Wolfson College Humanities Society

Cambridge University

A collection of lectures organised by the Wolfson College Cambridge Humanities Society.

  1. Laura Zucconi: Transgendered Copper Mining in the Levant

    08/06/2015

    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.

    1hr 5min
  2. Robert Koepp - George Elliot and the Religion of Favourable Chance

    28/05/2015

    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.

    1hr 11min
  3. Bjorn L. Basberg: Maynard Keynes and his Whaling Adventures

    26/05/2015

    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.

    1hr 3min
  4. Jennifer Davis: Trade (mark) Wars, 1860-1920: Sweatshops, the Retail Trade and the Meaning of Trade Marks

    20/05/2015

    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.

    1hr 3min

  5. 08/05/2015

    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

    1hr 10min

  6. 29/04/2015

    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.

    46 min

  7. 05/03/2015

    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.

    1hr 6min

  8. 25/02/2015

    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.

    1hr 1min
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A collection of lectures organised by the Wolfson College Cambridge Humanities Society.

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