InHabit: People, Places and Possessions

The TORCH Crisis, Extremes, and Apocalypse network hosted a talk on 'Terminus or Renovation? Francis Bacon and Crisis in Early Modern Knowledge' with Dr Richard Serjeantson (University of Cambridge)

Francis Bacon was by no means alone in his conviction that his age was experiencing a crisis in the ways in which it acquired knowledge, and in the kinds of knowledge that it valued. But he was one of the earliest and most trenchant exponents of this view in the seventeenth century, above all in his Instauratio Magna ('Great Renovation’) of 1620, with its famous frontispiece depicting a ship successfully transnavigating the extremes of the ancient world. This paper will consider the significance of the early-modern crisis of knowledge that Bacon articulated, and will assess the extent to which he saw it in apocalyptic terms. In doing so it will also offer a new suggestion about how Bacon arrived at his vision of renewal in the sciences.

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Department: The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Date Added: 10/05/2017

Duration: 00:44:03

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Ernst Kantorowicz on Methods and Postage Stamps

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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The TORCH Crisis, Extremes, and Apocalypse network hosted a talk on ''Ernst Kantorowicz on Methods and Postage Stamps' given by Professor Robert Lerner (Northwestern)

The talk will treat two unpublished sources: Kantorowicz's notes for his "Methods" course for graduate students at Berkeley, 1948-1950, and his paper, "Postal Stamps and the Historian." The notes give new insights into the nearly inebriating range of thought of a great historian and polymath; the paper displays the great historian at work in an unsuspected direction.

Professor Lerner will also be discussing his recent biography of Ernst Kantorowicz.

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Department: The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Date Added: 10/05/2017

Duration: 00:48:48

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The Rise of Endless War

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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The TORCH Crisis, Extremes, and Apocalypse network hosted a talk on 'The Rise of Endless War' with Professor Samuel Moyn (Harvard University).

In this talk Samuel Moyn will discuss some alternatives within the reform of warfare and the path we have taken in the past few decades – suggesting that it may have been a mistake to opt to humanize war, rather than pacify the world. Professor Moyn also discusses ideas for future work.

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Department: The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Date Added: 10/05/2017

Duration: 00:42:51

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Making a Contemporary Opera: in conversation with Michael Burden

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Opera Studies

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In this episode Katie talks in depth about her experiences of creating new and contemporary opera.

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Opera Studies

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Katie Mitchell

Michael Burden

Department: New College

Date Added: 10/05/2017

Duration: 01:01:05

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Exploring the very early universe with gravitational waves

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Theoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma

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John March-Russell gives a talk about gravitational wave signals of stringy physics, a ‘soundscape’ connected to the landscape of string vacua.

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Theoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma

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Department: Department of Physics

Date Added: 10/05/2017

Duration: 00:46:56

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Robespierre and the Politicians' Terror

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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The TORCH Crisis, Extremes, and Apocalypse network hosted a talk on 'Robespierre and the Politicians’ Terror' with Marisa Linton (Kingston University).

Over 220 years since his death, Maximilien Robespierre continues to generate controversy, above all for his role in the French Revolutionary Terror. Historians have repeatedly turned to the problem of Robespierre’s individual personality and motivation as a means to explain the Terror. This talk contributes to the debate by situating Robespierre’s ideas, motives and actions within the wider context of the ‘politicians’ terror’, which encompassed deputies in the National Convention. The ‘politicians’ terror’ is a subject I identified and explored in my latest book, Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship and Authenticity in the French Revolution. This was the terror that revolutionary leaders meted out to one another. The revolutionary leaders were themselves ‘subject to terror’, both as laws to which they themselves were subject, and as the emotion of terror. By examining Robespierre’s political choices in terms of the collective revolutionary experience we can throw light on the crisis of the French Revolution. Many historians have sought answers in Robespierre’s individual personality and psychological make-up. In this paper I approach the subject from a different angle, by situating Robespierre’s choices within the wider context of the deputies of the National Convention.

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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Marisa Linton

Keywords

robespierre

french revolution

Department: The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)

Date Added: 10/05/2017

Duration: 01:10:03

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The birth of gravitational wave astronomy

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Theoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma

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Subir Sarkar reviews the detection of the ‘chirrup’ signal from a pair of merging massive black holes by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, as well as subsequent experimental developments.

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Theoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma

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Keywords

Department: Department of Physics

Date Added: 10/05/2017

Duration: 00:42:46

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From action at a distance to gravitational waves

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Theoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma

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James Binney gives a talk about the mathematics that describe Gravitational waves.

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Theoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma

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James Binney

Keywords

Physics

gravitation

Department: Department of Physics

Date Added: 10/05/2017

Duration: 00:46:40

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Dystopia Today

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TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities

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The TORCH Crisis, Extremes, and Apocalyse network have hosted an event on 'Dystopia Today' with Greg Claeys (Royal Holloway, University of London).

What does it mean to say, as so many now do, that we live in "dystopian" times? With widespread anxiety introduced by Brexit, the Trump presidency, and comparisons with Hitler, and the 1930s, and environmental catastrophe looming, are we on the cusp of a new dystopia? Gregory Claeys considers what dystopia means to us, how the literary tradition helps us to engage with it, and what to do about it.

Greg Claeys is the author of the recently published Dystopia: A Natural History.