Sir Vince talks about some of the issues raised in his latest book 'After the Storm' Sir Vince Cable was Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government, from 2010 to 2015. He is releasing a book entitled After the Storm. ​The event is chaired by Dr Oscar Dahlsten and Professor Anne Deighton. This is a lecture organised by the Research Fellows of Wolfson College. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK:...

Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics, describes how he located and analysed as many DNA samples as possible with links to the Yeti. In doing so, he found himself entering a strange world of mystery and sensationalism, fraud and obsession.

Professor Chris Stringer, Research Leader in Human Origins at the Natural History Museum, London, gave the 2015 Haldane Lecture at Wolfson College, Oxford. He discusses how we are mostly, but not entirely, 'Out of Africa'. Human Evolution can be divided into two main phases. A pre-human phase in Africa prior to 2 million years ago, where walking upright had evolved but some other characteristics were still ape-like. And a human phase, with an increase in both brain size and behavioural...

A lecture given by Professor Christopher Pelling, Oxford Regius Professor of Greek, is the first annual Syme Lecture to address the work of the great historian of Ancient Rome himself. Professor Pelling took a literary historiographical approach to Syme’s work; an approach that he agreed was contrary to Syme’s own opinions on biography (which he claimed was "so much easier than history"). Pelling defended his methodology by suggesting that Syme’s authorial presence was so evident throughout...

A lecture given by Professor Christopher Pelling, Oxford Regius Professor of Greek, is the first annual Syme Lecture to address the work of the great historian of Ancient Rome himself. Professor Pelling took a literary historiographical approach to Syme’s work; an approach that he agreed was contrary to Syme’s own opinions on biography (which he claimed was "so much easier than history"). Pelling defended his methodology by suggesting that Syme’s authorial presence was so evident throughout...

Mehmood Khan Achakzai, Leader and the Chairman of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, delivered the inaugural Sarfraz lecture on October 30th 2014, at Wolfson College, Oxford.

Walter Scheidel, Professor of Classics & History at Stanford University, gave the 2013 annual lecture held in memory of eminent Roman historian Sir Ronald Syme Lecture. The lecture was introduced by College President, Hermione Lee.

Kamila Shamsie, the Pakistani-born author of books including In the City by the Sea and Burnt Shadows, gives a talk as part of the 2014 Wolfson Lecture series on 'New Challenges for South Asian Writing in the 21st Century'. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Romesh Gunesekera, the celebrated British/Sri Lankan author of the Booker-prize nominated 'Reef', presents the first of the 2014 Wolfson Lecture series on 'New Challenges for South Asian Writing in the 21st century'. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Based on his latest book, Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford University, gave a public lecture at Wolfson College exploring the rich ancestral tapestry of the American nation. From the moment that our DNA fingerprints could be profiled, genes have served as invaluable forensic tools to settle legal matters, exonerate the innocent, and identify the dead. But, as geneticists like Bryan Sykes have revealed in recent groundbreaking work, they can also help answer larger...

Wolfson's President, Professor Hermione Lee, gave an evocative lecture at Lincoln's Inn, London, entitled 'From Memory: Isaiah Berlin, Literary Encounters and Life-Stories' Professor Lee presented a lecture in the Old Hall concerning encounters between great men and women, and how they are remembered, narrated, and turned into legend. Professor Lee focused on an encounter between Wolfson College founder Isaiah Berlin and the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, which took place in Leningrad in...

Steven Pinker gives a compelling account of the unacknowledged worldwide decline of violence in the 2014 Haldane Lecture Professor Pinker details how humanity has gone through a series of stages over the past 6,000 years through which rates of violence have declined dramatically. For example it has been determined that approximately 15% of Palaeolithic skeletons found show signs of unhealed violent trauma, suggested violence caused deaths, while the comparative worldwide number for the...

Wolfson Fellow Professor Vlatko Vedral delivered a lecture on March 12th 2013 at the Royal Society in London. His presentation includes discussion of the applications of quantum physics in other areas of science and technology. Vlatko Vedral made his name developing a novel way of quantifying entanglement and applying it to macroscopic physical systems. He did his undergraduate and graduate studies at Imperial College London. Since June 2009 he has been in an entangled state of professorship...

Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society, presents the 2013 Wolfson Haldane Lecture. The speaker is introduced by College President, Hermione Lee. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Historian Stella Tillyard delivers the fourth Weinrebe Lecture in Life-Writing and Portraiture. The talk is introduced by College President Hermione Lee. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Biographer Paula Byrne (Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson and Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead) delivers the second Weinrebe lecture on Life-Writing and Portraiture. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Art critic Martin Gayford (A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney and Man With a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud) delivers the first annual Weinrebe lecture on Life-Writing and Portraiture. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Do science and art have anything in common? Do artists and scientists share practices - from practicalities to ways of looking at the world? A cross-disciplinary discussion with a panel of artists and scientists, held at Wolfson College on 18th October 2012.The session was chaired by Peter Bell of the Wolfson Arts Society. The Panellists and their respective fields were: Katalin Hausel (artist); Mirja Koponen (artist); Lizzie Burns (artist/scientist); Paul Matthews (neuroscientist/writer);...

Renowned psychologist, literary critic and essayist Adam Phillips delivers a public lecture at Wolfson College on his work on 'Freud's Impossible Life'. The lecture is introduced by the College President, Hermione Lee. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Biographer Susie Harries delivered this Oxford Centre for Life-Writing lecture on her acclaimed biography, Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life. Biographer Susie Harries speaks on her acclaimed biography of Nikolaus Pevsner, the German-born British scholar of history of architecture, best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales;...

The 2012 Wolfson College Ronald Syme Lecture was given by Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Master of Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. The speaker is introduced by College President Professor Hermione Lee. A Roman social and cultural historian, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill was elected as Master of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, in 2009. For the previous 14 years he served as Director of the British School at Rome. Born in Oxford, son of a distinguished historian of the early middle ages...

The final lecture in the series entitled Climate Connections was presented by Dr Myles Allen who currently heads the Climate Dynamics Group in the Department of Physics, University of Oxford. Dr. Allen's latest research addresses the question of how scientific evidence can best be used to inform climate policy. His work has shown that limiting cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide may be a more robust approach to climate change mitigation policy than attempting to define a 'safe'...

Thomas Stocker discusses the challenges that are posed to climate scientists when communicating with the public. Professor Stocker is at the laboratory for Climate and Environmental Physics, University of Berne, Switzerland. Climate science regularly makes headlines in the media, usually after an extreme weather event or a disaster, or in the wake of campaigns by think tanks about the science of climate change. In this presentation, Professor Stocker discuss four specific challenges that are...

The second lecture of a series entitled 'Climate Connections' was presented by Carl Wunsch, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this talk, Prof Wunsch considers the perhaps unique problems faced by scientists and the public in understanding climate change. The problems include the very long times over which climate can and does change--far longer than human working lifetimes; the intuitive belief that the world is...

This first lecture of a series entitled 'Climate Connections' is presented by John Broome, White's Professor of Moral Philosophy and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The progress of climate change places moral demands on all of us to do something about it. It makes moral demands on governments and the international community, and also on each of us as private individuals. The public and private morality of climate change derives from moral duties of two different sorts. Firstly, it...