Our Expert Experience sessions are designed to deliver specific subject insight to your students from our range of academics.
Sessions can be offered remotely; we use Microsoft Teams but are happy to offer on whichever platform is suitable to your students place of learning.
Out Expert Experience sessions for those interested in Liberal Arts are offered with a range of options and may be suitable to those groups who have not engaged with Liberal Arts before as a good introduction to the subject.
The Sound of Music
Why is music so powerful? How can it have such beauty and meaning in our lives yet also be a tool for manipulation and control? For the ancient philosopher Plato music or harmony was the first principle of the universe and of justice in society. Through the study of music, maths, astronomy and philosophy one learned to understand and live this harmony. But society is not harmonious and there is great injustice in the world. What, then, does our music tell us about the sort of society we live in or the sorts of human beings that we are? Should we heed Plato’s warnings and be more careful with what we listen to? From Pythagoras and Plato to Beethoven and Kate Tempest this session explores the power of music to speak to the emotional, intellectual, political and spiritual life of being human.
Relevant Subjects: Humanities: Philosophy, Religion and Ethics, Sociology, Music, Politics
Justice in Plato’s Republic
What does Plato mean by justice in his famous book The Republic? And why is it so relevant for the current political era of Trump, Johnson, and the rise of so-called populism? Can Plato still offer an educational model that will speak to social justice in a divided world?
Relevant Subjects: Humanities: Philosophy, Religion and Ethics, Sociology, Politics
The Filmosophy of Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan has created some of the most successful, provocative, and thoughtful cinema of the 21st Century. In this session we will explore the philosophical questions raised by his films, including the Batman trilogy, Inception, and Memento. We will ask, where do ideas come from? How important is memory to our identity? How best to combat crime? Is Batman really a force for good? And are our dreams just another reality? We will explore these questions by looking at what prominent thinkers and philosophers have to say.
Relevant Subjects: Liberal Arts, Philosophy, Media Studies, Journalism, Film
The Power of Stories: from Spoken Word to Homer
What do Kate Tempest, Kanye West and George the Poet have in common with Homer or Shakespeare? How do Kendrick Lamar, Lauryn Hill and Lin Manuel-Miranda echo the voices of some of the oldest storytellers or “stitchers-together-of-songs”? One thing they all have in common is that their tradition is an oral one. In telling stories, cultures have passed on and challenged ideas, truths and values about who we are, where we come from and how we are to live. In this session we will ask why telling stories is still so important to us, who the best story tellers today might be and whether stories have any sort of political power.
Relevant Subjects: Liberal Arts, English Literature, Poetry, Media/Cultural Studies, Music
Digital and Democracy
Democratic governance is one of the oldest modes of governance, first appearing in Ancient Greece. Many 21st century societies still run under democratic conditions but are increasingly vulnerable to digital technologies. When our power to vote is directly influenced by companies, parties, and countries acting through algorithms is our ability to make our own decisions still under our own control? From fake news to AI how are digital environments impacting our very real physical lives?
Relevant Subjects: Liberal Arts, Digital Humanities, Politics, Media Studies
Science Fiction: Dystopian Dangers
Years and Years has been taking a black mirror approach to the family drama. No other programme feels more disturbingly and painfully relevant. It is, like the most powerful scholarly work, sweeping and specific. Popular dystopian drama has rarely highlighted the dangers of our current relationship to technology and each other so clearly while also showing so powerfully how our past has brought us here and where it will lead us. This session takes a sweeping tour of science fiction writing including Frankenstein, We, 1984, Brave New World, Utopia, Black Mirror, and Years and Years and ask what is the uncanny valley trying to teach us?
Relevant Subjects: Liberal Arts, Philosophy, Media Studies, Literature