‘Missa Humana’ World Premiere
‘Now she lives in a cottage in Hastings, and is currently working on a full-scale secular Mass.’ Thus wrote the great folksinger Shirley Collins about her sister Dolly in the liner notes of the 1967 album The Power of the True Love Knot, which featured arrangements by Dolly, a student of the classical composer Alan […]
How To Disagree
Insight and empathy spring from the clash of different perspectives. In a world where it’s easier than ever for people to share their opinions, we should be reaping the benefits of diverse views. Instead, we too often find ourselves mired in hostility or – worse – avoiding disagreement altogether. Ian Leslie draws on essential lessons […]
Wild City: Living with Urban Wildlife
City-dwellers, it’s time to meet your neighbours. Meryl Pugh reimagines the wild as ‘feral’, recording the fauna and flora of Leytonstone in prose as incisive as it is lyrical. Here, on the edge of the city, red kite and parakeets thrive alongside bluebell and yarrow, a muntjac deer is glimpsed in the undergrowth, and an […]
Homo Sapiens Rediscovered
*In-person tickets for this event have sold out, however there are still livestream tickets available.* Who are we? How do scientists define Homo sapiens? And how does our species differ from the extinct hominins that came before us? Paul Pettitt reveals the extraordinary story of how our ancestors adapted to unforgiving and relentlessly changing climates, […]
They Call it Love – The Politics of Emotional Life
Comforting a family member or friend, soothing children, providing company for the elderly, ensuring that people feel well enough to work; this is all essential labour. Without it, capitalism would cease to function. Here, and in her book They Call It Love, Alva Gotby investigates the work that makes a haven in a heartless world, […]
Other Loves – Asexuality & Bisexuality
** This event is now sold out in person. Online tickets are still available. ** Life is never truly binary, love maybe even more so. Join us for a conversation on other ways of other ways to live and love with asexual activist Yasmin Benoit and Dr Julia Shaw, author of Bi: The Hidden Culture, […]
How Great Novels Help Us Change
What can Alice in Wonderland teach us about childhood? Could reading Conversations with Friends guide us through first love? Does Esther Greenwood’s glittering success and subsequent collapse in The Bell Jar help us understand ambition? And what can we learn about death from Virginia Woolf? Literature matters. Not only does it provide escapism and entertainment, […]
Bitch – Sex, Evolution & the Female Animal
What does it mean to be female? Mother, carer, the weaker sex? Think again. In the last few decades, a revolution has been brewing in zoology and evolutionary biology. Lucy Cooke introduces us to a riotous cast of animals, and the scientists studying them, that are redefining the female of the species. Meet the female […]
Ethical Eating
Food is an ethical issue. Join the discussion with author of Avocado Anxiety, Louise Gray, alongside Ruth Westcott, Campaign Coordinator for Sustain, as we explore the stories of our five-a-day, from farm to fruit bowl food and discover the impact that our appetite has on the planet. Louise Gray answers questions about the familiar items […]