Festival of Ideas 2013 Cambridge University

Hermann Bondi was a promoter of the open mind, free debate and solutions based on facts. He welcomed a challenge. So should we. In this stimulating talk, Sir John Boyd examines the rise of Asia and our understanding, sense of history, objectivity and policy balance in responding to this challenge. He considers how we can help the next generation embrace the skills needed to deal with a radically changed world and the role universities should play. Sir John Boyd was the master of Churchill College, Cambridge from 1996 to 2006. He was also the British ambassador to Japan between 1992 and 1996. In 2007, Sir John Boyd received the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun from the Emperor of Japan in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the promotion of friendship, as well as academic and cultural exchange, between Japan and the UK.

Nationalism has been one of the most dynamic yet dangerous ideologies in modern history. Politicians encourage us to think that national frontiers are firm and unchanging, central to our identity. But in this session, members of the History Faculty reflect on the porous nature of borders. With Professors David Reynolds, Chris Clark and Dr Joya Chatterjee.

THE BALKANS AND THE LEGACIES OF 1914
Prof. Chris Clark (St Catharine's)
Professor of Modern European History
Until recently, a bronze plaque in Sarajevo commemorated the moment in June 1914 when the young Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated an Austrian Archduke and took ‘the first steps into Yugoslav liberty’. National tensions wrought havoc on the Balkan peninsula in 1912 and 1913 and triggered the outbreak of the First World War. After the collapse of Soviet power, they helped to bring about the dissolution of the Yugoslavian state. Chris Clark unravels the legacies of a region in which political borders and cultural identities have never coincided.

MAKING AND BREAKING MODERN SOUTH ASIA
Dr Joya Chatterji (Trinity)
Reader in Modern South Asian History
The British Raj came to an abrupt end in 1947 but millions of people in South Asia are still living with the legacies of its break-up. Joya Chatterji unravels the tangled story and the nationalist mythologies spun around it. A schools project she has developed in London with migrants from Bangladesh shows how a clearer understanding of the past can promote reconciliation in the present.

BRITAIN, EUROPE AND THE LEGACIES OF 1940
Prof. David Reynolds (Christ's)
Professor of International History
The events of 1940 cast a long shadow over modern Europe. They drove Britain away from the continent, just at a time when it had been drawing closer to France. Across the Channel, however, the appalling legacies of 1940 for France and Germany persuaded these two countries to transcend their long cycle of border wars and forge an unprecedented European Community. David Reynolds reflects on the frontiers of the mind that often matter as much in history as visible national borders.

The Government's welfare reforms are starting to bite, but are they radical enough, given projected demographic changes, or do we need a complete rethink of our social values? With Rory Meakin, Professor Simon Szreter, Bill Davies, Jeff Miley and chaired by Gaby Hinsliff.

Rory Meakin is Head of Tax Policy at the TaxPayers' Alliance. He has contributed to projects on a variety of subjects from local government spending to an influential paper on simplifying taxes on income called Abolish National Insurance. Simon Szreter is Professor in History and Public Policy at Cambridge. He teaches modern British economic and social history since 1700. His main fields of research are demographic and social history, the history of empirical social science and the relationship between history and contemporary public policy issues. Jeff Miley is Lecturer of Political Sociology in the Department of Sociology at Cambridge. His research interests include nationalism, language politics, identity politics, immigration, religion and politics, regime types, and democratic theory.

Times have never been better for single women. Then why is it still so hard? Four women, experts on relationships and sex, share their insight and suggestions.

The s word- spinster - has been virtually outlawed, and ladies of all ages are encouraged to seek out the sex and relationships that suit them online or in person. Being single is all about being free, having fun, doing things your way or the highway...or is it?

This event brings together four experts on relationships and sex to discuss their own unique take on single womanhood at all ages - it's pitfalls, freedoms and the pressures. If it's as great as we think it should be in 2013, why do so many women, particularly those over 30, still find being single such a trial? How can they get the most out of it? Join in the discussion with Rowan Pelling, broadcaster, writer and founder of The Erotic Review; Cecilia d'Felice, award-winning clinical psychologist, author and relationships expert; Susan Quilliam, sex and relationships educator and author of the revised Joy of Sex and panel head Zoe Strimpel, internet dating and gender scholar and author of The Man Diet: One Woman's Quest to End Bad Romance (Avon).

Today's bookshops are helpfully categorised - crime, biography and memoir, fiction - and we rarely venture into unknown territory. Some writers are breaking down the barriers, but are publishers increasingly pushing their writers to write books with the same 'DNA' and will the digital revolution make any difference? Panel discussion with authors MJ Hyland and Trevor Byrne, digital publisher Daniel Franklin and literary agent Rachel Calder.

Using specialist techniques, the Language Research Team at Cambridge University Press unpick the patterns of scholarly English as they explore the journey of academic writing: from sixth form students to published professors.