<img src='' title='Event Category: Lectures and talks' alt='' id='templ_icon_' width='' height='' /> Event Category: Lectures and talks

The Traveller spreads out before us the life and times of George Forster, who journeyed to the far reaches of the known world, and whose radical ideas about humanity, equality and freedom challenged the worldviews of eighteenth-century Europe.

Andrea Wulf paints a picture of a man of profound curiosity and brilliance. He joined Cook’s second voyage at the age of seventeen, an exploration of vast contrasts from the icy world of Antarctica to tropical islands of the South Pacific. Studying the diverse nature, peoples and cultures he encountered, he came back imbued with a deep belief in the equality of races – an understanding far ahead of his time. On his return he was feted in England, France, Germany and Poland, using his fame to advocate for freedom and women’s rights and against empire, racism and slavery. Wulf traces how Forster – inspired by the French Revolution – became a leader of the short-lived Republic of Mainz, before being declared an outlaw in Germany and forced into exile in Paris during the Reign of Terror.

Andrea’s other books include The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World (Winner of the 2015 Costa Biography Award and the 2016 Royal Society Science Book Prize) and Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self.

Chaired by Peter Florence.

The interview lasts for an hour followed by a 30-minute public Q&A, then a book-signing and informal conversation. For in person tickets, visit here.

The mesmerising historian and author of Femina peels back the layers of time to reveal how the identities of women have been co-opted by those intent on crafting national identities.

Their names are well-known, and summaries of their achievements have been recited in classrooms for decades, but medieval women like Joan of Arc, Lady Godiva and Isabella of Castile have been misrepresented, their stories twisted and weaponised. Meanwhile, ground-breaking 18th and 19th-century women who blazed a trail through revolutionary Europe have been forgotten, their legacies too easily dismissed or ignored.

Questioning established narratives and searching for the real women behind the legends, join Janina Ramirez in conversation as she interrogates what defines a nation and who gets to build it, shining a light on how history is so often hijacked to serve the ideological and political interests of the present.

Chaired by Peter Florence.

The interview lasts for an hour followed by a 30-minute public Q&A, then a book-signing and informal conversation. It is also being live-streamed. For livestream tickets, visit here.

The mesmerising historian and author of Femina peels back the layers of time to reveal how the identities of women have been co-opted by those intent on crafting national identities.

Their names are well-known, and summaries of their achievements have been recited in classrooms for decades, but medieval women like Joan of Arc, Lady Godiva and Isabella of Castile have been misrepresented, their stories twisted and weaponised. Meanwhile, ground-breaking 18th and 19th-century women who blazed a trail through revolutionary Europe have been forgotten, their legacies too easily dismissed or ignored.

Questioning established narratives and searching for the real women behind the legends, join Janina Ramirez in conversation as she interrogates what defines a nation and who gets to build it, shining a light on how history is so often hijacked to serve the ideological and political interests of the present.

Chaired by Peter Florence.

The interview lasts for an hour followed by a 30-minute public Q&A, then a book-signing and informal conversation. For in person tickets, visit here.

The creators of The Lost Words present a dazzling celebration of the splendours of birdlife, and an impassioned call to halt the loss of birds from land, sea and sky.

A great thinning of the skies is underway. Around 50% of bird species are in decline worldwide. Our dawns and springs are quieter each year than the last. It does not have to be this way — but we will not save what we do not love.

Robert and Jackie will celebrate the ‘Seven Wonders’ that together make up the everyday miracle of ‘Bird’: Nest, Egg, Beak, Song, Feather, Flight, and Migration. Jackie will paint live and Robert will evoke the habits and habitats of Britain’s birds — their patterns of flight and song, how they hunt and gather, how they nest and raise their young, the stories and myths which attend them, the threats which shadow them, and how their wild lives intersect with our own.

The interview lasts for an hour followed by a 30-minute public Q&A, then a book-signing and informal conversation. It is also being live-streamed. For livestream tickets, visit here.

The creators of The Lost Words present a dazzling celebration of the splendours of birdlife, and an impassioned call to halt the loss of birds from land, sea and sky.

A great thinning of the skies is underway. Around 50% of bird species are in decline worldwide. Our dawns and springs are quieter each year than the last. It does not have to be this way — but we will not save what we do not love.

Robert and Jackie will celebrate the ‘Seven Wonders’ that together make up the everyday miracle of ‘Bird’: Nest, Egg, Beak, Song, Feather, Flight, and Migration. Jackie will paint live and Robert will evoke the habits and habitats of Britain’s birds — their patterns of flight and song, how they hunt and gather, how they nest and raise their young, the stories and myths which attend them, the threats which shadow them, and how their wild lives intersect with our own.

The interview lasts for an hour followed by a 30-minute public Q&A, then a book-signing and informal conversation. For in person tickets, visit here.

A conversation with the sublimely gifted writer about her two latest novels Gliff and Glyph, that continue her extraordinary sequence of books exploring contemporary life and language.

“Ali Smith’s miraculous Gliff is at once a pitch-black take on the authoritarian future and a tender, hilarious and ultimately uplifting portrait of two young siblings as they battle to escape it.” – Irish Times.

Glyph is “ a playful, melancholy story of sibling bonds, unreliable memory and the tales we use to keep the dead close. It’s also a powerful anti-war novel, with Palestine firmly in its sights” ― Observer.

Chaired by Peter Florence.

The interview lasts for an hour followed by a 30-minute public Q&A, then a book-signing and informal conversation. For in person tickets, visit here.

A conversation with the sublimely gifted writer about her two latest novels Gliff and Glyph, that continue her extraordinary sequence of books exploring contemporary life and language.

“Ali Smith’s miraculous Gliff is at once a pitch-black take on the authoritarian future and a tender, hilarious and ultimately uplifting portrait of two young siblings as they battle to escape it.” – Irish Times.

Glyph is “ a playful, melancholy story of sibling bonds, unreliable memory and the tales we use to keep the dead close. It’s also a powerful anti-war novel, with Palestine firmly in its sights” ― Observer.

Chaired by Peter Florence.

The interview lasts for an hour followed by a 30-minute public Q&A, then a book-signing and informal conversation. It is also being live-streamed. For livestream tickets, visit here.

As we mark the 250th anniversary of American Independence, the writer and academic Sarah Churchwell asks: How’s it playing out? Is this what the Founding Fathers would have wanted? And how does America tell its story from Birth of a Nation to the Great Gatsby, and from Hamilton to Trump?

Sarah Churchwell is the author of Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream, The Wrath To Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells and Careless People: Murder Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby. She hosts the Goalhanger podcast Journey Through Time with David Olusoga.

Chaired by Peter Florence.

The interview lasts for an hour followed by a 30-minute Q&A. In addition to being this being an online livestream, it can be streamed up to 30 days after the event has taken place.

For in person tickets, visit here.