A Dirty, Filthy Book
London, 1877. A young woman stands before an all-male jury, about to risk everything. She takes a breath, and opens her defence. Annie Besant and her confidant Charles Bradlaugh are on trial for the sordid crime of publishing and selling a birth control pamphlet. Before Britain’s highest judge she declares it is a woman’s right […]
The Watermelon Woman
Join Conway Hall this summer for an exclusive screening of Cheryl Dunye’s landmark film The Watermelon Woman (1997). Widely regarded as being the first US feature film directed and produced by a black lesbian director, Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman creates a whole new kind of intertexutal fictional storytelling and archival discovery, drawing upon restorative practices […]
How Did We Talk Our Way Out of the Stone Age?
The relationship between language, thought and culture is of concern to anyone with an interest in what it means to be human. In this Ethical Matters talk, Steven Mithen explains how the invention of words at 1.6 million years ago began the evolution of human language from the ape-like calls of our earliest ancestors to […]
The Evolution Of Nostalgia
In this Ethical Matters talk, Agnes Arnold-Forster blends neuroscience and psychology with the history of medicine and emotions to explore the evolution of nostalgia from its first identification in seventeenth-century Switzerland (when it was held to be an illness that could, quite literally, kill you) to the present day (when it is co-opted by advertising […]
Ethical Gaming: What we are in Digital Worlds (Online Only)
When we make a video game we can enter any world and be anyone. So why do the issues of the real world follow us into gaming? Should games represent everyone who plays them? How are gender roles played out in unreal environments and what do the narratives we place in the new lands of […]
The Price of Life: In Search of What We’re Worth
We say that life is priceless. Yet the cost of saving a life, creating a life or compensating for a life taken is routinely calculated and put into practice. In a world in love with data, it is possible to run a cost-benefit analysis on anything – including life itself. For philanthropists, judges, criminals, healthcare […]
Abolish the Super Rich?
Everything you know about capitalism is wrong. Free markets aren’t really free. Record corporate profits don’t trickle down to everyone else. We aren’t empowered to make our own choices – they’re made for us every day. The story is all too familiar. The global economy generates immense fortunes for a super-rich elite, yet at the […]
Queer Histories of Love and War
Explore the hidden histories of love and desire, particularly for those on the fringes of society, as we delve into the lives of overlooked LGBTQ+ figures with writer and journalist Luke Turner and bestselling author Wendy Moore. In ‘Jack and Eve: Two Women In Love and At War,’ Moore illuminates the extraordinary tale of Vera […]
Extreme Britain: Gender, Masculinity and Radicalisation
Misogyny and ‘toxic masculinity’ are increasingly implicated in radicalisation. From the men’s incel (‘involuntary celibate’) movement online, to jihadist groups like Islamic State, to radical right ‘Free Speech’ protests —radicalisation spans ideologies. Though an often-used term, the process of radicalisation is not well understood, and the role of gender and masculinities has often been ignored. […]