Free-Will debate with new students..

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Are Pornographers Anti-Sex? RPE Professor on Radio 4.

Back to the future?

Wondering what you might do with a good Humanities degree?

Come and meet some Humanities graduates for an informal networking evening over food and wine. Hear about their career paths and be inspired to think about where you might be going…

11 May, 1830-2030 @ FCH, TC004-005

Annual ICBI Lecture

This year’s annual lecture for the International Centre for Biblical Interpretation will be given by Revd Professor John Barton:

How to read the Old Testament

7.30pm, Wednesday 18 May 2016
TC001, Francis Close Hall Campus
To reserve your place: humanities@glos.ac.uk
(Free admission but booking is essential)
Drinks will be served after the lecture

 

Bible as the People’s Book?

The next Severn Forum lecture will see Rev Dr John Bell speak on

‘Rediscovering the Bible as the People’s Book’

Tuesday, 13 October 7.45pm, in TC014, the tiered lecture theatre, Park Campus.

£3 to the public. Free to members and students.

Black History Month Lectures

In October, the School of Humanities is hosting two lectures for Black History month.

On 14 October (6.30pm), Bonnie Greer, OBE, will speak on Disruption and Insouciance: “We tend to talk a great deal about the past. But what about the future? What tools from the past can we recognize and utilize – things that might seem ‘improper’; ‘unacceptable’, that are, in fact survival mechanisms, and beautiful.”

On 20 October (7.00pm), Gary Younge will explore Free at Last: Reclaiming the Forgotten Stories of Black History: 
“Black History Month gives us all a chance to rescue stories that have been discarded, correct stories that have been mistold and elevate stories that have been downplayed. Black history is not a subgenre of history. Nor does it stand apart from other histories. It makes no more or less sense than American history, Jewish history or Tudor history. Nor is it any more or less diverse – black historians don’t agree on everything just because they’re black. Partial, interconnected, necessary, it is the world’s history told either about or through the prism of a particular group of people.”

Both lectures will take place in TC001 on the University of Gloucestershire’s Francis Close Hall Campus.

Tickets are £5 (free to University staff and students) and can be booked via the Student Union.

Theology and Religious Studies Open Day

This Saturday, 03 October is an Open Day – an opportunity for potential applicants to come and find out about the Theology and Religious Studies Course and explore why the Guardian has us in the top three Universities for the subject.

You can access the Theology and Religious Studies Course page here.

Book a place at the Open Day here.

Not able to come this Saturday? Don’t despair. There are further Open Days on 31 October and 21 November.

Literature Festival Tickets

The Cheltenham Literature Festival are offering University of Gloucestershire students a limited number of free tickets to the following events:

L261: Write Honourable Members

What makes a politician put pen to paper and produce a novel? Academics Nicola Allen and Aidan Byrne delve into this unusual but distinctive genre and reveal the truth about our honourable friends’ secret fantasies. They are joined by bestselling author Michael Dobbs (House of Cards), The Times Literary Editor Robbie Millen and broadcaster and journalist Anne McElvoy.

L169: Freedom is Therapeutic

Italy, 1978: the Basaglia Law sanctions the closure of psychiatric hospitals in an attempt to revolutionise mental health care. Drawing on the anti-psychiatry movement’s legacy, UCL head of psychology Peter Fonagy, historian John Foot (The Man Who Closed the Asylums) and former psychiatrist Linda Gask (The Other Side of Silence) discuss tackling mental health care today. Chaired by David Freeman.

See your student email for details of how to claim tickets.

Peter Tatchell lecture

Renowned activist Peter Tatchell will argue that organized religion is the primary threat to human rights in a lecture at FCH (TC001) on at 7.30pm on Thursday, 16 July.

Book a free ticket by emailing humanities@glos.ac.uk.

Harry Potter as Christ figure and more…

As part of the Humanities Students Research Conference on 08 June, Theology and Religious Studies student Alison Kerks presented her research on Harry Potter and Christian Aesthetics.

Based upon her excellent ‘Bible and popular culture’ research project for HM5000, Alison discussed the role Christian imagery, allusion and values play in the Harry Potter corpus, and the controversies which have surrounded those books (and films) in some Christian circles. Working from some of the snippets which J.K. Rowling has let slip herself, and engaging with other Potter scholarship, Alison explored the imagery of Harry as Christ figure, the repeated themes of death and resurrection, and the centrality of love as a vital and overcoming force in the stories. Alison concluded:

The Harry Potter series is more than a tale of good versus evil; it is more than life versus death; it is more than violence versus love; it is even more than love of power versus the power of love. It is above all else about love. Love for all, good and bad, the undeserving, the ‘clean’ and the ‘unclean’, the outcasts and those society accepts. There is an undeniable echo of the Third Gospel and its major ‘salvation for all’ theme. What Rowling has produced is one of the greatest love stories ever told, that of God’s love for humanity, re-imagined in such a way that the reader is often unaware that that is what they are enjoying and perhaps even experiencing.

Alison’s though-provoking presentation was very well received and stimulated interesting questions and discussion.