Thanks to Ferguson Bequest funding, The Hunterian and the Equality and Diversity Unit will host Gary Younge, an award-winning author, broadcaster and a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester for a series of events on 11 and 12 April.

Gary will meet with a newly formed staff network, deliver a 90-minute writing masterclass for PhD and Postgraduate students and will speak at an open evening event for all staff being held in the Hunterian Art Gallery.

Not Set in Stone: More honesty and fewer statues

In-person, all-staff speaking event

12 April 2022 at 6pm - Hunterian Art Gallery Lecture Theatre
Gallery Open from 5.30pm

Gary Younge debates how we remember and who

The ideology of statues and monuments gained sharp visibility in the UK following the toppling of the figure of Edward Colston in Bristol in 2020, as part of Black Lives Matter protests.  Social justice movements have long campaigned for new or different public monuments, from the first woman in Parliament Square to animals made to serve in war, while artists have diversified style and concept, including with experiments on Trafalgar Square’s rotating ‘fourth plinth’.  How and in what ways should we commemorate, and are we missing the point in seeking to erect new statues?

The event will be introduced by Steph Scholten, Director of The Hunterian.

Q&A will be facilitated by Zandra Yeaman, Curator of Discomfort.

The event is free of charge and open to all staff.  Drinks and nibbles will be available in the Art Gallery after the lecture.  Tickets numbers are restricted by the venue.

Gary Younge is an award-winning author, broadcaster and a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester in England. Formerly a columnist at The Guardian he is an editorial board member of the Nation magazine and the Alfred Knobler Fellow for Type Media. He has written five books: Another Day in the Death of America, A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives; The Speech, The Story Behind Martin Luther King’s Dream; Who Are We?, And Should it Matter in the 21st century; Stranger in a Strange Land, Travels in the Disunited States and No Place Like Home, A Black Briton’s Journey Through the Deep South. He has also written for The New York Review of Books, Granta, GQ, The Financial Times and The New Statesman and made several radio and television documentaries on subjects ranging from gay marriage to Brexit.

Staff Network event

Please note that this event is open to members of the UofG Staff Network, who will have received a separate invite. If you are from a black, asian or minority ethnic background and would like further information on the staff network and how to join, please contact: racechampion@glasgow.ac.uk.

 Gary will meet with members of the newly formed network for staff from a Black, Asian and ethnic minority background to share his experience of organising a similar staff network during his time as a columnist for the Guardian. 

Funded by the Ferguson Bequest.  Professor Thomas Ferguson (1900-1977), Henry Mechan Chair of Public Health (1944-64), bequeathed his estate to the University, with the instruction that the money should be used to foster the social side of University life.

Masterclass for PhD and Postgraduate students

Gary will help Postgraduate and PhD students become more comfortable with their longform writing and develop a distinctive voice.  He will suggest techniques to draw a reader in, establish the essential themes and structure writing in a way that maintains interest and develops narrative.

Postgraduate and PhD students must register for the event on 12 April 2022 at 11am

First published: 25 March 2022

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