LENT 2018
& WHO’S HERE
WHAT’S ON
CENTRE FOR RESEARCH IN THE ARTS, SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
WHO'S NEW / FELLOWS Dr Miriana Carbonara (UEA) is a Conversions Visiting Fellow. Her project is titled Representing, Crossing and Experiencing the Frontier between Bologna and Modena in the Early Modern Period.
Dr Marco Caserta (IE University) is a CRASSH/IE University Visiting Fellow. His project is titled Learning from Data.
Dr Jacob Eisler (Faculty of Law/Jesus College, Cambridge) is a CRASSH Early Career Fellow. His project is titled Election Law and the Crisis of Mass Democracy.
Dr Stacey McDowell (St John's College, Cambridge) is a CRASSH Early Career Fellow. Her project is titled The Poetry of Regret 1830–1913.
Dr Charlotte-Rose Millar (Queensland) is a Conversions Visiting Fellow. Her project is titled Ghost Stories in Post-Reformation England.
Professor Michael Puett (Harvard) is a CRASSH Visiting Fellow. He will be conducting the CRASSH/Mellon Early Career Workshop Series on Comparatism.
Dr Martin Ruehl (MML/Trinity Hall, Cambridge) is a Crausaz Wordsworth Fellow. His project is titled Nietzsche on Slavery and What It Means to Be Human.
Professor Richard Sherwin (New York Law School) is a CRASSH Visiting Fellow and a Visiting Scholar on the CRASSH Project Crossroads of Knowledge in Early Modern England.
Dr Zoë Svendsen (Faculty of English, Cambridge) is a CRASSH Early Career Fellow. Her project is titled World Factory: the Politics of Dramaturgy in Performance.
Dr Rumiana Yotova (Faculty of Law/Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge) is a CRASSH Early Career Fellow. Her project is titled The Public Policy of International Law.
Two of the world's most celebrated public intellectuals are visiting CRASSH this term. Sara Ahmed will be giving the Lent CRASSH Impact Lectures continuing our commitment to exploring issues of race and gender, with a special focus on policy and social action. Sara Ahmed has become one of the best known feminist theorists of this generation through her publications, her blogs and her activism. Her book On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life may have a particular purchase in Cambridge… Jared Diamond, perhaps best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs and Steel, has always been fascinated by how societies destroy each other or themselves. He is a natural guest therefore for the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, one of CRASSH's premier projects. It is hard not to think that the question of existential risk remains all too salient today. If that seems too heavy, we have a conference on comics – though it is on Comic Epidemics… How have caricatures, cartoons and graphic novels been used to represent disease, and what role might they have to play in epidemic prevention, preparedness and control? If you think that you have a great conference idea, then this too is the term to apply to us for funding. The deadline is 26 January and all details of how to apply, and who and what we support can be found on the website. Finally, a great new major initiative is starting this term. The Centre for the Humanities and Social Change is one of three new centres, the other two located in Santa Barbara and Venice. Each centre is looking at how humanities research can take the lead on major matters of social change, and the teams at Cambridge will be investigating specifically the interface between technology and social change – in all its manifestations. Two four-year projects with interdisciplinary teams will be taking shape this year. This is a very exciting venture and we look forward to sharing more of it with you as it develops. Professor Simon Goldhill, FBA Director, CRASSH
WELCOME TO CRASSH
Welcome to CRASSH's What's On for Lent 2018. As ever, you will find a host of thrilling intellectual events this term, covering the whole range of interdisciplinary work at the university. Here are a very few of our highlights.
WHAT’S ON JANUARY 2018
11 – 12 Conference JAN Predictive Processing: Reconstructing the Mind? Rooms SG1/SG2, ARB • CRASSH Conference Programme www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27368
16 JAN Seminar Behavioural Science around Policy Incentives to Reduce Energy Consumption 12pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Sander van der Linden (Cambridge) • In Search of 'Good' Energy Policy research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27519
17 JAN Seminar Translation 5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Simon Goldhill (Cambridge), Robin Kirkpatrick (Cambridge) • Theologies of Reading research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27544 Register for readings
22 JAN Seminar Election Law and the Crisis of Mass Democracy 12.30pm – 2pm • CRASSH Meeting Room, ARB Early Career Fellow Jacob Eisler presents his work in progress www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27501 Register via email
23 JAN Seminar The Last Crisis of Social Democracy: Economics and 'Populisms' 12pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Wolfgang Munchau (Financial Times), Federico Fubini (Corriere della Sera) • Politics of Economics research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27556
23 JAN Seminar Developing Purpose-Built New Environments for Older People 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB Jane Barker (Liberty Retirement Living) • Ageing and the City research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27570
23 JAN Seminar Narratives and Artificial Intelligence 5pm – 7pm • Room SG1, ARB Stephen Cave, Beth Singler, Sarah Dillon, Kanta Dihal (All CFI) • Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27552
24 JAN Seminar Reading the Technologies of Seeing Others 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB Paul Halliday (Goldsmiths), Mónica Moreno Figueroa (Cambridge) • Power and Vision research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27568
24 JAN Seminar Silk 3pm – 5pm (TBC) • Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London (Note change of venue and time) Zara Anishanslin (Delaware), Lesley Miller (Victoria and Albert Museum) • Things research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27574
25 JAN Seminar Seeing across the Distance: the Dreams and Fears of Televisual Utopias 5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Manu Luksch (Artist) • Digital Art research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27562
31 JAN Seminar Philology (Grammar & God)
12.30pm – 2pm • CRASSH Meeting Room, ARB
5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Brian Cummings (York), Giles Waller
Early Career Fellow Stacey McDowell presents her work in progress www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27502 Register via email
(Cambridge) • Theologies of Reading research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27545 Register for readings
29 JAN Lecture How to (Re)Use Big Data
5 FEB
5.30pm – 7pm • Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College Sabina Leonelli (Exeter) • Centre for the Study of Existential Risk www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27561
12.30pm – 2pm • CRASSH Meeting Room, ARB Conversions Visiting Fellow Charlotte-Rose Millar presents her work in progress www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27503 Register via email
30 JAN Seminar Slow Energy Policy in a Time of Global Emergencies 12pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Jeremy Kidwell (Birmingham) • In Search of 'Good' Energy Policy research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27520
6 FEB
6 FEB
Seminar Global Network Approaches to Ageing and the City 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB Natalie Turner (Ageing Better UK) • Ageing and the City research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27571
31 JAN Reading Group Public versus Private Perspectives on Open IP 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB • Open Intellectual Property Models research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27540 Register for readings
Seminar Is There Really an Empirical Turn in Economics? 12pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Beatrice Cherrier (Caen) • Politics of Economics research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27557
30 JAN Seminar Polyphonic Cinema 5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Sarah Turner (Kent) • Alchemical Landscape research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27533
Seminar Ghost Stories in PostReformation England
6 FEB
Seminar RashDash 5pm – 7pm • Room SG1, ARB Helen Goalen, Abbi Greenland • Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27553
WHAT’S ON JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2018
29 JAN Seminar The Poetry of Regret 1830–1913
FESTIVAL OF IDEAS WHAT’S ON FEBRUARY 2018
7 FEB
Seminar Imaging the Politics of the Refugee Crisis 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB Issam Kourbaj (Syrian Artist), Simon Bainbridge (Editor of British Journal of Photography) • Power and Vision research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27578
7 FEB
Seminar Uncanny Objects 12.30pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Caroline van Eck (Cambridge) • Things research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27575
8 FEB
Reading Group The Aesthetics of Surveillance 5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB • Digital Art research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27563 Register for readings
12 FEB Seminar World Factory: the Politics of Dramaturgy in Performance 12.30pm – 2pm • CRASSH Meeting Room, ARB Early Career Fellow Zoë Svendsen presents her work in progress www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27506 Register via email
12 FEB Seminar Translation and Diversity (Panel) 5pm – 7pm • Room SG1, ARB Jeremy Munday (Leeds), Maria Sanchez-Ortiz (Aberdeen) • Cambridge Conversations in Translation research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27527
13 FEB Seminar Is Demand Side Response a Woman's Work? Gender Dynamics in a Field Trial of Smart Meters and Time of Use Tariffs in East London 12pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Charlotte Johnson (UCL) • In Search of 'Good' Energy Policy research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27521
13 FEB Seminar Supernatural Cities: Urban Mindscapes and Academic Liminality 5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Karl Bell (Portsmouth) • Alchemical Landscape research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27534
14 FEB Reading Group Open as a Tool to Change Ecosystems 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB • Open Intellectual Property Models research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27541 Register for readings
14 FEB Seminar Rhetoric 5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Terrence Cave (Oxford), Sophie Read (Cambridge) • Theologies of Reading research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27546
16 – 17 Conference FEB Comic Epidemic: Cartoons, Caricatures and Graphic Novels Rooms SG1/SG2, ARB • CRASSH Conference Programme www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27517
12.30pm – 2pm • CRASSH Meeting Room, ARB Visiting Fellow Marco Caserta presents his work in progress www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27507 Register via email
20 FEB Seminar Economics and Democracy: the Role of Think Tanks 12pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Paul Johnson (Institute for Fiscal Studies), Angus Armstrong (National Institute for Economic and Social Research) • Politics of Economics research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27558
20 FEB Seminar Aspirations of Active Ageing: How People's Biographies and Places' Histories Shape Active Living 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB Cornelia Guell-Unwin (Exeter) • Ageing and the City research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27572
21 FEB Seminar Settling in the City: a Workshop on Migration 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB Sam Ivin (Photographer) • Power and Vision research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27567 Limited places. Register online.
21 FEB Seminar Hallucinogenic Smells 12.30pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Cecilia Bembibre (UCL), Mark Jenner (York) • Things research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27576
22 FEB Seminar Metric Mysticism 5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Zach Blas (Goldsmiths, London) • Digital Art research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27564
26 FEB Seminar The Public Policy of International Law 12.30pm – 2pm • CRASSH Meeting Room, ARB Early Career Fellow Rumiana Yotova presents her work in progress www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27508 Register via email
26 FEB Seminar Translation and Diversity (Workshop) 5pm – 7pm • Room SG1, ARB Paul Howard (Cambridge) • Cambridge Conversations in Translation research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27528
27 FEB Seminar Mitre or Mao Cap: Archbishop Desmond Tutu as Performer – a Prescient Activism? 5pm – 7pm • Room SG1, ARB (Note change of date) John Allen (Former Tutu Aide), Louise Blythe (BBC) • Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27554
27 FEB Seminar Topographia and Topothesia: Memory and Testimony in a Croatian Landscape 5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Jessie Fyfe (Cambridge) • Alchemical Landscape research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27535
FESTIVAL OF IDEAS WHAT’S ON FEBRUARY 2018
19 FEB Seminar Learning from Data
WHAT’S ON FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018 FESTIVAL OF IDEAS
27 FEB Lecture Sara Ahmed: The Uses of Use
6 MAR
5.15pm – 7pm • LG18, Faculty of Law Sara Ahmed • CRASSH Impact Lecture and Conversation Series www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27586
28 FEB Reading Group Open IP in Emerging and Developing Economies
12pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Rosa Lastra (Queen Mary, London) • Politics of Economics research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27559
6 MAR
12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB • Open Intellectual Property Models research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27542 Register for readings
28 FEB Seminar Reading and Fundamentalism
6 MAR
7 MAR
Seminar Visual Production of Alterity in Urban, Digital and Genetic Spaces 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB Felipe Hernàndez (Cambridge), Paulo Drinot (UCL), Sarah Abel (Iceland) • Power and Vision research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27579
Seminar Nietzsche on Slavery and What It Means to Be Human 12.30pm – 2pm • CRASSH Meeting Room, ARB Crausaz Wordsworth Fellow Martin Ruehl presents his work in progress www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27509 Register via email
Seminar Bach and Bodies 5pm – 7pm • Room SG1, ARB Jamie Hawkey (Cambridge), Margaret Faultless (Cambridge), Bettina Varwig (KCL) • Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27555
5.15pm – 6.15pm • Babbage Lecture Theatre, New Museums Site Jared Diamond (UCLA) • Centre for the Study of Existential Risk www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27560
5 MAR
Seminar The Challenge of Inclusive Design: Getting It Right for All Ages (and Why This Matters) 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB Catharine Ward Thompson (Edinburgh) • Ageing and the City research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27573
5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Matthew Engelke (LSE), Tim Jenkins (Cambridge) • Theologies of Reading research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27547 Register for readings
28 FEB Lecture National Crises Viewed in the Light of Personal Crises
Seminar Populism and Central Bank Independence
7 MAR
Seminar Eating Contests 12.30pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Barak Kushner (Cambridge), Eric Rath (Michigan) • Things research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27577
Lecture Sara Ahmed: Experiences of Complaint 5.15pm – 7pm • Venue TBA Sara Ahmed • CRASSH Impact Lecture and Conversation Series www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27587
8 MAR
Seminar Crowdsourcing National Security: Gamification Practices in the US-Mexico Border 5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Joana Moll (Artist) • Digital Art research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27565
12 MAR Seminar The Frontier between Bologna and Modena in the Early Modern Period 12.30pm – 2pm • CRASSH Meeting Room, ARB Conversions Visiting Fellow Miriana Carbonara presents her work in progress www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27510 Register via email
12 MAR Seminar Translation and Diversity (Translation Hub) 5pm – 7pm • Room SG1, ARB • Cambridge Conversations in Translation research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27529
13 MAR Seminar Fukushima and the Law 12pm – 2pm • Room SG1, ARB Julius Weitzdörfer (CSER, Cambridge) • In Search of ‘Good’ Energy Policy research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27523
13 MAR Seminar Working Site-Responsively in Crystallised Time (Artist's Talk) 5pm – 7pm • Room SG2, ARB Rosanna Greaves (Cambridge School of Art, ARU) • Alchemical Landscape research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27536
14 MAR Reading Group Assessing the Impact of Open IP in Emerging Technologies 12pm – 2pm • Room SG2, ARB • Open Intellectual Property Models research group www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27543 Register for readings
16 – 17 Conference MAR The Post-Truth Phenomenon Rooms SG1/SG2, ARB • CRASSH Conference Programme www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27588
12 – 13 Conference APR Popularizing Reform in Early Modern Europe King's College • CRASSH Conference Programme www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27444
19 – 20 Conference APR New Spaces of Resistance in Latin America: Beyond the Pink Tide Rooms SG1/SG2, ARB • CRASSH Conference Programme www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27374
FESTIVAL OF IDEAS WHAT’S ON MARCH 2018
7 MAR
RESEARCH GROUPS 2017-18 CRASSH Research Groups 2017-18
Image by Convenor Yvonne Salmon
Graduate/Faculty Research Groups 2017-18
The Alchemical Landscape
The CRASSH Research Groups Programme supports groups of Cambridge graduate students and faculty members working together with a common interdisciplinary research interest, bringing together early-career researchers, established academics and guest speakers on particular research topics for a year of collaborative work. The groups run bi-weekly events which are free and open to all.
Working as an interdisciplinary, multi-platform research project, The Alchemical Landscape brings into collaboration the Faculty of English and the Department of Land Economy. It has two intersecting points of focus: the artistic representation of the British landscape as an uncanny if not haunted space, and the use of comparable 'spectral' language to speak about matters of environment, property and value.
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/researchgroups
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/alchemicallandscape
RESEARCH GROUPS 2017-18
Image by Convenor Theodora Bowering
Image by Artist Gurpran Rau
Ageing and the City: Everyday Experiences of Older People in Urban Environments
Cambridge Conversations in Translation (CCiT)
Older people and the cities within which they live face numerous challenges across areas of health and social care, housing, transport, infrastructure and the built environment. Cross-disciplinary and multi-levelled approaches are essential for understanding the current condition and development of cities and whether or not they are 'age friendly'.
The University of Cambridge currently has no institutional infrastructure devoted to the theory and practice of translation, and those interested in translation tend to be confined to informal fragmentary clusters that rarely converge. CCiT seeks to rectify this by providing a forum in which anyone and everyone with an active interest in translation can meet to exchange ideas about this rich and complex subject.
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/ageing-andthe-city-everyday-experiences-of-older-peoplein-urban-environme
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/cambridgeconversations-in-translation
RESEARCH GROUPS 2017-18
Image: Writing through the Essay: 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience' (Installation by John Cage)
Digital Painting: Secret Levels (2010) by Artist Mauro Pesce
Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network (CIPN)
Digital Art
This year the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network turns to Theology and Philosophy to explore questions surrounding the nature of being and the complex interrelationship between the material and immaterial, and how these relationships are enacted daily in the performance of place, through the roles of ritual and tradition, and by the affective powers of music, art and memory.
While the digitalisation of surveillance has become pervasive in contemporary societies, it has also given rise to new loopholes, potential failure and sites of invisibility. This phenomenon will be the focus of Digital Art's reading sessions in the Lent Term, during which the group will look at how artists have both used surveillance technologies and exposed their potential perils.
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/ performance-network
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/digital-art
RESEARCH GROUPS 2017-18
Image by Artist Maggie Cunningham
Image by In Search of 'Good' Energy Policy Research Group
Imaginative Things: Curious Objects 1400-2000
In Search of 'Good' Energy Policy
During 2017-18 the Things research group furthers their investigation into the connection between material culture and the mind. They explore how objects affect cognition not just in virtue of their functional characteristics or their more obvious ties to human practices, but also through their ability to generate awe, curiosity, whimsy and drama due to their construction and materials as well as their symbolic significance.
This group explores energy policy themes from different disciplinary perspectives – including economics, law, anthropology, psychology, engineering – with the aim of identifying principles and processes for 'good' energy policy making. What constitutes a 'good' policy is conditioned not only by technology and financial factors but also by social norms and values, institutions, geopolitics, public trust and history.
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/things
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/in-searchof-good-energy-policy
RESEARCH GROUPS 2017-18 Image: Modified from Artificial Intelligence Template by Vilmosvarga via Freepik
Image: Money Makes the World Go Round by Adrian Clark via Flickr
Open Intellectual Property Models of Emerging Technologies
The Politics of Economics
This group's guiding question is the extent to which open technologies result in equitable sharing of knowledge and cognitive or technology justice. They explore the legal issues, economic implications and governance of open technologies across key sectors, asking how they are established, what motivates the IP owners and what impact this might have on societies.
Economics affects politics, politics affects economics, and there is politics internal to economics. The Politics of Economics research group brings different disciplinary angles together for a discussion of these aspects of the politics-economics relation, and their normative and epistemic consequences.
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/openintellectual-property.-models-of-emergingtechnologies-and-implication
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/thepolitics-of-economics
RESEARCH GROUPS 2017-18
Image by Skitterphoto via Pixabay
Image by Theologies of Reading Research Group
Power and Vision: The Camera as Political Technology
Theologies of Reading
Power and Vision asserts that there is a dearth of pragmatic, accessible discussions about how images work, rather than what they purportedly show. As fake news and multimedia increasingly suffuse the visual landscape, it is imperative to initiate an academic and public discussion about how what we see, and the way it is contextualised, underpins popular claims about how contemporary political power operates.
Today, the assumption made by most is that reading is about 'getting' content. Reading has become so much the medium of consumption, that we are at risk of losing the ability to reflect on the action of reading itself. This research group sets out to interrogate the assumption that reading should or could be disinterested. It asks instead: in what ways does reading remain interested in questions of truth and meaning?
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/powerand-vision-the-camera-as-political-technology
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/theologiesof-reading
KEEP IN TOUCH
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Front Cover Image: H. Frantz, Caricature of Oswaldo Cruz (c.1900) © Bibliothèque de l'Académie nationale de Médecine (France)
CENTRE FOR RESEARCH IN THE ARTS, SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES