Talks & Lectures
Sunday Lecture - Rebels, Infidels and Troublemakers
Sun 26 May 2013, 11.00
Rebels, Infidels and Troublemakers: the life, times and contents of Bishopsgate Library
What was the ‘battle of the books’ and why did the Institute lock away one archive item from the public fearing it may cause revolution?
Bishopsgate Library is home to the library and archives of numerous radicals and troublemakers, including infidel Charles Bradlaugh, blasphemer George Jacob Holyoake and a wealth of other collections documenting people and organisations who dared to challenge the status quo.
Join Library and Archives Manager Stefan Dickers to explore the stories that lie behind many of the collections on the shelves at Bishopsgate Library and explore the themes of London, labour, co-operation, freethought and protest. Stefan qualified as an archivist in 2001 and started at Bishopsgate in 2005. Previous to this, Stefan worked in the archives of the London School of Economics and Senate House Library. He is also secretary of the Archives and Resources Committee of the Society for the Study of Labour History and the oral history consortium Britain at Work, 1945-1995. Stefan is also co-founder of the Network of Radical Libraries and Archives (NORLA), Chair of the Socialist History Society and Co-Director of the Raphael Samuel History Centre.
11.00, £3 on the door/free to members
Free Tea & Coffee will be available.
Event Page
The School of Life: Michael Pollan - What makes us full?
29 May 2013
What makes us full?
What did you eat for lunch today? Chances are many of us ate some kind of mass product from a packet at our desks. We might feel full up for a while. But with every factory-processed mouthful we pop, are we denying ourselves something more existentially fulfilling?
Tonight the food writer Michael Pollan will give his manifesto for why we and how we should take back control of that fundamental part of our wellbeing, pleasure and creativity: the art of eating well.
Pollan’s latest book is Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation. It tells the experience of apprenticing himself to master cooks. With them he learned how to use the basic elements of fire, earth, air and water to transform simple ingredients into wonderful food to eat. Tonight he’ll share the practical attitudes and strategies he learnt from cooks about creating sustenance for the soul.
Pollan will be in conversation with William Leith, the author of the funny and moving memoir about his own food addiction, The Hungry Years. Together they’ll discuss what it really means to be full.
Tickets £22
Bernard Shaw's Other Island: the presence of Ireland at Shaw's Corner
Fri 31 May 2013, 19.00
THE SHAW SOCIETY presents
Bernard Shaw's Other Island: the presence of Ireland at Shaw's Corner
Lizzie Dunford, House Steward at Shaw's Corner since 2010, shares an insiders insight.
At first glance there is little of Ireland in the Hertfordshire home of one of that country's greatest writers, yet look a little deeper and you will find the presence of Shaw's birthplace throughout the house. This talk will explore the many paintings, objects and books in the collection that demonstrate whilst Shaw might have left Ireland in 1876, he never forgot it.
TICKETS: £4 on door/ Shaw Society Members £2
Sunday Lecture: The Rise of the Laptop Lizards
Sun 2 Jun 2013, 11.00
The Rise of the Laptop Lizards – Fighting Unethical Advertising
Stories of ‘Miracle Cures’ made from household bleach, and other health claims occur because of marketing claims made - often without evidence - for products on the Internet. It's been a short time since the Advertising Standards Authority started to regulate such claims.
In that time, the Nightingale Collaboration has given the Advertising Standards Authority possibly their most serious challenge yet: curbing the misleading claims made on Complimentary & Alternative Medicine (CAM) websites. Many practitioners have realised their responsibilities and taken down long lists of 'what homeopathy can help with...', etc.
But much more needs to be done and we can't rely on the Advertising Standards Authority to do everything, so they have been using other regulators as well, particularly the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Find out more about who the Nightingale Collaboration is, what we've been up to and what our future plans are.
Alan Henness is the Director of the Nightingale Collaboration. The Nightingale Collaboration challenges questionable claims made by healthcare practitioners on their websites, in adverts and in their promotional and sales materials by bringing these to the attention of the appropriate regulatory bodies. They also strive to ensure that organisations representing healthcare practitioners have robust codes of conduct for their members that protect the public and that these are enforced.
You can follow Alan on Twitter as @zeno001 and the Nightingale Collaboration as @NightingaleC.
11.00, £3 on the door/free to members
Bottomless Tea & Coffee will be available.
What is cancer and how can we control it?
Wed 5 Jun 2013, 18.30
New Scientist presents
What is cancer and how can we control it?
Cancer research is a vast worldwide enterprise, yet there has been little improvement in patient outcomes over several decades. Clearly some bold new thinking is needed. Amid the frantic search for an elusive "cure," some basic questions are overlooked. Why is there cancer? What are its deep evolutionary roots? Why do almost all cells come pre-loaded with a cancer subroutine? Paul will describe a new and testable theory of cancer as the re-activation of an ancient phenotype, suggesting a radically new approach to therapy.
Paul Davies is Director of the Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University. He is best known as a physicist and cosmologist and as a pioneer in the field of astrobiology. A few years ago he was asked by the US National Cancer Institute to provide fresh insights into cancer from a physicist’s perspective. This led to him being appointed as Principal Investigator at the Center for the Convergence of Physical Science and Cancer Biology at ASU.
Paul is also author of numerous best-selling science books, including The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin of Life, How to Build a Time Machine and The Eerie Silence: Renewing our Search for Alien Intelligence.
Doors open at 6pm. Talk starts at 6:30pm.
Tickets £5 (inc. booking fee) in advance through Eventbrite, and if available £7 on the door. Tickets sold on a first come first served basis and are subject to availability.
New Scientist is the world's leading science and technology weekly magazine, covering the big ideas and developments from all areas of science and technology. Offering the latest news, ideas and opinions, New Scientist is an authoritative voice on all matters related to science, technology and the ideas improving our knowledge of the universe and those shaping our world and lives.
Can science solve every mystery?
8 Jun 2013
Centre for Inquiry UK and Conway Hall present
Can science answer every question? Should scientists show a little humility and acknowledge there are questions that only religion can answer? Are science and religion “non-overlapping magisteria”, as the scientist Stephen Jay Gould claimed, or is science capable of showing that religion is false, as Richard Dawkins believes? And what, exactly, do philosophers do?
Speakers
Sunday Lecture: One Law for All
Sat 9 Jun 2013, 11.00
Anne Marie will be speaking about Sharia law in Britain and across the globe, its violations of rights and equality, and the need for One Law for All, secularism and equal rights.
Anne Marie Waters is spokesperson for the One Law for All Campaign. She campaigns against Sharia and religious Laws as she believes they represent a sacrifice of the rights of women in the name of legal and cultural relativism. She is a law graduate with a strong interest in family law and human rights, and the interaction of the two. She has written various papers and articles on the rights of women in family law and on human rights internationally. She is a council member and campaigner for the National Secular Society.
11.00, £3 on the door/free to members
Bottomless Tea & Coffee will be available.
Sunday Lecture: Behind the Myths - The Foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Sun 16 Jun 2013, 11.00
Behind the Myths: The Foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam was inspired initially by Karl Kautsky’s book,The Foundations of Christianity (1908) although it seeks to update and broaden the scope of the work to include Judaism and Islam.
This book is the fruit of ten years of research and study of all the current literature on the topic, looking at historical works through the critical lens of a Marxist worldview.
John Pickard has been a socialist and activist for just about all of his adult life.
Apart from working as a research scientist in the pharmaceutical industry and as a secondary school teacher of science, he spent sixteen years working as a full-time journalist for the British Marxist newspaper Militant. During that time, he was managing editor of the newspaper during its best years, in the early 1980s, when the miners’ strike raged and the Liverpool City council fought against the then conservative government of Margaret Thatcher.
11.00, £3 on the door/free to members
Bottomless Tea & Coffee will be available.
Trauma Therapy: An Adlerian Perspective
18 Jun 2013
Adlerian Society London present:
HERTHA ORGLER MEMORIAL LECTURE
'Trauma Therapy: An Adlerian Perspective'
Anthea Millar
Trauma is an experience of powerlessness when our physical and/or psychological integrity is threatened. Traumatic events can overwhelm and disrupt our normal systems of connecting, seeking control and having meaning in life, and may be experienced as the ultimate sense of inferiority.
In recent years there has been greatly increased understanding of the complex interactions of neurobiology and psychosocial aspects of trauma. This in turn has enabled the development of more effective approaches to trauma therapy, these more recent developments integrating well with an Adlerian approach.
In this lecture, illustrated with case studies from her own practice, Anthea will draw from both Adlerian core tenets and recent practice research to present a perspective of therapy that emphasizes the importance of understanding safeguarding behavior in biological as well as psychosocial terms. She will also give a particular focus on the importance of ensuring the client’s stabilization and sense of safety.
Anthea Millar MA, DipIIP, MBACP (Snr Accred), UKRC, is an Adlerian psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor working in independent practice, and with organisations in the UK and abroad. She coordinated the 4 year Adlerian counselling training in Cambridge for 26 years and is a co-founder of Cambridge Supervision Training. Anthea is actively involved in ASIIP as a member of the training committee and co-editor of the Year Book, and is also on the board of ICASSI, an Adlerian international summer school, where she offers training in trauma therapy.
Brockway Room, 19.30
TICKETS:
Admission £7 (concessions £4) All welcome. No need to book. CPD certificates are available. Lecture enquiries: evans_patel@hotmail.co.uk
Sunday Lecture: The Driller, the Banker and the Minister. Tom Rubens
Sun 23 Jun 2013, 11.00
The Driller, the Banker and the Minister. Tom Rubens
TBC
