Being Human Festival Events Programme 2016

HUMAN

&

HOPE FEAR 17 - 25 NOVEMBER 2016

beinghumanfestival.org

Being Human 2016 Director’s welcome

It is hard to believe that the Being Human festival is only in its third year, given its firm roots in the cultural and intellectual landscape. Perhaps because it is such a natural, and necessary, endeavour it feels as if it has always been with us.

I am delighted to be taking over as festival director this year, celebrating the rich, inventive, creative contributions that humanities researchers make to collective knowledge.

For the first time the festival has a theme: ‘Hope & Fear’. This couldn’t be more apt for a year that has seen some profound challenges to the fabric of the human world that we all share.

Many of these challenges are reflected in our programme, from debates on the impact of Brexit to arts and humanities responses to climate change to a series of activities exploring (and challenging) cultural responses to migration and refugees.

There are some other firsts for Being Human this year. In Liverpool, we are delighted to feature our first preview event in collaboration with BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking. We are also very excited about the scale of our first official closing event, a ‘FRIGHTFriday’ spectacular in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. As if that wasn’t enough, the festival is also becoming truly international this year with our first event in Paris.

There’s a huge amount to choose from, with activities in towns and cities right across the UK (and beyond). Look out for our seven festival hubs in Dundee, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Nottingham and Swansea.

The Being Human team is incredibly proud of the programme. Once again, this year’s festival demonstrates the essential role that humanities research can, and does, play in shaping the world we live in. A big thank you to all those who have organised events and to our partners and sponsors: the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy and Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

See you at the festival!

Professor Sarah Churchwell Being Human festival director

Follow Being Human twitter.com @BeingHumanFest facebook.com /BeingHumanFest instagram @beinghumanfest

#BeingHuman16 Visit beinghumanfestival.org/ e-news-sign-up/ to sign up to our mailing list and receive the latest information on the festival.

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Festival map

Contents

Contents 2

Hub highlights

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Festival preview

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Festival finale

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Event highlights

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Events listings: Scotland

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Events listings: Northern Ireland

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Events listings: Wales

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Events listings: Northern England

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Events listings: Midlands

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Events listings: Southern England

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Events listings: International

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Events by date

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Partners The School of Advanced Study, University of London, is the UK’s national centre for the promotion and support of research in the humanities. The School is proud to serve as the national coordinating hub for the Being Human festival.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) invests around ÂŁ98m every year in research and postgraduate training. The research supported by this investment of public funds provides considerable economic, social and cultural benefits to the UK. The AHRC is proud to support the Being Human festival of the humanities and its work to engage the public in world-leading arts and humanities research.

How to use this guide Events are listed by region, then alphabetically by city, then by date, then by time. Each listing states the event title, the name of the organising institution, the date and time, and the name of the venue.

The information in this guide is subject to change; please check our website for the most up-to-date information: beinghumanfestival.org.

Booking The majority of our events are free and open to the public, although a fee may apply in a few cases. Some events have limited capacity. At the bottom of each event description in this guide is a notice about whether advance booking is required. For complete booking information, please visit our website at beinghumanfestival.org.

Accessibility information If you have any questions about whether a specific event is accessible, please contact the organiser of that event; details are provided on the individual event pages at beinghumanfestival.org.

Event podcasts Selected events are recorded and available to view, listen to, or download from iTunes and YouTube.

Please check beinghumanfestival.org for details.

The British Academy was established by Royal Charter in 1902. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence and high achievement in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value. The British Academy is delighted to support the festival for a third year to highlight exciting work happening in the humanities in the UK.

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Festival map

Being Human 2016 This year, the festival features more than 250 events organised by 71 universities and research organisations in partnership with 221 cultural and community groups in 45 cities and towns across the country. Hubs include London, Dundee, Swansea, Leeds, Liverpool, Nottingham and Exeter.

Stromness

Dundee Glasgow

Edinburgh Newcastle Sunderland Durham

Dumfries Belfast

Bradford York Leeds Wakefield Sheffield Lincoln

Huddersfield Manchester Scarisbrick Ormskirk Liverpool Chester

Nottingham

Birmingham Aberystwyth Worcester Hereford

Leicester

Truro

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Exeter

Cambridge

Bath

Swansea Cardiff

Norwich

Coventry

Bristol

Bridport

Oxford Reading Portsmouth

London Canterbury Brighton

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Hubs

Coordinating Hub London

University of London Ministry of Hope and Fear The University of London’s iconic Senate House is Being Human HQ. At the heart of the global city of London, the building is a refuge for knowledge, ideas, travellers and intellectual wanderers of all kinds. Home to the Ministry of Information during the Second World War, it will be transformed into a ‘Ministry of Hope and Fear’ for the 2016 Being Human festival as we celebrate the world-class research taking place across the University of London colleges, libraries and academic bodies.

Our programme includes contributions from the School of Advanced Study; University College London; SOAS, University of London; Goldsmiths, University of London and many others. Join us as we throw open the doors of Senate House and invite you to explore the sanctuary at the heart of the Being Human festival, and the heart of the University of London itself.

From a ‘Night in the Library’ scavenger hunt/escape room experience to an installation presenting rare recordings of wartime London, the University of London hub will bring Senate House to life with a series of talks, exhibitions and interactive activities.

Explore everything from the history of the seaside to the physics of gastronomy, dreams of ideal societies to visions of dystopia. The University of London hub will present work made in collaboration with refugees in Calais and with street artists in London. It will explore the languages, cultures and histories of London and the world.

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Hubs

Hubs Dundee

University of Dundee H G Wells at 150: Hope and Fear The humanities meet science (and science fiction) in the University of Dundee’s hub programme. From the team that brought you ‘Mary Shelley’s Dundee: Re-animating a City’ (Being Human 2015) comes ‘H G Wells at 150: Hope and Fear’, a series of events that celebrate the 150th birthday of one of the most influential science fiction writers of all time. Our Scotland hub will be exploring the rich legacies of this writer in relation to contemporary ideas around art, science and everyday life.

The UK’s leading forensic scientist, Professor Dame Sue Black, will conduct a historically minded ‘Martian autopsy’ on a Wellsian alien. This one-off event (a programme highlight for 2016) will showcase the impact of the literary imagination on scientific endeavour – while also offering some macabre fun!

Other events will invite you to take to the streets to walk in the footsteps of Wells and to explore contemporary artworks based on the writer’s works.

Meanwhile, watch as Dundee academics and artists create before your very eyes a graphic anthology of short stories inspired by Wells’s tales. Drop by to speak with the creators of the comic or peruse at your leisure the artwork (including storyboards and sketches) that will be displayed in Dundee’s most prominent museum and art gallery, The McManus.

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Hubs

Hubs Swansea

Swansea University Dreams, Demons and Discovery During this year’s Being Human festival, Swansea University’s hub, ‘Dreams, Demons and Discovery’, will inspire you to express your hopes and fears in creative ways. Our programme will excite and challenge you to think about the significant issues facing us today – from climate change and the changing face of energy to our relationship with landscape.

These events will be delivered by Swansea’s Research Institute for Arts and Humanities in collaboration with the following partners: City and County of Swansea; Swansea Museum; National Waterfront Museum; Tidal Lagoon Power; DylanED; Clyne Farm Centre; Volcano Theatre Company; Coastal Housing; Trust New Art; The National Trust; Sound UK; and the Challenging Human Environments and Research Impact for a Sustainable and Healthy Digital Economy (CHERISHDE) centre at Swansea University.

Join us for a range of free events across the festival period, including an evening with Michael Morpurgo, one of the UK’s best-loved authors and storytellers; a hands-on arts and crafts session at our special ‘demon stations’ with our Egyptian demons expert; photo walks to inspire photographic responses to the beautiful Swansea coastline; a chance to share your stories of hope and fear with our award winning creative writing team; and an evening of Welsh poetry and celebration with the chaired bard at the 2016 National Eisteddfod, Aneirin Karadog.

Watch out also for opportunities to log your hopes and fears at locations around Swansea and see them projected onto the spectacular National Waterfront Museum!

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Hubs

Hubs Leeds

University of Leeds Journeys of Hope and Fear When humans cross borders, whether in space (to a new country) or time (to a new stage of life), we experience new hopes and new fears. For Being Human 2016 the University of Leeds hub offers ten events that explore the hopes and fears associated with the most diverse kinds of departure, travel and return. From slavery to dementia, driverless cars to political revolution, this hub programme explores how the humanities help us make sense of the various journeys that make up a human life.

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From health, climate change, human migration, new technologies, radicalisation, ageing and utopias/ dystopias, activities across Leeds and Bradford will tap into some of the fundamental concerns facing humanity today. Workshops for schoolchildren will enable them to share their ‘visions of the future’ while performances will explore the ‘journey’ of dementia and themes of hope, fear, family and creativity that go with it.

Events will explore the legacies of the Yorkshire Anti-Slavery movement as well as the contemporary movements of people across the globe via trafficking or voluntary migration. You are even invited to take part in your own guided journey around Leeds and to help create a community public sculpture.

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Hubs

Hubs Liverpool

University of Liverpool Fears of the Past, Hopes for the Future For Being Human 2016 the University of Liverpool’s hub in the North West will explore everything from ‘Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Medicine’ to ‘Mermaids on the Mersey’. In doing so it will offer a multifaceted exploration of the ways in which fear has influenced our past and how hope defines our future.

pirates and beautiful sea creatures and succumb to the lure of the siren with a series of literary readings and art slides illustrating how mermaids have been portrayed in literature and art across time.

The University of Liverpool’s hub programme promises to be a fantastic, and fantastical, exploration of the hopes and fears of Being Human.

A bumper programme across Liverpool and the Wirral touches on everything from the lives of the first female explorers to the fascination of modern ghost stories. Events will assess the politics of putting people on display in 19th-century ‘human zoos’ and Roald Dahl’s little-known contribution to medical science.

Mysterious, alluring, and often deadly, mermaids and myths of the sea will form the focus of an all-day event at the Walker Gallery. Hear tales of scurvy Being Human 2016

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Hubs

Hubs

Nottingham University of Nottingham Cultures of Hope and Fear The University of Nottingham’s 2016 Being Human hub will explore Nottingham as a crucible of religions and peoples from around the world. Touching on everything from human rights, the legacies and histories of slavery, and community divisions in the aftermath of Brexit, this programme will show how humanities research can deepen our understanding of ‘Cultures of Hope and Fear’ in the broadest possible context. At the same time, events will delve into local contexts and the histories of communities and industries of Nottingham itself.

Through public forums and dialogues with academics and groups including Europe’s first Black Lives Matter chapter, the three-part series ‘The Rights and Justice City’ will feature explorations of some of the most pressing issues facing the world today, from contemporary slavery to the future of activism and civil rights.

Elsewhere, local history walks will invite you to find radical pathways through the city and a ‘Conversation

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Dinner’ will draw people together to enjoy a menu not of food, but of encounters and conversations that will allow participants to explore shared experiences in life and the lessons drawn from them.

This programme explores shared cultures and cultures in conflict. With humanities research at the core, it has been assembled with the hope of helping people in Nottingham and beyond explore a common past and a collective future.

Being Human 2016

Hubs

Hubs Exeter

University of Exeter Voices from the Edge Drawing together activities across Devon and Cornwall, our most southerly hub explores different ways of existing ‘on the edge’. What does it mean to be on the edges – of nation, gender, sexuality, death, art, sport, fashion – that guide our daily lives?

From confronting the terror and humanity of war in conversation with a former ISIS captive through rehearsing dying and unsettling sexual and gender identities, and from encountering Otherness in storytelling, poetry, writing, and translation to capturing fear, hope, beauty and nostalgia through photography, Exeter’s hub will look over the edge of the realm of the everyday to see what makes us human today.

Event highlights include a ‘phantasmagoria’ of Gothic stories, mediaeval music and special effects; discussions with refugees from Syria; activities exploring the dystopian visions of William Golding and an afternoon of storytelling and performance inspired by the ‘wonder and dread’ we find in tales of strange lands and little-known cultures.

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Festival preview

Festival preview

Being Human debate: man and animals BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking Be part of the audience during recording: Tuesday 1 November 2016, 18.30–20.00, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), Wood Street, Liverpool; for ticket information, visit beinghumanfestival.org Listen to the broadcast: Tuesday 15 November 2016 French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss famously said that ‘animals are good to think with’. BBC Radio 3’s flagship arts and ideas programme, Free Thinking, puts that claim to the test by asking the beastly question: how do the ways in which we think about animals reveal what we think about ourselves?

From a best friend to a tasty snack or something we must carefully husband to a threat we must eradicate, we humans think about animals in lots of ways. But how has our thinking about animals changed over time, and what does that tell us about our shifting attitudes toward the natural world and our place in it?

Hear the views of an archaeologist who studies how we’ve lived with animals throughout human history, a medievalist who studies bestiaries and mermaids, a French scholar who explores the history of the ‘human zoo’, and a political theorist who argues that we should extend human rights to animals.

The broadcast will also preview upcoming events organised by the University of Liverpool as part of its Being Human festival programme.

Join the discussion with presenter Rana Mitter and his panel: Sarah Peverley, Charles Forsdick, Alasdair Cochrane and a special non-human guest.

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Festival finale

Festival finale Festival finale – FRIGHTFriday: the art and science of hope and fear TORCH, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities; Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford Friday 25 November 2016, 19.00–22.30; for ticket information, visit beinghumanfestival.org TORCH has teamed up with the Ashmolean Museum and Being Human for FRIGHTFriday, a special latenight opening of the museum, to explore the art and science of hope and fear. With sensational live performances of dance and music, digital installations, film, workshops and interactive talks and exhibits, the Ashmolean will come alive for an evening of diverse and dynamic entertainment for all ages.

The evening will feature several performances in the Museum’s main atrium with many activities and events for all ages that draw on the work of researchers from across all of the Oxford Humanities faculties as well as the faculties of Social Sciences; Material, Physical and Life Sciences; and Medical

Being Human 2016

Sciences. Community groups will also participate, adding a special touch to the evening.

The diversity of the research on show – in the inspiring setting of the Ashmolean Museum – will provide a sensational ending and a fitting finale to nine days of humanities fun across the country.

This event is supported through TORCH by the Wellcome Trust.

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Event highlights

Event highlights H G Wells at 150: Martian autopsy Dundee Join the UK’s leading forensic scientist, Professor Sue Black, for a mock-autopsy on a Wellsian alien in a special one-off event that will showcase the impact of the literary imagination on scientific endeavour and the scientific imagination on literary practice.

An evening with Michael Morpurgo Swansea At this exclusive event, Michael Morpurgo, one of the UK’s bestloved authors and storytellers, reads from and discusses his new book Such Stuff: A StoryMaker’s Inspiration, a revealing and insightful mediation on the wellsprings and sources of his many books and tales.

See page 14 for event information

See page 20 for event information

Telling stories of hope and fear at year’s end Belfast In this wonderfully spooky event in the Gothic vaults beneath Queen’s University, join researchers and storytellers to unearth tales of terror and the supernatural. Develop your own tales of the uncanny in a creative writing workshop or simply sit back and enjoy some fantastically fearful classics.

See page 18 for event information

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Against prejudice: Ira Aldridge in Coventry 1828 Coventry Slavery was still legal in Britain’s colonies when African American actor Ira Aldridge became manager of the Coventry Theatre in 1828. Honour this amazing achievement with a dramadocumentary and night-time procession to the site of the lost playhouse where he and the city made history.

See page 36 for event information

Scaling the heights: mountains and vertical megastructures Newcastle Scared of heights? Through a dramatic installation suspended in the Tyne Bridge’s North Tower, a performance by urban explorer Lucinda Grange and bus tours of artificial mountains and megastructures in Newcastle, you can experience the long history of human fascination with precarious heights.

See page 31 for event information

Being Human 2016

S ee page 43 for event information

Queer and the state London The National Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives invite young people between the ages of 16 and 25 to take part in workshops based on LGBTQ+ experiences past and present. Participants will delve into previously closed files to explore how queer spaces were spied on and to discover the resilience of the community in response.

A Moveable Feast: Being Human in Paris Paris In the days after the horrific attacks in Paris last November, people laid copies of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast around the neighbourhoods affected. This event in the heart of Montparnasse will be an opportunity to reflect on the significance of American culture for Paris and where we are now, one year after Bataclan.

See page 57 for event information

See page 71 for event information

A Hollantide phantasmagoria Exeter Hollantide is the English season of eeriness and mystery. Come and celebrate this ghostly time of the year in Exeter. The evening will be a phantasmagoria: a mix of Gothic stories, mediaeval music, special effects, traditional drinks and seasonal soul-cakes.

Expect the unexpected at this Hollantide phantasmagoria.

See page 50 for event information

Extinctions! Invasions!

The wild side of hopes and fears Oxford Nothing better reflects the long-term hopes and fears of the British population than the island’s fauna. Over the past 10,000 years, humans have bought to extinction scary animals (bears, wolves, lynx), replacing them with more benign species. A positive change? Find out in this evening of music, comedy, debate and more!

See page 67 for event information

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Event highlights

Moving stories: representing refugees and the refugee voice Brighton Personal stories of refugee displacement are often the point at which the creative arts and human rights intersect. Refugee testimony is used to illustrate one of the most pressing issues of our time. This event combines discussion and performance to consider how the experience of migrants and refugees can be used to highlight immediate human rights concerns.

Scotland

Scotland Dundee

Reanimating H G Wells: an exhibition

H G Wells: a graphic anthology University of Dundee

University of Dundee

University of Dundee

Series: University of Dundee hub, H G Wells at 150: hope and fear

Series: University of Dundee hub, H G Wells at 150: hope and fear

Saturday 19 November 10.00–17.00

Saturday 19 November 17.00–18.00

The McManus, Dundee

Dalhousie Building, Dundee

Series: University of Dundee hub, H G Wells at 150: hope and fear Thursday 17 November– Friday 25 November 09.00–17.00

Watch as we create before your very eyes a graphic anthology of short stories inspired by the works Curated by Matthew Jarron, this of H G Wells, some commissioned exhibition will feature works of from award-winning artists and art and design in different media others selected from a public inspired by the works of H G Wells competition. Drop by to speak created by local graphic design with the creators of the comic or students. It will also show scientific peruse at your leisure the artwork equipment from the university’s (including storyboards and museum collections relating to sketches) that will be displayed the technology that provided the in The McManus, Dundee’s most basis for Wells’s ideas, including prominent museum and art gallery. early x-ray equipment used by The event includes animation, local doctor George A Pirie, one radio adaptations and a talk on the of the first practitioners to apply history of science-fiction comics by x-rays in medicine, and instruments Dr Chris Murray, senior lecturer in

by Robert William Paul, one of comics and graphic novels. Don’t Britain’s first film-makers and Wells’s miss The Invisible Cat! collaborator on the Time Machine ‘simulator’ patent. Includes a No booking required special screening of Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead’s video artwork The Time Machine in Alphabetical Order.

Tower Building, Dundee

H G Wells at 150: Martian autopsy

The truth is out there. Join us for a spooky evening of extraterrestrial dissection that promises to be out of this world. Professor Sue Black, the UK’s leading forensic scientist, will conduct an historically minded mock-autopsy on a Wellsian alien.

This special performance will showcase the impact of the literary imagination on scientific endeavour and the scientific imagination on literary practice, using both Wells’s fiction and speculative essays about future human evolution. Featuring Eddie Small as Herbert Unwells.

Booking required

No booking required

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Scotland

Dundee Edinburgh

The time machine: a walking tour University of Dundee Series: University of Dundee hub, H G Wells at 150: hope and fear Sunday 20 November 16.00–17.30 Tower Building, Dundee

Robert Duncan Memories of Milne: rediscovering partition Scotland’s H G Wells University of St Andrews University of Dundee Series: University of Dundee hub, H G Wells at 150: hope and fear Wednesday 23 November 17.00–18.00

Thursday 17 November– Friday 25 November 11.00–20.30 Punjabi Junction, Edinburgh

‘Memories of Partition’ is an artistic response to the traumatic Tower Building, Dundee Science fiction fans take heed: legacy of the 1947 India/Pakistan this is an event you will not want partition. From 17 to 25 November, Dr Keith Williams, an expert on to miss! Join Herbert Unwells and a selection from this work will be H G Wells, will lead a roundtable his crew among the rubble of old discussion on Robert Duncan Milne, exhibited at the Punjabi Junction Dundee as we re-animate the dead café and community centre on a Scottish contemporary of Wells, and predict the city’s future in a Leith Walk in Edinburgh. The who was celebrated in his time as bravura feat of storytelling. Written exhibition will be accompanied a founding father of US science by and starring local playwright fiction but is now largely forgotten. by three public events: a Eddie Small. conversation and Q&A between the artist and the researcher on No booking required Booking required their working process and two interactive performances based on archival records and oral history interviews. We will explore the complicated histories of India, Pakistan and Britain, and challenge the audience’s understanding of national borders, national memory, and national storytelling.

Visit beinghumanfestival.org for exhibition opening and event times.

Booking required

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Scotland

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Scotland

Scotland Edinburgh

There is no single destination

Tony Oursler – The Influence Machine

The University of Edinburgh

Edinburgh College of Art, The University of Edinburgh

Thursday 17 November 18.00–20.00 (presentation) Thursday 17 November–Friday 25 November (exhibition, closed Sun and Mon) Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Wednesday 23 November– Friday 25 November George Square Gardens, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Transformations in faith: exploring hopes and fears The University of Edinburgh Thursday 24 November 16.00–21.30 Leith Theatre Trust, Edinburgh

Explore the hopes and fears caused by experiences of religious Experienced for the first time in conversion. Participate in our Taking place within the context of Scotland, The Influence Machine innovative theatre workshops a visual art exhibition, ‘There is no is an internationally acclaimed to explore how families and single destination’ focuses on some immersive outdoor sculptural communities can respond of the experiential aspects of being experience by artist Tony Oursler, sensitively to conversion. The human. Supported by academics part of the Artangel Collection. from various disciplines across the Described as a ‘holographic model World Kitchen team will provide a themed meal between workshops, University of Edinburgh, this public of human desire and dread’, The where we can discuss food choice, forum will use the mechanics Influence Machine captures the of Rob Kennedy’s exhibition religious identity and conversion. haunting atmosphere of Victorian ‘acts of dis play’ to pull apart the People of all faiths and none are magic lantern light shows, camera constructs of the world around us. welcome but everyone must have obscura and parlour tricks, while Based on three key foundations an interest in, or have experienced, embracing the fully networked, – the difficulty language has religious conversion. No previous digitally assisted future of image in interpreting thought and theatre experience required but and identity production.

A graduate experience; the ambiguous quality participants must be able to attend of Cal Arts in Los Angeles and a of objects; the question of how the entire event. pioneer of video art in early 1980s much experience is manifested New York, Oursler draws on a wide by habits, desires and needs – the event and exhibition unsettle the research base including art history, Booking required convention of the ‘explanation’ to parapsychology, scenography, foster an empowering, uncertain anthropology, mimetic technology, and open series of encounters. phenomenology and neuroscience.

Guided through different and Visit beinghumanfestival.org for strange experiences, participants event times. will form contrasting interpretations and rediscover, ‘There is no single Booking required destination.’

Booking required 16

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Scotland

Glasgow Dumfries Stromness

Screening Deshantori Interrupted: Africa is (the migrant) a Woman’s Name University of Glasgow University of Glasgow Thursday 17 November 18.00–20.00 Glasgow Women’s Library, Glasgow

Tuesday 22 November 19.00 Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre, Dumfries

Migration is a natural phenomenon, but in Bangladesh, it seems to Have you ever been to a women’s have turned into a desperate effort film festival, or attended a radical by young people from almost all film screening outside of a cinema? socio-economic backgrounds.

‘Screening Interrupted’ is your Why are risky and sometimes lifechance to experience the best of threatening attempts to migrate both! Africa is a Woman’s Name becoming an acceptable option is a documentary about three for many young Bangladeshis? powerful women working to create This film features interviews with change in their environments. The popular youth idols in Bangladesh, screening will be interrupted to with a reconstruction of the story allow time and space for discussion of 26 young Bangladeshis who set and reflection in small groups. out on an illegal journey to Spain This screening is curated by PhD through the Sahara Desert and candidate Kathi Kamleitner, who the Mediterranean Sea in 2005. researches women’s film festivals Through unexpected twists and around the world and how these turns, the film takes the viewer on events impact our film-viewing a journey filled with emotion. This practices. Supported by Africa free screening will be followed in Motion Film Festival, Glasgow by a discussion led by medical Women’s Library and Dr Elena anthropologist Dr Shahaduz Boschi (Edge Hill University).

Zaman.

Booking required

Being Human 2016

Our prehistoric ancestors – lessons for society today University of St Andrews Saturday 19 November Tuesday 22 November 17.00 West Side Cinema, Stromness and School I, University of St Andrews Our social landscape is plagued by constant themes of imminent peril: climate change, population growth, the ‘end’ of tradition.

However, in the Norwegian film Pathfinder (1987), we learn that these contemporary concerns have historical precedents. The film depicts the culture clash between a village of Sami hunters and a new, iron-using people. Following a screening of the film, a panel of archaeological and social experts will discuss with the audience the choices made by our prehistoric ancestors and consider how their world might offer messages for society today.

No booking required

Booking required

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Scotland

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland Belfast

‘Empowered Printwork’ (Goldsmiths, University of London, Being Human 2015)

Telling stories of hope and fear at ‘year’s end’ Queen’s University Belfast Wednesday 23 November 19.00–21.00 Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast Since time immemorial the season to huddle by the fireside and to shiver at tales of the supernatural is ‘year’s end’. Join us beneath the Gothic vaults of the Queen’s University Graduate School to exhume this history and bring forth fresh tales of terror from your own nightmares. The evening will begin with a brief talk on how supernatural stories look backwards and forwards as tales of caution, horrors of the past and hopes for the future. Afterwards you can join a discussion featuring readings from ghostly stories led by seasonal horror expert Dr Derek Johnston. Or you can develop your own tale of the uncanny in a structured creative writing workshop with novelist and playwright Dr Darran McCann.

Booking required

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Wales

Aberystwyth Cardiff

Gobaith ac ofn; Dwy Coma notes: sgriniad / Hope and exploring coma, fear; two screenings consciousness and conscience Bath Spa University Friday 25 November 14.00–16.00 19.00–21.00

Cardiff University Thursday 17 November, 12.00–14.00 (talk), Thursday 17 November–Friday 18 November, 12.00–19.00 (exhibition)

The visual history of seizures Cardiff University Friday 18 November 14.00–17.00 Williams Court, Cardiff

Seizures have for centuries been seen as both extraordinary and frightening, and since the early 19th century medicine has sought to understand the conditions of We used to think of climate change Williams Court, Cardiff seizures. The moment of the seizure as something that happens in has been captured in many visual What is a coma and how do we far-flung places, or in the future. Yet forms throughout history, as have imagine unconscious or ‘minimally many of us have now experienced the lives of those gripped by them. conscious’ states? What are the extreme weather in West Wales.

Now, contemporary artists try to ethics of how we treat people in How do we make sense of this? give different expression to bodies such conditions – especially in Join us for a screening of two and lives that are ‘seized’. This relation to life-prolonging medical short films. Timeline takes us on exhibition and series of short talks interventions, and what are the an ecological journey from the will illuminate the visual history of low-lying island nation Kiribati back consequences for how we think the condition over the last about what it means to be human? home to Aberystwyth, where the 200 years.

This event explores these questions promenade is eroded by waves. through theatre and music The second film is ‘Y Gors’, a performances, panel discussions Booking required community-produced film and and an exhibition of artworks soundscape about Cors Fochno, co-produced by researchers, artists the raised bog that occupies a significant position in the psyche and families of catastrophically brain-injured relatives. of the locality. If the bog had a voice, how would it sound and Booking required what would it say to us? Visit beinghumanfestival.org for event times.

Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, Friendship Inn, Borth

Booking required

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Wales

book online:

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Wales

Wales Swansea

An evening with Michael Morpurgo Swansea University Series: Swansea University hub, Dreams, demons and discovery Thursday 17 November 19.30–21.00 Bay Campus, Swansea University, Swansea At this exclusive event, Michael Morpurgo, one of the UK’s bestloved authors and storytellers, reads from and discusses his new book Such Stuff: A Storymaker’s Inspiration, a revealing and insightful meditation on the wellsprings and sources of his many books and tales. A Q&A and book-signing will follow the reading. This event is part of the Swansea University’s Centenary Lecture Series curated and chaired

by Owen Sheers, the university’s professor in creativity.

Booking required

Heroes and villains: The changing face of drawing your energy dreams and demons Swansea University Swansea University Series: Swansea University hub, Dreams, demons and discovery Saturday 19 November 11.00–12.00, 12.00–13.00 Swansea Museum, Swansea You are warmly invited to join us for ‘Demon Stations’, a handson arts and crafts event for the family. Dress up as your favourite hero or villain and come along to Swansea Museum to make your own character based on your hopes, dreams or fears. You’ll learn about Egyptian demons with Swansea University expert Dr Kasia Szpakowska and have a chance to compare your creations with some ancient wonders. Let’s get creative and find the demon in the detail!

Suitable for all ages.

No booking required

Series: Swansea University hub, Dreams, demons and discovery Monday 21 November–Tuesday 22 November The poetry of Dylan Thomas captures Britain on the cusp of post-war change, but what can we learn from his work about Britain and Wales’ changing landscape and ecology? Join writers, musicians and performers in a series of cross-art workshops for 14- to 18-year-olds to explore the changing face of energy and climate change. Using Thomas’s work to discuss energy and climate, participants can create poetry, stories and musical compositions.

In partnership with Tidal Lagoon Power and the DylanED project (the educational strand of the International Dylan Thomas Prize).

This event will take place in schools and colleges within Swansea and its surrounding boroughs.

No booking required

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Being Human 2016

Wales Swansea

My one and all: my Swansea coast Swansea University Series: Swansea University hub, Dreams, demons and discovery Tuesday 22 November 19.00–21.00 Volcano Theatre, Swansea This event brings together a screening of film-poem On The Sea’s Land (Ar-for-dir) and a unique exhibition of response photography to Swansea’s coastline. Originally exhibited at Somerset House, On The Sea’s Land captures poet and Swansea University’s professor in creativity Owen Sheers’s poetic journey along the Gower Coast.

Inspired by this unique landscape with stunning footage by Benjamin Wigley (artdocs), the film will be screened alongside an exhibition of photographic responses from the public. These responses will be invited from people of all ages and backgrounds. On the Sea’s Land was commissioned by Trust New Art/ National Trust and Sound UK, and supported by Arts Council England.

Booking required

Being Human 2016

Attitudes and Is the light at the end of the tunnel an aspirations – interpretations of oncoming train? disability Swansea University Series: Swansea University hub, Dreams, demons and discovery Wednesday 23 November 14.00–16.00 Clyne Farm Centre, Swansea Swansea University’s Creative Writing faculty present a public workshop on how the tension between fear and hope informs the 21st-century author. Our panel of writers, including Alan Bilton, Jasmine Donahaye and AnneLauppe Dunbar talk about the place of research in the creation of fiction and non-fiction. Their published works centre around themes of contemporary paranoia in a disparate society, from drugdoping to the Jewish diaspora.

The session will be chaired by director of creative writing Professor D J Britton, who will invite the audience to share their own stories of hope and fear.

Swansea University Series: Swansea University hub, Dreams, demons and discovery Thursday 24 November 12.00–14.30 National Waterfront Museum, Swansea This event will showcase artistic interpretations, attitudes and aspirations by adults with cerebral palsy and local schoolchildren with a range of physical disabilities. The art session will form part of the ‘Legacy of Longfields Project’, which celebrates the history and impact of Swansea’s now-closed Longfields Centre. The centre supported local disabled people by embracing new attitudes toward those with physical and learning disabilities and by setting trends in approaches to treatments in centres elsewhere.

Booking required

Booking required

21

Wales

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Northern England

Northern England

Bradford Chester Durham

Canon to critique: Facing fear, finding the future of Islamic hope education University of Chester University of Leeds Saturday 19 November 11.00–13.00 Bait ul Aman Mosque, Bradford

Monday 21 November 19.30–20.30 Chester Deaf Centre, Chester

Are things ‘looking up’ or are you still ‘feeling down’? We often speak in metaphors, but how well can the For at least a decade there has been human mind pick up on non-verbal a growing movement of young cues of our deepest hopes and British Muslims who choose to fears? In this musical performance travel abroad to study at religious

by Dee-Sign Choir, a local charity seminaries (madrasas). However, that helps to raise deaf awareness, the madrasa system is controversial: songs will be accompanied by on one hand, it is perceived in the British Sign Language to convey West as a conduit of extremism how complex emotional themes and, on the other, as an institution can be unlocked through the lacking pedagogic criticality. In a power of music, gesture, metaphor lecture by Dr Tajul Islam, followed and facial movement. The selection by a one-to-one conversation of songs draws on recent research between Dr Islam and Dr Mustapha on metaphors and emotion by Sheikh, probing questions will be psychologist Dr Libby Damjanovic. asked about the classical madrasa model, the problems associated Booking required with non-critical engagement with canonical texts in pedagogic settings, and ways of approaching texts from a position of both critical engagement and sensitivity/ respect.

Booking required

22

Medieval time reckoning and the dating of Easter Durham University Series: Heavens above! Mankind and the cosmos Friday 18 November 14.00–16.00 Durham Cathedral, Durham Take a tour through the fascinating world of medieval time calculation.

In a public talk and discussion in the historic environs of Durham Cathedral, find out how and where our modern precepts of time came from, how our calendar was structured and how time and life were organised in the Middle Ages.

Dr Philipp Nothaft from All Souls College, University of Oxford, will explore medieval star-craft and the science of ‘time-reckoning’, including the dating of Easter. The details of medieval mathematics, as they were at the dawn of scientific discovery, will be presented alongside rich illustrations and beautiful diagrams as we debate the long-running arguments over how best to tell the time.

Booking required

Being Human 2016

Durham Huddersfield

Heavens above: interactive exhibition Durham University Series: Heavens above! Mankind and the cosmos Saturday 19 November 11.00–18.00 Pemberton Lecture Rooms, Durham Come on a journey through time and space! From Babylonian astronomy to medieval theories of sight, colour and astronomy; from Renaissance star-gazing to 18th-century optical experiments, get to grips with our human understanding of the universe from the ancient world to the modern day in this mind-bending multimedia installation. Step into our blow-up planetarium and try out a 3D fly-through modern galaxy-modelling in Oculus Rift technology. Re-enactors will take you step-by-step through key moments in science history and our exhibitors will give short talks on the hour. The day finishes with a Q&A plenary with a modern scientist and a medieval historian.

Imagining dementia The mindfulness turn in practice University of Huddersfield Thursday 17 November 09.30–15.30 University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield Imagining Dementia invites 14–16-year-olds to join people working with and caring for people with dementia in a daylong exploration of dementia and culture at the University of Huddersfield. The day will include a theatre performance by Curtain Up Players, followed by a discussion around the topics addressed in the drama. We’ll also consider how we read and write about dementia.

Examining some literary examples, we’ll think about the role of fiction and non-fiction in shaping our understanding of both ageing and illness. Novelist and scriptwriter Michael Stewart and poet Clare Shaw will be on hand to lead a creative writing workshop where we’ll produce our own responses to the issues raised by the day’s events.

University of Huddersfield Thursday 17 November 19.00–21.00 University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield A choice of two introductory workshops on contemporary mindfulness practice and creativity led by members of the Centre for Psychophysical Performance Research at the University of Huddersfield. Dr Deborah Middleton will lead an introduction to mindfulness in yoga and Professor Franc Chamberlain will offer simple exercises in Tai Chi and creative movement. Each workshop will offer mindful ways of exploring hopes and fears around the body and creativity.

Booking required

Booking required

Booking required

Being Human 2016

23

Northern England

Northern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Northern England

Northern England Leeds

Textile threads: hopeful synthetics and public art University of Leeds Series: University of Leeds hub, Journeys of hope and fear Thursday 17 November 12.00–15.30 Sheppard Room, University of Leeds, Leeds

US slavery and Yorkshire antislavery: forgotten narratives University of Leeds Series: University of Leeds hub, Journeys of hope and fear Thursday 17 November–Friday 25 November (exhibition), Wednesday 23 November (guided walk, lecture and play)

Visions of the future – old and new University of Leeds Series: University of Leeds hub, Journeys of hope and fear Friday 18 November 13.00–15.00 University of Leeds, Leeds

What does the future hold, and how can we ensure young people feel empowered to make change?

Join Professor Ann Sumner for Using comics and popular culture Leeds Library, Leeds a campus tour to see American to help visualise the future, this sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe’s Man-Made workshop for learners 14 and up If you were living in Leeds in Fibres and the newly commissioned will help spell out the options. the 1840s and 1850s you would pavement response by Sue Lawty.

Items from the Brotherton Special undoubtedly have heard of the The tour will be followed by a anti-slavery speeches made to huge Collections will be used to generate discussion panel that will include local audiences by African American discussion and provide inspiration Kate Goldsworthy; panellists for a hopeful future. Participants activists and their supporters. The will respond to Cunliffe’s work, will be invited to draw their own University of Leeds will offer a which celebrates the potential for guided walk of sites associated with pictures and write their own stories; synthetic and man-made fibres all will receive a free copy of the the entwined histories of African to contribute to a ‘hopeful future’ new graphic novel A Dream of a self-emancipation and anti-slavery for materials. The discussion will Low Carbon Future, which launches activism in 19th-century Leeds, a look at the initial enthusiasm at public discussion of the significance in November. Researchers on the time of the Man-Made Fibres climate change from the Priestley of the archives of anti-slavery building opening in 1956 for the International Centre for Climate and activism, and a chance to visit the synthetic fibres revolution and engineers from the EPSRC Centre Leeds Library, which presents an consider the cycle of hope and for Doctoral Training in Bioenergy exhibition on Quaker businessman fear associated with these fabrics.

Wilson Armistead and a play tracing will be on hand to provide scientific Afterwards, participants can join a the extraordinary escape of Ellen and expertise. knit workshop using synthetic fibres William Craft from enslavement in and help produce a public sculpture Georgia. Visit beinghumanfestival.org Booking required canopy for campus. for event times.

Booking required

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Booking required Being Human 2016

Leeds

Urban dreams (and nightmares) Leeds Beckett University Saturday 19 November 11.00–15.00 Leeds City Museum, Leeds What do cities mean to you? Are they sites of hope or fear? With more than 50 percent of the world’s population living in cities, we know that this is an urban age. But we want to know how you feel about it. This interactive event at Leeds City Museum will provide new ways of thinking about cities. You will be able to talk to experts on urban history and culture from Leeds Beckett University and join short walks exploring the hidden meaning of buildings around Millennium Square. You will be invited to record your own urban dreams (or nightmares) with our acclaimed writer in residence, while children and young people will be able to add to an imagined city space.

Booking required

‘Lost in memories’: dementia and the act of caring

The Hungarian revolution and the refugee experience

University of Leeds

University of Leeds

Series: University of Leeds hub, Journeys of hope and fear

Series: University of Leeds hub, Journeys of hope and fear

Saturday 19 November 14.00–16.00

Monday 21 November 18.00–20.00

Heart Centre, Leeds

Sheppard Room, University of Leeds, Leeds

‘Living with dementia is like knitting with knots. My knitting might not look like it used to, but that doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful.’ This theatre event explores the themes of hope, fear, family and creativity. We look at how emotions are experienced at different times and in different ways by people with dementia and those caring for them. The piece has been developed collaboratively by theatre makers, researchers, carers and people living with dementia.

We draw on both personal testimony and current research.

The performance will be followed by an audience discussion. People will have the opportunity to pose questions to the production team and, if they wish, share their own experiences.

Booking required

In the early hours of Sunday, 4 November 1956, the Soviet Union sent 60,000 troops, tanks and two airforce divisions into Hungary to crush a popular revolution that had captured the imagination of much of the world. In the brutal aftermath, some 150,000 Hungarians fled; 21,000 of these found sanctuary in the UK. The University of Leeds was one of four higher education institutions to offer accommodation to student refugees. This public lecture on the Hungarian Revolution by Professor Simon Hall coincides with an exhibition of the work of the conceptual artist and Hungarian refugee György Gordon at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery.

The event will also include a visit to the Gordon exhibition on the refugee experience.

Booking required

Being Human 2016

25

Northern England

Northern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Northern England

Northern England Leeds

‘Death in 24 hours’: the making of modern anthrax University of Leeds Series: University of Leeds hub, Journeys of hope and fear Tuesday 22 November 18.00–20.00

Challenging hate crime: voices of Gypsies and Travellers University of Leeds Series: University of Leeds hub, Journeys of hope and fear Wednesday 23 November 11.00–16.00

Soft driver University of Leeds Series: University of Leeds hub, Journeys of hope and fear Thursday 24 November, Friday 25 November 18.00–19.00 University of Leeds, Leeds

This event involves a choreographic duet and promenade piece that will be performed at the University of Leeds, Leeds In the 19th century anthrax Driving Simulator. The medium became a global disease with a Join us as we use sound, is movement, as performed by very local connection. The wool performance, and archival sources the simulator itself. One dancer factories of Bradford in the 1850s to explore the issue of hate crime moves inside the simulator – his received exotic animal fleeces for role is to drive. The dancer outside processing from around the world. against Gypsies and Travellers.

In this immersive long-form observes the simulator, a large These brought with them a new performance piece, verbatim suspended sphere, moving around illness that was known locally as theatre techniques animate the industrial site. The two dancers ‘woolsorter’s disease’. Over time academic and community research exchange roles while the audience Bradford became the testing on hate crime; we examine the fear mingle in this industrial and highground for new techniques in it engenders and the hope needed tech space and get a peek into bacteriology and public health as to overcome it. Performances the technology that is pushing doctors, employers and workers continue throughout the day; drop the design of smart cars for the tried to unravel this mysterious in at any time. The work has been future. The piece will also contain and frightening disease. By the video work capturing the aesthetic early 20th century, the disease was developed by members of Leeds GATE and students from Leeds movement of car headlights using known in France as la maladie de long-exposure photography, a Bradford and as far afield as Australia University, together with artists Vanessa Cardui and Sara Allkins, visual reference to the inspirational and New Zealand the town had using archive material at Leeds writings of Roland Barthes on the become synonymous with this GATE and Leeds University Library beauty of auto-mobility. most deadly of diseases. Join us for a discussion of Bradford’s role in the Special Collections. identification and management of Booking required Booking required anthrax.

University of Leeds, Leeds

Booking required

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Being Human 2016

Leeds Liverpool

Performing the Jewish archive: Jewish choral music University of Leeds Series: University of Leeds hub, Journeys of hope and fear Friday 25 November 13.00–14.00 University of Leeds, Leeds Germany to Australia; Russia to South Africa and Finland; Austria to Britain. These are just some of the journeys taken by Jewish composers in the years immediately preceding the Second World War: journeys of hope for a new start in a foreign land and journeys of fear for the future and the consequences of staying at home. Drawing on the work of researchers from the international project Performing the Jewish Archive, this concert charts the fate of four musicians and their music as they flee the impending horrors of the Nazi regime, using synagogue music, concert anthems and Yiddish folksongs.

Booking required

Project cybersyn Liverpool John Moores University Thursday 17 November 18.00–19.30 Liverpool Central Library, Liverpool This event provides an in-depth look into the work of visionary theorist Stafford Beer, who was an honorary professor of cybernetics at LJMU. In the early 1970s, he worked on Project Cybersyn, an ambitious attempt by the socialist government of Salvador Allende to develop a cybernetic approach to running the Chilean economy. The Operations Room, a futuristic hub resembling a set from a science fiction movie, was designed to enable ministers to view information in real time and make informed decisions, a virtual network envisioned long before the invention of the Internet and digital technologies. After the military coup on 11 September 1973, Cybersyn was abandoned and the operations room was destroyed.

A dramatisation by Liverpool John Moores University students depicting the ideas behind Project Cybersyn will be followed by a discussion on the themes of utopia and dystopia.

Booking required

Human zoos: putting people on display University of Liverpool Series: University of Liverpool hub, Fears of the past, hopes for the future Thursday 17 November– Friday 25 November Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre, Liverpool (exhibitions and roundtable) and School of the Arts Library, Liverpool (film screening) ‘The human zoo’: the display of one group of humans by another for the purposes of entertainment, education or propaganda.

Although particularly prevalent in the later 19th and earlier 20th centuries, the phenomenon has a much longer history and has developed in a wide range of national contexts. It also arguably persists today in a variety of display practices in contemporary media and culture. Through an exhibition and related events, audiences will be invited to engage with current cultural and historical research on the phenomenon of human zoos.

They will be asked to consider how the origins of racism, xenophobia and prejudice today may be found in these display practices. Booking is required for the film screening only.

Visit beinghumanfestival.org for event times.

No booking required

Being Human 2016

27

Northern England

Northern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Northern England

Northern England Liverpool

Writing a history of the future University of Liverpool Series: University of Liverpool hub, Fears of the past, hopes for the future Friday 18 November 14.00–16.00 University of Liverpool, Liverpool Ever wondered what the future will look like? Join us to celebrate one of the first ‘histories of the future’, written by Wallasey-born author Olaf Stapledon. Published in 1930, Stapledon’s Last and First Men hypothesised what our future would look like millions of years from now from the perspective of the ‘last men’. We will explore some of his ideas about the future, such as changes to the environment, to nations, and indeed to humanity, and consider the historical context of ‘last’ and ‘first’ men. Most importantly, however, participants will invent, write, and draw their own ‘histories of the future’, some of which will be included in a time capsule to be opened by future citizens of Liverpool.

No booking required

Pretty shambolic Liverpool John Moores University Friday 18 November 18.00 Visit the website for venue details You are invited to a punk fashion show exploring punk subculture and its evolution over the past 40 years. British punk fashion evolved in the 1970s, a reaction to the society around it that drew from many sources to form a defined subculture. Iconic designs were created by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren but there was also a strong DIY ethos, with most fans putting together their own looks. In subsequent decades, punk style has been re-appropriated by many different designers and those who purchase punk-inspired clothes may not be aware of the origins of this rebellious and colourful form of self-identification.

LJMU students will explore connections and contrasts between the 1970s and today, setting up dialogues across the generations that compare the hopes and fears of young people in both eras. The show will feature designs and narration by fashion and drama students inspired by research carried out at LJMU in the England’s Dreaming: The Jon Savage Archive of Punk.

Booking required

28

School days and ambitions Liverpool John Moores University Saturday 19 November 14.00–16.00 Aldham Robarts, Liverpool How do we talk about memories of school? This oral history workshop looks at a period of great change in British education, particularly for women. The post-war period visualised a whole range of occupations for women, even though these were largely intended to prepare them to make good wives and mothers. Ideas about the importance of science, of literature, and of management are also evident in magazines from the period. This workshop will use archive materials to stimulate memories and stories about education, ambitions and choices.

The IM Marsh College of Physical Education Archive and material from the Femorabilia collection of girls’ and women’s comics and magazines always provoke strong nostalgic responses, especially the scenes of classrooms in issues of Girl, Bunty, Diana and Judy.

We’d love to hear from people who attended IM Marsh or have a particular recollection of school stories from any era; everyone, from any generation, is welcome.

No booking required Being Human 2016

Liverpool

Mermaids on the Mersey

Women explorers: crossing cultures

University of Liverpool

University of Liverpool

Series: University of Liverpool hub, Fears of the past, hopes for the future

Series: University of Liverpool hub, Fears of the past, hopes for the future

Saturday 19 November 10.30–16.00

Sunday 20 November 10.30–16.15

Walker Gallery, Liverpool

World Museum Liverpool

Mysterious, alluring and often deadly, mermaids have captured the imagination of writers and artists since the dawn of civilisation.

Join Professor Sarah Peverley, the Liverpool Players, and children’s author and illustrator Fred Blunt at the Walker Gallery for a series of nautically inspired events. Listen to tales of scurvy pirates and beautiful mermaids in our story corner, learn to draw pirates with Fred, and watch storyteller Madelaine Smart perform her adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid with music by Alex Cottrell. Older children and adults are invited to succumb to the lure of the siren with a series of literary readings and art slides illustrating how mermaids have been portrayed in literature and art across time.

No booking required

When the explorer Mary Kingsley first sights the coast of West Africa in 1893, she admits she is terrified.

Fear can often steer our encounters with those different from ourselves, but Mary Kingsley and other British women explorers turned that fear to hope. They opened our eyes to other cultures and expanded our understanding of what it means to be human. Did their gender help them to see the world differently?

Come and help us answer that question by joining us for a day of talks about women explorers and travellers, and doing some of your own exploring at our exhibition and in our family-friendly creative workshops.

Booking required

Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Medicine: hope conquers fear University of Liverpool Series: University of Liverpool hub, Fears of the past, hopes for the future Monday 21 November 18.00–19.45 Leggale Theatre, University of Liverpool, Liverpool Roald Dahl is loved by millions as the author of fantastic children’s novels and macabre adult short stories. Few are aware of his fascination with medicine, the terrible tragedies that affected him and his family, and how Dahl led some amazing medical advances.

Professor Tom Solomon, who looked after Dahl at the end of his life, talks about his new book Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Medicine, which describes all this and more. He is joined by Dr Esme Miskimmin and medical historian Professor Sally Sheard for a panel discussion with audience participation on Dahl, the man, his literature and his impacts on medicine. A free drinks reception will follow with a book signing with Professor Solomon.

Suitable for all ages.

Booking required

Being Human 2016

29

Northern England

Northern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Northern England

Northern England

Liverpool Manchester

Modern ghost stories Advertising and imagining the University of Liverpool post-war world in Series: University of Liverpool hub, Fears of the past, hopes Britain for the future Wednesday 23 November 18.00 FACT Gallery, Liverpool How and why do we still tell ghost stories in the 21st century? Dr David Hering, University of Liverpool, and FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) collaborate to host a screening of a short film, Holmewood, a ghost story inspired by the landscapes of the North West and the writing of M R James.

The screening is followed by a Q&A led by Dr Hering and special guests, including the filmmakers, before opening out into a ‘free-spirited’ public discussion where you can tell your own ghost stories. Be afraid, be very afraid! The film is suitable for ages 15 and up (sustained threat, occasional bloody images).

Booking required

Liverpool John Moores University Thursday 24 November 18.00–20.00 Redmonds Building, Liverpool

Commercial advertising between 1939 and 1945 was an important part of everyday life in Britain, projecting a fanciful ideal of ‘modern’ life. This illustrated lecture describes how advertising happened to correspond with the prevailing political view that rejected high-sounding rhetoric in favour of the practical realities of everyday life and the material ambitions of the electorate. The advertisers gave form to what it was that the people were fighting for: looking forward to a postwar world with the promise of a bountiful future. Using images from brands such as Vimto, Oxo, Yardley Cosmetics, HP Sauce, Bournville and Stork Margarine, Dr David Clampin will introduce the debate on the relevance of the promises made in 1945 to 2016 and the issues we face today.

Twenty years on: Manchester and the IRA bomb University of Salford Thursday 17 November 19.30–21.30 Irish World Heritage Centre, Manchester On 15 June 1996, a bomb left on Corporation Street in Manchester devastated the city centre. This traumatic event proved to be a pivotal moment in the history and regeneration of Manchester.

Over the last 20 years, scholars, creative writers and the people of Manchester have explored the significance of the incident for the city. In this one-off event, a panel of writers, performers and academics will offer short reflections on the cultural legacy of the bomb culminating in a group discussion and personal responses of the audience. Come and share your memories of that day and your thoughts on Manchester’s development in the last two decades.

Booking required

Booking required

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Being Human 2016

Newcastle

Hoping for peace, imagining war: British writers, 1890s–1920s

Scaling the heights: mountains and vertical megastructures

Northumbria University

Newcastle University

Friday 18 November 15.00–17.00

Friday 18 November– Friday 25 November (closed Mon and Tue)

Lit & Phil, Newcastle upon Tyne

North Tower, Newcastle upon Tyne

How did British authors write about their own visions of war and peace?

How did they express the hopes and fears British people felt in the turbulent decades at the turn of the century? Dr Ann-Marie Einhaus will take you on an entertaining and thought-provoking journey through tales of war, invasion and peace written between the 1890s and 1920s. The talk is followed by an optional writing workshop, supported by Northumbria creative writing lecturer Dr Tony Williams, in which you can plan your own story about hope and/or fear. Following this event, you can finish your story at home and submit it to a ‘Hope and Fear’ writing competition. The talk and workshop are open to those ages 14 and up.

Booking required

Being Human 2016

Contemporary economic and social conditions are driving cities and their inhabitants ever higher into cloud-grazing skyscrapers and high-rises. We invite you to experience the long history and mesmerising appeal of all things high and mighty through the dramatic installation ‘Everest Death Zone’ suspended in the vast, vertical space of the Tyne Bridge’s North Tower; a performance by the vertical urban explorer and photographer Lucinda Grange; and bus tours of local artificial mountains and megastructures.

A programme of public talks, including one on the future of vertical cities hosted by Professor Stephen Graham, rounds out the week. Visit beinghumanfestival.org for event times.

The power of print in 18th-century Newcastle Northumbria University Saturday 19 November 10.00–12.00, 13.00–15.00 Northern Print, Newcastle upon Tyne ‘The power of print’ is a hands-on printing workshop for adults at Northern Print, facilitated by the Long Eighteenth-Century Research Group. Join us at Stepney Bank for a day in the print shop, producing artworks that explore Newcastle’s role as an epicentre of print production. Discover 18th-century examples of Geordie printing, such as Trotter Brockett’s dictionary, Mary Astell’s Serious Proposal, and woodcuts by Thomas Bewick.

Hear about the hopes and fears of the city’s authors, printers and booksellers through this fast-paced period of expansion. Celebrate the print history of Newcastle by creating your very own Northern Prints.

Booking required

Booking required

31

Northern England

Northern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Northern England

Northern England

Newcastle Ormskirk

Maternity tales: listening to birth spaces past and present Newcastle University Thursday 24 November– Friday 25 November 10.30–12.00, 14.00–16.00

Hope and fear in children’s books

Deconstructing gender

Newcastle University

Edge Hill University

Thursday 24 November 18.30–21.30

Friday 18 November 14.00–17.00

Seven Stories, Newcastle upon Tyne

Edge Hill University, Ormskirk

Children’s books can plunge readers into a world of hope and fear.

Royal Victoria Infirmary Maternity Explore Seven Stories, the National Ward and Laing Art Gallery, Centre for Children’s Books, with Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle University’s Children’s Enter the Maternity Tales Listening Literature Unit. Take an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the Booth, an interactive installation ‘Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in that allows you to explore the Stories’ exhibition with your tour history of buildings, instruments guide and Morpurgo expert Dr and spaces used for English Jessica Medhurst. Look at how maternity. Placed in Newcastle’s hope and fear is portrayed in RVI Maternity Ward and Laing Art Gallery, the booth’s drawers contain children’s literature manuscripts from the Seven Stories collection a spatial history of childbirth, with Dr Lucy Pearson. After some with visual and audio accounts of free time to look around the Visitor homes and midwives in the 18th Centre, join us for drinks in the Attic century and lying-in hospitals to test your knowledge of hope run by man-midwives in the 19th century. Despite the long history of and fear in children’s books in our lying-in institutions, it was not until fun quiz.

1945 that most women gave birth in hospital. Visitors to the booth Booking required are invited to fill in questionnaire cards or make audio recordings of their own experiences of maternity spaces.

‘Deconstructing gender’ is a timely event that addresses the critical issue of gender and gender fluidity. The afternoon incorporates workshops and discussions as well as a recent documentary film, Deconstructing Zoe. Researched, produced and directed by the Department of Media’s Rosa Fong, Deconstructing Zoe is an intimate portrait of a transgender actor and an exploration of gender, race and sexuality as seen through Zoe’s eyes. It offers insights into how gender, race and identity are performed, socially constructed and expressed.

Booking required

Booking required

32

Being Human 2016

Scarisbrick Sheffield

Contrasts: hopes and fears Edge Hill University Monday 21 November 19.00–21.00 Scarisbrick Hall School and College, Lancashire This event takes us far back into the past, to the various incarnations of Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black, a tale of ghostly presences and ghastly deaths, of past choices and present consequences, in a town in Victorian England. Since 1983, Susan Hill’s Neo-Victorian novella has woven a gothic web of influence over theatre and film.

In a debate we ask the question: ‘who is this tale truly about?’ and explore the ways that this supernatural story speaks to us today. We will also run several creative writing workshops at local schools beforehand. The event itself (Friday 25 November) will involve the Women in Black discussion, a prize-giving ceremony for the creative writing competition and a celebratory feast.

No booking required

Fictional human and Hope, fear and real robot: sharing climate change: from spaces with robots research to action Sheffield Hallam University

University of Sheffield

Thursday 17 November–Friday 25 November (closed Mon and Tue) 11.00–16.00 (exhibition)

Thursday 17 November 18.00–19.30

Bank Street Arts, Sheffield (exhibition), Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield (workshop and screening)

Quaker Meeting House, Sheffield

Our changing climate is a hotly contested agenda within arts and humanities research, but how can these two areas of academia In a future where intelligent contribute to discussions that have androids are fully integrated largely been science-based? Arts with everyday life, how do we researchers from the University of distinguish ourselves as human?

Sheffield are looking at the ways in Researchers from Sheffield Hallam which we interact with the natural University will present an interactive world and how they influence our display of the latest work in robot, action on one of the most pressing AI and VR technology. This will problems our society now faces, be followed by a scriptwriting climate change. Join academics, workshop and fiction filmmaking including Nicola Dibben (Music) session for visitors to express their and Nick Nuttgens (Theatre), for response to the imminent reality a discussion of how research can of robot citizens becoming part of help make sense of a seemingly our everyday lives. The resulting insurmountable problem and its film will be screened on Wednesday potential to influence our ability to 23 November at Sheffield Hallam take action.

University, followed by an informal discussion. Throughout the week, Booking required a photographic exhibition of robots and their usage will be on display at Bank Street Arts. Visit beinghumanfestival.org for event times.

No booking required

Being Human 2016

33

Northern England

Northern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Northern England

Northern England Sheffield Sunderland

Robots and AI: hope or fear?

Being human beyond Refusing to be the pale blue dot realistic

University of Sheffield

University of Sunderland

University of Sunderland

Wednesday 23 November– Thursday 24 November 18.00–22.00

Series: Future perfect: being human in the 21st century

Series: Future perfect: being human in the 21st century

Thursday 17 November 19.00–21.00

Tuesday 22 November 19.00–21.00

St Andrews Church, Sunderland

St Andrews Church, Sunderland

Are humans predisposed to explore? Are our ideas of being human tied to our presence on planet Earth? Dr Chris Newman will lead the discussion on how, and what, human groupings could form away from Earth. What concerns will we take with us and how will human laws translate to extraterrestrial places?

Desire is one of the things that make us human. Advertising tries to colonise and satisfy it with commodity solutions. But humans have always sought to expand beyond the here and now in search of something or somewhere better.

In 1516 Thomas More named this desire ‘utopia’. Utopian desire invites us to demand the seemingly impossible. Is it, therefore, always hopelessly unrealistic? Professor John Storey will explore the concept of utopia and the practice of utopianism, including how we might distinguish between reality and the real.

Showroom/Workstation, Sheffield We’ve all seen films where armies of evil robots enslave the human race. We may be worried about robots taking our jobs or, on the other hand, we can’t wait until they do. What is clear is that robots and artificial intelligence are going to play a very big part in our (human) future. Our event will offer people a chance to get to know some of these robots, with demonstrations from our labs at Sheffield Robotics.

We will screen a film and offer discussion and a debate where you can ask questions of the people who build, make and programme robots. You can have an important voice in shaping the robots we will create in the future.

Booking required

Booking required

No booking required

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Being Human 2016

Sunderland Wakefield York

Sex, love and robots University of Sunderland Series: Future perfect: being human in the 21st century Thursday 24 November 19.00–21.00 Gateway Room 1, University of Sunderland, Sunderland

WALLPAPER The soundscapes of installation: hope, the York Mystery fear and digital fiction Plays Sheffield Hallam University

University of York

Thursday 17 November (launch), Tuesday 22 November, Friday 25 November (installation open), Wednesday 23 November (interactive talk)

Friday 18 November–Monday 21 November Bedern Hall, York

We tend not to think of sounds as In this adults-only evening session, a part of our cultural history, but The Art House, Wakefield Lynne Hall and Clarissa Smith many everyday sounds have been consider the more subversive ideas We would like to invite you into consigned to history never to be sprung from artificial intelligence Dalton Manor, a remote house in heard again. Seeking to recreate a and robot technology. They will the North Yorkshire moors and more three-dimensional version lead participants on a journey discoverable via WALLPAPER, an of history, ‘The Soundscapes of through the ways in which sex and interactive, immersive virtual reality the York Mystery Plays’ invites love embody some of our deepest experience. As the reader/player of participants to immerse themselves (and darkest) hopes and fears. How WALLPAPER, your task is to explore in medieval York. Through the will new technologies, particularly the house and to uncover a family installation, which combines robots, impact our relationships? history of unfulfilled hopes and archival sound recordings on Can robots ‘consent’? Should hidden fears. During the festival oral history and newly recorded people be able to marry their robot period, meet the creators, Andy material, attendees can listen lover? Will robots be flawed like us, Campbell and Judi Alston of One to to recreated 16th-century or impeccably perfect? What might One Development Trust (Dreaming soundscapes and their modern all this tell us about the possible Methods), and attend an interactive counterparts. The opening of the futures of sexuality? Lightning talk led by Dr Alice Bell and Dr installation on Friday 18 November talks will be followed by interactive Isabelle van der Bom that will includes a talk on the project discussion. explore the origins and future of

by Dr Mariana Lopez. Booking digital fiction, including the hopes is required for the talk only. Visit Booking required and fears that digital technology beinghumanfestival.org for event bring to the future of writing. times.

Visit beinghumanfestival.org for event times.

Booking required Booking required

Being Human 2016

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Northern England

Northern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Midlands

Midlands

Birmingham Coventry

Familiar strangers: writing across languages and cultures

Where’s my igloo gone? – family theatre and installation

University of Warwick

University of Birmingham

Sunday 20 November 11.00–16.00

Wednesday 23 November, 13.00, 17.30, Thursday 24 November– Friday 25 November, 17.30

Ikon Gallery, Birmingham Culture is the cornerstone of communication. We explore the role that language plays within multicultural communities in expressing experience and emotion. The idea of ‘familiar strangers’ recalls how we might feel uncertain, even fearful, about encounters with new people or languages, but also curious and hopeful about making new connections. Split into two sessions, this event begins with performances and readings from a multilingual group of Birminghambased writers who write in languages from Arabic to French to Yoruba, as well as English dialects, such as Black Country. Later, a dropin workshop will invite the public to bring their own words of hope and fear and work with us to produce short writings telling stories of ‘familiar strangers’.

mac birmingham, Birmingham Oolik is an ordinary girl who goes on an extraordinary adventure to save her igloo home. On her way she meets some exciting friends to help her – including you! Journey into a dazzling, icy world of soaring snow geese, pet husky dogs and starry nights. ‘Where’s my igloo gone?’ is grounded in science, powered by the imagination.

With enchanting live music and inclusive performances, it’s a fun, magical experience for all the family. Alongside the interactive installation, the project explores themes of climate change, home, journeying and community.

Booking required

Against prejudice: Ira Aldridge in Coventry 1828 University of Warwick Thursday 17 November 19.00–21.00 Belgrade Theatre, Coventry In 1828, while slavery was still legal in Britain’s colonies, African American actor Ira Aldridge becomes manager of the Coventry Theatre. Not yet 21, he was the first black actor to play Othello, and only two months after he was introduced to West Midlands audiences as ‘a most extraordinary novelty: a man of colour’, he was running the theatre. We honour Aldridge’s amazing achievement with a drama-documentary and a night-time procession to the site of the long-lost playhouse where he and the city made history. With scenes, speeches and songs from Aldridge’s Coventry season, the event features leading professional actors alongside performers from the Belgrade Theatre’s Youth Choir.

Booking required

Booking required

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Being Human 2016

Midlands

Hereford Leicester

Food fest! Pop the Migration in Pomagne - spotlight contemporary on the Seventies creative writing University of Worcester

De Montfort University

Series: Food fest

Thursday 17 November 18.50–21.00

Tuesday 22 November 10.30–15.30 The Courtyard, Hereford

De Montfort University, Leicester Migration, whether by individuals or communities, is one of the oldest and most potent subjects of literature. Its themes of peril and persistence, and hope over fear, make for a gripping and compelling read. Today’s authors continue to address the topic in a range of ways.

This presentation by members of the Leicester Centre for Creative Writing at De Montfort University includes readings of recent creative works about migration as well as reflection on the difficulties posed in addressing what has become a controversial topic.

Come celebrate the most peculiar period of food history – the 1970s, which has been dubbed the ‘decade taste forgot’. Step back in time with the help of our multisensory experience featuring exhibitions, short talks and creative writing workshops. There will be images and adverts, discussions and debates, and food tastings and quizzes to help you explore a decade of political strife when Britain voted for the first time about being part of the European Community. All are invited and we offer a particularly warm welcome Booking required to those who cannot remember how Pomagne, Angel Delight, Wagon Wheels, Dream Topping and Cup-a-Soup encapsulated the hopes and dreams of the era of glam rock, the donkey jacket and the Austin Allegro.

Science and the Victorian public University of Leicester Friday 18 November 13.30–14.30 Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester At the height of the Victorian age, magic lantern shows were a stunning feat of entertainment, and the precursor to modernday cinema. As part of Literary Leicester 2016, visitors can attend a recreation of a 19th-century magic lantern show featuring historical actors. We will present a typical Victorian scientific lecture, during which audiences will experience the ambience of the lantern as well as learn how subjects like evolution, dinosaurs and geology were presented through glass slides and electric light. After the performance, the audience can see the lantern and slides for themselves, and ask the historical actors questions about the content and contexts of this fascinating Victorian technology.

No booking required

Booking required

Being Human 2016

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Midlands

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Midlands

Midlands

Leicester Lincoln

Meat the machine: we cyborg!

De Montfort University Friday 18 November 18.50–21.00 De Montfort University, Leicester In 1923, geneticist J B S Haldane presented a prophetic paper to the Heretics society in Cambridge concerning man’s conquest, first of space and time, then of his own body. How far away are we from the genetic manipulation of a new species of human life: cyber Homo sapiens, Human v2.0? In this special event, we consider what it means to be human in an age of cyber-citizenry and in a world that we shall soon share with machines and robots that will move among us. The event will open with a series of provocative introductory talks exploring themes of the cyberhuman, followed by a moderated discussion that promises to be absorbing and lively.

Booking required

The good age: long life, literature and utopianism

Family film screening of Toy Story 3

University of Lincoln

Bishop Grosseteste University

Thursday 17 November 13.00–19.00

Sunday 20 November 13.00–15.00

University of Lincoln, Lincoln What kind of society would we ideally like to live in if there were no limits? We will be exploring the pleasures and provocations of utopian thinking with people age 60 and over. This event, run in collaboration with Age UK Lincoln, will include a talk by Dr Siân Adiseshiah on utopianism and ageing and workshops facilitated by the University of Lincoln. Our activities aim to enable older people to explore their hopes and fears for the future through engaging with literary utopias – from Thomas More’s Utopia to Sarah Hall’s The Carhullan Army. The day will culminate with Dr Amy Culley hosting a talk by author Penelope Lively discussing her recent memoir on ageing and memory, Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time.

The Collection, Lincoln Come and watch the adventures of Woody and Buzz Lightyear as they attempt to escape the ‘Big Brother’ society of Sunnyside Day Care. Several escape attempts are foiled by a cymbal-banging monkey that never takes its eyes off the surveillance cameras. The toys eventually escape and make their way back to their owner Andy. The film will be introduced

by Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall as we consider themes of surveillance in popular culture and contemporary filmography.

Booking required

Booking required

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Being Human 2016

Midlands

Lincoln Nottingham

Film screening of The Conversation Bishop Grosseteste University Monday 21 November 19.00–21.30 The Venue, Lincoln The Conversation focuses on a paranoid, secretive surveillance expert who has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that a couple he is spying on will be murdered. The film, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and screened after Watergate in 1974, raised important questions about the possible misuse of surveillance technology and connects with present-day concerns surrounding state spying and the erosion of civil liberties. The film will be introduced

by Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall as we consider themes of surveillance in popular culture and classic filmography.

Booking required

Conversation dinner The ethics of watching and University of Nottingham killing in RAF reaper Series: University of Nottingham hub, Cultures of hope and fear operations Bishop Grosseteste University Wednesday 23 November 19.00–20.30

Thursday 17 November 19.00

Visit the website for venue details

The thought of talking to a Bishop Grosseteste University, stranger can fill a person with Lincoln dread. This event invites the people of Nottingham to face Join Dr Peter Lee, reader in their aversions and take an extra politics and ethics (University of special ‘dinner’ with someone they Portsmouth) to examine drones, do not know. You will be given a their masters and the principles menu but instead of food, it is full of surveillance in his public of discussion topics. These topics lecture: ‘What about the drone are about your experiences and operators? An inside perspective the lessons you have drawn from on the ethics of watching and them. Learn about yourself through killing in RAF reaper operations’. a different set of eyes and find The subject of state surveillance out if you have more in common has particular relevance to the with the person opposite you county of Lincolnshire as RAF than you first thought. Aiming Waddington, located just outside to create a living ‘portrait’ of the the city of Lincoln, plays an active role in RAF intelligence, surveillance people of Nottingham, this project will catalogue the aspirations and reconnaissance activities. This of local residents through their includes the use of drones for dinner chatter and bridge different surveillance purposes and also as weapons against Islamic State. Join communities by the simple act us to consider a missing voice from of conversation. The event will be hosted by Dr Katharina Lorenz the public debate concerning the ethics of ‘watching’ and ‘killing’ – the of the University of Nottingham; perspective of the drone operator. Professor Theodore Zeldin of the University of Oxford will lead proceedings.

Booking required Booking required

Being Human 2016

39

Midlands

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Midlands

Midlands Nottingham

The rights and Walk of hope: Sound and stone: justice city I: medieval alabasters to the castle! making Nottingham University of Nottingham and choral music slavery-free University of Nottingham Series: University of Nottingham University of Nottingham Series: University of Nottingham hub, Cultures of hope and fear Friday 18 November 19.00–20.30 Newton Lecture Theatre 1, Nottingham The first of a three-part series called ‘The rights and justice city: hope, history and being humane’, this public dialogue tackles an important issue in an open forum.

There are 46 million people enslaved around the world today, forced to work against their will for no pay. The Modern Slavery Act of 2015 tackles the issue of the thousands of people enslaved in the UK. Could UK cities now take steps to ensure they are slaveryfree? Over the next two years, Nottingham will work to become the world’s first official slavery-free city. Our panel members, including Professor Kevin Bales and experts from law enforcement, civil society and local government, will debate how Nottingham and other cities can end slavery.

Booking required 40

hub, Cultures of hope and fear Saturday 19 November 16.00 St Peter’s Square, Nottingham

To the castle! By popular demand, People’s Histreh, Nottingham’s radical history group, will lead a lively walking tour of the city following the route of rioters who marched in the streets and then sacked and burned Nottingham Castle in 1831. The walk will explore the identities and motives of the rioters as well as their living and working conditions. Look out for the loaf on a stick! Dr Richard Grant is on an academic residency with the Castle Museum to bring together evidence of Nottingham’s long history of rebellion. The hopes and fears of the city’s population will be told as part of the visitor experience of Nottingham.

No booking required

Series: University of Nottingham hub, Cultures of hope and fear Saturday 19 November 12.00–14.00, 14.00–15.00, 15.15–16.15 Nottingham Castle Museum, Nottingham This series of three events showcases two famous types of English art of the late medieval era: Nottingham alabaster carvings and polyphonic choral music. At this period, during later Plantagenet and early Tudor times, English music and alabasters were flourishing and enjoyed national and international reputations. To illustrate this, there are talks, activities and a unique concert designed to show off a rich era of English art. One of these will be led by British artist Sarah Danays, who will be featured working with alabaster while talking about the material and her sculptures. Lloyd de Beer from the British Museum will give a talk that explores the wider context of Nottingham’s collection, the history of alabaster carving and Nottingham’s place within the world of medieval sculpture.

Booking required Being Human 2016

Midlands Nottingham

The rights and justice city II: Nottingham’s black history

Worcester

The rights and justice city III: Nottingham in the age of Brexit

University of Nottingham

University of Nottingham

Series: University of Nottingham hub, Cultures of hope and fear

Series: University of Nottingham hub, Cultures of hope and fear

Saturday 19 November 15.00–17.30

Monday 21 November 17.00–18.30

Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham

Galleries of Justice Museum, Nottingham

Food fest University of Worcester Series: Food fest Thursday 17 November Saturday 19 November Monday 21 November Thursday 24 November 18.00–21.00 Various venues

This creative four-part series of events explores the food history of the First and Second World Wars with a jam-packed programme of The second in a three-part series The last session in a three-part talks, exhibitions and interactive called ‘The rights and justice city: series called ‘The rights and justice events taking place in historical hope, history and being humane’, city: hope, history and being locations around Worcester. Learn this public dialogue tackles an humane’, this public dialogue about innovative jam recipes during important issue in an open forum. tackles important issues in an open rationing, including preserves Nottingham is home to Europe’s forum. The results of the UK’s EU made from the famous Pershore first Black Lives Matter chapter, referendum on 23 June sparked plum. Taste wartime Christmas which in 2015 joined the 30 local a flurry of political changes and a food like chocolate potato biscuits chapters that exist in the US, sharp rise in hate crimes. Suddenly and explore how people cultivated Canada and Africa. But what is the UK has to confront questions fruit and vegetables during food the relationship between Black of equality, tolerance and hate. shortages. Enter into a historical Lives Matter and black history Does the marked rise in hate crimes bake-off and debate the use of in Nottingham? Is Nottingham’s signal a new age of intolerance? food in historical and contemporary black past a prologue for modern- How should the UK engage with conflicts. Visit beinghumanfestival.org day activism? Join us for talks, questions of race and rights postfor event times. discussion and music with local Brexit? We’ll hear from Professor historians and guest speakers.

Todd Landman, pro-vice chancellor Presented in collaboration with the at the University of Nottingham, Nottingham Black History Society and special guest experts on our and Black Lives Matter Nottingham. responsibility for living humanely in our post-referendum world.

Booking required Booking required

Being Human 2016

41

Midlands

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Southern England

Southern England Bath

Bridport Brighton

Ignite your mind

Poetry of the Lancashire cotton famine

University of Bath Monday 21 November 19.00–21.30 Ring O Bells, Bath Surely there can be no greater student dream than a lecture down the local pub? This one-night event brings together University of Bath PhD researchers and the local community at the pub to celebrate being human! Speakers will tantalise the audience with five-minute overviews of their research using 20 slides that autoadvance every 15 seconds. Each talk will relate to the Being Human festival theme of ‘hope and fear’.

Speakers will address topics ranging from politics, social policy, and education to psychology, health and economics. Come along to gain some ‘pub ammunition’ of interesting facts and knowledge you can use to impress fellow pubgoers at future gatherings.

Booking required

University of Exeter Series: University of Exeter hub, Voices from the edge Wednesday 23 November 18.30–21.30 Sir John Colfox Academy, Bridport This unique event combines performances of Lancashire cotton famine poetry and song from the well-known Manchester ballad singer Jennifer Reid with a talk on dialect, poetry and the global/ local historical effects of the Cotton Famine (1861-65), which was caused largely by the American Civil War. Lancashire dialect poetry will be compared with Dorset dialect poetry, popularised by William Barnes (1801-86). Included in the event will be audiencecentred ‘translation’ exercises of dialect poetry and discussions of pronunciation, authenticity and cultural preservation.

Booking required

The art of lying: who is Harvey Matusow?

University of Sussex Series: The art of lying: two evenings with Harvey Matusow Tuesday 22 November, Wednesday 23 November 20.00–22.00 14–17 Manchester Street, Brighton What could be more uncomfortably human than lying? An act of hope and fear, daring and cowardice that is oddly creative at the same time – few practiced the art of lying better than Harvey Matusow. This two-night programme investigates the one-time Communist turned celebrity FBI informant who later re-invented himself as a champion of London’s 1960s arts scene and writer for the infamous Oz magazine. We present never-beforeseen material from Matusow’s archive at the University of Sussex Special Collections, including rare films and images, a live link to New York, and a roundtable discussion featuring academics, journalists and archivists. In our second event, Robert Cohen performs The Trials of Harvey Matusow, his acclaimed oneman show, which offers an affecting and sometimes hilarious portrait of the man behind the act.

Booking required

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Being Human 2016

Brighton Bristol

Moving stories: representing refugees and the refugee voice University of Sussex

We, robots University of the West of England Sunday 20 November 12.00–16.00 Anchor Road, Bristol

In science fiction, human-like robots often take the form of teenage girls. But while these figures are designed to be like girls, Brighthelm Centre, Brighton they are rarely designed by girls, or Personal stories of refugee with girls in mind. ‘We, robots’ offers displacement are often the point at an opportunity for girls (ages 13– which the creative arts and human 17) to actively engage with science rights intersect. Refugee testimony fiction and robotics technology. In is used across media and the arts an afternoon filled with immersive as well as in the related fields of law presentations, hands-on robotics and social sciences. This event will tinkering, and a creative writing open with a performance of the workshop, the group will explore Asylum Monologues/Dialogues how fantasy, technology and

by Actors of Human Rights. These creativity collide. performances use the actual words of refugees and asylum seekers No booking required to present their own stories, performed by professional actors.

The performance will be followed by a public roundtable discussion involving representatives of the media, creative arts, academia and refugees themselves. Discussion will consider how the experience of migrants and refugees is used to highlight immediate human rights concerns and the ethics of such representation.

Friday 25 November 18.00–20.00

What is ‘healing’ in the twenty-first century?

University of Exeter Series: Voices from the edge Thursday 24 November 19.30–21.30 Arnolfini Centre for Contemporary Arts, Bristol Is healing the same as curing? Is healing the restoration of previous physical, mental or spiritual health? Is healing a process that enables us to flourish even with long-term illnesses? And what of the miraculous? Can we speak, even, of dying healed? A panel of experts from medicine, psychology, spirituality and culture will explore and debate this rich topic. As people live longer with chronic conditions, we’ll ask how understanding healing might help us live well throughout our lives.

Booking required

Booking required

Being Human 2016

43

Southern England

Southern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Southern England

Southern England Cambridge Canterbury

Hope and fear in a Hardy adaptation Anglia Ruskin University Thursday 24 November 19.00–22.00 Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge Ever wondered how our favourite paperbacks are brought to life on the silver screen? To understand this our event will take place in two parts. The first is a screening of Thomas Vinterberg’s 2015 version of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, taking place in the Mumford Theatre at Anglia Ruskin University. This will be followed by a panel discussion comprising academic staff and students working on theories of adaptation.

The audience will be invited to ask questions or raise topics for the panel to discuss.

Booking required

Poetry on the move Hopes and fears of archaeology: University of Kent poetry and artefacts Series: All roads lead to poems/ All odes lead to Rome workshop University of Kent Series: All roads lead to poems/ All odes lead to Rome Friday 18 November 18.00–20.00 Canterbury Archaeological Trust, Canterbury This event combines writing with archaeology. Join us at Canterbury Archaeological Trust for a poetry workshop where you can get your hands dirty. Led by poet Dan Simpson, it is a chance to gain hands-on experience of artefacts found in your city and region and discover what happens to them after they have been excavated. It will also explore what archaeologists hope to find as well as their fears about the destruction of the past.

Saturday 19 November 10.15–11.45, 12.15–13.45, 14.15–15.45

Canterbury Roman Museum, Canterbury Combining the introversion of poetry with the tactility of archaeology, this event permits you to explore artefacts from Canterbury’s Roman past in a poetry workshop/museum tour with poet Dan Simpson. While poet-in-residence at the museum in 2014, Simpson walked from London to Canterbury along the route of Watling Street and later wrote a series of poems about Rome.

No booking required

No booking required

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Being Human 2016

Canterbury

Walking the start of Via Francigena University of Kent Series: All roads lead to poems/ All odes lead to Rome Sunday 20 November 09.00–15.00 Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury Walk in the footsteps of medieval pilgrims in this 12-mile walk past the World Heritage sites of Canterbury Cathedral, Saint Augustine’s Abbey and St Martin’s Church, achieving a multisensory immersion in the historic human experience of walking longdistance to dwell on one’s hopes and fears. Pilgrims, in the present or in the past, are exposed to all weathers, often travelling along dangerous and difficult terrain, through foreign lands where they must rely on strangers for their most basic needs. The walk begins at Canterbury Cathedral and ends at Shepherdswell and is led by Julia Peters, who walked to Rome in 2015. Participants will return to Canterbury by train.

Poetry workshop: from museum objects to words University of Kent Series: All roads lead to poems/ All odes lead to Rome Sunday 20 November 10.15–11.45, 12.15–13.45, 14.15–15.45 Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, Canterbury

Mary Braddon exhibition Canterbury Christ Church University Series: Lady Audley on trial Monday 21 November– Friday 25 November 09.00–17.00 Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury

This exhibition includes original material from the Braddon Archive What is an object? What did it do held by the International Centre for in the past? This poetry workshop Victorian Women Writers, brought led by Dan Simpson will help to life with text boards and dressed participants develop their own mannequins created by the Mary poem(s) about the Roman past, Elizabeth Braddon Association. focusing on the theme of ‘hopes Learn more about one of Victorian and fears’. After a week of polishing England’s most prolific and their poem(s), participants can successful women writers, creator choose to read or perform them in of the scandalous Lady Audley, who the Canterbury Roman Museum on rocked the 1860s in every sense.

26 November.

No booking required

No booking required

No booking required

Being Human 2016

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Southern England

Southern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Southern England

Southern England Canterbury

Hopes and fears of the humanities University of Kent Series: All roads lead to poems/ All odes lead to Rome Tuesday 22 November 18.00–19.00 Canterbury Campus, University of Kent Are the humanities under attack? Reflecting upon the past decade, the event begins with a screening the 2015 film What is humanities research at the University of Kent? It will be followed by a panel discussion and audience participation in a debate about the role of the humanities and the hopes and fears of researchers in the 21st century.

No booking required

Techno-artefacts: 3D laser-scanning and printing University of Kent Series: All roads lead to poems/ All odes lead to Rome Wednesday 23 November 11.00–15.00 The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, Canterbury We are at a new dawn of design technology where we can create something seemingly from nothing at the push of a button. However, the remit of 3D printing far exceeds the realm of design. Archaeologists are now able to use the technology to recreate items once thought lost to history. At our drop-in event, learn how 3D laser-scanning technology works and see for yourself the 3D printed objects.

Alongside this print revelation, however, questions arise: what is the role of printed objects, and how should these be used alongside the originals kept behind glass in museum cases?

No booking required

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Screening of Lady Audley’s Secret Canterbury Christ Church University Series: Lady Audley on trial Wednesday 23 November 18.00–21.00 Canterbury Christ Church, Canterbury This event features a screening of the 2000 film based on Mary Braddon’s bestselling sensation novel Lady Audley’s Secret. One of the most famous of the 1860s sensation novels, Mary Braddon’s story of the captivating but ruthless Lady Audley spoke to the darkest fears of its audience, tapping into the divisive debate over gender roles in the context of an emerging women’s movement. The screening will be followed by an informal discussion of the film’s artistic choices in reinterpreting Lady Audley for a modern audience. The discussion will be facilitated by the director of the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers.

Booking required

Being Human 2016

Canterbury

Sensing the past: A-Level day: Lady from smell to sound Audley’s Secret University of Kent Series: All roads lead to poems/ All odes lead to Rome

Canterbury Christ Church University Series: Lady Audley on trial

Thursday 24 November 14.00–15.30

Friday 25 November 10.00–14.00

Canterbury Roman Museum, Canterbury

Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury

What did the past taste, smell and sound like? Objects in museums tend to be viewed behind glass in cases and perceived through vision.

However, this is only the smallest part of our perception. To truly understand historical civilisations and the world, we must get closer to the things we cannot dig up. This workshop, led by University of Kent PhD student Paula Lock, takes you outside the museum to consider how the other senses perceive the world of the past. The workshop is based on her recent research into the sounds, smells and tastes found in the bars of the Roman world.

No booking required

A study day for A-level English students, using critical analysis, creative writing techniques and modern-day law to reconsider Lady Audley’s ‘secret’ from the perspective of multiple characters.

The story focuses on Robert Audley’s investigation into the disappearance of his friend, George Talboys. But his quest frames the hopes and fears of various female characters, from the blackmailing maid Phoebe, whose social aspiration is destroyed by her fear of her fiancé, to the middle class Clara, whose anxiety for her brother allows her partially to overcome a fear of her father. One of the bestselling 1860s sensation novels, Lady Audley’s Secret spoke to the darkest fears of its time in the context of an emerging women’s movement.

Lady Audley on trial Canterbury Christ Church University Series: Lady Audley on trial Friday 25 November 17.00–19.00 Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury In Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s 1862 novel Lady Audley’s Secret, the central character is allowed to avoid arrest for the sake of the family name. But the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers has tracked her down and we will be putting her on trial in a historic courthouse owned by the university. Using modern case law to ask what crimes she may have committed, actors will stage the trial Lady Audley never had. With guidance from a modern judge, the audience will be asked to serve as members of the jury and decide whether Lady Audley is guilty.

The dramatisation will be filmed for educational use, giving you a chance to make up your mind again and again.

Booking required

Booking required

Being Human 2016

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Southern England

Southern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Southern England

Southern England Exeter

Looking at football: an intimate view of a football ground

Staging mortality: provocation and conversation

University of Exeter

University of Exeter

Series: University of Exeter hub, Voices from the edge

Series: University of Exeter hub, Voices from the edge

Thursday 17 November 11.00–21.00 (exhibition), 19.00 (talk)

Friday 18 November 18.30–20.00

St James Park, Exeter Earlier this year, world-leading football photographer Peter Robinson photographed St James Park so that its character may be preserved and shared. The Heritage Lottery-funded project produced a wealth of photographs that offer an intimate view of life in the ground, showing the inherently human side of ‘the beautiful game’. This event consists of an exhibition of these photographs alongside a talk about football photography, the human essence of the medium and how it captures the hopes and fears of football fans. Booking is only required for the talk.

Booking required

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Barnfield Theatre, Exeter What can we learn about mortality from contemporary theatre?

How can dramatists and theatremakers help us to understand this quintessential aspect of our humanity? Theatre has an ephemeral quality. It also has the potential to make us uniquely aware of our finite existence. Adrian Curtin, from the University of Exeter, will discuss this topic and enter into conversation with award-winning dramatist Kaite O’Reilly, whose recent play Cosy offers a darkly comic take on ‘making an exit’ and ‘quitting the scene’.

Booking required

Wonder and dread: Slavic tales of foreign lands and wild people University of Exeter Series: University of Exeter hub, Voices from the edge Sunday 20 November 15.00–18.00 Bike Shed Theatre, Exeter The gypsies of Romania, the magical shape-shifting underground inhabitants of Russia, the crying dolls of Poland, and the, er, sausages of Transylvania provide the fodder for ‘Wonder and dread: Slavic tales of foreign lands and wild people’. Local, national and international artists will gather in Exeter to conjure an afternoon of storytelling and performance that explores themes of migration, knowledge, technology and wildness. Tales will be told, songs will be sung and journeys will be made.

Booking required

Being Human 2016

Exeter

‘Dangerous’ influences: in the archive with Radclyffe Hall University of Exeter Series: University of Exeter hub, Voices from the edge Monday 21 November 20.00–21.30 Exeter Phoenix, Exeter What influences shape our sexuality? Can literature be a ‘dangerous’ influence? In 1928, Radclyffe Hall’s lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness was banned as ‘obscene’ and described as a ‘danger’ to youth. This event will feature a short performance written by playwright Natalie McGrath that draws on University of Exeter lecturer Dr Jana Funke’s work on this writer. Join us for an interactive event that will offer a unique opportunity to explore and debate topical questions about sexuality, literary history, identity and community.

Booking required

Coat tales: the stories Engaging with clothes tell dystopia: William Golding’s University of Exeter Lord of the Flies Series: University of Exeter hub, Voices from the edge

Wednesday 23 November 13.00–16.00 Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter What can we learn from a wrinkle in a dress, a rip in a pair of blue jeans or a stain in a T-shirt? We subconsciously read people for their clothes—sometimes making damning assumptions or a life-long friend based on outerwear alone— but now we are getting up-close to unpack untold sartorial stories.

Working in detail with specially selected items of clothing from the RAMM’s collection that were worn by individuals ‘at the edge’ of important life changes, from marriages and births to death, we will consider what histories are woven into such objects. You will be invited to imagine your own stories through writing and drawing using the items from the collection as inspiration.

Booking required

University of Exeter Series: University of Exeter hub, Voices from the edge Wednesday 23 November 13.30–16.30 University of Exeter Old Library, Exeter Why and how has William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies spoken to readers across the generations?

The workshop will feature this iconic publishing phenomenon in conjunction with unique materials from the Golding Archive at the University of Exeter’s Heritage Collections. Together with curators and academics from the Centre for Literature and Archives, schoolchildren will have the opportunity to engage with processes of adaptation, curation and the transition from manuscript to printed text. They will explore the novel’s questioning of human nature in a dystopic landscape, a theme that continues to capture the reader’s imagination. This event is open to schools only by arrangement.

No booking required

Being Human 2016

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Southern England

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beinghumanfestival.org

Southern England

Southern England

Exeter London

A Hollantide phantasmagoria University of Exeter Series: University of Exeter hub, Voices from the edge Wednesday 23 November, Friday 25 November 20.00–22.00 St Stephen’s Church, Exeter, Epiphany House, Truro Hollantide is the English season of eeriness and mystery, superstition and the supernatural. Of old, it was a significant English festival, and we are inviting you to revive some Hollantide traditions with us. Come and celebrate this ghostly time of the year with local band Woodwose and their friends. The evening will be a phantasmagoria – a mix of Gothic storytelling, medieval music and special effects, with Steve Tyler on hurdy-gurdy, Katy Marchant on pipes, Nick Groom providing the words drawing on his research for a new history of Gothic imagination, and traditional drinks and seasonal soul-cakes. Expect the unexpected at this Hollantide event.

Booking required

Stories from Syria: accounts from the Syrian civil war

Humanity and humanities: crisis, rescue and renewal

University of Exeter

The Warburg Institute

Series: University of Exeter hub, Voices from the edge

Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear

Saturday 19 November– Thursday 24 November (exhibition) Thursday 24 November (talk) 19.00–21.00

Thursday 17 November– Friday 25 November (Mon–Fri 10.00–18.00, Sat 10.00–16.00, closed Sun)

Exeter Cathedral (talk), Forum, University of Exeter Streatham Campus, Exeter (exhibition)

The Warburg Institute, London

In moments of crisis, vital measures can be taken to preserve important learning, legacies and Last May, Fr Mourad, a Syrian the intellectual capital of academic Catholic priest, was snatched by refugees. In 1933, Aby Warburg’s Islamic State from his monastery. library and incipient institute left Taken to Raqqa, he was eventually Hamburg and the Nazi regime to rescued by Muslim friends. At settle in London, becoming one of our truly unique event at Exeter the leading humanities research Cathedral he will discuss his centres in Europe. The Warburg’s experiences and the importance of event series includes an exhibition, inter-faith. Separately we will hear which will focus on the microfrom Bashar, an Aleppo-trained stories of those academic migrants paediatrician granted asylum in that enabled the survival and the UK in 2015 after twice being detained by the Assad regime. There growth of the humanities through will be a small exhibition of objects the Warburg Institute; a walking tour of Bloomsbury discussing the revival and stories from Syria including of the area as a centre of learning cardboard chess pieces made and in the post-war period; and group played by hostages in Raqqa, a piece of Syrian art from the conflict, tours of rare photographs and letters examining Warburg archive and a copy of Hamlet. Each object and the stories that surround them material. Visit beinghumanfestival. tell of human hope even in times of org for event times. great fear.

Booking required No booking required

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Being Human 2016

London

Endless cities School of Advanced Study, University of London Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Thursday 17 November– Friday 25 November (Mon–Fri 10.00–20.00, Sat 10.00–18.00, closed Tues and Sun) Senate House, London More than half of the world’s population live in cities. All trends point towards an ever-increasing rate of urbanisation on an international scale. While architects, urban planners and politicians are trying to make sense of these new developments, the people who live in this sprawling new urban world must come to terms with transformed and dynamic realities.

‘Endless cities’ is part-documentary, part-visual essay, and captures the enduring fascination, the contradictions and complexities, as well as the conflicts played out in our new man-made environments.

No booking required

Utopia and dystopia: Archaeology and dreaming the future espionage Senate House Library and School of Advanced Study, University of London Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Thursday 17 November– Friday 25 November (Mon–Fri 9.00–17.30, Sat 10.00–17.00, closed Sun) Senate House, London This exhibition marks the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s influential work Utopia in the city of Leuven in 1516. As well as coining a new word, Thomas More challenged the foundations of English society by advocating a republic free from social conflict and distress. Taking early modern utopian visions as a starting point, the exhibition will consider how humankind has dreamed and experimented with the concept of the perfect society across different times and places. It will also explore how utopian dreams have often turned into dystopian realities leading to authoritarian systems of government where human rights and civil liberties have been suppressed.

Petrie Museum Thursday 17 November 13.15–13.45 Petrie Museum, UCL, London The ability to decipher codes, understand cartography, master other languages and live simply in the desert landscape are all skills that can be applied to being an archaeologist—but they are also useful in war time for the purposes of espionage. Join one of our community volunteers from our Heritage Lottery Fund project ‘Different perspectives: archaeology and the Middle East in WWI’, for a lunchtime talk on archaeology and espionage. Using Flinders Petrie as our main point of connection, you’ll be introduced to the emerging research on Petrie’s war and the links between archaeology and the intelligence services during World War I. Booking required

No booking required Being Human 2016

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Southern England

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Southern England

Southern England London

Immigration: what next?

Lancaster University

Being Human festival launch

British Academy

Series: Dark matters

Being Human festival

Thursday 17 November 18.00–19.30

Thursday 17 November 18.30 –20.00

Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear

British Academy, London

Imperial College London, London

Thursday 17 November 18.30–20.30

Immigration continues to be central to the political and media agenda. It played a major part in the EU referendum debate in the UK, while the current refugee crisis has had dramatic repercussions across Europe. Join this panel as they discuss findings from the European Social Survey and ask: What do we know about the public’s attitudes to immigration?

What kind of migration policy does the public want, and can policy actually deliver a solution?

Booking required

Dark matters

A screening of a 15-minute documentary film about a project involving an artist, an anthropologist and a cosmologist that questions our relationship to the curious and terrifying imperceptible forces shaping our universe. What does it feel like to sense deep time or see the light fossils of activity that happened 13 billion years ago? The film is followed by a public talk by artist Sarah Casey, who worked on the project, after which participants will be invited to attend the opening reception of the Blyth Gallery’s exhibition ‘Dark matters: our imperceptible universe’.

Senate House, London Join us at Being Human festival HQ in Senate House, University of London, to toast the success of the third Being Human festival of the humanities. The festival will kick off in style with a sneak peek of some of its sights and sounds. Featuring talks and performances by festival participants from across the UK, it will be a bite-sized preview of nine packed days of humanities ‘hope and fear’.

Booking required

Booking required

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Ministry of hope and Sound and fury: fear tours Senate House installation School of Advanced Study, University of London

Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Thursday 17 November–Friday 25 November (closed Sunday) Senate House, London Rising above leafy Bloomsbury, Charles Holden’s Senate House is a potent piece of architectural design, home to the Being Human festival and the administrative heart of the University of London. One of London’s most iconic buildings, the Art Deco masterpiece has featured in countless Hollywood movies, famously housed the Ministry of Information during World War II and served as inspiration for George Orwell’s 1984. Come and explore the myths, mysteries and history of London’s first skyscraper. Our tours are led by researchers and staff who work in the building. Visit beinghumanfestival.org for event times.

Booking required

Dark matters: our imperceptible universe

University of Nottingham

Lancaster University

Series: Sound and fury: listening to the Second World War

Series: Dark matters

Thursday 17 November–Friday 25 November (Mon– Fri 10:00-20:00, Sat 10:00–18:00, closed Sun and Tues)

Thursday 17 November–Friday 25 November (closed weekends) Imperial College London, London

Ninety-five percent of our universe is invisible. This mind-boggling fact serves as the basis for our Composer Aleks Kolkowski, in unique exhibition, which queries collaboration with historian James our relationship to the curious Mansell, has created a site-specific and terrifying imperceptible forces installation in the former Ministry shaping our universe. What does of Information in Senate House, it feel like to sense deep time or University of London that will see light fossils of activity that be on display throughout the happened 13 billion years ago?

Being Human festival. Explore The exhibition features lightthis historic building – including sensitive drawings by Sarah Casey rooms not normally accessible to that move with the movements the public – while interacting with of those viewing them. A vintage sound technologies loaned documentary film about the by the British Vintage Wireless project will be screened when the and Television Museum and the exhibition opens (see page 52). unheard collections of the British Library Sound Archive. Come and No booking required see the ‘Babble Machine’, and experience the Second World War as you’ve never heard it before!

Senate House, London

No booking required

Being Human 2016

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Southern England

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Southern England

Southern England London

By the seaside: the beach 1700–2000 School of Advanced Study, University of London: Institute of Historical Research Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Thursday 17 November–Friday 25 November, 9.00-20.30 (exhibition closed weekends), Monday 21 November, 18.00–20.30 (talk) Institute of Historical Research, London

The Memory Hole Hope and fear in Machine installation London: street art with interactive workshop manual Senate House Library, School of Advanced Study, University of London Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Thursday 17 November–Friday 25 November (Mon–Fri 9.00–17.30, Sat 10.00–17.00, closed Sun and Tue) Senate House, London

Allan Brodie of Historic England presents an evening that will endeavour to change how we see and value our beloved seaside.

Brodie will discuss the history of the British seaside (1700–2000), drawing on a survey conducted about the English beach. He will describe the fascinating elements of change in relation to class, leisure, trade and economy, architecture and even geography of the British beach. The lecture will be complemented by an exhibition running throughout the festival. Sponsored by the Institute of Historical Research in collaboration with Historic England and the Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Study.

Listen and contribute to an Orwellian ‘memory hole’ in this interactive installation that records new sounds and plays content from a catalogued audio archive. Inspired by the use of Senate House as the Ministry of Information during World War II as well as the building’s incarnation as the dystopian ‘Ministry of Truth’ in George Orwell’s 1984, this installation enables visitors to participate in the building’s living history. Contribute a recording using 1940s and 1980s technology that will be played back during a final performance (Thursday 24 November) that will also use sounds gathered during the artist’s residency at Senate House Library and watch for additional pop-up audio installations over the week!

Booking required

No booking required

University of London

Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Friday 18 November 10.00–17.00 Saturday 19 November 11.00–17.00 Senate House, London London is a multicultural metropolis.

For some it is a utopia, a culturally diverse and dynamic city full of possibilities. For others it has become the opposite. Instead of escaping deprivation they are thrown into a housing crisis, unemployment and poverty. This sense of hope and fear has often found expression in forms of streetart protest, and London is home to some of the most vibrant street artists in the world. This workshop aims to bring young people into London’s educational hub to create a canvas mural based on graffiti techniques with guidance from London-based street artist James Titchnert. The artwork will visualise their hopes and fears in modern London and will be displayed as part of a related exhibition.

No booking required

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War in the streets: terror and weapons in media The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London Friday 18 November 14.30–16.00 Institute of Contemporary Arts, London The prominence of automatic firearms in the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks has marked the return of the image of the battlefield soldier in European everyday life: armed terrorists and security forces in military attire seem to increasingly populate public space.

This development also affects the production and perception of news reports, cinema and media art. In response to a screening of digital artwork and fragments from film and news media, a panel lead by artist Dani Ploeger and featuring a criminologist, a journalist and a international relations scholar will discuss everyday experiences of fear and violence.

Booking required

Down and out in Paris and London University of London Institute in Paris Friday 18 November 17.00–18.30 (presentation) Saturday 19 November 11.30–17.00 (exhibition workshop) Monday 21 November–Friday 25 November (exhibition) Senate House, London It has never been faster than it is today to travel between Paris and London, and yet for some the route remains difficult and dangerous. For the 2016 Being Human festival, the research team of the Paris Centre for Migrant Writing and Expression is coordinating a series of translation laboratories with asylum seekers living in France and unable to complete their intended journey to the UK. Starting with extracts of texts by writers such as Voltaire and Vallès, participants will translate in the broadest sense of the term: writing, adapting, photographing and literally translating work into other languages. Join us for a presentation of this project on 18 November. On 19 November, help us translate some of these materials into an exhibition that will run at Senate House from 21–25 November.

No booking required

Being Human 2016

Night at the library: books of hope and fear School of Advanced Study, University of London: Institute of Historical Research Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Friday 18 November 18.30–21.00 Institute of Historical Research, London Three hundred and fifty years ago flames engulfed and destroyed much of London. Join us for an immersive historical escape game on the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire. Guided by historians, librarians and some very special guests from the past, participants will explore the recently refurbished Charles Holden-designed library of the Institute of Historical Research as they solve a series of puzzles based on the Great Fire with the help of the library’s extensive collections before a welcome drink in the Common Room. ‘Night at the library’ will challenge your views of the Great Fire, uncovering early modern fears about terrorism, religion, immigration and the hope of rebuilding.

Booking required

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Southern England

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Southern England London

I am human: precarious journeys Goldsmiths, University of London Friday 18 November– Sunday 20 November Goldsmiths, University of London, London Trace the precarious journeys of refugees as they navigate the perils of land, sea and a deadly human landscape riven by geopolitical failure on an unprecedented scale.

This installation responds to three perilous spaces that refugees must navigate: the sea, the geographical border and the camp. Featuring a soundscape of whispered voices, the throb of tides, motorways and the human heart, visitors will be invited to interact with three short films activated by movement.

Filmmaker Sue Clayton will give a talk during the opening event about this work and her upcoming feature length documentary on the subject, I am human, featuring original music by Brian Eno. Visit beinghumanfestival.org for times of talks accompanying the installation.

Child migrant stories Wordkeys: the 4D translation game Queen Mary University of London

Saturday 19 November 11.00–17.00 V&A Museum of Childhood, London

SOAS, University of London Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Saturday 19 November 12.00–13.00

The inter-war period was a fraught one and London became a place of refuge. Explore stories of children who migrated to East London from 1930 to the present day through short films, talks with child migrants and readings. Hear about Linh, who escaped from Vietnam by boat with her father; Maurice, who owes his life to a daily meal provided by the Red Cross during the Biafran War; and Argun, who rescued his family album from his bombed-out house in Cyprus. This event will feature a singing workshop and musical performances by the Helen Bamber Foundation’s Woven Gold Choir, Trad Academy and One Jah.

Literary translator Rosalind Harvey presents an interactive journey for the curious and adventurous – a game that explores the ways translation and languages connect people and cultures all around the world. Take part in a treasure hunt that traverses languages to uncover the secret links that bind us all together. There’ll be foreign clues, hidden things to find, messages to decode and a big surprise for everyone at the end. The game will last a maximum of one hour. No knowledge of foreign languages is necessary.

No booking required

No booking required

Senate House, London

No booking required

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Queer and the state The National Archives

Invisible data performance

Concrete hopes and fears

Series: Queer and the state

Royal College of Art

Science Museum

Saturday 19 November 13.00–17.30 Thursday 24 November 18.00–21.00

Saturday 19 November 14.00 –16.30

Saturday 19 November 14.00–17.00

Royal College of Art, London

Science Museum Dana Research Centre and Library, London

Explore the reactions of your body and your mind to two pervasive and invisible datasets – smell and GPS. This participatory workshop draws from historical research The National Archives and the on digital subjectivity and London Metropolitan Archives identity as well as performative invite young people (16–25) to ideas about the body and lived take part in two new workshops experience. Through recording based on LGBTQ+ experiences and communicating two datasets past and present. Participants will delve into previously closed secret we invite you to question the political and social ramifications police and government files and newly released oral testimonies to of how data visualisations are designed, challenging conventional experience the government and the community perspective. Join us connections between technology to explore how queer spaces were and society. The event is led by targeted and spied on, and discover Dr Shehnaz Suterwalla, design the resilience of the community in historian at the Royal College of Art; Kate McLean, a multidisciplinary response. This event will include a artist working in visual and olfactory facilitated discussion around the communication, and Christopher original material and engage with contemporary debates such as the Wood, an artist and researcher closing of queer venues. The event interested in the ability of technology to mediate and create will end with a creative workshop reflecting on the past experience of space in urban environments.

LGBTQ+ communities.

The National Archives, Kew London Metropolitan Archives, London

Concrete – friend or foe?

Architectural modernists have gloried in concrete’s capacity to enable new structures such as Lubetkin’s cheerful penguin pool at London Zoo or the domineering swagger of Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower. But the totalitarian aesthetic of brutalism-by-concrete has divided opinion in places such as London’s South Bank. Disasters such as that at Ronan Point in 1968, or the Bison system’s failures, have piled unease on top of dislike. This Janus-faced material makes an ideal focus for this year’s Being Human festival. Come along to learn more and pitch into the debate.

Booking required

No booking required Booking required

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Southern England

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Southern England London

A particular theatre: No Feedback African poetry Shakespeare, throughout the ages Queen Mary University of London suffragists and British Museum Series: University of London hub, soldiers Sunday 20 November Ministry of hope and fear School of Advanced Study, University of London

Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear

15.00–16.30

Saturday 19 November 18.00–19.30 Senate House, London

British Museum, London At a moment in which cultural hybridity has never been more important, we take an evening to reflect on the fantastic wealth of African poetry past and present, and celebrate community, collaboration and the power of language. With live poetry and music, join us in Room 25 of the Africa Gallery for an evening to explore the role that poetry has played within African diasporas, from Ancient Egypt to Arab enslavement, civil rights and beyond.

No Feedback is a theatrical event highlighting the gentle pull of discrimination that tears at the fabric of everyday life. Giving Senate House, London an insight into human nature, Bloomsbury, 1916. Israel Gollancz, it is set against the backdrop of English professor and member of catastrophes both historic and the Shakespeare Memorial National contemporary. By taking Genocide Theatre Committee, collaborates Watch’s groundbreaking research with the YMCA to build the as the backbone of the production, Shakespeare Hut, a huge mock Tudor complex that was to become No Feedback intelligently and sensitively asks audiences to a home from home for ANZAC consider their own place on the soldiers during the First World War. Featuring a dedicated theatre spectrum of how we relate to one space programmed and managed another. Come and play your part in Booking required by members of the Actresses’ this new kind of theatre experience.

Franchise League, it also was to see performances from some of Booking required the biggest stars of the Edwardian era. Join Dr Naomi Paxton (SAS), production hub Scary Little Girls and Dr Ailsa Grant Ferguson (University of Brighton) in a very special living literature walk that explores this unique combination of suffragists, soldiers and Shakespeare through the voices and stories of those who lived, worked and performed there.

Saturday 19 November 14.00–17.30

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Following in the footsteps of Vernon Lee Victoria & Albert Museum Sunday 20 November 15.00–16.30 Victoria & Albert Museum, London Join us for a queer tour of the V&A, following in the footsteps of supernatural fiction writer and queer icon Vernon Lee. Born Violet Paget, she was a member of the Aesthetic Movement and a regular visitor to the V&A. We will be exploring museum objects that address the extraordinary range of themes and interests in Vernon’s life as set out in her diaries and numerous published works between the 1880s and 1930s.

Debonair group The Drakes will explore female masculinity and historical androgyny to evoke the spirit of this most mysterious and original figure. Expert knowledge on Vernon Lee will be provided

by Dr Francesco Ventrella, whose research delves into feminist and queer interventions in aesthetics and art history.

Booking required

Being Human 2016

Spitalfields, winter 1892: a guided walk Queen Mary University of London Sunday 20 November 16.00–17.45 Raven Row Gallery, London Novels have a particular power to conjure the past life of a place and to make us alert to the traces of the past that are still visible all around us. See Spitalfields in a new light through the eyes of bestselling Victorian writer Israel Zangwill and his closely observed novel Children of the Ghetto. Explore the neighbourhood with the ‘Zangwill’s Spitalfields’ walking tour app created by Dr Nadia Valman with the Jewish Museum, London and Soda Ltd. This app brings together archive sources including photographs, documents and digitised objects from the Jewish Museum to create an immersive experience of the lively and fraught milieu of Jewish immigrant life in Victorian Spitalfields. Hear about the making of the app and sample its content on the streets of east London in this guided walk.

Understanding the Nazi camps Birkbeck, University of London Monday 21 November 18.00–20.00 Senate House, London The Nazi concentration camps have become symbols of the Third Reich, a global measure for judging inhumanity. And yet, popular understanding of the camps remains sketchy, not least among the young. This session brings together scholars and teachers to discuss recent research and how it might influence teaching about the camps. Participants can explore and discuss an innovative and challenging new online resource about camps such as Auschwitz.

Booking required

Booking required

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Southern England

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Southern England London

Archive to blockbuster– diversifying the big screen School of Advanced Study, University of London: Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Thomas More’s magnificent Utopia Gresham College

University College London

Tuesday 22 November 18.00–19.00

Series: Café culture

Museum of London, London

Thomas More’s Utopia was first published 500 years ago. Its central Series: University of London hub, idea, of a perfect but impossible Ministry of hope and fear place, has since become part of our mental furniture. But what does Monday 21 November this very amusing (though also 18.30–20.00 rather stern) book mean? It has sometimes been seen as a satire, Senate House, London but it may also offer a portrait of a Join the BAME historians of the magnificently just society. Utopia’s Archive to Blockbuster Four abstract links, both with London (A2BFour) as they pitch ideas for and with the civic culture of films based on their academic Renaissance Europe more generally, research to industry experts and a public audience. These film pitches will be explained. Focusing on its significance at the time when it directly address the concerns of #OscarsSoWhite and other ongoing was written, with reflections on its remarkably varied legacy, this free media diversity campaigns. Their public lecture will be delivered by work covers the histories of Dr Richard Serjeantson, lecturer Black Britain, Guyana, the Indian subcontinent and Uganda. Actress in history at the University of Cambridge.

Vera Chok, screenwriter Farrukh Dhondy, novelist and historian Mike Philips and BBC presenter No booking required Ritula Shah will form part of a panel that gives feedback on the academics’ ideas.

Booking required

Global catastrophe today

Tuesday 22 November 19.00–21.00 Institute of Advanced Studies, London Narratives of global catastrophe have a long history in apocalyptic thinking and have become near ubiquitous in contemporary literature and film, political rhetoric and popular science. This panel brings together humanities researchers, natural scientists and climate change activists. We explore how knowledge about future catastrophe is made into stories and images in the present. Does exposure to dark and ominous futurist imaginaries paralyse us with fear or can it make us more prone to political action? How can narratives of global catastrophe help us understand and assess actual risk scenarios? The event will include short talks by Dr Florian Mussgnug and Dr Jakob StougaardNielsen and will conclude with an engaging discussion of examples from environmental campaigns and political reports.

Booking required

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Creativity and the mind School of Advanced Study, University of London; Human Mind Project Wednesday 23 November 10.00–18.00 Senate House, London Creativity means innovation and positive change, the inventing of new worlds out of sparks of genius.

Creative thinking evokes chaos and order, allowing us to establish new paths and patterns. Discourse on creative activity has developed along many different historical strands; a science of creativity now sits alongside the longstanding view that ties creative activity to artistic production and technological novelty. Is creativity the product of mental power, the endpoint of a creative process of discovery? Or, perhaps, a feature of our attitude towards things, attentive and open?

Is creative agency and intelligence a prerogative of the individual? What is the creative mind? Get inspired by leading experts from the arts, humanities and sciences at this one-day event produced for the Being Human festival by the Human Mind Project and Guerilla Science.

Hear from creative practitioners and scholars and flex your own creative muscles through a series of creative challenges and discussions that aim to turn new ideas into reality.

The fearsome cholera of 1854 London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Wednesday 23 November 12.45–14.15 London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London On this guided walk organised by the Centre for History in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, join Blue Badge qualified guide Dr Ros Stanwell-Smith as we step back in time to a more dangerous London, a London where an unknown and deadly disease is casting fear into the hearts of the residents of Soho. Immerse yourself in the neighbourhoods most affected by this unknown infection and discover how the pioneering physician Dr John Snow solved the outbreak. Also hear more about the fascinating history of Soho, a stunningly innovative area for discoveries and medical progress over the centuries.

Booking required

Hope and fear at Crossbones Graveyard University of Oxford Wednesday 23 November 17.00–20.30 Crossbones Graveyard, London For 20 years, Southwark playwright and urban shaman John Constable has performed rituals at Crossbones, a burial ground for paupers and medieval sex workers.

During this event, Constable will discuss his work with Professor Sondra Hausner, author of The Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard.

The event begins with Constable and Hausner in conversation, exploring the social, political and religious aspects of a work that has transformed the once desolate site into a shared space of hope (17.00, booking required). The discussion is followed by a vigil, complete with an anthropologist’s intervention (19.00, no booking required). The vigil marks the 20th anniversary of the vision that inspired Constable’s The Southwark Mysteries and the establishment of the Crossbones shrine and garden.

Booking required

Booking required Being Human 2016

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Southern England London

Conceiving histories Latin American utopias Birkbeck, University of London Wednesday 23 November 18.00–20.00 Senate House, London What was it like for people in the past before home pregnancy testing was available? Explore the history of pre- and early pregnancy with artist Anna Burel and literary historian Isabel Davis. ‘Conceiving histories’ is a new dialogue between disciplines that discovers some of the creative possibilities of archival materials detailing the ambiguities of the un- or just-pregnant body. At this Being Human festival event, we will explore two extraordinary case studies through short historical talks and contemporary artwork: a strange 18th-century fashion for simulating pregnancy and a dark 19th-century fantasy of an experiment that would solve the mysteries of conception.

Booking required

School of Advanced Study, University of London: Institute of Latin American Studies Wednesday 23 November 18.00–20.00 Senate House Library, London

The Royal Institute of Philosophy annual debate The Royal Institute of Philosophy Wednesday 23 November 18.30 Senate House, London Hosted by Melvyn Bragg, this event will explore the recurrent debate about the aims of art. According to Leo Tolstoy, art should be a means of moral criticism and education, for Oscar Wilde, by contrast, art should be ‘useless’ because its only aim is aesthetic pleasure: ‘It is not meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way. It is superbly sterile, and the note of its pleasure is sterility’. Today artists often align themselves with ideologies and political campaigns and maintain that the purpose of art is to challenge prevailing assumptions and values. Are they right or are they corrupting art by making it an instrument of propaganda?

Join us for an evening of activities evoking Latin American ideas of ‘utopias’ from the 1970s.

Participants will tour the Senate House Library exhibition ‘Utopia and dystopia: dreaming the future’, which includes ephemera documenting Latin American political and socioeconomic utopian ideas and dystopian developments. The event will also feature screenings of digitised images and short video clips, food tasting and music. During the event, you will be able to talk with members of UK solidarity movements working with Latin American countries—including Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Booking required Venezuela—about the political utopias that have emerged from these countries since the 1970s and which have inspired many abroad.

Booking required

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Growing old gracefully? Hope, fear and ageing Palgrave Macmillan Wednesday 23 November 18.30–21.00 The Stables, London Ageing has become a key topic, both within academic circles and our everyday lives. As a culture, we are constantly trying to defy the ageing process. Join us for a lively panel discussion at our central London venue between eminent cultural theorists, philosophers, psychologists and sociologists to explore the experience of ageing and growing old in today’s world.

From celebrity culture to the reality of ageing, philosophical arguments to approaches from social psychology, this varied debate will delve into both how it feels to be old and what our treatment and representation of older people says about our culture. Audience questions will be invited at the end with a drinks reception to follow.

Opening the Book: fears, frustrations and voicing the individual Goldsmiths, University of London Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Thursday 24 November 13.00–14.00 Senate House, London

Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds British Museum Thursday 24 November 13.30–14.30 British Museum, London Submerged under the sea for over a thousand years, two lost cities of ancient Egypt were recently rediscovered. Their story is told for the first time in the British Museum’s blockbuster BP exhibition ‘Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds’.

In this free event in association with the Being Human festival, exhibition curator Aurelia Masson-Berghoff gives a 45-minute introduction to the exhibition.

Open Book exists in the hope and fears of everyone excluded from academia by society’s misconstruction of their lives, through imprisonment, addiction, mental illness, homelessness or through the effective marginalisation of class and income. We write Booking required our own histories, sociologies, anthropologies and criminologies through direct experience as well as by engaging with and contesting paradigms of academic writing.

Come and learn more about the Open Book project through an exhibition of our own work at Senate House, University of London.

Booking required

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Southern England

Southern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Southern England

Southern England London

Is one person’s The museum of the radicalism another’s normal right to free speech? Queen Mary University of Gresham College Thursday 24 November 18.00–19.00 Gresham College, London When should intervention take place to safeguard a child? Our topics for consideration spring from controversial subjects within both child protection and international law, including children at risk of being radicalised, parents promoting terrorism, and children planning or being groomed to travel to Syria (with or without their parents). Removal from a home, however, is not a ‘risk free’ option since it may appear to be victimisation, reinforce a perception of ‘them and us’, or radicalise those who were previously uninvolved.

Emerging law and practice in this area will be examined. This free public lecture is to be delivered

by Professor Jo Delahunty QC, Gresham Professor of Law. No booking required

London

Thursday 24 November 19.00–21.00 Barts Pathology Museum, London From angst-ridden teenage letters to agony aunts to concerned posts in online parenting forums, it’s clear that as a society we are haunted by a fear of being labelled abnormal. But who gets to define what’s normal? Is it really something to aspire to? And is worrying about ‘being normal’ normal? At this drop-in late event at Bart’s Pathology Museum, led by the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions, visitors will enter the ‘land of the abnormal’: a pop-up museum of games, talks and performances addressing different aspects of the history of normality. Expect lost emotions, historical psychometric tests, themed refreshments, history of medicine talks and guided tours of the ‘museum of the normal’.

Gastrophysics School of Advanced Study, University of London: Institute of Philosophy Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Thursday 24 November 19.00–21.00 Senate House, London Join the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of Physics to explore how physics contributes to our perception and experience of food. With tastings from chefs, demonstrations by physicists and talks from philosophers, we’ll explore the foods we might eat in the future, discover how humble foods can be transformed into sustainable delicacies and find out how we can enhance our dining experiences. From the gastrophysics of food to how to eat well, we’ll be addressing the current issues of food culture and showing how science is helping to overcome them.

Booking required

Booking required

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London

Hacking the silence School of Advanced Study, University of London Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear Thursday 24 November 19.00–20.30 Senate House, London Throughout 2016, sound artist Hannah Thompson has been the Leverhulme artist-in-residence in Senate House Library, University of London. Recording the sounds of the building, she has created a 3D soundscape ‘Memory Hole Machine’ installation that is on display throughout the festival.

This final performance combines data collected over the yearlong residency and from the Being Human installation in a multimedia presentation that uses DIY electronics and spatial audio with machine learning, live-coding improvisation and musique concrète.

The performance will provide a fitting finale to a project exploring the unique sounds, memories and histories of Senate House.

Booking required

Sound and fury: British Library installation University of Nottingham Series: Sound and fury: listening to the Second World War Friday 25 November, 09.30–17.00 (installation), 17.30–20.00 (talk) British Library, London Join us in listening to the hope and fear generated by the Second World War. The British Library’s Foyle Room will be transformed into an all-enveloping audio-visual installation. Radio and gramophone sets from the period loaned by the British Vintage Wireless and Television Museum will crackle back into life with the haunting sounds of a nation at war. The British Library Archives composer-in-residence Aleks Kolkowski and curator of radio Paul Wilson will be joined by historians James Mansell and Carolyn Birdsall to present a special edition of the installation with illustrated talks. Throughout the festival there will also be a display of Second World War sounds and vintage technology at Senate House relating to the building’s time as home of the government’s Ministry of Information.

Booking required

International London: walking tours Birkbeck College, University of London Friday 25 November 11.00–12.30, 13.00–14.30, 15.00–16.30 Tour 1: 43 Eaton Square, London; Tour 2: The Wellcome Collection, London; Tour 3: Queen’s Theatre, London London can sometimes seem like it’s the centre of the world. In three historical walking tours we explore the city as the home of international projects.

Tour 1: Wartime London (18 November, 11am). Many governments-in-exile were based in London during WWII. This walk through Belgravia and Westminster explores the physical proximity of exile and British politicians.

Tour 2: Epidemic London (18 November, 1pm). This tour through Bloomsbury explores responses to global epidemics, which in turn shaped international epidemic management.

Tour 3: Communist London (18 November, 3pm). London was far more important than Moscow in the international socialist and communist movement before 1917. This walk through Soho explores the base of leading activists and highlights London’s links with continental Europe.

Booking required

Being Human 2016

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Southern England

Southern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Southern England

Southern England London

Norwich

Metamorphosis: beasts, monsters, humans

Gender matters

Whitechapel stories The Survey of London, University College London

University College London

Friday 25 November 19.00–22.00

Series: University of London hub, Ministry of hope and fear

Visit the website for venue details

In London mythology nothing Friday 25 November compares to Whitechapel, the inner 18.30–20.30 fulcrum of London’s East End with a vivid social history characterised by Senate House, London movement, migration and change.

What is human? What is not? What This event seeks to catalogue is animal, and what is monstrous? the area’s uniquely diverse set of This evening event with talks residents with an evening of oral and discussion on literature and history, storytelling and discussion. culture from the classics to Kafka Listen to true and personal stories shows that ideas about what as residents consider their own makes humans, monsters or beasts personal hopes and fears as well change, vividly, through history. Just as their hopes and fears for the as in the stories we tell, bodies and local area. These storytellers are shapes change and change again, performing for the first time after shifting the limits of our humanity participating in a workshop with and speaking to our deepest fears Spark London, in which they learn and hopes. to turn their personal experiences into tales to tell.

Booking required

Booking required

University of East Anglia Series: Gender matters Thursday 17 November– Monday 21 November University of East Anglia, Norwich ‘Gender matters’ is a series of four events at the University of East Anglia. In interactive formats including ‘café conversations’ and workshops, academics from UEA will host discussions on gender, the body, empowerment and politics.

Topics include the representation of women – including the prime minister – in the media, a ‘Question Time’-style debate about the construction of gender itself, and discussion of assumptions made about bodies and women’s (and girls’) agency. An ‘empowerment workshop’ for young people (14–17) will offer an opportunity to engage in a zine-making workshop. Across four days, activities will consider everything from fetishism in the media and sexism in popular culture to women in contemporary politics. Visit beinghumanfestival. org for individual event times.

Booking required

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Norwich Oxford

A short history of philosophy with a radical green edge University of East Anglia Wednesday 23 November 18.00–19.30 University of East Anglia, Norwich Professor Catherine Rowett and Dr Rupert Read are both lecturers in the University of East Anglia’s philosophy department and recently stood as parliamentary candidates in the 2015 elections.

Drawing on these experiences, they will speak about the overlaps between philosophy and radical politics, and give a brief overview of the history of philosophy from a broadly green perspective before taking questions from the audience.

The speakers aim to provide a stimulating genealogy of how our cultural ideas have shifted and what this can teach us about how to deal with the current growing ecological crisis.

No booking required

Don’t panic!

Promises and threats of science and technology

Extinctions!

Invasions! The wild side of hopes and fears

University of Oxford

University of Nottingham

Thursday 17 November 19.00–22.30

Friday 18 November 19.00–22.00

Museum of the History of Science, Oxford

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford

Using the three floors of the Museum of the History of Science, we invite you to embrace your hopes and fears in relation to science and technology. Using performance, the evening will bring to life the eruption of Krakatoa, early film responses to the nerve-racking nature of modern life, Dorothy Hodgkin’s work on the structure of penicillin and the personal and political dimensions of climate change. The evening combines impromptu and staged performance and film with academic interpretation and discussion. Join us for an entertaining and interactive night at the museum drawing on humanities research at the University of Oxford, the collections of the Museum of the History of Science and the actors of Pegasus Theatre.

Nothing better reflects the long-term hopes and fears of the British population than the islands’ fauna. Over the last 10,000 years, humans have brought to extinction scary animals (bears, wolves, lynx, wild boar) replacing them with more benign species (farm animals and pets) introduced to improve people’s lives. Have all these changes been positive?

It’s debatable. Do you hate grey squirrels? Should bears be reintroduced? Come and find out more about the past of British fauna and cast your vote for its future.

Booking required

Booking required

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Southern England

Southern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Southern England

Southern England Oxford

Portsmouth

FRIGHTFriday: the art and science of hope and fear

Proto-science fiction H G Wells and and Victorian steam modern hopes and punk fears

TORCH, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities Friday 25 November 19.00–22.30 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities) has teamed up with Being Human and the Ashmolean Museum for FRIGHTFriday, a late-night opening of the museum that explores the art and science of hope and fear as witnessed through its vast collection. With exciting live performances of dance and music, digital installations, film and interactive talks from researchers across the Oxford humanities faculty, the Ashmolean will come alive for one night only. There will be several performances in the main atrium of the museum with many activities and events for all ages. Plus we’ll have our team of researchers on hand to answer your questions.

University of Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth

Saturday 19 November 15.00–18.00

Monday 21 November 15.00–16.30

Portsmouth Square Tower, Portsmouth

Portsmouth Central Library, Portsmouth

This event brings together the academic with the ‘spectacular’.

Located in old Portsmouth’s atmospheric Square Tower, our ‘proto-science fiction and Victorian steampunk’ event includes a talk on proto-science fiction and Victorian street ballads by Dr Karl Bell, senior lecturer in history at the University of Portsmouth. He will examine 19th-century popular culture’s hopes and fears for the future, a realm that, curiously, contemporary steampunk culture is now reinventing as its own. The rest of the afternoon is given over to a spectacular celebration of steampunk, with exhibitions, talks and vignettes by our special guests, the British Steampunk Society.

H G Wells is an author with a strong local connection to Portsmouth and Southsea. These talks about Wells as a popular author, father of modern science fiction and explorer of modern utopias will address his preoccupation with his own hopes and fears and his vision of the future. Open to the general public and taking place in Portsmouth’s prominent Central Library, these talks are aimed at an audience of Wells and science fiction aficionados, book lovers, pupils from local schools studying the author’s work as part of their Key Stage 3 curriculum and anyone who has an interest in the literary, the local and the utopian.

No booking required

No booking required Booking required

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Portsmouth Reading

Creating modern utopias University of Portsmouth Wednesday 23 November, 16.00–17.30 (creative writing workshop), Friday 25 November, 15.30–17.00 (book group) Portsmouth Central Library, Portsmouth What makes a successful science fiction novel? To better understand the techniques that contribute to one of literature’s most beloved but nuanced genres, we invite you to two events. First, on 23 November we are hosting a creative writing workshop, providing valuable tips and suggestions for producing a successful science fiction story or novel. A few days later, on 25 November, our Time Machine book group will be offering an informal discussion forum to dissect Wells’s most successful science fiction novels and how his techniques can be put to use within your own creative writing.

No booking required

A free country? Rural Freedom of hopes and fears movement?

Migration, mobility University of Reading and conquest Series: A free country Thursday 17 November– Friday 25 November 12.00–13.00 Museum of English Rural Life, Reading The University of Reading’s Museum of English Rural Life presents a series of eight interactive events focusing on alternative aspects of rural life and history. At each, a different researcher will join the curator to discuss the hopes and fears associated with our country lives past and present.

Together they will lead visitors on a conversational tour of the newly refurbished galleries and use collections in the museum stores to explore topics as diverse as the fears underpinning campaigns to protect the English countryside, the social forces that led to the establishment of the earliest allotments, and the scientific myths and realities that lie behind various aspects of animal disease and welfare. Visit beinghumanfestival.org for event times.

University of Reading Series: Hope, fear and freedom Saturday 19 November 11.00–12.30 University of Reading, Reading Migration is a hotly debated topic today, but it has long been a major feature of human history. This event will include short interdisciplinary case studies from various faculties within the humanities to remind us how important the movement of individuals has been throughout history. Talks will range from migration into Roman Britain to the more contemporary topics of black mobility in the Deep South of the United States and the Syrian forced migration. We will also be examining media perceptions of migration and consider the best ways to teach such a controversial subject. The day concludes with a panel discussion.

Booking required

Booking required

Being Human 2016

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Southern England

Southern England

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Southern England

Southern England Reading

Perspectives on freedom: everyday printed ephemera

Freedom of expression: looking at punk

University of Reading

University of Reading

Series: Hope, fear and freedom

Series: Hope, fear and freedom

Saturday 19 November 11.00–14.00

Saturday 19 November 13.00–16.00

University of Reading, Reading

University of Reading, Reading

An exhibition of 19th-century printed posters and notices from the collections of ephemera found in the typography collections will reflect hope, fear and freedom through portrayal of contemporary issues such as slavery, universal suffrage and child homelessness and illness. Working alongside the Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, participants are invited to use our printing presses to print a poster on the theme of freedom. Alongside this hands-on opportunity, there will be an exhibition from the Typography Department’s celebrated collection of ephemera.

This event is led by Professor Sue Walker and Dr Rob Banham, together with Geoff Wyeth and volunteers from the Centre for Ephemera Studies.

Forty years ago, punk changed the world forever. Its screaming anti-authoritarian agenda shocked the British middle classes to the core and spurred a subcultural revolution that continues to disturb the status quo today. On the anniversary of the birth of punk, we lead an interdisciplinary interrogation of punk in history, art and popular culture. A film screening will be followed by an interactive panel discussion, and then a reading by, and Q&A with, Viv Albertine, guitarist in the seminal punk group The Slits.

The panel discussion will include Dr Rachel Garfield, Dr James Hellings (Department of Art), and Professor Matthew Worley (Department of History), as well as Dr David Wilkinson (Department of Contemporary Arts, Manchester Metropolitan University).

Booking required Booking required

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‘Art @ the Hafod’ (Swansea University, Being Human 2015)

Being Human 2016

Paris

‘Life is Short’ (Edge Hill University, Being Human 2015)

A moveable feast: being human in Paris University of London Institute in Paris Wednesday 23 November 18.00–20.00 Reid Hall, Paris After the horrific attacks in Paris last November, people laid copies of Ernest Hemingway’s Moveable Feast on improvised shrines dotted around the areas affected. The title in French, Paris est une fête, was a defiant refusal of the terror that had been unleashed upon the city. But why a text written by an American about the expatriate community? This roundtable led

by Professor Sarah Churchwell, Being Human festival director, in Ernest Hemingway’s old stamping ground of Montparnasse will be an opportunity to reflect on the significance of American culture for Paris and where we are now, one year after Bataclan, as well as a chance to consider why the humanities matter more than ever today. This is the first Being Human festival event in continental Europe.

Booking required

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International

International

book online:

beinghumanfestival.org

Events by date

Events by date Event descriptions can be found on the pages indicated Thursday, 17 November

Friday, 18 November

A free country? Rural hopes and fears, Reading, 69 Against prejudice: Ira Aldridge in Coventry 1828, Coventry, 36 An evening with Michael Morpurgo, Swansea, 20 Archaeology and Espionage volunteer lunchtime talk, London, 51 Being human beyond the pale blue dot, Sunderland, 34 Being Human festival launch, London, 52 By the seaside: the beach 1700–2000, London, 54 Coma notes: exploring coma, consciousness and conscience, Cardiff, 19 Conversation dinner, Nottingham, 39 Dark matters: a documentary and artist talk, London, 52 Dark matters: our imperceptible universe, London, 53 Don’t panic! Promises and threats of science and technology, Oxford, 67 Endless cities, London, 51 Fictional human and real robot: sharing spaces with robots, Sheffield, 33 Food fest, Worcester, 41 Gender matters, Norwich, 66 Hope, fear and climate change: from research to action, Sheffield, 33 Human zoos: putting people on display, Liverpool, 27 Humanity and humanities: crisis, rescue and renewal, London, 50 Imagining dementia, Huddersfield, 23 Immigration: what next? London, 52 Looking at football: an intimate view of a football ground, Exeter, 48 Memories of partition, Edinburgh, 15 Migration in contemporary creative writing, Leicester, 37 Ministry of hope and fear tours, London, 53 Project cybersyn, Liverpool, 27 Reanimating H G Wells: an exhibition, Dundee, 14 Screening Interrupted: Africa is a Woman’s Name, Glasgow, 17 Sound and fury: Senate House installation, London, 53 Textile threads: hopeful synthetics and public art, Leeds, 24 The good age: long life, literature and utopianism, Lincoln, 38 The Memory Hole Machine installation with interactive manual, London, 54 The mindfulness turn in practice, Huddersfield, 23 There is no single destination, Edinburgh, 16 Twenty years on: Manchester and the IRA bomb, Manchester, 30 US slavery and Yorkshire anti-slavery: forgotten narratives, Leeds, 24 Utopia and dystopia: dreaming the future, London, 51 WALLPAPER installation: hope, fear and digital fiction, Wakefield, 35

A free country? Rural hopes and fears, Reading, 69 By the seaside: the beach 1700–2000, London, 54 Coma notes: exploring coma, consciousness and conscience, Cardiff, 19 Dark matters: our imperceptible universe, London, 53 Deconstructing gender, Ormskirk, 32 Down and out in Paris and London: presentation, London, 55 Endless cities, London, 51 Extinctions! Invasions! The wild side of hopes and fears, Oxford, 67 Fictional human and real robot: sharing spaces with robots, Sheffield, 33 Gender matters, Norwich, 66 Hope and fear in London: street art workshop, London, 54 Hopes and fears of archaeology: poetry and artefacts workshop, Canterbury, 44 Hoping for peace, imagining war: British writers, 1890s–1920s, Newcastle, 31 Human zoos: putting people on display, Liverpool, 27 Humanity and humanities: crisis, rescue and renewal, London, 50 I am human: precarious journeys, London, 56 Meat the machine: we Cyborg! Leicester, 38 Medieval time reckoning and the dating of Easter, Durham, 22 Memories of partition, Edinburgh, 15 Ministry of hope and fear tours, London, 53 Night at the library: books of hope and fear, London, 55 Pretty shambolic, Liverpool, 28 Reanimating H G Wells: an exhibition, Dundee, 14 Scaling the heights: mountains and vertical megastructures, Newcastle, 31 Science and the Victorian public, Leicester, 37 Sound and fury: Senate House installation, London, 53 Staging mortality: provocation and conversation, Exeter, 48 The Memory Hole Machine installation with interactive manual, London, 54 There is no single destination, Edinburgh, 16 The rights and justice city I: making Nottingham slavery free, Nottingham, 40 The soundscapes of the York Mystery Plays, York, 35 The visual history of seizures, Cardiff, 19 US slavery and Yorkshire anti-slavery: forgotten narratives, Leeds, 24 Utopia and dystopia: dreaming the future, London, 51 Visions of the future – old and new, Leeds, 24 War in the streets: terror and weapons in media, London, 55 Writing a history of the future, Liverpool, 28

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Events by date

Events by date Event descriptions can be found on the pages indicated Saturday, 19 November

Sunday 20 November

A free country? Rural hopes and fears, Reading, 69 A particular theatre - Shakespeare, suffragists and soldiers, London, 58 Canon to critique: the future of Islamic education, Bradford, 22 Child migrant stories, London, 56 Concrete hopes and fears, London, 57 Down and out in Paris and London: exhibition workshop, London, 55 Endless cities, London, 51 Fictional human and real robot: sharing spaces with robots, Sheffield, 33 Food fest, Worcester, 41 Freedom of expression: looking at punk, Reading, 70 Freedom of movement? Migration, mobility and conquest, Reading, 69 Gender matters, Norwich, 66 H G Wells at 150: Martian autopsy, Dundee, 14 H G Wells: a graphic anthology, Dundee, 14 Heavens above: interactive exhibition, Durham, 23 Heroes and villains: drawing your dreams and demons, Swansea, 20 Hope and fear in London: street art workshop, London, 54 Human zoos: putting people on display, Liverpool, 27 Humanity and humanities: crisis, rescue and renewal, London, 50 I am human: precarious journeys, London, 56 Invisible data performance, London, 57 Lost in memories: dementia and the act of caring, Leeds, 25 Memories of partition, Edinburgh, 15 Mermaids on the Mersey, Liverpool, 29 Ministry of hope and fear tours, London, 53 No Feedback, London, 58 Our prehistoric ancestors – lessons for society today, Stromness, 17 Perspectives on freedom: everyday printed ephemera, Reading, 70 Poetry on the move, Canterbury, 44 Proto-science fiction and Victorian steam punk, Portsmouth, 68 Queer and the state, London, 57 Reanimating H G Wells: an exhibition, Dundee, 14 Scaling the heights: mountains and vertical megastructures, Newcastle, 31 School days and ambitions, Liverpool, 28 Sound and fury: Senate House installation, London, 53 Sound and stone: medieval alabasters and choral music, Nottingham, 40 Stories from Syria: accounts from the Syrian civil war, Exeter, 50 The Memory Hole Machine installation with interactive manual, London, 54 The power of print in 18th-century Newcastle, Newcastle, 31 There is no single destination, Edinburgh, 16 The rights and justice city II: Nottingham’s black history, Nottingham, 41 The soundscapes of the York Mystery Plays, York, 35 The time machine: a walking tour, Dundee, 15 Urban dreams (and nightmares), Leeds, 25 US slavery and Yorkshire anti-slavery: forgotten narratives, Leeds, 24 Utopia and dystopia: dreaming the future, London, 51 Walk of hope: to the castle! Nottingham, 40 Wordkeys: the 4D translation game, London, 56

A free country? Rural hopes and fears, Reading, 69 African poetry throughout the ages, London, 58 Familiar strangers: writing across languages and cultures, Birmingham, 36 Family film screening of ‘Toy Story 3’, Lincoln, 38 Fictional human and real robot: sharing spaces with robots, Sheffield, 33 Following in the footsteps of Vernon Lee, London, 59 Human zoos: putting people on display, Liverpool, 27 I am human: precarious journeys, London, 56 Memories of partition, Edinburgh, 15 Poetry workshop: from museum objects to words, Canterbury, 45 Reanimating H G Wells: an exhibition, Dundee, 14 Scaling the heights: mountains and vertical megastructures, Newcastle, 31 Spitalfields, winter 1892: a guided walk, London, 59 Stories from Syria: accounts from the Syrian civil war, Exeter, 50 The soundscapes of the York Mystery Plays, York, 35 The time machine: a walking tour, Dundee, 15 US slavery and Yorkshire anti-slavery: forgotten narratives, Leeds, 24 Walking the start of Via Francigena, Canterbury, 45 We, robots, Bristol, 43 Women explorers: crossing cultures, Liverpool, 29 Wonder and dread: Slavic tales of foreign lands and wild people, Exeter, 48

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Events by date

Events by date Event descriptions can be found on the pages indicated Monday 21 November

Tuesday 22 November

A free country? Rural hopes and fears, Reading, 69 Archive to blockbuster - diversifying the big screen, London, 60 By the seaside: the beach 1700–2000, with talk by Allan Brodie, London, 54 Contrasts: hopes and fears, Scarisbrick, 33 ‘Dangerous’ influences: in the archive with Radclyffe Hall, Exeter, 49 Dark matters: our imperceptible universe, London, 53 Down and out in Paris and London, London, 55 Endless cities, London, 51 Facing fear, finding hope, Chester, 22 Film screening of The Conversation, Lincoln, 39 Food fest, Worcester, 41 Gender matters, Norwich, 66 H G Wells and modern hopes and fears, Portsmouth, 68 Human zoos: putting people on display, Liverpool, 27 Humanity and humanities: crisis, rescue and renewal, London, 50 Ignite your mind, Bath, 42 Mary Braddon exhibition, Canterbury, 45 Memories of partition, Edinburgh, 15 Ministry of hope and fear tours, London, 53 Reanimating H G Wells: an exhibition, Dundee, 14 Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Medicine: hope conquers fear, Liverpool, 29 Sound and fury: Senate House installation, London, 53 Stories from Syria: accounts from the Syrian civil war, Exeter, 50 The changing face of energy, Swansea, 20 The Hungarian revolution and the refugee experience, Leeds, 25 The Memory Hole Machine installation with interactive manual, London, 54 The rights and justice city III: Nottingham in the age of Brexit, Nottingham, 41 The soundscapes of the York Mystery Plays, York, 35 Understanding the Nazi camps, London, 59 US slavery and Yorkshire anti-slavery: forgotten narratives, Leeds, 24 Utopia and dystopia: dreaming the future, London, 51

A free country? Rural hopes and fears, Reading, 69 By the seaside: the beach 1700–2000, London, 54 Dark matters: our imperceptible universe, London, 53 ‘Death in 24 hours’: the making of modern anthrax, Leeds, 26 Deshantori (the migrant), Glasgow, 17 Down and out in Paris and London, London, 55 Food fest! Pop the pomagne - spotlight on the Seventies, Worcester, 37 Global catastrophe today, London, 60 Hopes and fears of the humanities, Canterbury, 46 Human zoos: putting people on display, Liverpool, 27 Humanity and humanities: crisis, rescue and renewal, London, 50 Mary Braddon exhibition, Canterbury, 45 Memories of partition, Edinburgh, 15 Ministry of hope and fear tours, London, 53 My one and all: my Swansea coast, Swansea, 21 Our prehistoric ancestors – lessons for society today, St Andrews, 17 Reanimating H G Wells: an exhibition, Dundee, 14 Refusing to be realistic, Sunderland, 34 Sound and fury: Senate House installation, London, 53 Stories from Syria: accounts from the Syrian civil war, Exeter, 50 The art of lying: who is Harvey Matusow? Brighton, 42 The changing face of energy, Swansea, 20 There is no single destination, Edinburgh, 16 Thomas More’s magnificent Utopia, London, 60 US slavery and Yorkshire anti-slavery: forgotten narratives, Leeds, 24 Utopia and dystopia: dreaming the future, London, 51 WALLPAPER installation: hope, fear and digital fiction, Wakefield, 35

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Events by date

Events by date Event descriptions can be found on the pages indicated Wednesday 23 November

Thursday 24 November

A free country? Rural hopes and fears, Reading, 69 A Hollantide phantasmagoria, Exeter, 50 A moveable feast: being human in Paris, Paris, 71 A short history of philosophy with a radical green edge, Norwich, 67 By the seaside: the beach 1700–2000, London, 54 Challenging hate crime: voices of Gypsies and Travellers, Leeds, 26 Coat tales: the stories clothes tell, Exeter, 49 Conceiving histories, London, 62 Creating modern utopias, Portsmouth, 69 Creativity and the mind, London, 61 Dark matters: our imperceptible universe, London, 53 Down and out in Paris and London, London, 55 Endless cities, London, 51 Engaging with dystopia: William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Exeter, 49 Fictional human and real robot: sharing spaces with robots, Sheffield, 33 Growing old gracefully? Hope, fear and ageing, London, 63 Hope and fear at Crossbones Graveyard, London, 61 Human zoos: putting people on display, Liverpool, 27 Humanity and humanities: crisis, rescue and renewal, London, 50 Is the light at the end of the tunnel an oncoming train? Swansea, 21 Latin American utopias, London, 62 Mary Braddon exhibition, Canterbury, 45 Memories of partition, Edinburgh, 15 Ministry of hope and fear tours, London, 53 Modern ghost stories, Liverpool, 30 Poetry of the Lancashire cotton famine, Exeter, 42 Reanimating H G Wells: an exhibition, Dundee, 14 Robert Duncan Milne: rediscovering Scotland’s H G Wells, Dundee, 15 Robots and AI: hope or fear? Sheffield, 34 Scaling the heights: mountains and vertical megastructures, Newcastle, 31 Screening of Lady Audley’s Secret, Canterbury, 46 Sound and fury: Senate House installation, London, 53 Stories from Syria: accounts from the Syrian civil war, Exeter, 50 Techno-artefacts: 3D laser scanning and printing, Canterbury, 46 Telling stories of hope and fear at ‘year’s end’, Belfast, 18 The art of lying: who is Harvey Matusow? Brighton, 42 The ethics of watching and killing in RAF reaper operations, Lincoln, 39 The fearsome cholera of 1854, London, 61 There is no single destination, Edinburgh, 16 The Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual Debate, London, 62 Tony Oursler – the influence machine, Edinburgh, 16 US slavery and Yorkshire anti-slavery: forgotten narratives, Leeds, 24 Utopia and dystopia: dreaming the future, London, 51 WALLPAPER installation: hope, fear and digital fiction, Wakefield, 35 Where’s my igloo gone? – family theatre and installation, Birmingham, 36

A free country? Rural hopes and fears, Reading, 69 Advertising and imagining the post-war world in Britain, Liverpool, 30 Attitudes and aspirations – interpretations of disability, Swansea, 21 By the seaside: the beach 1700–2000, London, 54 Dark matters: our imperceptible universe, London, 53 Down and out in Paris and London, London, 55 Endless cities, London, 51 Fictional human and real robot: sharing spaces with robots, Sheffield, 33 Food fest, Worcester, 41 Gastrophysics, London, 64 Hacking the silence, London, 65 Hope and fear in a Hardy adaptation, Cambridge, 44 Hope and fear in children’s books, Newcastle, 32 Human zoos: putting people on display, Liverpool, 27 Humanity and humanities: crisis, rescue and renewal, London, 50 Is one person’s radicalism another’s right to free speech? London, 64 Mary Braddon exhibition, Canterbury, 45 Maternity tales: listening to birth spaces past and present, Newcastle, 32 Memories of partition, Edinburgh, 15 Ministry of hope and fear tours, London, 53 Opening the Book: fears, frustrations and voicing the individual, London, 63 Queer and the state, London, 57 Reanimating H G Wells: an exhibition, Dundee, 14 Robots and AI: hope or fear? Sheffield, 34 Scaling the heights: mountains and vertical megastructures, Newcastle, 31 Sensing the past: from smell to sound, Canterbury, 47 Sex, love and robots, Sunderland, 35 Soft driver, Leeds, 26 Sound and fury: Senate House installation, London, 53 Stories from Syria: accounts from the Syrian civil war, Exeter, 50 Sunken cities: Egypt’s lost worlds, London, 63 The Memory Hole Machine installation with interactive manual, London, 54 The museum of the normal, London, 64 There is no single destination, Edinburgh, 16 Tony Oursler – the influence machine, Edinburgh, 16 Transformations in faith: exploring hopes and fears, Edinburgh, 16 US slavery and Yorkshire anti-slavery: forgotten narratives, Leeds, 24 Utopia and dystopia: dreaming the future, London, 51 What is ‘healing’ in the twenty-first century? Bristol, 43 Where’s my igloo gone? – family theatre and installation, Birmingham, 36

Being Human 2016

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Events by date

Events by date Event descriptions can be found on the pages indicated Friday 25 November A free country? Rural hopes and fears, Reading, 69 A Hollantide phantasmagoria, Truro, 47 A-Level day: Lady Audley’s Secret, Canterbury, 47 By the seaside: the beach 1700–2000, London, 54 Creating modern utopias, Portsmouth, 69 Dark matters: our imperceptible universe, London, 53 Down and out in Paris and London, London, 55 Endless cities, London, 51 Fictional human and real robot: sharing spaces with robots, Sheffield, 33 Festival finale – FRIGHTFriday: the art and science of hope and fear, Oxford, 68 Gobaith ac ofn; Dwy sgriniad / Hope and fear; two screenings, Aberystwyth, 19 Human zoos: putting people on display, Liverpool, 27 Humanity and humanities: crisis, rescue and renewal, London, 50 International London: walking tours, London, 65 Lady Audley on trial, Canterbury, 47 Mary Braddon exhibition, Canterbury, 45 Maternity tales: listening to birth spaces past and present, Newcastle, 32 Memories of partition, Edinburgh, 15 Metamorphosis: beasts, monsters, humans, London, 66 Ministry of hope and fear tours, London, 53 Moving stories: representing refugees and the refugee voice, Brighton, 43 Performing the Jewish archive: Jewish choral music, Leeds, 27 Reanimating H G Wells: an exhibition, Dundee, 14 Scaling the heights: mountains and vertical megastructures, Newcastle, 31 Soft driver, Leeds, 26 Sound and fury: British Library installation and talk, London, 65 Sound and fury: Senate House installation, London, 53 The Memory Hole Machine installation with interactive manual, London, 54 There is no single destination, Edinburgh, 16 Tony Oursler – the influence machine, Edinburgh, 16 US slavery and Yorkshire anti-slavery: forgotten narratives, Leeds, 24 Utopia and dystopia: dreaming the future, London, 51 Where’s my igloo gone? – family theatre and installation, Birmingham, 36 Whitechapel stories, London, 66 WALLPAPER installation: hope, fear and digital fiction, Wakefield, 35

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‘Bisclavret: a medieval werewolf tale’ (University of Liverpool and The Liverpool Players, Being Human 2015)

Being Human 2016

Programme produced by: Marketing and Communications School of Advanced Study, University of London Design by: www.emosaic.co.uk Printed by: Image Data Group, Willerby, East Yorkshire

We would like to thank all those who contributed to the Being Human 2016 programme. Special thanks to Robert Kelly, Maureen McTaggart, Laura Say, Uneesah Khalil, Lauren De’Ath, Jo Bradley and Rosemary Lambeth.

Cover Page 3

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© Norrie Millar, Dundee Comics Creative Space (1) © Roberto Lusso / Shutterstock (2) © University of London (1) Public domain via Wikimedia commons (2) © Natsmith1 / Shutterstock (1) © Benjamin Wigley (2) ‘The Archives Treasure Hoard' by the Richard Burton Archives and Ian Vine, Information Services and Systems, Swansea University Page 6 Courtesy of the University of Leeds Page 7 (1) © Royal Mail Group Limited

(2) © Derek Ridges Page 8 (1) © Christopher Gardiner / Shutterstock

(2) Courtesy of the University of Nottingham Page 9 (1) © aerogondo2/Shutterstock (2) © Public domain via Wikimedia commons. Credits: Lewis Hilne - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration Page 10 © lassedesignen / Shutterstock Page 11 (1) (2) Courtesy of The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Please refer to our website for all other copyright and credit information: beinghumanfestival.org

The Being Human festival team Professor Sarah Churchwell, festival director Dr Michael Eades, festival curator and manager Jo Chard, festival coordinator Dr Naomi Paxton, cultural engagement fellow Dr Kristan Tetens, head of marketing and communications

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