The description of Esau’s family in Genesis 36 and I Chronicles 1 has the figure of Timna change gender in the span of a few verses. She is a concubine, a sister, and then a male head of a clan. This study uses archaeology to help us understand the function of multiple genders in the Hebrew Bible’s genealogies which originated as oral mental maps of how the various Canaanite tribes related to one another politically and economically.

Wolfson College Humanities Society

Laura Zucconi: Transgendered Copper Mining in the Levant

Professor Robert Koepp examines how Eliot's characters struggle with the profoundly human inclination to trust in luck by worshiping at the altar of 'blessed Chance'- arguing that this tendency is central to the novelist's treatment of various moral dilemmas in her fiction.

Robert Koepp - George Elliot and the Religion of Favourable Chance

The economist John Maynard Keynes’ activities on the stock market are well known. One company in which he bought stocks in the late 1920s was the Hector Whaling Company Ltd. The paper explores how Keynes became involved in this company and the analysis provides new insights to the more general question on the motivations and decisions behind his stock market investments.

Bjorn L. Basberg: Maynard Keynes and his Whaling Adventures

A registered trade mark acts an indication of origin for goods but tells us nothing specific about the circumstances under which the goods originated. This limitation was not inevitable. After trade marks became objects of registration in 1875, what information they would embody was a matter of heated contestation between manufacturers, retailers, exporters, trade unions and anti-immigration activists. This lecture will examine this debate and suggest why, in the end, it was the interests of labour which lost out.

Jennifer Davis: Trade (mark) Wars, 1860-1920: Sweatshops, the Retail Trade and the Meaning of Trade Marks

Prof Szreter will discuss the costs and benefits of the long-term history of a national social security system in Britain. He will argue that such a perspective is important for evaluating the current political and policy choices being proposed by the major parties in the general election

Simon Szreter: Social Security in Britain -cost or benefit ? A historical perspective on a 2015 general election issue

In this anniversary year – 50 years since the death of Winston Churchill and 70 years since the end of WWII – Warren Dockter will look at Churchill’s long relationship with the Islamic world and his lasting legacy in the Middle East, which continues to be felt in the region and in British policy today.

Professor Warren Dockter - Churchill and the Islamic World

Dr Justin Colson talks about London Bridge which has existed in one form or another since the fourteenth century. He explores the social world of the Bridge in the late fifteenth century, and how the economic activities of its tenants exploited the opportunities of this unique location, providing new insight into the commercial world of the late medieval City of London.

Dr Justin Colson on London Bridge

This year is the 500th anniversary of the birth of Teresa, one of the foremost ‘mystical’ writers of the Christian tradition. Research in the last fifty years has clarified more and more the nature of her social background in a converted Jewish family and thus the way in which her religious writing is shaped by the issues and politics of 16th century Spain. I hope to sketch this background and offer some more general reflections on the title.

Dr Rowan Williams - Mysticism and politics; some thoughts about St Teresa of Avila

There were two categories of women in Henrik Ibsen’s life: the women in his dramatic universe and the women in his own life. Ibsen’s attitude to women is highly complex: whereas the many women who inhabit the different settings of these late nineteenth century bourgeois families are as diverse as the plays themselves, they share a few common denominators, that this talk will seek to demonstrate.

Dr Robert Amundsen - Ibsen's women on and off the stage

Hinduism is by far the majority culture of India, which is set fair to become a superpower in the next few decades. How then does the polycentric, decentralizing phenomenon of Hinduism influence and guide the gaze of Hindus at the world and help determine their interactions with it, especially in the context of modernity and its counteracting forces? And what can we learn from this encounter?

Professor Julius Lipner - Hinduism: the challenges of a polycentric approach to shaping our world

When does criticism of Israel become antisemitic? This longstanding debate was revived last summer in the context of British and European responses to Israel’s assault on Gaza. David Feldman will analyse last summer’s controversies as well as the question of when, if ever, criticism of Israel is a form of racism.

Professor David Feldman - Israel and Antisemitism

How does a Lovari extended family enact the sharing of material resources, and of intangible gifts conveyed through gesture, dance, song and speech? How do these practices confer identity and what may they have in common with those of certain communities in Europe, perhaps in the Middle East and Central Asia, and in their country of origin – India? After a brief overview of current knowledge and hypotheses regarding the origin of Romani communities, with some comments on their distribution in Europe today, I will present points of view put forward by Romani and other authors in the ongoing debate about how the ancestors of today’s Romani communities may have fitted into the Hindu caste system. A resolution of this issue will need to be informed by new insights gained from linguistics and genetics, but also by the cultural practices and the actual religious beliefs of Romani communities in Europe and those of – perhaps related – groups in the Middle East, Central Asia, and India itself. To illustrate the culture and beliefs of Romani communities, I will show extracts from the video of a recent wedding celebrated by a Lovari family.

Adriana Alexander - The Honour of Sharing : the Sharing of Honour

Corpus Christi College possesses one of the oldest extant illustrated manuscripts, the St Augustine Gospels from the sixth century. This lecture discusses the origin of illustrated books in Late Antiquity and their earliest appearance in biblical texts. This famous Gospel Book is thought to have been brought from Italy to England by St Augustine of Canterbury on his mission to evangelise the Anglo-Saxons in 597. The evidence for and against this identification will be discussed.

Professor Nigel Morgan: The Oldest Illustrated Book in Cambridge - a reconsideration of the St. Augustine Gospels

The economic historian Charles Ryle Fay (1884-1961) was a staunch advocate of workers’ and women’s rights, and also became one of the leading British machine gunners during World War One. As an economist his associates included Alfred Marshall, JM Keynes and Sir Austin Robinson; as a historian he taught at Cambridge University for almost thirty years and in Canada in the 1920s, writing twenty books, including idiosyncratic works defying biographical norms – on his heroes William Huskisson and Adam Smith. What does his life tell us about the differences between making history and writing about it?

Hugh Gault: C.R.Fay: The Differences between Making History and Writing It

Dr Alexi Baker’s research over the past decade has revealed how ‘scientific instruments’ before the rise of modern science included everything from cutting-edge technologies and everyday tools to fashionable accessories and entertainments. She discusses how London dominated the early modern trade in these wares – outfitting science, fashion, and diverse other pastimes and professions across Europe.

Dr Alexi Baker: Technology, Tools, and Toys of Early Modern Science

A collection of lectures organised by the Wolfson College Cambridge Humanities Society.

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Wolfson College Humanities Society

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