2023/24 Humanities Lecture Series

All lectures were livestreamed.

Humanities Lecture Series 2023-24 (pdf)

Full series poster

11 October 2023: We busted out of class: Embedding a digital curriculum - Ann Gow

Wednesday 11 October 2023, 5.30pm-7.30pm
In the Wolfson Medical Building (Room 253: Yudowitz)

Professor Ann Gow (Information Studies)
We busted out of class: Embedding a digital curriculum 

11 October lecture - Ann Gow

25 October 2023: Surveying the place-names of St Columba's island (Ì Chaluim Chille) - Sofia Evemalm Graham

Wednesday 25 October 2023, 5.30pm-7.30pm
In the Wolfson Medical Building (Room 253: Yudowitz)

Dr Sofia Evemalm Graham (Celtic and Gaelic)
Surveying the place-names of St Columba's island (Ì Chaluim Chille): Surveying the place-names of St Columba's island (Ì Chaluim Chille): Iona's Namescape in context

24 October: Sofia Evemalm-Graham

1 November 2023: Space, Place, Movement in (some) Greek literature? - Andrew Morrison

Wednesday 1 November 2023, 5.30pm-7.30pm
In the Wolfson Medical Building (Room 253: Yudowitz)

Professor Andrew Morrison (Classics)
Space, Place, Movement in (some) Greek literature?

1 Nov 2023: Andrew Morrison

6 December 2023: We undersubscryvers’: participative petitioning and public opinion in early modern Scotland - Karin Bowie

Wednesday 6 December 2023, 5.30pm-7.30pm
In the Wolfson Medical Building (Room 253: Yudowitz)

Professor Karin Bowie (History)
We undersubscryvers’: participative petitioning and public opinion in early modern Scotland

6 Dec 2023 lecture - Karin Bowie

31 January 2024: Digital Cultural Heritage: Engaging Communities, Connecting Collections - Maria Economou

Wednesday 31 January 2024, 5.30pm-7.30pm
In the Wolfson Medical Building (Room 253: Yudowitz)

Professor Maria Economou (Information Studies)
Digital Cultural Heritage: Engaging Communities, Connecting Collections 

 

31 Jan 2024 - Maria Economou

28 February 2024: Mere truths versus the whole truth - Stephan Leuenberger

Wednesday 28 February 2024, 5.30pm-7.30pm
In the Wolfson Medical Building (Room 253: Yudowitz)

Professor Stephan Leuenberger (Philosophy)
Mere truths versus the whole truth

Stephan Leuenberger 28 Feb 2024

13 March 2024: Human transformation of the Earth; archaeology in the climate and nature crisis - Nicki Whitehouse

Wednesday 13 March 2024, 5.30pm-7.30pm
In the Wolfson Medical Building (Room 253: Yudowitz)

Professor Nicki Whitehouse (Archaeology)
Human transformation of the Earth; archaeology in the climate and nature crisis

 

13 March 2024 Nicki Whitehouse poster

Wednesday 17 April 2024: Moral Blackmail - Ben Colburn

Wednesday 17 April 2024, 5.30pm-7.30pm
In the Wolfson Medical Building (Room 253: Yudowitz)

Professor Ben Colburn (Philosophy)
Moral Blackmail

Abstract

Suppose I want you to do something. How can I make you do it? Depending on me, you, our context, and the nature of the thing I want you to do, I have a number of options: rational or emotional persuasion; manipulation; coercion; physical compulsion; maybe more. Different mechanisms will be more or less effective, depending on the features of the interactions that I listed above, and they will also attract different moral evaluations, not settled (or not wholly settled) by their effectiveness.

In this lecture, I explore a (generally effective and usually problematic) mechanism which has mostly been ignored, namely moral blackmail. Someone is morally blackmailed when they act as they do because all the alternatives have been made morally unacceptable. Moral blackmail is in this sense analogous to coercion, on a plausible understanding of the latter. I defend this way of thinking from some objections, and show how it fits into my broader thinking about the nature and value of individual autonomy. I also show that moral blackmail is a real and problematic phenomenon in global challenges of the largest scale, including how we deal with global poverty and climate change. 

Ben Colburn's lecture