10-Minute Talks The British Academy

Peter Gatrell discusses the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, signed in Geneva on 28 July 1951. He explains the circumstances leading up to the Refugee Convention and considers what it was designed to achieve.

In this talk, David Adger explains what syntax as an area of study is, why he finds it important and fascinating, and why it is central to what it means to be human.

This talk introduces research on the sign languages of deaf communities: natural, complex human languages, both similar to and different from spoken languages.

Professor Timon Screech FBA explores the relationship between the East India Company and the Shogun of Japan.

Crèvecœur reveals in his French work the original sins of British colonization and of the new United States, sins which still haunt us today: genocide of indigenous peoples, enslavement of Africans and environmental devastation.

In this talk, Christopher Woolgar discusses objects of daily life, their significance and the meaning of material culture (what we might understand as ‘people’s stuff') in late medieval England