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Open lectures: Summer term 2022

Every term, the University organises free open lectures on a wide variety of topics and aimed at a general audience.

Most require tickets (available on individual event pages) but some do not. Where tickets are needed, this is also indicated in the publicity.

Upcoming events

There are no events to show here right now. Please check back another time.

Past events

Wednesday 20 July 2022 4pm

This seminar focuses on the political, social, and economic conditions that shape the defence of human rights, and explores how human rights communities can foster self- and collective care among human rights defenders

Tuesday 19 July 2022 2pm

Over the last decade, authoritarian regimes in different parts of the world have been mobilizing increasingly incommensurable citizenship regimes based on explicit boundaries demarcating the desired citizens...

Monday 18 July 2022 3pm

World-renowned psychiatrist, Professsor Vikram Patel, talks about the transformation of mental health care.

Wednesday 13 July 2022 2pm

Join IGDC and YESI to explore the effectiveness, and potential consequences, of the framing of planetary environmental challenges as ‘emergencies’.

Thursday 30 June 2022 6pm

This lecture, focusing on the slaveholding family of the Longs and the plantations they owned in Jamaica, will explore the reproduction of racial and gender hierarchies in the mid-eighteenth century.

Wednesday 29 June 2022 6pm

Digital games are an appealing pastime for more than 50% of people in the UK and Europe. The real attraction of games seems to come from the experiences that they offer players. But what are these experiences and how do games provide them?

Thursday 16 June 2022 5pm

Discover more about pregnancy loss in late medieval English literature and culture.

Wednesday 15 June 2022 6pm

The seminar will look at the Historic England recording project at Bootham Crescent, undertaken with the club and fanbase.

Wednesday 15 June 2022 1pm

Join Protection International, ProtectDefenders.eu, and the University of York's Human Rights Defender Hub in celebrating the winners of the Human Rights Defenders Poetry Challenge.

Monday 13 June 2022 4pm

The York Hope Consortium will be joined by the brilliant Dr Remi Joseph-Salisbury and Dr Laura Connelly to discuss 'Hope' in the context of their book 'Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism'.

Thursday 9 June 2022 4pm

Professor Laurence J Kirmayer presents the latest in the Grief Project lecture series.

Thursday 9 June 2022 1pm

The York Hope Consortium will be joined by the brilliant editor and non-fiction writer Susheila Nasta to discuss critical thinking and the power of writing now.

Thursday 9 June 2022 10am

Looking for further investment and support for your research or bio-based business idea?

Wednesday 8 June 2022 5pm

Join the Department of English and Related Literature for this year's Annual Jacques Berthoud Lecture with Professor Susheila Nasta.

Wednesday 8 June 2022 4pm

This talk offers an analysis of social movement transnationalisation, using Extinction Rebellion as its case study.

Wednesday 8 June 2022 4pm

Andrew Friedman provides evidence of how professional bodies continue to flourish and the many changes that have taken place.

Tuesday 7 June 2022 5.30pm

Professor Dr Emir Filipović talks about the Ottoman Turk.

Wednesday 1 June 2022 4pm

A look at how technologies of blood, both in their material (biochemical) and therapeutic forms, have been central to framings of race, genetic inheritance, ethnic difference and national identity.

Thursday 26 May 2022 5pm

Why does Falstaff travel to York via Gloucestershire in Henry the Fourth, part two? And why does Shakespeare interrupt his second tetralogy of history plays to take his most famous comic character to Windsor in the Merry Wives?

Thursday 26 May 2022 5pm

For this instalment, we will be joined by the incredible Ana Dinerstein from the University of Bath to reflect on the concept of ‘Hope’.

Wednesday 25 May 2022 6pm

Professor Radu Calinescu talks about the recent advances in artificial intelligence and robotics.

Wednesday 25 May 2022 5pm

Join the Department of English and Related Literature for this term's Adam Phillips Lecture

Wednesday 25 May 2022 4pm

For this instalment, the York Hope Consortium will be joined by the brilliant poet and academic Kaiser Haq to reflect on the concept of Hope.

Wednesday 25 May 2022 4pm

Despite branding itself ‘the Lucky Country’, Australia has faced a considerable number of significant environmental challenges in recent years...

Monday 23 May 2022 4pm

In this talk, Professor Matthew Broome will focus on a particular kind of emotional impact of the pandemic, namely the phenomenology of the experience of moral injury in healthcare professionals.

Thursday 19 May 2022 2.30pm

In grief, time troubles us. We are confronted, again and again with the fact that we cannot turn back time, and do the past otherwise...

Thursday 19 May 2022 2pm

This webinar debates two crises - Covid-19 and climate - from global and local perspectives.

Wednesday 18 May 2022 4pm

Why an omni-channel business strategy should now be the core part of any business with changes in customers behaviours in the post pandemic world.

Wednesday 18 May 2022 4pm

This talk examines the skill systems in Mexico and Turkey, with a focus on auto parts producers, and the implications of these systems for these countries' development.

Monday 16 May 2022 5pm

Jane Gilbert talks about how and why brackets travel, how they accompany and charm us, and especially about the effects of their presence on poetic texts.

Thursday 12 May 2022 6.30pm

Baroness Ruth Lister of Burtersett explores key concepts around poverty, in particular making links between poverty and human rights, agency and citizenship.

Thursday 12 May 2022 2pm

Join PhD student Ian Foxley for the third instalment of the 'Hope and Social Change' Symposium Series.

Thursday 12 May 2022 10am

Professor Masahiro Morioka shows some examples of the appearance of an animated persona and tries to explain them in terms of philosophy and phenomenology.

Wednesday 11 May 2022 4pm

Dimitris Fragakis talks about the effect the pandemic has had on Greek tourism.

Wednesday 11 May 2022 4pm

A talk that explores conceptions of time and space, with the medieval parish church as a vessel for the marking and imagining of time.

Tuesday 10 May 2022 6pm

For this instalment, the York Hope Consortium will be joined by the incredible writer Saleema Nawaz to reflect on the concept of ‘Hope’.

Thursday 5 May 2022 6pm

Explore the role Anne Boleyn plays in Tudor race-making, then and now.

Wednesday 4 May 2022 5.30pm

What actions can be taken to create more inclusive public environments and consider which voices and perspectives should be at the forefront of such conversations?

Tuesday 3 May 2022 7pm

Discover the vital role plant medicines have to offer those suffering from PTSD, brain injuries and mental ill-health.

Thursday 28 April 2022 6pm

An event that will investigate the legacy of Jair Bolsonaro’s office in different areas of public policy and reflect on the challenges that it poses to progressive politics beyond the electoral cycle.

Thursday 28 April 2022 5.30pm

Professor Peter Mandler discusses the crisis of the meritocracy

Wednesday 27 April 2022 5.30pm

Rebecca Scales examines how polio transformed France’s welfare state and health care systems, fueled vaccine development and biomedical research.

Wednesday 27 April 2022 5pm

Dr Freya Gowrley talks us through the history of collage

Wednesday 27 April 2022 4pm

Patricia Hamilton discusses the impact of the pandemic on fathers and fatherhood.

Tuesday 26 April 2022 7pm

Learn about the new conversations that have begun to emerge in drug policy, recreational drugs, and harm reduction.

Tuesday 26 April 2022 6pm

Join Annie Zaidi (author) as she reflects on the concept of ‘Hope’.

Monday 25 April 2022 1.30pm

SEI York invites you to attend our Celebration Event on Monday 25 April 2022 at 1.30pm. The event will celebrate the renewed partnership between SEI and the University of York.

Monday 25 April 2022 10am

Join Indrajit Roy in conversation with Simon Parker (York), Carole Gayet (CNRS Paris), Suryakant Waghmore (IIT-Bombay).

Thursday 7 April 2022 11.30am

The latest event in the Hope and Social Change Symposium Series

Tuesday 5 April 2022 7pm

An opportunity for you to get to grips with some of the cutting edge research taking place at the University of York.