Wolfson College Humanities Society Podcast

Wolfson College Humanities Society

Cambridge University
A collection of lectures organised by the Wolfson College Cambridge Humanities Society.
Laura Zucconi: Transgendered Copper Mining in the Levant
The description of Esau’s family in Genesis 36 and I Chronicles 1 has the figure of Timna change gender in the span of a few verses. She is a concubine, a sister, and then a male head of a clan. This study uses archaeology to help us understand the function of multiple genders in the Hebrew Bible’s genealogies which originated as oral mental maps of how the various Canaanite tribes related to one another politically and economically.
Jun 8, 2015
1 hr 5 min
Robert Koepp - George Elliot and the Religion of Favourable Chance
Professor Robert Koepp examines how Eliot's characters struggle with the profoundly human inclination to trust in luck by worshiping at the altar of 'blessed Chance'- arguing that this tendency is central to the novelist's treatment of various moral dilemmas in her fiction.
May 28, 2015
1 hr 11 min
Bjorn L. Basberg: Maynard Keynes and his Whaling Adventures
The economist John Maynard Keynes’ activities on the stock market are well known. One company in which he bought stocks in the late 1920s was the Hector Whaling Company Ltd. The paper explores how Keynes became involved in this company and the analysis provides new insights to the more general question on the motivations and decisions behind his stock market investments.
May 26, 2015
1 hr 3 min
Jennifer Davis: Trade (mark) Wars, 1860-1920: Sweatshops, the Retail Trade and the Meaning of Trade Marks
A registered trade mark acts an indication of origin for goods but tells us nothing specific about the circumstances under which the goods originated. This limitation was not inevitable. After trade marks became objects of registration in 1875, what information they would embody was a matter of heated contestation between manufacturers, retailers, exporters, trade unions and anti-immigration activists. This lecture will examine this debate and suggest why, in the end, it was the interests of labour which lost out.
May 20, 2015
1 hr 3 min
Simon Szreter: Social Security in Britain -cost or benefit ? A historical perspective on a 2015 general election issue
Prof Szreter will discuss the costs and benefits of the long-term history of a national social security system in Britain. He will argue that such a perspective is important for evaluating the current political and policy choices being proposed by the major parties in the general election
May 8, 2015
1 hr 10 min
Professor Warren Dockter - Churchill and the Islamic World
In this anniversary year – 50 years since the death of Winston Churchill and 70 years since the end of WWII – Warren Dockter will look at Churchill’s long relationship with the Islamic world and his lasting legacy in the Middle East, which continues to be felt in the region and in British policy today.
Apr 29, 2015
46 min
Dr Justin Colson on London Bridge
Dr Justin Colson talks about London Bridge which has existed in one form or another since the fourteenth century. He explores the social world of the Bridge in the late fifteenth century, and how the economic activities of its tenants exploited the opportunities of this unique location, providing new insight into the commercial world of the late medieval City of London.
Mar 5, 2015
1 hr 6 min
Dr Rowan Williams - Mysticism and politics; some thoughts about St Teresa of Avila
This year is the 500th anniversary of the birth of Teresa, one of the foremost ‘mystical’ writers of the Christian tradition. Research in the last fifty years has clarified more and more the nature of her social background in a converted Jewish family and thus the way in which her religious writing is shaped by the issues and politics of 16th century Spain. I hope to sketch this background and offer some more general reflections on the title.
Feb 25, 2015
1 hr 1 min
Dr Robert Amundsen - Ibsen's women on and off the stage
There were two categories of women in Henrik Ibsen’s life: the women in his dramatic universe and the women in his own life. Ibsen’s attitude to women is highly complex: whereas the many women who inhabit the different settings of these late nineteenth century bourgeois families are as diverse as the plays themselves, they share a few common denominators, that this talk will seek to demonstrate.
Feb 23, 2015
1 hr 11 min
Professor Julius Lipner - Hinduism: the challenges of a polycentric approach to shaping our world
Hinduism is by far the majority culture of India, which is set fair to become a superpower in the next few decades. How then does the polycentric, decentralizing phenomenon of Hinduism influence and guide the gaze of Hindus at the world and help determine their interactions with it, especially in the context of modernity and its counteracting forces? And what can we learn from this encounter?
Feb 12, 2015
1 hr 4 min
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