his works, both on the
poets of ancient times and to the later epic
poets of Western literature. One such poet
was Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933),
who wrote 154 poems, many of which were
inspired by the Homeric epics.
Join Dr Antony Makrinos and Belinda É. S
for a short talk about Homer and Cavafy, and
to hear three of Cavafy’s poems in English
translation with a piano accompaniment.
35
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Soho Remapped:
Making Space for
Films
LGBT Histories
Panel
discussion
Time: 18:30-19:30
Films
Panel
Venue: Roberts 106 Lecture Theatre
Reception
Presenter: Marco Venturi
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Department: Gender Studies, CMII
Soho is often
envisioned, at both a national
Walking
tours
and an international level, as London’s
gay district. Its role as a space where gay
identities and communities were made has
Performances
shaped the urban experience of many LGBT
people in the city. However, following the
increasing inclusion of LGBT people in British
Q&A
society, the rise in popularity of different urban
areas, the advent of online spaces and the
soaring gentrification of the area, Soho’s role
for the LGBT community of London must
now be reconsidered. If Soho disappeared,
where would LGBT spaces move to? How
can LGBT people make sure to leave their
own mark in the district?
This session is drawn from a recent one-day
event led by Marco Venturi, a PhD student
in UCL Gender and Sexuality Studies, CMII,
and supported by JFIGS (UCL’s small grants
funding scheme for postgraduate students),
qUCL and UCL Urban Laboratory.
Walkin
Perfor
Q&A
Exhibition
36
Tuesday 24 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Films
Panel discussion
UCL Famous
Alumni
Reception
1846 Walter Bagehot
1863 Ito Hirobume
Walking tours
1868 Alexander Graham Bell
1909 Gustav Holst
You Must Read
This Book!
Time: 18:30-20:00
Venue: Roberts 106 Lecture Theatre
1913 Isaac Rosenberg
Performances
1936 Kathleen Lonsdale
1937 Francis Crick
Q&A1938 Ken Adam
1947 Eduardo Paolozzi
1948 Colin Chapman
1952 Roger Penrose
Presenter: Professor Michael Arthur
1955 David Lodge
What’s on your must-read list? Back for
a third year, this popular event is your
opportunity to hear eight panellists pitch for
the book they think you should read. With
five minutes to persuade you, time is of the
essence. Following the pitches, you’ll have
the opportunity to vote for your favourite and
be in with a chance of winning the book of
your choice!
1957 Raymond Briggs
This event will be chaired by UCL President
and Provost, Professor Michael Arthur.
1957 Andrew Davies
1964 Michael Epstein and Yvonne Barr
1965 Richard MacCormac
1967 Derek Jarman
1968 Junichiro Koizumi
1970 Patrick Head
1973 Jonathan Miller
1976 Baroness Scotland
1976 Chris Rapely
1977 Lyn Truss
1987 Rachel Whiteread
1987 Andrew Davenport
1989 Farshid Moussavi
1990 Douglas Gordan
1991 Brett Anderson
1993 Christopher Nolan
1996Coldplay
1996 Julian Baggini
2005 Christine Ohuruogu
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Programme Sessions
Wednesday 25 May 2016
“We combine our strength
across all areas of
research to tackle the
most pressing challenges
of the 21st century.”
37
Exhibition
Panel discussion
Cities After Hours
Time: 10:00-18:00
Venue: Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre
Presenters: Ruth Austin, SELCS,
Dr Matthew Beaumont, UCL English
and Dr Chris O’Rourke, CMII
As the notion of London as a 24 hour city is
debated and plans for the night tube put on
hold, we will consider the way in which cities
have been the loci of inclusion and exclusion,
policing and controlling, afterhours. The
historical relevance of the night-time curfew
will be considered in relation to contemporary
policing of night-time, addressing, for
example, the implications of the state of
emergency declared in France following the
attacks in Paris in November 2015 which
allows for the imposition of curfews by the
state. The impact on the inhabitants of the
city streets after hours will be considered
in relation to the increasing use of “hostile
architecture” in public spaces.
This is a colloquium event, with keynote
lectures by William Sharpe the author of
New York Nocturne: The City after Dark in
Literature, Painting and Photography and
Joachim Schlör, author of Nights in the Big
City: Berlin, Paris, London 1840-1930.
Panel discu
Wednesday 25 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Films
Reception
Session
Tal
Reception
Panel discussion
Walking
tours
Cultural
Walking nut
tou
Reception
Session
Talk
Performances
Exhibition
Session
Tal
Performanc
Walking nuts
tours
Cultural
Q&A
© Lander777
© Michal Osmenda
38
Films nut
Cultural
Q&A
Exhibition
Performances
Exhibition
Panel
discu
Films
Q&A
Reception
Films
Rethinking the
Teen Movie
Time: 12:15-12:45
Panel
Venue:discussion
IAS Seminar Room 20
Walking
tou
Panel discu
Presenter: Dr Frances Smith
Reception
Department: Writing Lab
How does Twilight question what it means
to be human? What does the high-school
Walking
prom tell tours
us about heteronormativity, and
the construction of femininity? How does
American Graffiti refuse the persuasive lure
of nostalgia? This session considers the
Performances
complexities in the construction of identity
in the teen movie, a genre that has often
been dismissed as ‘the odious commercial
Q&A
norm’ of Hollywood cinema. Using clips from
these and other popular films, the session
will demonstrate how the teen genre is ripe
for a reconsideration of how gender, class
and notions of the human are played out on
screen.
Dr Frances Smith is Convenor of UCL’s
Writing Lab: a free service that aims to
enhance UCL students’ writing and research
skills. She recently co-edited a volume of
original essays on Amy Heckerling (EUP,
2016). Her first monograph, Rethinking the
Teen Movie, from which this session takes its
name is due to be published in 2017.
Performanc
Reception
Q&A
Walking tou
Performanc
Q&A
Recep
Cultural
nuts
Panel discussion
© Wikimedia
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Britain’s Forgotten
Slave Owners
Time: 12:15-13:15
Venue: Malet Place Engineering Building,
1.02
Presenters: Legacies of British Slave
Ownership project team
Colonial slavery shaped modern Britain,
and we all still live with its legacies. In 1833
Parliament finally abolished slavery, and Britain
paid £20million (worth £17bn today) to 46,000
slave-owners for the loss of their ‘property’.
Records of this period remained untouched for
nearly 200 years, but UCL’s Legacies of British
Slave-Ownership project has examined them
to reveal the extent and the limits of slavery’s
role in shaping British history. This project
won the History Today Digital History Prize
2016, and was the subject of BBC2’s Britain’s
Forgotten Slave-owners in 2015, which
received the Royal Historical Society’s Public
History Prize for Broadcasting and has been
nominated for a BAFTA award for specialist
factual television (May 2016).
This session will provide insights into the
project and into putting history on television,
using excerpts from the programmes to
represent and reflect upon this controversial
period of British history – and its legacies.
39
Exhibition
Reception
Walkin
Films tours
Walking
Perfor
Panel discussion
Session
Talk
Performances
Q&A
Reception
Cultural
nuts
Q&A
Exhibition
Walking
tours
Performances
from Le Voyageur
Performances
Films
Sans Bagage
by Jean Anouilh
Q&A
Panel discussion
Time: 12:30-14:00
Reception
Venue: South Cloisters, Wilkins Building
Department: French Studies
Would you
take responsibility for your
Walking
tours
past actions if you had the opportunity to
start anew?
Performances
Almost two decades after the end of World
War One, amnesic veteran Gaston has given
up hope on regaining his memory. But his
quiet new life is disrupted by a visit to the
Q&A
Renaud family, who claim to recognise him
as their long lost son. Gradually, he acquaints
himself with the person he appears to
have been before the war and is tragically
surprised by his findings. Gaston’s story raises
fundamental questions about how we relate
to our past and the extent to which we can
choose our own identity.
Reception
Dutch Taster Session
Time: 12:45-13:30
Venue: Darwin Building B15
Presenter: Dr Christine Sas
Department: Dutch Studies
Come along for a taste of Dutch, a language
that is very close to English and arguably the
easiest one for native English speakers to
learn. You will learn about the areas where
the language is spoken, its links with English,
and have a go at some tongue twisters. By
the end of the session, you will be able to
introduce yourself and be able listen to a real
life fairy tale- and actually understand most
of it!
Reception
Session
Tal
Wednesday 25 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
© Michiel1972
40
Walking
Session tours
Talk
Walking nut
tou
Cultural
Performances
Cultural
nuts
Exhibition
Performanc
Exhibition
Q&A
Films
Q&A
Films
Panel discu
Panel discussion
Reception
Reception
Walking tou
What We Know About
Scandinavia (exhibition)
Time: 13:00-17:00
Walking
tours
Venue: Art
Museum, South Cloisters
Performanc
Department: Scandinavian Studies
Performances
Recent years have seen an increased focus
on Scandinavia. ‘Nordic Noir’, with its gloomy
landscapes and characters, now exists
alongside more traditional conceptions,
Q&A
such as the modern welfare state, trolls,
mermaids and polar bears. What is often left
out of these narratives are the connections
– academic, political, cultural – that the
Scandinavian countries have always had with
the rest of Europe and the world.
This exhibition displays a range of original
items, part of UCL’s Collections, which
provide a fascinating insight into Scandinavia
and cast light on the historical relationship
between the UK and Scandinavia from the
19th century onwards.
UCL Scandinavian Studies teach and
research the language, literature, history,
linguistics and culture of Denmark, the Faroe
Islands, Iceland, Norway and Sweden from
medieval times to the present day. The
department is also home to Norvik Press:
the UK’s only press specialising in Nordic
literature and culture.
Q&A
Reception
© Nilanjan Chowdhury
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Democratic Cultures
and Charisma
Time: 13:15-13:45
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
Presenter: Dr Lucia Michelutti
Department: Anthropology
In South Asia, ‘gangster politicians’ and
their ‘mafias’ have become objects of fear,
admiration and fantasy. The talk illustrates
what it means to conduct a collaborative
ethnography on crime and politics across
the subcontinent; it highlights how powerful
‘criminal’ heroic figures are made and
how bosses rule de facto on the ground.
Analytically it engages with classical
anthropological debates around the
figure of ‘the big man’, charisma and
democratic sovereignty.
Dr Michelutti’s main interests are in the
intersection between political and legal
anthropology and the anthropology of
religion. She is interested in the ethnographic
study of popular democracy, charismatic
politicians, law and order and ‘mafias’ as well
as cultures of authority and masculinity. She
is the convener for ‘Democratic Cultures’,
an international research programme which
envisions new anthropological strategies
to study ideas and practices of democracy
cross-culturally.
Sessio
Panel
Cultur
41
Walking
Session tours
Talk
Exhibi
Cultur
Recep
Performances
Cultural
nuts
Exhibi
Films
Walkin
Exhibition
Q&A
Films
Panel
Perfor
Films
Panel
Recep
Q&A
Panel discussion
Recep
Walkin
Reception
Time: 14:00-16:00
Walkin
Perfor
Slade Salon
Venue: IAS Common Ground,
Wilkins Building
Walking tours
Department: Slade School of Fine Art
The Slade School of Fine Art is consistently
Performances
ranked as the leading Fine Art educational
institution in the UK. This series of short
taster presentations from staff and research
Q&A
students will provide an insight into the
Slade’s wide-ranging and ongoing research
projects that explore the practice, history and
theories of contemporary art.
The Slade’s foundation in 1871 was the result
of a bequest from Felix Slade, who envisaged
a school where fine art would be studied
within a liberal arts university. Since its
inception, the Slade has been at the forefront
of developments in the field of contemporary
art and has welcomed students from all over
the world.
The Slade Degree Shows are open to the
public and take place on the following dates:
Undergraduate Show (BA/ BFA)
21-26 May 2016
Graduate Show (MA/MFA/PhD)
9-19 June 2016
Weekdays 10am- 8pm
Weekends 10am- 5pm
Perfor
Q&A
Q&A
Films discussion
Panel
Britain’s Forgotten
Slave Owners
(walking tour)
Time: 13:30-14:45
Venue: Leaving from Malet Place
Engineering Building, Malet Place
Presenters: Legacies of British Slave
Ownership project team
Join members of the Legacies of British Slaveownership project team for a walking tour
of Bloomsbury. Bloomsbury is remembered
(rightly) for its associations with progressive
causes, with science, with liberalism, with
literature and with culture. But before
Emancipation in 1838, Bloomsbury was also
the centre of British absentee slave-ownership:
in the streets around UCL lived many men and
women whose lives in London were supported
by their ownership of enslaved Africans in
the Caribbean. The signs of this today are
much less prominent than the celebration of
Bloomsbury’s rich liberal heritage. This short
tour will highlight some of the addresses
that we know were associated with slaveowners, and show how this heritage of
slave-ownership has been eclipsed by a more
comfortable and comforting history that has
been overlaid on to that of slavery.
Films discu
Panel
Wednesday 25 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
© Wikimedia
42
Panel discussion
Reception
Panel discu
Reception
Reception
Walking
tours
Reception
Walking
tou
Walking
tours
Session
Talk
Performances
Walking
tou
Session
Tal
Performanc
Performances
Cultural
nuts
Q&A
Performanc
Cultural
nut
Q&A
Exhibition
Q&A
Exhibition
Q&A
What We Know
About Scandinavia
Films
(presentations)
Panel
discussion
Time: 17:00-18:00
Films
Panel discu
Venue: IAS Common Ground,
Wilkins Building
Reception
Reception
Department: Scandinavian Studies
Recent years have seen an increased focus
Walking
tours ‘Nordic Noir’, with its gloomy Walking tou
on Scandinavia.
landscapes and characters, now exists
alongside more traditional conceptions,
Performances
such as the modern welfare state, trolls,
mermaids and polar bears. What is often left
out of these narratives are the connections
– academic, political, cultural – that the
Q&A
Scandinavian countries have always had with
the rest of Europe and the world.
Students from UCL Scandinavian Studies will
discuss their research into a range of original
items, part of UCL’s Collections, which
provide a fascinating insight into Scandinavia
and cast light on the historical relationship
between the UK and Scandinavia from the
19th century onwards.
UCL Scandinavian Studies teach and
research the language, literature, history,
linguistics and visual culture of Denmark, the
Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway and Sweden
from medieval times to the present day.
Performanc
Q&A
Exhibition
Panel discussion
Recep
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Walkin
Panel discussion
Walking
tours
Sessio
Perfor
Reception
Performances
Cultur
Q&A
Time: 17:00-18:30
© Tony Webster
Films
Reception
Walking tours
Q&A
Queer Wars
Films
Q&A
Panel
Street Art is a Period.
Period!
Time: 18:30-19:30
Presenters: Dennis Altman, Jeffrey Weeks
and Professor Henrietta Moore
Venue: Roberts 106 Lecture Theatre
and Roberts Foyer
Department: qUCL
Presenter: Dr Rafael Schacter
Why have sexuality and gender identity
have become so vexed an issue between
and within nations? How best to advocate
for change? This panel session will reflect
on more than four decades of LGBT
activism and writing about queer history,
life and politics.
Department: Anthropology
Henrietta L. Moore is Director of UCL’s
Institute for Global Prosperity, where she also
holds the Chair in Culture, Philosophy and
Design. A distinguished anthropologist and
cultural theorist, her recent work focuses on
the notion of global sustainable futures.
Jeffrey Weeks is Emeritus Professor
of Sociology at London South Bank
University and an alumnus of UCL. In 2012
he was awarded an OBE for services to
social science.
Exhibi
Performances
Venue: Roberts 106 Lecture Theatre
Dennis Altman, a Professorial Fellow in
Human Security at LaTrobe University, is
the author of thirteen books. The Bulletin
listed him as one of the 100 most influential
Australians ever, and he was appointed a
Member of the Order of Australia in 2008.
43
This session will argue that Street Art is
an artistic Period, a practice that has now
come to the end of its innovational lifespan.
Exploring the classificatory confusion that has
now enveloped it, terminological boundaries
having been modified so much from above
to now include practices radically other to
its original intent, Dr Rafael Schacter will
examine both what Street Art was and what
it is now, emphasising the inadequacy of
the term today. Coming latterly to explore
what lies at the avant-garde of contemporary
Graffiti and Street Art practice, Rafael will
establish a new term – Intermural Art – a
neologism that seeks to describe the most
progressive work emergent from this artistic
milieu today.
Dr Rafael Schacter is an anthropologist and
curator who has been undertaking research
on graffiti and street-art for over ten years.
He is currently a British Academy
Postdoctoral Fellow (2014-2017) in the
Anthropology Department.
Recep
Walkin
Perfor
Q&A
Exhibition
Reception
Reception
Cultural
nuts
44
Wednesday 25 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Cities After Hours
Film Screening:
I, Anna
Exhibition
Walking
tours
Films tou
Walking
Films
Performances
Panel
discu
Performanc
Panel discussion
Q&A
Reception
Q&A
Reception
Walking tou
Walking tours
Performanc
Performances
Q&A
Politics, Performance
and Activist Theatre
Time: 19:00-21:00
Time: 18:30-21:00
Q&A
Venue: Haldane Room, Wilkins Building
Venue: Medical Sciences, 131 AV Hill LT
Department: SELCS
Departments: SELCS, English and CMII
The event will explore connections between
theatre and activism. It will focus on the
meaning of ‘activist performance’ through
Theatre Reportage, a particular type of
performance which uses public spaces such
as town squares to combine journalism with
the presentation of true stories of people
who are denied a voice by of war, torture
or regimes. The methodology adopted in
Theatre Reportage disrupts the ordinary by
establishing a different relationship between
places and spectators. The session will also
look at the case of West Germany in 1968,
focussing on ways in which anti-authoritarian
activists made politics theatrical, exploiting
performance in a search for new, spectacular
and media-friendly forms of protest.
The film director Barnaby Southcombe will
present his feature film I, Anna (2012), a noir
thriller set in London, followed by a question
and answer session with the audience.
This screening of the film based on Elsa
Lewin’s novel of the same name, follows the
Cities After Hours colloquium which takes
place earlier in the day.
This session is part of the Café Culture series:
an ongoing programme of regular evening
events run by UCL’s School of European
Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS) to
share current research themes in an informal,
participative setting.
Exhibition
Panel discussion
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Films
Reception
Panel discussion
Walking
tours
UCL’s Academic
Structure
Reception
Performances
Lates@LAHP
UCL’s academic structure consists
of 11 faculties, each home to worldleadingtours
research, teaching and learning
Walking
Q&A
in a wide-ranging variety of fields. UCL
is London’s leading multi-disciplinary
university.
Performances
Faculties
Arts & Humanities
•
Time: 19:00-21:00
Venue: IAS Common Ground,
Wilkins Building
Presenters: Students from London Arts
& Humanities Partnership (LAHP)
Round off your day with Lates@LAHP.
Literature with a side of stand-up comedy.
History set to music. Live conversations,
readings and a pick’n’mix of performance.
PhD students of the London Arts and
Humanities Partnership (LAHP) will present
their research in ways that are unexpected,
fun and informative.
LAHP is an AHRC-funded Doctoral Training
Partnership which brings together three
leading UK research organisations: Kings
College, London (King’s), the School of
Advanced Study, University of London
(SAS) and University College London (UCL).
LAHP offers up to 80 cross-institutional
postgraduate studentships per year for PhD
research in the arts and humanities, with
a wide range of training opportunities and
activities, some in partnership with major
London cultural and business partners.
www.lahp.ac.uk @LAHP_DTP
Q&A•
The Bartlett, UCL’s Faculty
of the Built Environment
Brain Sciences
•
Engineering
•
Institute of Education
•
Laws
•
Life Sciences
•
Mathematical & Physical Sciences
•
Population Health Sciences
•
Social & Historical Sciences
•
45
46
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
UCL Institute
of Advanced Studies
UCL’s Institute of Advanced Studies in
the Humanities and Social Sciences was
founded in 2015. It is based at the heart
of UCL’s Bloomsbury Campus in a suite of
rooms in the Wilkins Building South Wing.
The IAS is a research-based community of
scholars comprising colleagues and doctoral
students from across UCL as well as visiting
fellows and research collaborators from the
UK and internationally.
The IAS offers a place where intellectual
disruption is welcome: a creative and
generative context in which to question
and dislodge habitual practices and modes
of thought. It harnesses UCL’s extensive
expertise across the humanities and social
sciences, to investigate received wisdom,
to bring the aesthetic and the political
into dialogue with one another, to foster
collaborative cutting-edge research, to
identify and address the urgent ethical and
intellectual challenges that face us today,
and to confront our responsibilities as
citizens of an increasingly contracting and
inter-connected world.
In this inaugural year, the IAS has hosted
four Junior Research Fellows examining
the themes of Conflict, Confrontation and
Justice, Health and Humanities, Identity
and Voices, and Materialities and
Technologies. The research themes for
the forthcoming year are Planetary Futures
and Sense and Sensation.
The IAS also has a rolling Visiting Research
Fellow programme, which has attracted
academics at all career stages from all over
the world to work and research at UCL.
We also provide a setting for a number of
research centres, including several under
our Area Studies Re-mapped rubric, such
as Refuge in a Moving World, as well as
the new Centre for Collective Violence,
Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Our
extensive and varied events programme
encompasses research from all departments
across the UCL Faculties of Arts &
Humanities and Social & Historical Sciences,
working together to reflect, discuss and
challenge. Join us and take part!
ucl.ac.uk/institute-of-advanced-studies
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Programme Sessions
Thursday 26 May 2016
“Inclusivity and engaging
with the community is at
the heart of all we do.”
47
Reception
Session
Talk
Treasures Day
Time: 12:00-16:00
Venue: Roberts Foyer, Roberts Building
Department: UCL Special Collections
This exhibition is a rare opportunity to view
items from UCL Library’s Special Collections
– one of the foremost university collections of
manuscripts, archives and rare books in the
UK. The Collections include fine collections
of medieval manuscripts and early printed
books, significant holdings of 18th century
works, and highly important 19th and 20th
century collections of personal papers,
archival material, and literature, including a
first edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Reception
Thursday 26 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Walking nuts
tours
Cultural
Walking
Session tou
Tal
Exhibition
Performances
Performanc
Cultural
nut
Films
Q&A
Exhibition
Q&A
Panel discussion
Films
© Tysto
48
Reception
Panel discu
Walking tours
Reception
Is Sport Really
Good for Us?
Time: 12:15-12:45
Performances
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
Walking tou
Presenter: Dr Nick Piercey
Q&A
Department: Dutch Studies
Despite recent stories reflecting the physical
dangers of sport, sporting organisations and
a range of politicians are keen to emphasise
its positive physical and mental benefits for
individuals and society as a whole. But what
are the wider cultural and social effects of
sport? Is sport a useful activity for bringing
people together, or something that blinds
us to the inherent nationalist, capitalist and
discriminatory nature of modern society? Is
sport something that encourages human
expression, or something that constricts us
within certain patterns, orders and rules?
Does it promote health or physical selfabuse? This session considers a range of
responses to these questions to reflect on the
cultural role of sport in modern society.
Performanc
Q&A
Exhibition
Reception
© Stephen McKay
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Walking Tour
of Bloomsbury
Time: 12:30-13:30
Venue: Departing from Portico front
steps, UCL main quad
UCL is located in the heart of Bloomsbury,
with its garden squares, literary connections,
and numerous cultural, educational and
health-care institutions. Join us for a tour
of UCL’s neighbourhood and find out more
about the infamous Bloomsbury Group and
the many other great minds, brave spies
and hopeless romantics who have left their
mark in this beautifully preserved quarter of
Georgian London.
This tour will be led by Authentic London
Walks.
Recep
49
Walking
Films tours
Walkin
Sessio
Session
Talk
Performances
Panel discussion
Perfor
Cultur
Cultural
nuts
Q&A
Reception
Exhibi
Q&A
Exhibition
Walking
tours
Films
Films
Performances
Panel
Panel
discussion
Q&A
Time: 13:15-13:45
Recep
Spanish Microfiction
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
Reception
Department: Spanish, Portuguese
Walkin
and Latin American Studies
Microcuentos or short-short stories, are
Walking
a populartours
feature of modern Hispanic
literature. This session will showcase the best
microcuentos – also referred to as microfiction
Performances
– written by final year undergraduates.
Students will read or recite their paragraphlong stories, and offer English translations and
commentaries about their creation.
Q&A
‘Reading and Writing Spanish Microfiction’
is a final-year module which examines the
poetics and practice of microcuentos in
modern Hispanic literature. It involves literary
analysis of particular texts, the broader
study of the genre in context, and the
composition of original Spanish prose. The
creative, compositional component reviews
and builds on the grammar and vocabulary
that students have mastered in their degree.
While refining their Spanish linguistic skills,
students have the opportunity to engage with
fundamental questions about how language
and narrative work in miniature.
Established in 1828, UCL’s Department
of Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American
Studies was home to the first chair of
Spanish in the UK.
Perfor
Q&A
Reception
How Machiavellian
was Machiavelli?
Time: 14:00-15:00
Venue: IAS Common Ground,
Wilkins Building
Presenter: Dr Andrew Campbell
Department: SELCS
The adjective Machiavellian, according to
the OED, means “cunning, scheming and
unscrupulous,” and is regularly applied
to political figures, most recently George
Osbourne. Yet can it be applied to Niccolò
Machiavelli himself? This session will look
at key passages from his most famous
work, The Prince (written in 1513), to see
whether the advice Machiavelli gave to new
rulers truly was as devious and immoral as
contemporaries believed. It will examine in
particular the classical and Renaissance
contexts of Machiavelli’s thought to
ascertain just how far he deviated from
the ethical standards of his day, and why
his name has become synonymous with
political machinations.
Reception
Session
Tal
Thursday 26 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Walking tours
Walking nut
tou
Cultural
Session
Talk
Performances
Exhibition
Performanc
Cultural nuts
Q&A
Films
Q&A
Exhibition
© Emilian Robert Vicol
© Wikimedia
50
Panel discu
Films
Reception
Panel
discussion
Time: 15:00-17:00
Walking tou
Global Informality
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 17
Reception
Department: The FRINGE Centre
Meet some of the MA students who are
mapping informality around the world. This
Walking
tours
session is part of UCL’s FRINGE Centre
project, whose aim is to create an online
encyclopaedia with entries of informal
Performances
practices across the globe. Each student
has created an image that identifies a
country/region specific practice that is
non-transparent or hidden to an outsider.
Q&A
Each of the students will be talking through
their posters, and the hidden practices they
represent. The practices represented include
mutta (informal marriage in Iran), Pripiski
(informal reporting throughout the Soviet
Union) and Pfusch (the shadow economy
in Austria).
Performanc
Q&A
Reception
Recep
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Shardology
Time: 17:15-17:45
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
Presenters: Tom Wolseley
and Andrew Harris
Departments: Geography and Urban Lab
This session will feature a screening of
preliminary footage from Vertical Horizons,
a meditative film about Western Europe’s
tallest building, The Shard. The film
juxtaposes views of The Shard from different
vantage points around South London with
contrasting narratives about the building
and the filmmaker’s own response to living
in its shadow. The film asks questions about
the relationship between the individual and
larger global dynamics that are manifesting
themselves in the changing landscapes of
capital cities like London.
This session will be led by the filmmakers
Tom Wolseley and Andrew Harris (UCL
Geography and UCL Urban Lab), who will
introduce the film and chair a discussion
about the themes it presents.
51
Walkin
Session
Talk
Performances
Sessio
Perfor
Cultural nuts
Q&A
Cultur
Q&A
Exhibition
Exhibi
© Nankai
Walking tours
Films
Films
Panel discussion
Panel
Remembrance,
Trauma, and War
Time: 17:15-18:00
Reception
Venue: IAS Common Ground
Recep
Presenter: Niall Sreenan
Walking
tours
Department:
Comparative Literature, CMII
Remembrance – the ritualised,
institutionalised act of recollection and
Performances
reflection – is often tied to material objects
– to monuments, statues, and plaques.
What is lost in rooting shared acts of
Q&A
cultural remembering to objects which are
materially inanimate, but which embody
living historical and political resonances?
And what can be gained by examining the
ritual of remembrance, especially when it is
tied to the psychical, political, and historical
consequences of war.
These questions and more are the catalyst
for this event which takes an imaginary trip
through London and back through time.
Setting off from a bandstand in Regent’s
Park, this talk weaves between the history
of terrorism in London, Mrs Dalloway, the
philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, and
concludes in UCL’s Museum Collections,
to ask how acts of remembrance can both
drown out and amplify a host of important
voices, both historical and contemporary.
Walkin
Perfor
Q&A
Exhibition
Session
Tal
Panel discu
Reception
52
Thursday 26 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
The Rt Hon
Jack Straw on
Turkey and Iraq
Walking tours
Films
Cultural
nut
Reception
Session
Talk
Performances
Exhibition
Panel discu
Walking
tou
Cultural nuts
Q&A
Films
Reception
Performanc
Exhibition
Panel discu
Walking
tou
Q&A
Films
Reception
Performanc
Panel discussion
Walking tou
Q&A
Vagabonds
of Bloomsbury
Time: 17:30-20:00
Time: 17:30-19:00
Venue: JZ Young Lecture Theatre
Presenter: Rt Hon Jack Straw
Department: School of Public Policy
Rt Hon Jack Straw was Foreign Secretary
2001 to 2006, Home Secretary 1997 to
2001, and Leader of the Commons 2006 to
2007 under Prime Minister Tony Blair. He was
Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary 2007
to 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
He served from 1979 to 2015 as Member
of Parliament for Blackburn. As Home
Secretary Jack oversaw the introduction
of the Freedom of Information Act and the
incorporation of the European Convention
on Human Rights into British law. As Foreign
Secretary he played a leading role in the
foreign policy problems arising from the 9/11
terrorist attacks in New York and the resulting
interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Jack is a Visiting Professor at UCL’s School
of Public Policy. He is co-Chairman of the
government-sponsored British-Turkish
Forum, and the annual Tatlidil conference
between the UK and Turkey. He was given
the Order of the Republic of Turkey in 2012.
Reception
Venue: Roberts Foyer
Performanc
Department: SSEES
Walking
tours
Whether East
Europeans contribute to, or only Q&A
benefit from British society is an increasingly
overheated polemic today. Roma from the
region are particularly popular targets of
Performances
scaremongering in such discourses. But
how do these “vagabonds” perceive their
own arrival in London and contribution to the
Q&A
city’s cultural landscape? What are their first
impressions of the metropolis and what is the
moment like when they first feel they have truly
arrived in the city?
Join us for an evening of exhibitions and
discussion as we explore the fiercely debated
and politicised question of migration from an
intimate, personal perspective. Robert Czibi,
a London-based Hungarian Roma artist, will
share his own stories of migration, raising the
question of what the Roma themselves have
to say about features of Roma-ness in the
21st century.
Attendees will be invited to jot down a short
message (reflections, suggestions, a piece of
advice or users’ manual to their new home)
for an imaginary East European who has
recently arrived in London.
Exhibition
Panel discussion
Exhibi
Panel
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Films
Recep
Panel discussion
Walking
tours
Panel
Walkin
Reception
Session
Talk
Performances
Recep
Sessio
Perfor
© R E Pine
Films
Reception
Walking nuts
tours
Cultural
Q&A
Neuroscience
in the Renaissance
53
Exhibition
Performances
England and Europe:
The Medieval
Films
Q&A
Perspective
Walkin
Cultur
Q&A
Exhibi
Perfor
Films
Q&A
Time: 18:00-18:30
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
Presenter: Professor Dilwyn Knox
Department: SELCS
The Renaissance of the 15th and 16th
centuries was a period of rapid development
in medical science, aided significantly by
the expertise of artists in producing detailed
anatomical representations. The anatomist
and physician Andreas Vesalius (15141564) was the author of one of the most
influential books on human anatomy: De
humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the
Human Body), which contains extraordinarily
detailed illustrations of his complete,
meticulous dissection of the human body.
This session focuses on natural philosophers’
understanding and depiction of the human
brain during the Renaissance.
Dilwyn Knox is Professor of Renaissance
Studies at UCL’s School of European
Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS).
His research interests focus on Renaissance
philosophy and learning, education,
cosmology and Copernicanism.
Panel
discussion
Time: 18:00-19:00
Panel
Venue: Roberts 106 Lecture Theatre
Reception
Departments: Scandinavian Studies
2016 marks the 1000th anniversary of the
Danish King Cnut’s accession to the throne
Walking
tours
of England
in 1016. It is also a pivotal year
for the UK’s relationship with Europe. This
session will examine the relationship between
Performances
England and Europe from the medieval
perspective, and will invite an open debate on
questions such as:
Q&A
What did immigration look like during the
medieval period? How were the Danish
settlers regarded by those already here, and
what did they contribute to the culture and
economy of Anglo-Saxon England? Can
parallels be drawn with other immigrant
groups in the UK today?
How did Cnut’s Danish government manage
the issues of immigration and England’s
relationship with Europe? How effective
were their policies? Can an understanding of
medieval kingship offer a useful contrast to
the way modern democracies engage with
these issues?
Recep
Walkin
Perfor
Q&A
Exhibition
Reception
54
Thursday 26 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Walking
Films tours
Session
Talk
Performances
Panel
discussion
Bright Futures
© Julian Osley
UCL isnuts
committed to widening access
Cultural
Q&A
Reception
Painting with
Light: The National
Temperance Hospital
Time: Departing 21:30
Venue: UCL Main Quad
Department: English
Would you like a gin and tonic with your
appendectomy? Alcohol was a key weapon
in the arsenal of 19th century doctors, until
an influential cabal of medics broke away
from the establishment to found the world’s
first temperance hospital. The National
Temperance Hospital operated on a new
set of principles, informed by science and a
growing perception of the harms of alcohol.
Largely overlooked and underused since
the turn of the century, we will illuminate the
hospital’s progressive architecture and unique
place in London history with the pixelstick,
a technique which brings history to life with
light painting. In this site-specific exploration,
we will work with members of the audience
to uniquely visualise the story of the hospital,
bringing back to life this neglected icon of
the city, and its role in our relationship to
alcohol, medicine, and the stirrings of a new
data science.
to Higher Education. We offer an
exciting range of visits, events and
programmes for Years 7-13 students
Exhibition
Walking
tours
and adult learners.
Our activities are designed to give
students a greater insight into UCL’s
Films
Performances
degree programmes and student life.
We also seek to raise the aspirations of
students from groups who are underPanel
discussion
Q&A
represented
at university.
ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students
Reception
UCL Discovery
Walking
tours is UCL’s open access
UCL Discovery
repository, showcasing and providing
access to UCL research outputs,
including journal articles, book chapters,
Performances
conference proceedings, digital web
resources and theses from all UCL
disciplines. The full text of thousands of
Q&Apublications are available to browse and
download in UCL Discovery.
discovery.ucl.ac.uk/
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
55
56
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Thinking Differently
About Africa at UCL
Despite a procession of grim media
imagery, 21st century Africa is experiencing
unprecedented economic growth and
emerging as a hub for telecommunications,
renewable energy, artistic creativity and a
host of other innovations.
UCL’s new Masters degrees in African
Studies offer a fresh perspective. With
pathways in Environment, Health and
Heritage (plus Education from 2017) our
unique programme integrates perspectives
from humanities and the natural sciences
and draws on UCL’s extensive body of
Africanist expertise. We offer a host of
extra-curricular opportunities and prepare
students for wide-ranging careers in fields
such as policy making, development,
health, business, environmental
management, museums and heritage,
media and applied research.
ucl.ac.uk/african-studies
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Programme Sessions
Friday 27 May 2016
“Our position in London
brings unique benefits,
enabling us to contribute
to everything that makes it
the world’s greatest city.”
57
Reception
Renaissance Selfies
Time: 11:00-12:00
Venue: G6 Lecture Theatre,
Institute of Archaeology
Presenter: Maria H. Loh
Department: History of Art
The rise of Michelangelo, Dürer and Titian
brought with it a new form of cultural
stardom. These Renaissance artists were
the first whose faces became almost as
recognisable as their art. Michelangelo was
one of the biggest of these stars, but being
Michelangelo was no easy thing: he was
stalked by fans, lauded and lambasted by
critics, and depicted in unauthorized portraits.
This session traces the process by which
artists such as Michelangelo, Dürer, and
Titian became early modern celebrities.
Maria H. Loh is a Reader in History of Art at
UCL. Her book Still Lives: Death, Desire, and
the Portrait of the Old Master focuses on the
perfidious nature of portraits, the perishable
body of the artist, and the multiple lives that
rise from the ashes of the dead.
UCL History of Art is one of the most
dynamic centres for the study of art history
and visual cultures in the world.
Reception
Friday 27 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
© Jörg Bittner Unna
58
Walking tours
Walking
Session tou
Tal
Session
Talk
Performances
Performanc
Cultural
nut
Cultural nuts
Q&A
Exhibition
Q&A
Exhibition
Films
Films
Panel discu
Panel discussion
Reception
A Journey to the
Centre of Sentences
Time: 12:15-12:45
Reception
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
Walking tou
Presenter: Dr Vieri Samek-Lodovici
Walking
tours
Department:
Italian
Sometimes, trying to learn a foreign language
is like trying to learn a foreign language.
Performances
Don’t worry: help is at hand. Dr Vieri SamekLodovici will show how all languages are
identical in their fundamental structures
and that these structures hold across all
Q&A
languages. Using examples from English and
Italian, and treating sentences like chemical
formulas, this demonstration will reveal
that while the words may be different, the
fundamental structures are common. It’s
counter-intuitive when we consider position
and intonation, but you’ll be delighted by your
innate knowledge of syntactical structures.
UCL was the first university in the UK to
offer Italian Studies. The department is
housed within the School of European
Languages, Culture & Society and its focus
is on understanding the richness of Italian
culture within a global context. Students
are encouraged to discover and explore the
language and culture through the study of a
wide range of texts taught in Italian – literary,
visual and historical.
Performanc
Q&A
Reception
Recep
The Ethics
of Fighting ISIS
Time: 13:00-14:00
Venue: IAS Seminar Room 20
Presenter: Dr Jeffrey Howard
Department: Political Science
In the wake of the recent attacks in Brussels,
citizens of Western democracies are
demanding that their governments take
aggressive action to stop terrorism. At
the same time, citizens balked at Donald
Trump’s recent suggestion that the families
of suspected terrorists ought to be killed.
These reactions betray a divided mind on the
issue of preventing terror attacks. On the one
hand, we want the state to do whatever it
takes to keep us safe. On the other hand, we
recognize that there are certain moral limits to
what it may do – that even if killing terrorists’
children made us safer, we shouldn’t do
it. This session will take the audience on a
philosophical exploration of some of the most
fraught moral questions of our time. When, if
ever, is it morally acceptable to torture terror
suspects? How much surveillance is too
much? And what is the dividing line between
free speech, on the one hand, and incitement
to terrorism, on the other?
Dr Jeffrey Howard is a lecturer in UCL’s
combined Department of Political Science
and School of Public Policy.
59
Walking tours
Walkin
Session
Talk
Performances
Sessio
Perfor
Cultural nuts
Q&A
Cultur
Q&A
Exhibition
© The White House
© CPO Rulon Rose
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Films
Feeling SelfConscious:
Panel discussion
Me and My Selfie
Reception
Time: 14:00-15:00
Exhibi
Films
Panel
Recep
Venue: Gordon House 106
Walking
Presenter:tours
Professor Lucy O’Brien
Walkin
Department: Philosophy
Starting with the invention of the mirror,
Performances
human beings have found more and more
ingenious ways of seeing themselves as
others do. The development of smart phones,
Q&A
combined with the use of social media, have
meant that we see ourselves from the outside
more than at any other time in our history. In
this session we will consider how we might
think about the kind of self-consciousness
involved, and will talk about what the costs
and benefits we might expect to flow from
the ability to be able to present ourselves to
ourselves in these ways.
Lucy O’Brien is a Professor of Philosophy
at UCL. She works in the philosophy of
mind and action, focussing in particular on
self-consciousness and self-knowledge. She
is currently working on interpersonal, rather
than personal, self-consciousness and the
nature of the self-conscious emotions.
Perfor
Q&A
Reception
Session
Talk
Panel discussion
Friday 27 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Cultural
nuts
Reception
Walking tou
Exhibition
Walking
tours
Session
Tal
Performanc
Films
Session
Talk
Performances
Cultural nut
Q&A
Panel discussion
Cultural
nuts
Q&A
Shakespeare in the
UCL Art Collections
Time: 13:00-17:00
Venue: UCL Art Museum
Presenters: Professor Helen Hackett
and Karen Hearn
Department: English
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and
women merely players; They have their exits
and their entrances, And one man in his time
plays many parts.” (As You Like It).
2016 marks the 400th anniversary of William
Shakespeare’s death, and this session offers
a unique opportunity to view a selection from
UCL Art Museum’s collection of original prints
and drawings inspired by, or related to, the
work of William Shakespeare and Elizabethan
England. Guided by Professor Helen Hackett
from UCL English and distinguished art
historian Karen Hearn, visit UCL Art Museum
to explore and celebrate Shakespeare’s
extraordinary cultural legacy.
UCL Art Museum’s collections, founded in
1847, contain over 10,000 objects including
paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture
dating from 1490 to the present day.
© Wikimedia
60
Exhibition
Exhibition
Reception
Films
Walking
Films tours
Panel discu
Beatrix Potter’s
London
Time: 12:30-13:15
Performances
Panel
Venue:discussion
G6 Lecture Theatre,
Reception
Institute of Archaeology
Presenters: Beatrix Potter Society
Q&A
Reception
Beatrix Potter is known affectionately to
millions as the literary mother of Peter Rabbit,
Jemima Puddleduck
and Mrs Tiggywinkle.
Walking
tours
2016 marks the 150th anniversary of Beatrix
Potter’s birth, and she remains one of the
world’s most popular children’s authors. Her
Performances
books have never been out of print, and still
sell over two million copies every year.
But what do we know of Beatrix Potter’s life
Q&A
and inspirations? The recent film, Miss Potter,
focused on her experiences in the Lake
District, but she was born and lived for many
years in London. The Tale of Peter Rabbit
and all her other books were published by
Frederick Warne & Co, based in Bedford
Street, close to UCL’s campus.
Join us to discover how what London looked
like during Beatrix’s lifetime, how it was
changing, and how the city shaped and
inspired her life and work. This illustrated talk
will be delivered by one of the founders of
The Beatrix Potter Society.
Walking tou
Performanc
Q&A
Exhibition
Reception
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
The State of the
Nation Novel:
John Lanchester
and Jonathan Coe
Exhibi
Recep
61
Films tours
Walking
Films
Walkin
Panel
discussion
Performances
Panel
Perfor
Reception
Q&A
Recep
Q&A
Walking tours
Walkin
Performances
Perfor
The Black Metic
Experience:
Q&A
Nick Makoha
and Kayo Chingonyi
Time: 13:00-14:00
Time: 14:00-15:00
Venue: Darwin Lecture Theatre
Venue: Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre
Presenters: John Lanchester
and Jonathan Coe
Presenters: Nick Makoha
and Kayo Chingonyi
Department: English
Department: English
Join us in a rare conversation with two of
the funniest and most acclaimed British
novelists, as they read from, discuss, and
take questions about their most recent stateof-the-nation novels.
Nick Makoha, Creative Entrepreneur-inResidence at Goldsmiths, University of
London, is working to create an in-depth
online digital archive of Black Metic Poets.
The term ‘Metic’, first used by T S Eliot,
translates as foreigners or resident aliens
whose allegiances are split between their
homeland and their new country. Kayo
Chingonyi is a writer, editor, events producer,
and creative writing tutor. His poems have
been published in a range of magazines and
anthologies and in a debut pamphlet entitled
Some Bright Elegance (Salt Publishing,
2012). He represented Zambia at Poetry
Parnassus, and is a fellow of the Complete
Works programme for diversity in British
Poetry. Kayo is currently working on his first
full-length collection and a new pamphlet was
recently published by the African Poetry Book
Fund, in collaboration with Brooklyn-based
independent publisher Akashic Books.
John Lanchester’s books include Capital, a
novel, which was made into a TV series by
BBC One, and the non-fiction work How to
Speak Money.
Jonathan Coe is the author of eleven novels,
all published by Penguin, which include the
highly acclaimed bestsellers What a Carve
Up!, The House of Sleep, and The Rotters’
Club. His most recent novel is Number 11.
Q&A
Exhibition
Reception
Reception
Friday 27 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Films tours
Walking
Walking tou
Panel
discussion
Performances
Session
Tal
Performanc
Reception
Q&A
Cultural nut
Q&A
Walking tours
Long-Form Essays
in a Digital Age
© Wikimedia
62
Performances
Films
Q&A
Panel discu
Henry James
in London Town
Time: 15:00-16:00
Time: 16:15-16:45
Venue: Darwin Lecture Theatre
Venue: Darwin Building B15
Presenters: Mary-Kay Wilmers,
Andrew O’Hagan and Ben Eastham
Presenter: Professor Philip Horne
Department: English
This is a rare and exciting opportunity to hear
Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the London
Review of Books, discuss the role of long-form
essays with one of the UK’s most established
essayists – Andrew O’Hagan. Joining
Mary-Kay and Andrew in the discussion is
Ben Eastham, co-founder and editor of the
quarterly arts journal, The White Review.
Mary-Kay Wilmers has been Editor of the
London Review of Books since 1992, which
she co-founded in 1979, with Karl Miller
(UCL English). She is soon to be played by
Helena Bonham Carter in Nick Hornby’s BBC
adaptation of Love, Nina.
Andrew O’Hagan is the LRB’s editor-at-large.
His most recent novel, The Illuminations
(2015), was longlisted for the Man Booker
Prize and is being turned into a drama serial
for the BBC.
Ben Eastham is co-founder and editor of
The White Review and assistant editor at artagenda. He is the co-author of My Life as a
Work of Art, due out in September.
Exhibition
Department: English
Henry James, born in New York in 1843,
died in Chelsea 100 years ago. He was a
great London writer, and many of his novels
and tales are set here – but he never wrote
a book about London. He seriously meant
to, however, towards the end of his life – he
signed a contract for a large volume called
London Town, and started work on it, reading
and researching, and in particular walking
London’s streets with notebook and pencil in
hand, jotting things down as he saw them or
thought them.
This illustrated session will follow James
on some of his excursions – near Trafalgar
Square, on the river, through the City with its
Wren churches – and will try to call up the
ghost of this book that might have been.
Reception
Walking tou
Performanc
Q&A
Exhibition
Panel discussion
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Exhibi
Recep
63
Films
Reception
Films
Walkin
Panel discussion
Walking
tours
Panel
Perfor
Reception
Performances
Recep
Q&A
Walking tours
Q&A
Walkin
Performances
Perfor
Poets in the City:
Writing from Memory
Sarah Howe,
and First Story
Q&A
Peter Gizzi, Mark Ford National Writing
Competition Awards
Time: 17:00-18:00
Venue: Chadwick B05
Presenters: Sarah Howe, Peter Gizzi
and Mark Ford
Department: English
This promises to be an unforgettable
sequence of readings from three of the most
highly-acclaimed and strikingly different voices
in contemporary poetry. The session will
include readings, interspersed with anecdotes,
discussion, and a Q&A session.
Sarah Howe is a poet, an editor, and a
Leverhulme Fellow at UCL. Her first book,
Loop of Jade, won the T.S. Eliot Prize and The
Sunday Times / PFD Young Writer of the Year
Award, and was shortlisted for the Forward
Prize for Best First Collection.
Peter Gizzi is a poet, essayist, editor and
teacher. Formerly poetry editor at The Nation,
he has taught at Brown University, the University
of California, the University of Massachusetts,
and the University of Cambridge.
Mark Ford is a poet and Head of the English
Department at UCL. His most recent collection
of poetry is Six Children and Thomas Hardy:
Half a Londoner will be published in October.
Time: 18:00-19:00
Venue: Darwin Lecture Theatre
Presenters: Helen Mort, Malika Booker
and Andrew O’Hagan
Department: English
In celebration of their partnership with UCL,
First Story are holding their National Writing
Competition Awards and Prize Giving
ceremony at UCL. First Story brings talented,
professional writers into secondary schools
serving low-income communities to work
with teachers and students to foster creativity
and communication skills. The ceremony
begins with a panel discussion among three
writers about the relationship between writing
and memory. Helen Mort is a poet. Her first
collection, Division Street, was shortlisted
for the Costa Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize.
Andrew O’Hagan is the LRB’s editor-at-large.
His most recent novel, The Illuminations
(2015), was longlisted for the Man Booker
Prize and is being turned into a drama serial
for the BBC. Malika Booker is a writer, poet,
theatre maker, multi-disciplinary artist, and
creative writing lecturer. Her first poetry
collection is Pepper Seed. She is Chair of
judges for the 2016 Forward Prizes for Poetry.
Q&A
Exhibition
Panel discussion
Reception
Friday 27 May 2016
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Films
Reception
Walking tou
Panel discussion
Walking
tours
Session
Tal
Performanc
Reception
Performances
Walking tours
Q&A
Lates@LAHP
Time: 19:00-21:00
© The House of St Barnabas
64
Performances
Tom McCarthy:
Space, Data and
Q&A
the Death Drive
Cultural nut
Q&A
Exhibition
Films
Panel discu
Venue: Bloomsbury Studio
Presenters: Students from London Arts
& Humanities Partnership (LAHP)
Round off your day with Lates@LAHP.
Literature with a side of stand-up comedy.
History set to music. Live conversations,
readings and a pick’n’mix of performance.
PhD students of the London Arts and
Humanities Partnership (LAHP) will present
their research in ways that are unexpected,
fun and informative.
LAHP is an AHRC-funded Doctoral Training
Partnership which brings together three
leading UK research organisations: Kings
College, London (King’s), the School of
Advanced Study, University of London
(SAS) and University College London (UCL).
LAHP offers up to 80 cross-institutional
postgraduate studentships per year for PhD
research in the arts and humanities, with
a wide range of training opportunities and
activities, some in partnership with major
London cultural and business partners.
www.lahp.ac.uk @LAHP_DTP
Time: 19:30-20:00
Venue: The House of St Barnabas,
1 Greek Street, Soho Square
Presenters: Tom McCarthy
and Julia Jordan
Department: English
This is a wonderful opportunity to hear Tom
McCarthy in conversation with Julia Jordan
(UCL English). They will discuss urban space
and Tom’s latest novel, Satin Island, amongst
other things.
Tom McCarthy is a novelist and artist whose
first two novels, Remainder and Men In
Space, were published internationally to
much acclaim. Remainder, winner of the
Believer Prize 2008, has been adapted
for film by FILM 4, and his novel C was
shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2010
and went on to win the Win WindhamCampbell award in 2013. His latest novel,
2015’s Satin Island, was shortlisted for the
Man Booker Prize and for the Goldsmith
Prize. Tom is also known for the reports,
manifestos and media interventions that
he has made as General Secretary of the
International Necronautical Society (INS), a
semi-fictitious avant-garde network.
Reception
Walking tou
Performanc
Q&A
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
65
Health Humanities at UCL
UCL Health Humanities Centre is
internationally renowned for its research and
teaching on the ethical, social and historical
dimensions of health and medicine. It
explores health, illness and wellbeing
across disciplinary boundaries, combining
perspectives from (amongst others)
anthropology, history, philosophy, sociology,
science and technology studies, global
health, literature and film studies.
Health Humanities MA
This unique programme considers health
and illness in their historical, social and
ethical contexts. A range of humanities and
social sciences methods are applied to the
study of biomedicine, clinical practice and
the politics of health care. Students will
also explore accounts of health and illness,
and their portrayal in literature, film and
contemporary culture.
Philosophy, Politics and Economics
of Health MA
This programme explores the central
ethical, economic and political problems
facing health policy in the UK and globally,
especially in relation to social justice.
You’ll study relevant areas of moral and
political theory, health economics, and
political and historical analysis, and come
to a broad understanding of the foundations
of health policy.
ucl.ac.uk/health-humanities
66
Further Information
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
While you’re here:
Ten places to visit
in and around UCL
Petrie Museum
Petrie Museum
Slade Degree Shows
Founded in 1892, the Petrie Museum
houses an estimated 80,000 objects,
making it one of the greatest collections
of Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology in
the world. It illustrates life in the Nile Valley
from prehistory through the time of the
pharaohs, the Ptolemaic, Roman and
Coptic periods to the Islamic period.
Admission to the Museum is free of charge,
and it is open to the public from Tuesdays
to Saturdays 13.00-17.00. Malet Place,
Bloomsbury Campus.
The Slade School of Fine Art was founded
in 1871 and has been at the forefront of
developments in the field of contemporary
art. Slade alumni go on to achieve a high
level of international recognition and
success and account for many leading
figures in the international art world,
including a large number of Turner Prize
winners and nominees. The annual Slade
Degree Shows, showcasing artworks by
graduating students from the UCL Slade
School of Fine Art, will take place across
May and June at the Slade School of Fine
Art. You can view the work of the Slade’s
graduating BA/BFA students from 10am to
8pm on Monday 23 – Thursday 26 May.
ucl.ac.uk/museums/petrie
Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection is the free visitor
destination for the incurably curious.
Located at 183 Euston Road, London, it
explores the connections between medicine,
life and art in the past, present and future.
The venue offers visitors contemporary and
historic exhibitions and collections, lively
public events, and the world-renowned
Wellcome Library. There’s a café, a
restaurant and a shop on site.
wellcomecollection.org
ucl.ac.uk/slade
Print Room Café
The Print Room Café is in the centre of the
UCL campus, and serves a range of snacks,
meals and Fairtrade teas & coffees. Its
courtyard is a popular place to relax and
take in the atmosphere of campus.
uclu.org/venues/print-room-café
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Print Room Café
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Further Information
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
steps below the dome are statues of the
iconic athletes Capitoline Antinous and
Discophorus. The quadrangle, known as
the Quad, is an enclosed square, with two
decommissioned astronomy observatories
forming the main entrance to UCL from
Gower Street.
Bloomsbury Farmers’ Market
Grant Museum
Grant Museum
The Grant Museum of Zoology is the only
remaining university zoological museum
in London. It houses around 68,000
specimens, covering the whole Animal
Kingdom. Founded in 1828 as a teaching
collection, the Grant is packed full of
skeletons, mounted animals and specimens
preserved in fluid. Many of the species are
now endangered or extinct including the
Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine, the Quagga,
and the Dodo. Free Admission, Monday to
Saturday, 13:00-17:00.
ucl.ac.uk/museums/zoology
Wilkins Building and Portico
UCL’s main building, known as the Octagon
or Wilkins Building, was designed in 1827
by the architect William Wilkins, who also
designed the National Gallery. At the
centrepiece of this Grade 1 listed building
is an ornate dome, and positioned on the
If you’re here on Thursday, the weekly
farmers’ market is a great place to get a
bite to eat in vibrant Torrington Square.
There’s a variety of fresh produce and hot
lunch options available from a wide range
of local producers: hog roast rolls, paella,
lasagne and baguettes. There’s also a
tempting variety of cakes, pasties, cheeses,
preserves, sauces, pickles to take home.
Thursdays 09:00-14:00, Torrington Square.
lfm.org.uk/markets/bloomsbury
Tavistock Square
Unlike other parts of Bloomsbury, the land
that became Tavistock Square was still
open fields at the end of the eighteenth
century. Indeed, this area was well–known
as a marsh, a place to hunt ducks and
to fight illegal duels. The square’s literary
connections began in 1851, when Charles
Dickens moved into the north–eastern
corner of the square. Here he wrote Bleak
House, Little Dorrit, Hard Times and A Tale
of Two Cities. In 1924 Virginia and Leonard
Woolf took a house at number 52. From
the basement of their house they ran the
Hogarth Press, publishing Virginia’s novels
and some of the first English translations of
Sigmund Freud’s works. The centrepiece of
the garden is a statue to Mahatma Gandhi
which was installed in 1968. There are also
busts of Virginia Woolf and Dame Louisa
Aldrich-Blake as well as a cherry tree
planted in 1967 in memory of the victims of
the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
69
John Flaxman, UCL Art Museum
Tavistock Square Gardens
Art Museum
UCL Art Museum’s collections contain
over 10,000 objects, including paintings,
drawings, prints and sculpture dating from
1490 to the present day. Works on paper
are housed in a traditional Print Room
setting in the museum, and paintings and
sculpture are displayed in public rooms
around the campus. The collection was
founded in 1847 with a gift of the sculpture
models and drawings of the Neo-classical
artist John Flaxman. Recent collaborative
exhibitions have focused on mapping the
presence of black artists and models in
Bloomsbury during the interwar period, the
relation between word and image inspired
by Albrecht Dürer’s Apocalypse series,
explorations of London’s urban landscapes
over time, and fame and celebrity
interrogated through representations of
Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher and
jurist whose doctrine of Utilitarianism
has inspired many great thinkers. When
he died in 1832 he left his body to be
publicly dissected by his friend, Dr Thomas
Southwood Smith, and asked that it be
preserved as an ‘auto-icon’. Jeremy the
auto-icon came to the College in 1850, and
has been cared for by UCL ever since.
8am-6pm, Monday – Friday, Wilkins Building
(South Cloisters).
ucl.ac.uk/museums/uclart
ucl.ac.uk/museums/jeremy-bentham
Jeremy Bentham Auto-Icon
Jeremy Bentham Auto-Icon
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Further Information
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
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Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
Getting Here
ucl.ac.uk/maps
1. Wilkins Building
Closest rail/tube stations
2.Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre
Euston Square
(Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan
and Circle lines)
3. Pearson Building
4.Institute of Archaeology
5.Darwin Building
6.Roberts Building
Warren Street
(Northern and Victoria lines)
Euston
(National Rail, Northern and Victoria lines)
Russell Square
(Piccadilly line)
Transport for London Journey Planner:
tfl.gov.uk
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Further Information
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
Sessions Index
Monday
12:00-14:00: Moving Stonehenge
12:30-13:15: Why We Post: Artistic
Impressions of Ethnography
12:15-12:45: The London Department Store:
A Modernist Romance
12:30-14:00: Performances from Dyskolos
(The Grouch)
12:30-13:30: Why We Post: Exhibition Tour
12:45-13:30: Accountability: From Chilcot to
Domesday
12:30-13:30: Walking Tour of Bloomsbury
12:45-13:30: Visualizing Time
13:00-14:00: Edward Lear and the
Queerness of Nonsense Poetry
13:15-13:45: What Makes Us Human?
13:00-16:30: Revolution Under a King
14:00-15:00: Galileo: What was his Crime?
13:15-13:45: Does Torture Prevention Work?
17:15-1745: The Politics of Laziness
14:00-15:00: Taking the Weather With You
18:00-18:30: Russia’s New Rich and their
Attitudes to the West
15:00-16:00: What’s in an Exhibition?
18:00-19:00: Why We Post:
The Anthropology of Social Media
18:30-20:00: The EU Referendum:
Cultural Perspectives
17:15-17:45: Star Wars in the Classroom
18:00-18:30: Are Humans Naturally
Monogamous?
18:00-19:00: Ancient Rome in Silent Cinema
19:00-20:00: “Food First And Morals After”:
Reading Food and Drink in German Culture
18:00-19:30: What is Cultural Authenticity?
19:00-21:00: Translating Culture
18:00-19:00: The Right to Health/Madness
in Society
Tuesday
10:00-15:30: Behind the Mask
11:30-13:30: Adaptation: Creative Writing
Workshop for Film, Theatre and Other
Performance Contexts
12:15-13:00: Urban Wellbeing:
How to Live a Paleolithically-Correct Life
in a 21st Century City
12:15-12:45: The Battle for the US
Constitution
18:00-19:00: Venice: Dead or Alive?
18:00-19:30: Homer’s Poetic Legacy
18:30-19:30: Soho Remapped: Making
Space for LGBT Histories
18:30-20:00: You Must Read This Book!
Wednesday
10:00-18:00: Cities After Hours
12:15-12:45: Rethinking The Teen Movie
12:15-13:15: Britain’s Forgotten Slave
Owners
Book online: ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture
12:30-14:00: Le Voyageur Sans Bagage
by Jean Anouilh
17:30-20:00: Vagabonds of Bloomsbury
12:45-13:30: Dutch Taster Session
18:00-18:30: Neuroscience in the
Renaissance
13:00-17:00: What We Know About
Scandinavia (exhibition)
18:00-19:00: England and Europe:
The Medieval Perspective
13:15-13:45: Democratic Cultures
and Charisma:
21:30 – late: Painting with Light:
The National Temperance Hospital
13:30-14:45: Britain’s Forgotten Slave
Owners (walking tour)
Friday
14:00-16:00: Slade Salon
17:00-18:00: What We Know About
Scandinavia (presentations and drinks
reception)
73
11:00-12:00: Renaissance Selfies
12:15-12:45: A Journey to the Centre
of Sentences
12:30-13:15: Beatrix Potter’s London
17:00-18:30: Queer Wars
13:00-14:00: The Ethics of Fighting ISIS
18:30-19:30: Street Art is a Period. Period!
13:00-14:00: The State of the Nation Novel
(One Day in the City)
18:30-21:00: Cities After Hours Film
Screening: I, Anna
19:00-21:00: Politics, Performance
and Activist Theatre
19:00-21:00: Lates@LAHP 1
Thursday
12:00-16:00: Treasures Day
12:15-12:45: Is Sport Really Good for Us?
12:30-13:30: Walking Tour of Bloomsbury
13:15-13:45: Spanish Microfiction
14:00-15:00: How Machiavellian Was
Machiavelli?
15:00-17:00: Global Informality
17:15-17:45: Shardology
17:15-18:00: Remembrance, Trauma,
and War
17:30-19:00: The Rt Hon Jack Straw on
Turkey and Iraq
13:00-17:00: Shakespeare in the UCL Art
Collections
14:00-15:00: Feeling Self-Conscious:
Me and my Selfie
14:00-15:00: The Black Metic Experience:
Nick Makoha and Kayo Chingonyi in
Conversation (One Day in the City)
15:00-16:00: Long-Form Essays in a Digital
Age (One Day in the City)
16:15-16:45: Henry James in London Town
17:00-18:00: Poets in the City
(One Day in the City)
18:00-19:00: Writing from Memory/First
Story National Writing Competition
(One Day in the City)
19:00-21:00: Lates@LAHP 2
19:30-22:00: Tom McCarthy: Space, Data,
and the Death Drive (One Day in the City)
74
UCL Festival of Culture 2016
UCL is London’s Global University: a
diverse intellectual community, engaged with
the wider world and committed to changing it
for the better; recognised for our radical and
critical thinking and its widespread influence;
with an outstanding ability to integrate our
education, research, innovation and enterprise
for the long-term benefit of humanity.
UCL Festival of Culture
23 – 27 May 2016
Over 80 free events celebrating
the breadth and vitality of the arts,
humanities and social sciences at UCL,
London’s Global University.
ucl.ac.uk/festival-of-culture