Lectures
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A book by any other name would smell as sweet
Thursday 21 June 2012, 13.15
BP Lecture Theatre
Free, booking advised
Speaker: Dr Matija Strlic, UCL Centre for Sustainable Heritage
Few people would fail to recognise the bittersweet and musty smell of a historic library, yet not many would know that this bouquet also tells us what heritage objects are made of. To the heritage scientist, it is intensity of smells that often reveals how quickly objects decay, and the development of breathalysers for this purpose may help in their conservation. This lecture will discuss how sniffing objects can thus reveal crucial information, and how smell is also part of an object’s history and part of how we enjoy our heritage.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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Andean royal tunics and the Inca calendar
Saturday 17 March 2012, 17.00–18.00
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
£5, Members/concessions £3
Beautifully woven Andean textiles were worn by Inca kings when they were crowned. In this lecture, R Tom Zuidema, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana, USA, describes these royal tunics and offers new insights into kingship in Cusco.
In collaboration with Birkbeck, University of London.
Followed by a drinks reception at 18.00.
Further information: l.martins@bbk.ac.uk
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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Anglo-Saxon art: tradition and transformation
Fri 20 April 2012, 18.30
Stevenson Lecture theatre
£5, Members/concessions £3
Leslie Webster, formerly British Museum and author of Anglo Saxon Art: A New History, will trace this fascinating era of art, and its recurring ideas and themes, as it changed from 5th-century metalwork to the magnificent illuminated manuscripts, ivories and sculpture of the 7th–11th centuries.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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At home with the Neanderthals
Excavations at la Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey
Thursday 7 June 2012, 13.15
BP Lecture Theatre
Free, booking advised
Speaker: Dr Matt Pope, UCL Institute of Archaeology
The Neanderthals represent an incredibly successful and distinctive experiment in being human. They evolved as a separate human lineage over half a million years before apparently disappearing around 40,000 years ago. During this period they occupied large parts of Europe and Western Asia, developed sophisticated tools, mastered fire and engaged in the hunting of large mammals across a variety of different environments.
La Cotte de St Brelade, on the Channel Island of Jersey, is one of the best sites in the world for understanding Neanderthals and their achievements. In this lecture Matt Pope will report on new work being carried out on this mega-site and will consider the evolution and ultimate fate of our closest evolutionary relative.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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Cracking the Egyptian code
the revolutionary life of Jean-François Champollion
Friday 27 April 2012, 18.30
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
£5, Members/concessions £3
Andrew Robinson, author and former literary editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement, discusses his new book, the first biography in English of Champollion, the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and considered by many to be the founder of Egyptology.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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Discoveries and re-evaluations
Painting practices under the microscope
Thursday 28 June 2012, 13.15
BP Lecture Theatre
Free, booking advised
Speaker: Libby Sheldon, UCL Art History
Paintings are not always what they seem to be on the surface. Technical investigation, particularly of pigments, has revealed not only surprising differences between the present and the original appearance of works, but also the use of unexpected ingredients for certain effects. Recognising the changes to colouring as well as identifying materials can lead to re-evaluation of both the meaning and sometimes the date and attribution of images. This talk uncovers the practices of artists as different as Hilliard and Reynolds, highlighting those of Elizabethan portraitists in the lifetime of Shakespeare. It also asks what this new information means.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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Hajj among pilgrimages
Friday 23 March 2012, 18.30
BP Lecture Theatre
£5, Members/concessions £3
Malise Ruthven, author of Islam in the World, and Tim Winter, Shaykh Zayed Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge, discuss the contemporary experience of Hajj and explore its unique nature in relation to pilgrimage experiences across cultures and faiths, considering its anthropological grammar and its expression as a ritual or a rite of passage.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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Hajj: curators' introductions
Thursday 1 March 2012, 13.15, Sign interpreted
BP Lecture Theatre
Sat 14 April 2012, 13.15
Stevenson lecture Theatre
Free, booking advised
Exhibition Curators Venetia Porter and Qaisra Khan give a 45-minute illustrated introduction to the exhibition Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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Jacqueline Rose: Marilyn Monroe
Friday 30 March 2012, 18.30
BP lecture theatre
£10, Members/concessions £8
It has become commonplace to talk of Marilyn Monroe as a myth – a pure screen for projected desires. Taking advantage of the recent publication of her poems, notes and letters, as well as the archive of her films, famous and less known, Jacqueline Rose, Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London, will argue that this view is complicit with her victimisation and that Marilyn knew exactly what was happening to her. She cast herself in the leading role amid the debris of a post-war American crisis of culture whose effects are still with us.
These lecturers are presented in collaboration with the London Review of Books
For more information on the LRB winter lecture series click here
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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John Lanchester: Marx at 193
Friday 9 March 2012, 18.30
BP lecture theatre
£10, Members/concessions £8
Karl Marx has in common with Freud and Darwin the fate that his books are more referred to than they are read. John Lanchester, author of Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay and a new novel, Capital, looks at Karl Marx as a prophet and analyst of the modern world, how well his predictions have turned out, and what he would have made of the state we’re in.
These lecturers are presented in collaboration with the London Review of Books
For more information on the LRB winter lecture series click here
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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Michal Rovner in conversation
Thursday 8 March, 18.30
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
£5, Members/concessions £3
Venetia Porter, Curator of Islamic and Modern Middle East Art at the British Museum, will introduce the work of award-winning Israeli artist Michal Rovner. Deeply rooted in the history of the Middle East, Rovner’s work in video, architectural installations and sculpture deals with boundaries, territories and time. She has received international recognition for her work, including the recent exhibition Histoires at the Louvre in 2011 and the solo presentation at the Israeli Pavilion during the Venice Biennale in 2003.
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Neal Ascherson: Europe
Friday 2 March 2012, 18.30
BP lecture theatre
£10, Members/concessions £8
Europe is a monster (monstro simile, as they said of the Holy Roman Empire) and a mutant – a creature in its substance unlike the kingdoms and empires and states which preceded it. It’s a sponge, indeterminate in outline, soft in texture, absorbing incomers and diffusing wealth and culture. Neal Ascherson, author, journalist and expert on Central and Eastern Europe, asks how it can survive.
These lecturers are presented in collaboration with the London Review of Books
For more information on the LRB winter lecture series click here
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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One Thousand Roads to Mecca
Monday 26 March 2012, 13.15
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
Free, booking advised
Michael Wolfe, author of One Thousand Roads to Mecca, will speak on the shared Abrahamic roots of the Hajj rites, present the original pilgrimage routes and their modern transformation, and share some personal experiences of being a pilgrim in Mecca today.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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Rome and the sword
Friday 2 March 2012, 18.30
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
£5, Members/concessions £3
The Roman Empire was created and maintained by the sword, both literally and metaphorically, but what was the imperial military actually like? The evidence – historical accounts of soldiers in action, and not least finds of swords themselves – reveals a surprising reality, very far from the modern image of the Roman army as a war machine. Archaeologist Simon James, formerly British Museum, discusses his book on how warriors and weapons both forged the Roman Empire and sowed the seeds of its destruction.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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The Temple, the Holy Sepulchre, and the Noble Sanctuary
Jews, Christians and Muslims in Jerusalem
Friday 20 April 2012, 13.15
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
Free, booking advised
Jerusalem is a holy city and central site of pilgrimage for Jews, Christians and Muslims. Simon Goldhill, Professor of Greek Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge and author of Jerusalem: City of Longing, will look at its complex and fascinating history from the perspectives of these three great world faiths and their key sites.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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The archaeology and material culture of Hajj in sub-Saharan Africa
Friday 2 March 2012, 13.15
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
Free, booking advised
Tim Insoll, University of Manchester, explores the history, processes, archaeology and material culture of Hajj in sub- Saharan Africa since the 8th–9th centuries AD. Performing Hajj was often part of a process of claiming authority, as with the famous pilgrimage of the Emperor of Mali, Mansa Musa, in 1324.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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The magnetism of Mecca: Hajj as artistic inspiration
Friday 16 March 2012, 18.30
BP Lecture Theatre
£5, Members/concessions £3
For centuries artists have been inspired by the pilgrimage to Mecca. British artists Idris Khan and Peter Sanders, and Saudi Arabian artist Ahmed Mater, whose works feature in the Hajj exhibition, discuss with Exhibition Curator Venetia Porter how the spiritual and cultural aspects of Hajj have taken them on their own artistic journeys.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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Virtual visitors
Why would anyone want to visit the virtual British Museum collections online?
Thursday 14 June 2012, 13.15
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
Free, booking advised
Speaker: Dr Melissa Terras, UCL Centre for Digital Humanities
Launched in October 2007, the British Museum provides virtual access to objects via an online database, and by the end of 2009 nearly 2 million records had been made available. However, why would anyone want to view a collection online rather than in person, and what would they use it for? Melissa Terras will discuss what is known about the use of this virtual online resource, and if indeed it is even used. This talk will also present analysis undertaken by UCL's Centre for Digital Humanities in conjunction with Claire Ross and Vera Motyckova and colleagues at the British Museum.
Please arrive punctually to guarantee admission.
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