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Jonathan Sumption – The New Roundheads: Politics and the Misuse of History

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

Jonathan Sumption is a renowned historian and former Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Four instalments of his critically acclaimed history of the Hundred Years’ War have been published between 1990 and 2015, all by Faber & Faber. The fifth and final volume, Triumph and Illusion, was published in late 2023.

After his lecture, Lord Sumption was interviewed on stage by the eminent journalist and broadcaster John Simpson.

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Reidar Due – Freedom of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Freedom

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

In this inaugural Pharos Tuesday Seminar, philosopher Reidar Due explores the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault. Icons of the so-called ‘culture war’, this series of discourses takes the two thinkers out of the fire of contemporary debate, seeking to understand their place in a longer tradition of French philosophy as a precursor to a better understanding of their contemporary relevance.

Professor of Film Aesthetics, University of Oxford

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John Gray – What is Living and What is Dead in Liberalism?

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

John Gray is a world-renowned philosopher, political theorist and intellectual historian. He has an asteroid named after him and until 2008 he was School Professor of European Thought at the LSE. He now writes principally for the New Statesman and has authored over twenty books including the bestselling Seven Types of Atheism, Straw Dogs, Black Mass, The Soul of the Marionette, The Silence of Animals and Feline Philosophy. His latest book, published by Penguin in September 2023, is The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism.

After his lecture, John Gray was joined on stage for a discussion by the world-leading ethicist Prof Nigel Biggar CBE.

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Marie Kawthar Daouda – Romance and Reality in French Culture

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

From the French Revolution to the aftermath of the Second World War, French literature appears as a field of tension between Romance and Reality. Marie Kawthar Daouda discusses the continuity and rifts between the main aesthetic currents of French contemporary literature, their connection with French and European politics, and how authors from Chateaubriand to Camus have endeavoured to distinguish permanent truth behind ever-changing circumstances.

How did the Romantic movement echo the philosophical issues raised by the French Revolution? Can literature describe the world as it is? How do symbols and language work together in poetry? Does the evil of the war make beauty irrelevant? Marie Kawthar Daouda discusses these questions by engaging with relevant passages of the novels, poems, and essays that shaped French literature from 1789 to the 1940s.

Filmed in the Old Library at St Edmund Hall and in the Ursell Room at Pusey House in November 2023, this series of lectures will be released online in May.

Lecturer in French Literature, University of Oxford

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Robert Tombs – A Shameful Conquest? Britain Before and After Brexit

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

Professor Emeritus of French History, University of Cambridge

When Robert Tombs was invited to speak to Pharos, it was suggested he could speak on Brexit, Franco-British relations, or the culture wars. He decided to try all three. In this series, Prof Tombs analyses Brexit, why it happened, and what it means; how different policies towards European integration taken in Britain and France tell us much about the direction Europe has taken; and how Brexit’s diplomatic and economic impact may be small next to the cultural, social, and political consequences.

Filmed in St Edmund Hall's Old Library in November 2023, this series of lectures will be published online in May 2024.

Prof Robert Tombs is a distinguished historian, specialising in the history of Britain and France. He is Professor Emeritus of French History at Cambridge and a Fellow of St John's College. His published works include The War Against Paris, 1871 (1981), That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present (2006, with Isabelle Tombs); The English and Their History (2014), and This Sovereign Isle (2020). His writing appears regularly in The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, and The Times, and he is the editor of Briefings for Britain and History Reclaimed. In 2007, the French Government awarded Tombs the prestigious Ordre des Palmes Académiques 'for services rendered to French culture'. He was appointed to the Franco-British Council the following year.

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Noel Malcolm – Emergence of Homosexuality in the Early Modern Period

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

In a famous statement, published before almost any serious scholarly work had been done on the history of same-sex relations in pre-modern Europe, Michel Foucault said that the homosexual, as a distinct type of person, was a purely modern phenomenon: in the past, people thought only in terms of sexual acts, not sexual identities. This lecture series tests the truth of that assertion, which has exerted such a strong influence on the whole historiography of the subject, and lays the ground work for a revisionary understanding of the history of sexuality in Europe.

The first lecture discusses the rich evidence which emerged, in the decades after Foucault wrote, from the archives of Italy and Spain. In many ways this seemed to prove him right. It revealed a world of activity by men who were happy to have sex with boys as well as women; generally, their behaviour carried no ‘identity’ implications, and it was unlike modern homosexuality in other ways too, not least the lack of sexual interest in other adult males. The second lecture investigates how such same-sex acts were conceptualised and dealt with by the religious and legal norms of the period; it does so not only for these Christian Mediterranean countries, but also for the Islamic societies of the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. The third lecture turns to northern Europe, including England, and finds some significant divergences from the Mediterranean pattern. It also looks at European colonial societies, especially in the Americas, where some contrasts can be found between the colonies of the northern and southern European powers. The final lecture puts the evidence together, considers what it tells us about identities and subcultures, and offers a new account of what has been called the ‘emergence of modern homosexuality.

Recorded at Magdalen College in February-March 2024, this inaugural series of Pharos Monday Lectures will be published in May.

Sir Noel Malcolm FRSL FBA is Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, a Founding Fellow of the Pharos Foundation, and one of the country's pre-eminent intellectual historians. He was foreign editor for The Spectator and a columnist for The Daily Telegraph before returning to academia. He is the author of twelve books, and the editor of the Clarendon edition of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, for which he was awarded a British Academy medal. His latest work, Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Desire, 1400-1750 was published by Oxford University Press in November 2023.

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Lord Tony Sewell – The End of ‘Race’: Agency & Self-Affirmation

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

In the Pharos Spring 2024 Lecture, Tony Sewell explores the drivers of black success in Britain today, rejecting victimhood and low expectations while embracing a visionary view of black life, in which achievement has little to do with ‘race’ and everything to do with agency and self-affirmation. Disrupting the very idea of ‘Blackness’ itself, Lord Sewell presses for the collective humanity that is now so unpopular in the age of ‘identity politics’ and provides an antidote to the idea that the lives of black people should be a decolonising project. Freedom from mental slavery is knowing how to be free, not struggling to be. After his lecture, Lord Sewell was  joined for a discussion on stage by Deroy Murdock.

Born in Brixton, Lord Tony Sewell CBE is an internationally-respected author, educator, and statesman. His path-breaking charity ‘Generating Genius’ has helped hundreds of young black Britons to forge careers in STEM. In July 2020, he was appointed Chair of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities: the Sewell Report made him the target of a cancellation effort by his critics, but his recommendations now form the basis for the government's policy on tackling racial inequalities. Sewell was elevated to the House of Lords in 2022. He was honoured by the government of Jamaica in 2023. His new book, Black Success: The Surprising Truth will be published by Forum in March.

Deroy Murdock is a prominent political commentator, currently contributing editor at the National Review and formerly Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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David Butterfield – The Rebirth of Classicism

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

Professor of Classics, University of Cambridge

What made the Greek and Roman Classics “classic”? Who decided? Was a decision even made? Are the surviving Classics “good”? Have we lost the best books ever written? Who decide what’s worth knowing? What makes something worth reading? And how can we avoid forgetting everything?

In the inaugural Pharos @ the Lamb & Flag event, classicist David Butterfield presents the a series of talks on how the classics of European literature became classic.

Filmed in February-March 2024, recordings will be released in May

The four lectures span these topics:

The birth of writing and the dawn of 'literature'
The birth of the library and the idea of the 'canon'
The birth of the monastery and the advent of 'universities'
The re-birth of Classicism and the crisis of 'modernity'

Dr David Butterfield is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University Cambridge, editor of the Classics journal Antigone, and literary editor of The Critic.

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Ali Ansari – Interpreting Iran

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies, University of St Andrews & Associate Fellow, Chatham House

In this series of Pharos Monday Lectures, Prof Ali Ansari looks at the way the West reads and interprets Iran. Western perspectives, he will argue, have been misshaped by an over-reliance on abstract theories drawn from international relations and political science, a corresponding failure to pay attention to culture and historical experience, and a willingness to sacrifice a deep understanding for foreign policy imperatives and comparative modelling. Discarding the red-herrings of social science, Prof Ansari will develop a new interpretation of modern Iran and its future relations with the West.

The first lecture will look at the tools of scholarship, the impact of historiography, the dangers of ideology, and the consequences of social scientific methodology, not least the development of a culture of 'metrics' and its consequences for our understanding of sources. Lecture Two will look at particular case studies with particular reference to the ideas that underpinned the nuclear negotiations and the 'theory' of authoritarian resilience. The final two lectures will seek to construct an alternative narrative from the ground up through the application of historical methods and analysing the state from within, drawing on Iran's historical experience and political culture.

Ali Ansari is one of the pre-eminent historians of modern Iran, its relationship with the West, and the nexus of myth, ideology, and nation-building. He has also written extensively on the history of the Anglo-Scottish union.

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David Starkey – Renaissances: Past, Present, & Future

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

Historian & Broadcaster

“The Renaissance” (or “Rebirth”) is conventionally defined as the two centuries, from about 1350 to 1550, which saw a comprehensive re-engagement with the culture of the Graeco-Roman world: with its philosophy, literature, art, architecture, history, science and politics. The movement started in Italy. But it was a much-travelled Englishman, Geoffrey Chaucer, who first captured its essence.

For out of old fields, as men saith,
Cometh all this new corn from year to year;
And out of old books, in good faith,
Cometh all this new science that men learn.

This idea, of the old fructifying the new, is also the definition of a Classic. In these lectures, I want to argue that the Classic, in both its senses of an age and of specific works, is the key to Western Civilisation. And that its Twentieth Century rejection in the form of Modernism is the cause of our present discontents.

Born in Kendal, David Starkey read history at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he completed his PhD on Henry VIII's household under the supervision of Geoffrey Elton, before teaching at Cambridge and LSE. His many publications include seven major studies of the Tudor period, most recently Henry: Model of a Tyrant, which was published by Harper Collins in 2020. Dr Starkey redefined public history in the 1990s and 2000s, including the landmark series Monarchy, commissioned by Channel 4 in 2002, and has been a frequent commentator in the media. He was awarded a CBE in 2007.

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Jonathan Sumption & Catharine Titi – Pharos Conversations: The Elgin Marbles

To Be Confirmed Oxford, United Kingdom

In the first ever Pharos Conversation, a range of distinguished scholars, intellectuals, and commentators will debate the future of the Elgin Marbles.

Jonathan Sumption KC is a distinguished historian and one of Britain's leading jurists, serving on the UK Supreme Court (2012-2018) after a prodigious career as a barrister. He is also the author of a five volume history of the Hundred Years' War, and a prominent commentator on legal issues. His inaugural Pharos Lecture is available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiM1EYlQgzg .

Catharine Titi is a professor at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Her specialisms include public international law, the settlement of international disputes, international investment law, international arbitration, and cultural heritage law. Her latest book is The Parthenon Marbles and International Law, which was published by Springer in 2023.

Tiffany Jenkins is a British sociologist and writer, who currently serves as the culture editor for the journal Sociology Compass. She has written extensively on the controversies surrounding the Elgin Marbles and wider issues around the restitution of cultural heritage. Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums – and Why they Should Stay There was published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

Alexander Herman is the Director of the Institute of Art and Law. He has written, taught and presented on an array of topics in relation to art, law, and cultural property, often appearing in the national press and international journals. His most recent book is The Parthenon Marbles Dispute: Heritage, Law, Politics, published by Hart in 2023.

Mario Trabucco della Torretta is a classical archaeoloist trained in Sicily and in Athens. His expertise covers classical Greek architecture and sculpture, Ancient Athens, and the Elgin Marbles. He is a prominent commentator and contributor to many journals, and tweets at @Marrio_Trabucco.

Nigel Spivey is Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Classics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and a leading authority on Greco-Roman art - particularly of the Etruscans. He is the author many works, including Etruscan Art (1997), Enduring Creation: Art, Pain, and Fortitude (2001), and Greek Sculpture (2013).

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