Department for Continuing Education

Oxford was one of the pioneers of the University Extension movement in the United Kingdom, and we still retain our original mission of making the scholarship of the University accessible to wider audiences. In recent years the Department has grown very considerably, and now every year more than 15,000 people join one or more of our courses. Our students may be members of the public who wish to study a subject out of general interest or for personal satisfaction, members of professional groups or business organisations who wish to update their professional knowledge and skills, or participants in our increasingly large number of courses for international groups. Most of our longer courses now lead to a University award or other forms of credit but the large number of short courses on offer may be taken by those who are less interested in obtaining further qualifications. Courses last from one day to several weeks; the residential courses are held in Oxford but other part-time courses are also held in a large number of other centres.

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Title	Description	People	Date
Politics and Global Health: The Need for a New, Resilient Architecture	Mitchell Warren will provide updates on AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition's (AVAC) court challenge against the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID and offer his insights into what a more resilient global health funding infrastructure could look like	Mitchell Warren	13 May, 2025
System Entrepreneurship: Lessons from Rwanda	Educating future leaders in Africa and driving transformational impact on African economies.	Peter Drobac	31 March, 2025
Reimagining Humanity in the Age of Technology	This lecture will provide a brief journey into the future, providing projections for how our lives will change as technological innovations continue to accelerat	Scott Clarke	19 December, 2024
Consciousness in Humans and in Other Things	How do conscious experiences arise from brains and bodies? What is the ‘self’? Anil Seth sheds light on these questions through the idea of the brain as an embodied ‘prediction machine’. The Charles Simonyi Lecture 2024.	Anil Seth, Marcus du Sautoy	7 November, 2024
Why digital health and care interventions fail and what we can do about it	Unfortunately, many digital health interventions fail to realize their potential. Although there is no recipe for success, there are ways in which developers, implementers, and adopters can help to maximize successful implementation, adoption, and scaling	Professor Kathrin Cresswell	25 October, 2024
The changing dynamics of mixed health systems in low and middle-income countries (LMIC)	Professor Kabir Sheikh discusses how social trends shape health systems in low- and middle-income countries, focusing on the complex mix of public-private, traditional-modern, and digital-nondigital axes.	Kabir Sheikh	26 June, 2024
Healthcare Within a Humanitarian Crisis: Experiences from Gaza	Mr Khaled Dawas shares his recent experiences of working in Gaza as a surgeon providing emergency care.	Khaled Dawas, Brenda Kelly, Jane Crawley	29 April, 2024
Politics, Innovation and Change: The Path to Net Zero	Professor Nick Watts explores net zero in the context of health care.	Nick Watts	3 April, 2024
Social enterprisers and their role in addressing future challenges	Adopting a critical perspective, Dr Orsolya Ihasz outlines what makes social enterprisers valuable, and how could they contribute to the creation of important services and products to marginalised and disenfranchised communities.	Orsolya Ihasz	12 December, 2023
Health Technology Assessment (HTA) in Resource-Constrained Settings: A Case Study of Ghana	Dr Brian Adu Asare discusses Health Technology Assessment (HTA) using Ghana as a case study.	Brian Adu Asare	12 December, 2023
What kind of a problem is loneliness? Studying technology to understand policy concerns	This talk by Dr Gemma Hughes is intended to show how problems, such as loneliness, can be understood and researched in multiple ways.	Gemma Hughes	12 December, 2023
Knowledge for bright ideas – how research can support innovative health systems	Guest lecturer Dr Nick Fahy is a research group director for health and wellbeing at RAND Europe, where he oversees research in such areas as health systems and healthcare innovation, and the behavioural and social determinants of health and wellbeing.	Nick Fahy	7 March, 2022
Justice and the Egalitarian Research Imperative	In his new book, 'For the Common Good: Philosophical Foundations of Research Ethics' (Oxford University Press), Prof Alex John London argues that there is a moral imperative to carry out research with human subjects...	Alex John London	18 February, 2022
Using theory, evidence and person-based co-development to improve infection control during COVID-19	Until a vaccine can prevent COVID-19, protective behaviours (such as social distancing, handwashing, cleaning/disinfecting) must be used to limit the spread.	Ben Ainsworth	17 December, 2021
Health Technology Assessment: Global alignment of systems, stakeholders and emerging trends	This talk will introduce and explore, the global mechanisms and initiatives that align process, strategy and methodology for Health Technology Assessment (HTA).	Neil Bertelsen	17 December, 2021
'Why would anyone hesitate to help kids with cancer?' or: understanding competing perspectives on innovations	'Homebound' students are unable to attend school for health-related reasons. To lessen their predicament, schools have begun experimenting with 'telepresence robots' for remote participation.	Lars Johannessen	4 November, 2021
Why be a Lunatic	Dr Maggie Adarin-Pocock delivers the 2019 Simonyi Lecture at the Oxford Playhouse	Maggie Adarin-Pocock	19 December, 2019
The future of the planet: life, growth and death in organisms, cities and companies. Geoffrey West	In this year’s Simonyi Lecture Geoffrey West discusses universal laws that govern everything from growth to mortality in plants, animals, cities and companies.	Geoffrey West	9 May, 2018
Philosophy and the Future of Warfare	Can there be such a thing as a ‘moral’ war? Can it ever be right to kill innocent people, even in self-defence?	Helen Frowe, Alex Leveringhaus, James Pattison, Marianne Talbot	12 December, 2016
Hope	What is Hope? This seminar explored what hope is and invited us to consider what hope means to people in different circumstances.	Peter Hinton, Carl Heneghan	21 November, 2016
Mathematics: Navigating Nature's Dark Labyrinth	The Inaugural Lecture of the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, 2009.	Marcus du Sautoy	18 November, 2016
Can robots be made creative enough to invent their own language?	Luc Steels delivers the 2012 Simonyi lecture and asks can machines be creative enough to invent their own language?	Luc Steels, Marcus du Sautoy	18 November, 2016
Why climate change action is difficult and how we can make a difference	2014 Charles Simonyi Lecture with David MacKay. David discusses how the laws of physics constrain our energy options, and describes what happened when his reflections on energy arithmetic propelled him into a senior civil service role.	David MacKay	18 November, 2016
Putting the Higgs Boson in its Place	Professor Melissa Franklin talks about her experiences working towards the discovery of the Higgs Boson and her work today at the Large Hadron Collider	Melissa Franklin, Marcus du Sautoy	18 November, 2016
Autism and Minds Wired for Science	Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, Cambridge, and Director of the Autism Research Centre, gives the 2016 Charles Simonyi Lecture on new research into autism.	Simon Baron-Cohen, Marcus du Sautoy	18 November, 2016
Right Place, Right Time	Women composers and their creative communities.	Anna Beer	30 June, 2016
Time and Causation	Both time and causation seems to have the same 'direction’ . Can we explain this?	Marianne Talbot	9 June, 2016
Mental Causation	We do what we do because we believe what we believe. Or do we? How does mental causation work?	Marianne Talbot	9 June, 2016
The necessary connection analysis of causation	The idea that there are real metaphysical necessities relating cause and effect.	Marianne Talbot	9 June, 2016
The singularist theory of causation	The idea that causation is a relation science will one day discover.	Marianne Talbot	9 June, 2016
The regularity theory of causation	Hume's famously influential account of causation	Marianne Talbot	9 June, 2016
The counterfactual theory of causation	The idea that event c causes event e if and only if had c not had occurred e would not have occurred either.	Marianne Talbot	9 June, 2016
Ordering Disorder: Mental Disorder, Brain Disorder and Therapeutic Intervention	This event will explore the areas in which the philosophy of mind and ethics or the philosophy of value come into contact with issues about mental health.	George Graham	11 February, 2016
Karl Jaspers and the Ethics of Incomprehensibility	This event will explore the areas in which the philosophy of mind and ethics or the philosophy of value come into contact with issues about mental health.	Giovanni Stanghellini	11 February, 2016
Mental Health and Moral Virtue	This event will explore the areas in which the philosophy of mind and ethics or the philosophy of value come into contact with issues about mental health.	Terence Irwin	11 February, 2016
False Perceptions and False Beliefs: Understanding the Symptoms of Schizophrenia	This event will explore the areas in which the philosophy of mind and ethics or the philosophy of value come into contact with issues about mental health.	Chris Frith	14 January, 2016
Impact	What is the impact we create? How is it measured, justified, used? Three speakers from a social, historical and professional background examine what impact means in different scenarios, both for academics themselves, and the public at large.	Gorgi Krlev, Matt Smart, Jonathan Healey	3 December, 2015
Award Ceremony 2014: speech by Professor Sally Mapstone	Professor Mapstone is Oxford University's Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education. Each year she welcomes and congratulates the award recipients and their guests, and acknowledges the commitment to study that brings this assembly together.	Sally Mapstone	15 April, 2015
Award Ceremony 2014: guest speaker Joanne Pearce	RSC actress Joanne Pearce is an alumna of our Foundation Certificate in History. In her speech for our award cermeony she urged award recipients to ‘mark the moment... go on, climb higher, do more.’	Joanne Pearce	15 April, 2015
Award Ceremony 2014: Students interviewed	Four students speak of their experience on the Department's undergraduate award courses, and anticipate receiving their award in Oxford's famous and historical Sheldonian Theatre.	Various students	15 April, 2015
Back to Downton Abbey? Is the rise in inequality sustainable?	Political Economy - Professor Jonathan Michie	Jonathan Michie	15 April, 2015
Party games: coalitions in British politics	History - Professor Angus Hawkins	Angus Hawkins	15 April, 2015
Discoveries in Theology and Religion: Middle Eastern Christianity explored!	Theology and Religious Studies - Rev'd Canon Dr Robin Gibbons	Robin Gibbons	15 April, 2015
Art, Design and World War	History of Art - Dr Claire O'Mahony	Claire O'Mahony	15 April, 2015
Oxford University’s MSt in Creative Writing	Learn more about the Master's in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford	Clare Morgan, Alice Jolly, Jane Draycott, Frank Egerton, Jonathan Evans, Jenny Lewis	3 February, 2015
The Arrow of Time	In the fourth lecture, Harvey Brown asks why real-world events always proceed in the direction of increasing entropy, even though the laws of physics don’t require it.	Harvey Brown	7 January, 2015
The Probability Puzzle	In the third lecture, David Wallace asks how we make sense of probability in the Many-Worlds theory.	David Wallace	7 January, 2015
The Life of Psi: More on the Superposition Principle	In the second lecture, Harvey Brown discusses in more depth the superposition principle of quantum mechanics.	Harvey Brown	7 January, 2015
The Plurality of Worlds	In this first lecture, David Wallace examines the justification for interpreting the superposition states as multiplicities.	David Wallace	6 January, 2015
Mapping Nijinsky’s Cross - Cultural Legacy: Min Tanaka’ s Le Sacré du Printemps (1987)	Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps is arguably the most influential score composed for dance in the last century.	Lucy Weir	5 December, 2014
The Chosen One: Massine’s Choreographic Rite of Passage	Seven years after the succès de scandale of the Stravinsky-Nijinsky-Roerich ballet Le Sacre du printemps, Serge Diaghilev decided to revive the ballet with new choreography by his young protégé, Léonide Massine.	Lisa Fusillo	5 December, 2014
The Spanish Reception of The Rite of Spring : Ballet, Music, Fine Arts (1913-33)	This study analyses the reception of The Rite of Spring in the Spanish cultural networks. Although the ballet was only performed in 1913, three years before the first visit of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes to Spain, its influence became notorious among some	Idoia Murga Castro	5 December, 2014
D H Lawrence’s Rite	In a notable scene from Women in Love (1920), D. H. Lawrence draws attention to the popularity of Diaghilev’s enterprise as representative of the avant garde in the arts in contemporary Britain.	Sue Jones	5 December, 2014
A Bardic Rite? Designing the Savoy Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream	For a few nights in March 1914 if contemplating buying a theatre ticket in London, there was a brief chance when one could have seen Nijinsky dance at the Palace Theatre one night and the next the new Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the	Claire O'Mahony	5 December, 2014
Divining the 1920s: Precious Body Image in Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1913 Ballets	This paper examines the ways in which dancers’ body image in Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1913 ballets The Rite of Spring and Jeux looked forward to 1920s developments in ballet and fashion.	Katerina Pantelides	5 December, 2014
Disruption in Continuity: The Use of Ornament in The Rite of Spring	Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography for the Rite of Spring was structured by movement patterns based on simple geometrical forms – such as circles, triangles, lines and angles – which his dancers incorporated with their bodies and limbs.	Alexander Schwan	5 December, 2014
A Century of Rites : The Making of an Avant - Garde Tradition	A historiography of a century of productions of the Rite of Spring.	Lynn Garafola	5 December, 2014
Prehistoric Ballets: L’Après Midi d’un Faune as precursor of The Rite of Spring	On the 29th of May 1912, exactly a year earlier than the premiere of The Rite of Spring, Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes had scandalized Parisian audiences with the first performance of another	Nicoletta Momigliano	5 December, 2014
Decorated Handkerchiefs: cotton, colours and conflict ‘in and about’ Northern Ireland	This paper examines a cotton handkerchief decorated by women republican prisoners Armagh Jail in 1976. It considers the power of cloth, its appropriation and circulation through in prisons of the conflict ‘in and about’ Northern Ireland.	Louise Purbrick	5 December, 2014
Questions and Answers Session	Marianne answers questions from the audience about the four talks in this series.	Marianne Talbot	11 November, 2014
The Philosophy of Science	In the fourth and final lecture, we examine the notion of ‘objective fact’ on which scientific theories are built; what sort of fact is such that we can build a scientific theory on it?	Marianne Talbot	11 November, 2014
Epistemology and Metaphysics	In the third lecture we examine first the so-called “Gettier Problems” for the traditional account of knowledge, the arguments for saying that possible worlds exist and finally we ask whether there really are unactualised possibles.	Marianne Talbot	11 November, 2014
Moral and Political Philosophy	In the second lecture we examine first the famous ‘Wilt Chamberlain’ thought experiment that demonstrates a retention between freedom and equality, then arguments for and against two famous moral theories; deontology and utilitarianism.	Marianne Talbot	11 November, 2014
Logic and Argument: the Methodology of Philosophy	In this first lecture, using Descartes famous argument for the claim “I think therefore I am’, we examine how to identify and evaluate arguments.	Marianne Talbot	11 November, 2014
A Jewish Teenager in Hiding: Representations of Anne Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank	Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl (1952) chronicles the two years that Anne, her family, and four other Jews spent in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II.	Sarach Lichtman	21 October, 2014
Design for the Reconstruction: housing Exhibitions and the QT8 Model District at the ninth Triennale in Milan (1947)	The reconstruction in Italy is perceived as a call by architects who, after the fall of Fascism and the Civil War. The first postwar Triennale in 1947 is the test for the new design, architecture and urban planning in Italy.	Elena Dellapiana	21 October, 2014
Clothing Soldiers: Development of an organised system of production and supply of military clothing in England between 1645 and 1708	This paper will set up and identify certain needs that a soldier's clothing of this period had to satisfy	Katherine Elliott	21 October, 2014
How Disabled Design Changed the History of Modernism.	This lecture explores disabled design as an alternative to canonical aesthetic and political histories of	David Serlin	16 October, 2014
Trapped in Shells: Mindset and Materiality in First World War Trench Art and Beyond	First World War Trench Art.	Nicholas Saunders	16 October, 2014
Designed to Kill: The Social Life of Weapons in Twentieth Century Britain	Weapon design and modern warfare.	Joanna Bourke	16 October, 2014
Arthur Wragg: Pacifist Polemics in Black and White	Arthur Wragg	Damon Taylor	9 October, 2014
“Not for Glory, not for Gain!” The Czech Glass Spartakiad Figurine, 1955	This paper looks at the glass figurines of Czech artist Miloslav Klinger, made to commemorate the 1955 Prague Spartakiad, as complex sites of memory, craft and political propaganda.	Rebecca Bell	7 October, 2014
“Design, Domesticity and Revolution: Transitioning the Cuban Ideal Home”	Through an examination of domestic advice and advertisements found in Cuban popular magazines, this paper explores the relationship between politics and popular media during the period 1950 to 1970.	Sara Desvernine-Reed	30 September, 2014
The Politics of Memory: Designing the Ganatantra Smarak (Republic Memorial), Kathmandu, Nepal	Examination of the design competition of Nepal's republic memorial.	Bryony Whitmarsh	30 September, 2014
War on Wheels	First World War vehicles as instruments of order and chaos.	Gregory Votolato	30 September, 2014
‘Help to win the war’: an analysis of the typographic posters produced by the New Zealand Government 1914-1918	This paper analyses typographic posters produced by the New Zealand Government in WWI to recruit men and money to the war effort. They chart the progress of recruitment strategies from voluntarism through to the contested years leading to conscription.	Patricia Thomas	30 September, 2014
‘Public memory and everyday memorials: work of the Imperial War Graves Commission’	The paper highlights tensions that appeared in the near routine collection of trophies for memorials and the design of war cemeteries between British imperial offices and those of former colonies, particularly Australia’s War Records Section.	William Taylor	30 September, 2014
Images of Women in a Changing Colonial Taiwanese Society during the Period of World War I	Propaganda: graphic design and print culture	Chu-Yu Sun	30 September, 2014
Funky Bunkers: The Post-Military Landscape as a Readymade Space and a Cultural Playgound	On adapted reuse of military establishments.	Per Strömberg	30 September, 2014
Cultural Trauma: Kós, Kozma, and Hungarian Design in the First World War	By comparing the work and career trajectories of these two architect-designers, this paper explored the changes in taste, style and cultural meaning of the dominant trends in Hungarian interior design before and after World War 1.	Paul Stirton	30 September, 2014
Furniture in Portugal, 1940-1974: between tradition, authoritarianism and modernity	Portuguese design furniture (1940-1974) and the industrial policies of the New State's dictatorship.	Helena Maria Souto, Eduardo Cortês Real	30 September, 2014
Authenticity and commemoration: an analysis of Otto Weidt Worshop for the Blind and the Jewish Museum in Berlin	This paper will analyse both spaces according to their scale, location in the city, authenticity, phenomenology and prosthetic memory, in order to determine whether design can enhance and protect our collective memory.	Ana Souto	30 September, 2014
Collective Memory and Conﬂict Representation: War and Peace in Colombian Museums	This paper studies some Colombian museums that are reﬂecting upon war.	Andrés Pardo Rodriguez	30 September, 2014
'Ambassador of Good Will': Three Centuries of American Art in 1930s Europe	The 1938 exhibition, Three Centuries of American Art, on display in Europe and the United States.	Caroline Riley	30 September, 2014
South African poster propaganda during the Second World War	The paper examines poster propaganda produced in South Africa during the Second World War.	Deirdre Pretorius	30 September, 2014
The AIDS Memorial Quilt: Mourning an Ongoing War	Contemporary Design History; History of the AIDS Crisis	Clementine Power	30 September, 2014
Syonan Shimbun: Singapore's Wartime Newspaper	The presentation looks at the design and production of this propaganda paper as part of the wider history of the Singaporean Straits Times, the newspaper it briefly replaced.	Jessie O'Neill	30 September, 2014
Designed to Kill : The Difficult Study of Military Design	Design is perceived by most as a positive concept meant to improve people lives. But it is first a means to answer efficiently a specific purpose. How can we morally accept that the act of killing led to the development of an important design industry?	Marie-Anne Michaux	30 September, 2014
Camouflage for peace: disruptive pattern material and dazzle painting in contemporary design and art	The aim of this paper is to analyse the consequences of this change, in other words, the examination of the ways, the strategies, the semiotics and the social uses of the objects which conform the so-called camouflage for peace.	Maite Méndez-Baiges	30 September, 2014
Draw me an AK-47: Transnational imaginaries in the trenches of the cold war	This paper examines the image of the Kalashnikov in the cold war period through two intersecting lenses that cut across disciplines of design –– the object in its public mediation and the image in its transnational circulation through print culture.	Zeina Maasri	30 September, 2014
"Good Housing depends on You”: Wartime Housing, 1942	MoMA’s 1942 Wartime Housing exhibition demonstrated that housing contributed to the war effort. Through innovative display, the museum proposed that new materials, modern techniques, and community planning would create lively permanent communities.	Erin McKellar	30 September, 2014
Quiet, Humane and ‘Anonymous’: Pevsner’s art-historical response to wartime	This paper focuses on Pevsner’s wartime writings.	Ariyuki Kondo	30 September, 2014
Furniture Behind the Wire	An examination of the material culture and social history of the German internees held on the Isle of Man, who made furniture designed by CR Mackintosh for the Northampton home of the Bassett-Lowke family between 1916 and 1919.	Jake Kaner, Yvonne Cresswell	30 September, 2014
The secret dollhouse: craft and resistance in Stalinist Estonia	My presentation will focus on the subject of nonprofessional craft as a tool of resistance against the official power. I will be concentrating on one particular case study from Soviet Estonia, dating from the 1940s.	Triin Jerlei	30 September, 2014
Material objects and visual web presentation: the Virtual Peace Palace Museum	Material objects and visual web presentation: the Virtual Peace Palace Museum.	Marjan Groot	30 September, 2014
Conflicting Views: Print Propaganda Depicting Tourism in a Landscape of War	An analysis of Ruth Taylor White’s “cartograph” for the 1945 guidebook A G.I. View of American Red Cross China, India and Burma, published by the American Red Cross.	Dori Griffin	30 September, 2014
Prints of Peace: Elihu Burritt and the graphics of reform	This talk examines the propaganda campaign conducted by mid-nineteenth century American reformer Elihu Burritt and a group of engravers and artists who used the graphic potential of postal items, such as envelopes, to pressure politicians for peace.	Peter Gilderdale	30 September, 2014
Book and musket \| graphic design of Italian school reports and diplomas during the Fascism	In the interwar period, the Italian school reports and diplomas turned into a direct expression of the most advanced artistic research. Fascism revolutionized institutional graphic design to achieve a modern effective communication.	Caterina Franchini	30 September, 2014
Modernising the V&A: From War to Reconstruction 1918-51	In the aftermath of two world wars, the V&A struggled to reconstruct a national view of contemporary art and design in which Britain’s industrial past and contemporary developments could be reconciled.	Laura Elliot	30 September, 2014
Dressed to Dissent: 'Catch-22' Clothing	This paper examines dress as a form of anti-war Vietnam protest using the cross dressing character of Corporal Maxwell Klinger on the long-running American sitcom MASH as its focus.	Marilyn Cohen	30 September, 2014

Department for Continuing Education

Related

Series in this collection

Translational Health Sciences

Science in Society

The Nature of Causation

2013 Philosophy and Psychiatry Summer School

Department for Continuing Education Award Ceremony 2014

Department for Continuing Education Open Day 2014

The Emergent Multiverse

Revisiting the Rite: The Rite of Spring Centenary Conference

A Romp Through Philosophy for Complete Beginners

Design for War and Peace: 2014 Annual Design History Society Conference

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