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Drs. Hope Rugo, Sheri Brenner, and Mikolaj Slawkowski-Rode discuss the struggle that health care professionals experience when terminally ill patients are suffering and approaches to help clinicians understand and respond to suffering in a more patient-centered and therapeutic way. TRANSCRIPT Dr. Hope Rugo: Hello, and welcome to By the Book, a monthly podcast series from ASCO that features engaging conversations between editors and authors of the ASCO Educational Book.  I'm your host, Dr. Hope Rugo. I'm director of the Women's Cancers Program and division chief of breast medical oncology at the City of Hope Cancer Center, and I'm also the editor-in-chief of the Educational Book. On today's episode, we'll be exploring the complexities of grief and oncology and the struggle we experience as healthcare professionals when terminally ill patients are suffering. Our guests will discuss approaches to help clinicians understand and respond to suffering in a more patient-centered and therapeutic way, as outlined in their recently published article titled, “Oncology and Suffering: Strategies on Coping With Grief for Healthcare Professionals.” I'm delighted today to welcome Dr. Keri Brenner, a clinical associate professor of medicine, palliative care attending, and psychiatrist at Stanford University, and Dr. Mikołaj Sławkowski-Rode, a senior research fellow in philosophy in the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham, where he also serves as director of graduate research in p hilosophy. He is also a research fellow in philosophy at Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford and associate professor at the University of Warsaw.  Our full disclosures are available in the transcript of this episode. Dr. Brenner and Dr. Sławkowski-Rode, thanks for being on the podcast today. Dr. Keri Brenner: Great to be here, Dr. Rugo. Thank you so much for that kind introduction. Dr. Mikołaj Sławkowski-Rode: Thank you very much, Dr. Rugo. It's a pleasure and an honor. Dr. Hope Rugo: So I'm going to start with some questions for both of you. I'll start with Dr. Brenner. You've spoken and written about the concept of suffering when there is no cure. For oncologists, what does it mean to attune to suffering, not just disease? And how might this impact the way they show up in difficult conversations with patients? Dr. Keri Brenner: Suffering is something that's so omnipresent in the work of clinical oncology, and I like to begin by just thinking about what is suffering, because it's a word that we use so commonly, and yet, it's important to know what we're talking about. I think about the definition of Eric Cassell, who was a beloved mentor of mine for decades, and he defined suffering as the state of severe distress that's associated with events that threaten the intactness of a person. And my colleague here at Stanford, Tyler Tate, has been working on a definition of suffering that encompasses the experience of a gap between how things are versus how things ought to be. Both of these definitions really touch upon suffering in a person-centered way that's relational about one's identity, meaning, autonomy, and connectedness with others. So these definitions alone remind us that suffering calls for a person-centered response, not the patient as a pathology, but the panoramic view of who the patient is as a person and their lived reality of illness. And in this light, the therapeutic alliance becomes one of our most active ingredients in care. The therapeutic alliance is that collaborative, trusting bond as persons that we have between clinician and patient, and it's actually one of the most powerful predictors of meaningful outcomes in our care, especially in oncologic care.  You know, I'll never forget my first day of internship at Massachusetts General Hospital. A faculty lecturer shared this really sage insight with us that left this indelible mark. She shared, “As physicians and healers, your very self is the primary instrument of healing. Our being is the median of the medicine.” So, our very selves as embodied, relationally grounded people, that's the median of the medicine and the first most enduring medicine that we offer. That has really borne fruit in the evidence that we see around the therapeutic alliance. And we see this in oncologic care, that in advanced cancer, a strong alliance with one's oncologist truly improves a patient's quality of life, treatment adherence, emotional well-being, and even surpasses structured interventions like psychotherapeutic interventions. Dr. Hope Rugo: That's just incredibly helpful information and actually terminology as well, and I think the concept of suffering differs so much. Suffering comes in many shapes and forms, and I think you really have highlighted that. But many oncologists struggle with knowing what to do when patients are suffering but can't be fixed, and I think a lot of times that has to do with oncologists when patients have pain or shortness of breath or issues like that. There are obviously many ways people suffer. But I think what's really challenging is how clinicians understand suffering and what the best approaches to respond to suffering are in the best patient-centered and therapeutic way. Dr. Keri Brenner: I get that question a lot from my trainees in palliative care, not knowing what to do. And my first response is, this is about how to be, not about knowing what to do, but how to be. In our medical training, we're trained often how to think and treat, but rarely how to be, how to accompany others. And I often have this image that I tell my trainees of, instead of this hierarchical approach of a fix-it mentality of all we're going to do, when it comes to elements of unavoidable loss, mortality, unavoidable sufferings, I imagine something more like accompaniment, a patient walking through some dark caverns, and I am accompanying them, trying to walk beside them, shining a light as a guide throughout that darkness. So it's a spirit of being and walking with. And it's so tempting in medicine to either avoid the suffering altogether or potentially overidentify with it, where the suffering just becomes so all-consuming like it's our own. And we're taught to instead strike a balance of authentic accompaniment through it. I often teach this key concept in my palli-psych work with my team about formulation. Formulation is a working hypothesis. It's taking a step back and asking, “Why? Why is this patient behaving in this manner? What might the patient's core inner struggle be?” Because asking that “why” and understanding the nuanced dimensions of a patient's core inner struggle will really help guide our therapeutic interactions and guide the way that we accompany them and where we choose to shine that light as we're walking with them. And oftentimes people think, “Well Keri, that sounds so sappy or oversentimental,” and it's not. You know, I'm just thinking about a case that I had a couple months ago, and it was a 28-year-old man with gastric cancer, metastatic disease, and that 28-year-old man, he was actually a college Division I athlete, and his dad was an acclaimed Division I coach. And our typical open-ended palliative care questions, that approach, infuriated them. They needed to know that I was showing up confident, competent, and that I was ready, on my A-game, with a real plan for them to follow through. And so my formulation about them was they needed somebody to show up with that confidence and competence, like the Division I athletes that they were, to really meet them and accompany them where they were on how they were going to walk through that experience of illness. Dr. Hope Rugo: These kinds of insights are so helpful to think about how we manage something that we face every day in oncology care. And I think that there are many ways to manage this.  Maybe I'll ask Dr. Sławkowski-Rode one question just that I think sequences nicely with what you're talking about.  A lot of our patients are trying to think about sort of the bigger picture and how that might help clinicians understand and support patients. So, the whole concept of spirituality, you know, how can we really use that as oncology clinicians to better understand and support patients with advanced illness, and how can that help patients themselves? And we'll talk about that in two different ways, but we'll just start with this broader question. Dr. Mikołaj Sławkowski-Rode: I think spirituality, and here, I usually refer to spirituality in terms of religious belief. Most people in the world are religious believers, and it is very intuitive and natural that religious beliefs would be a resource that people who help patients with a terminal diagnosis and healthcare professionals who work with those patients appeal to when they try to help them deal with the trauma and the stress of these situations.  Now, I think that the interesting thing there is that very often the benefit of appealing to a religious belief is misunderstood in terms of what it delivers. And there are many, many studies on how religious belief can be used to support therapy and to support patients in getting through the experience of suffering and defeating cancer or facing a terminal diagnosis. There's a wealth of literature on this. But most of the literature focuses on this idea that by appealing to religious belief, we help patients and healthcare practitioners who are working with them get over the fact and that there's a terminal diagnosis determining the course of someone's life and get on with our lives and engaging with whatever other pursuits we might have, with our job if we're healthcare practitioners, and with the other things that we might be passionate about in our lives. And the idea here is that this is what religion allows us to do because we sort of defer the need to worry about what's going to happen to us until the afterlife or some perspective beyond the horizon of our life here.  However, my view is – I have worked beyond philosophy also with theologians from many traditions, and my view here is that religion is something that does allow us to get on with our life but not because we're able to move on or move past the concerns that are being threatened by illness or death, but by forming stronger bonds with these things that we value in our life in a way and to have a sense of hope that these will be things that we will be able to keep an attachment to despite the threat to our life. So, in a sense, I think very many approaches in the field have the benefit of religion upside down, as it were, when it comes to helping patients and healthcare professionals who are engaged with their illness and treating it. Dr. Hope Rugo: You know, it's really interesting the points that you make, and I think really important, but, you know, sometimes the oncologists are really struggling with their own emotional reactions, how they are reacting to patients, and dealing with sort of taking on the burden, which, Dr. Brenner, you were mentioning earlier. How can oncologists be aware of their own emotional reactions? You know, they're struggling with this patient who they're very attached to who's dying or whatever the situation is, but you want to avoid burnout as an oncologist but also understand the patient's inner world and support them. Dr. Keri Brenner: I believe that these affective, emotional states, they're contagious. As we accompany patients through these tragic losses, it's very normal and expected that we ourselves will experience that full range of the human experience as we accompany the patients. And so the more that we can recognize that this is a normative dimension of our work, to have a nonjudgmental stance about the whole panoramic set of emotions that we'll experience as we accompany patients with curiosity and openness about that, the more sustainable the work will become. And I often think about the concept of countertransference given to us by Sigmund Freud over 100 years ago. Countertransference is the clinician's response to the patient, the thoughts, feelings, associations that come up within us, shaped by our own history, our own life events, those unconscious processes that come to the foreground as we are accompanying patients with illness. And that is a natural part of the human experience. Historically, countertransference was viewed as something negative, and now it's actually seen as a key that can unlock and enlighten the formulation about what might be going on within the patient themselves even. You know, I was with a patient a couple weeks ago, and I found myself feeling pretty helpless and hopeless in the encounter as I was trying to care for them. And I recognized that countertransference within myself that I was feeling demoralized. It was a prompt for me to take a step back, get on the balcony, and be curious about that because I normally don't feel helpless and hopeless caring for my patients. Well, ultimately, I discovered through processing it with my interdisciplinary team that the patient likely had demoralization as a clinical syndrome, and so it's natural many of us were feeling helpless and hopeless also accompanying them with their care. And it allowed us to have a greater interdisciplinary approach and a more therapeutic response and deeper empathy for the patient's plight. And we can really be curious about our countertransferences. You know, a few months ago, I was feeling bored and distracted in a family meeting, which is quite atypical for me when I'm sharing serious illness news. And it was actually a key that allowed me to recognize that the patient was trying to distract all of us talking about inconsequential facts and details rather than the gravitas of her illness.  Being curious about these affective states really allows us to have greater sustainability within our own practice because it normalizes that human spectrum of emotions and also allows us to reduce unconscious bias and have greater inclusivity with our practice because what Freud also said is that what we can't recognize and say within our own selves, if we don't have that self-reflective capacity, it will come out in what we do. So really recognizing and having the self-awareness and naming some of these emotions with trusted colleagues or even within our own selves allows us to ensure that it doesn't come out in aberrant behaviors like avoiding the patient, staving off that patient till the end of the day, or overtreating, offering more chemotherapy or not having the goals of care, doing everything possible when we know that that might result in medically ineffective care. Dr. Hope Rugo: Yeah, I love the comments that you made, sort of weaving in Freud, but also, I think the importance of talking to colleagues and to sharing some of these issues because I do think that oncologists suffer from the fact that no one else in your life wants to hear about dying people. They don't really want to hear about the tragic cases either. So, I think that using your community, your oncology community and greater community within medicine, is an important part of being able to sort of process. Dr. Keri Brenner: Yes, and Dr. Rugo, this came up in our ASCO [Education] Session. I'd love to double click into some of those ways that we can do this that aren't too time consuming in our everyday practice. You know, within palliative care, we have interdisciplinary rounds where we process complex cases. Some of us do case supervision with a trusted mentor or colleague where we bring complex cases to them. My team and I offer process rounds virtually where we go through countertransference, formulation, and therapeutic responses on some tough cases.  You know, on a personal note, just last week when I left a family meeting feeling really depleted and stuck, I called one of my trusted colleagues and just for 3 minutes constructively, sort of cathartically vented what was coming up within me after that family meeting, which allowed me to have more of an enlightened stance on what to do next and how to be therapeutically helpful for the case. One of my colleagues calls this "friend-tors." They coined the phrase, and they actually wrote a paper about it. Who within your peer group of trusted colleagues can you utilize and phone in real time or have process opportunities with to get a pulse check on where what's coming up within us as we're doing this work? Dr. Hope Rugo: Yeah, and it's an interesting question about how one does that and, you know, maintaining that as you move institutions or change places or become more senior, it's really important.  One of the, I think, the challenges sometimes is that we come from different places from our patients, and that can be an issue, I think when our patients are very religious and the provider is not, or the reverse, patients who don't have religious beliefs and you're trying to sort of focus on the spirituality, but it doesn't really ring true. So, Dr. Sławkowski-Rode, what resources can patients and practitioners draw on when they're facing death and loss in the absence of, or just different religious beliefs that don't fit into the standard model? Dr. Mikołaj Sławkowski-Rode: You're absolutely right that this can be an extremely problematic situation to be in when there is that disconnect of religious belief or more generally spiritual engagement with the situation that we're in. But I just wanted to tie into what Dr. Brenner was saying just before. I couldn't agree more, and I think that a lot of healthcare practitioners, oncologists in particular who I've had the pleasure to talk to at ASCO and at other events as well, are very often quite skeptical about emotional engagement in their profession. They feel as though this is something to be managed, as it were, and something that gets in the way. And they can often be very critical of methods that help them understand the emotions and extend them towards patients because they feel that this will be an obstacle to doing their job and potentially an obstacle also to helping patients to their full ability if they focus on their own emotions or the burden that emotionally, spiritually, and in other ways the illness is for the patient. They feel that they should be focusing on the cancer rather than on the patient's emotions. And I think that a useful comparison, although, you know, perhaps slightly drastic, is that of combat experience of soldiers. They also need to be up and running and can't be too emotionally invested in the situation that they're in. But there's a crucial difference, which is that soldiers are usually engaged in very short bursts of activity with the time to go back and rethink, and they often have a lot of support for this in between. Whereas doctors are in a profession where their exposure to the emotions of patients and their own emotions, the emotions of families of patients is constant. And I think that there's a great danger in thinking that this is something to be avoided and something to compartmentalize in order to avoid burnout. I think, in a way, burnout is more sure to happen if your emotions and your attachment to your patients goes ignored for too long. So that's just following up on Keri's absolutely excellent points. As far as the disconnect is concerned, that's, in fact, an area in which I'm particularly interested in. That's where my research comes in. I'm interested in the kinds of connections that we have with other people, especially in terms of maintaining bonds when there is no spiritual belief, no spiritual backdrop to support this connection. In most religious traditions, we have the framework of the religious belief that tells us that the person who we've lost or the values that have become undermined in our life are something that hasn't been destroyed permanently but something that we can still believe we have a deep connection to despite its absence from our life. And how do you rebuild that sense of the existence of the things that you have perceivably lost without the appeal to some sort of transcendent realm which is defined by a given religion? And that is a hard question. That's a question, I think, that can be answered partly by psychology but also partly by philosophy in terms of looking at who we are as human beings and our nature as people who are essentially, or as entities that are essentially connected to one another. That connection, I believe, is more direct than the mediation of religion might at first suggest. I think that we essentially share the world not only physically, it's not just the case that we're all here, but more importantly, the world that we live in is not just the physical world but the world of meanings and values that helps us orient ourselves in society and amongst one another as friends and foes. And it is that shared sense of the world that we can appeal to when we're thinking about retaining the value or retaining the connection with the people who we have lost or the people who are helping through, go through an experience of facing death. And just to finish, there's a very interesting question, I think, something that we possibly don't have time to explore, about the degree of connection that we have with other people. So, what I've just been saying is something that rings more true or is more intuitive when we think about the connections that we have to our closest ones. We share a similar outlook onto the world, and our preferences and our moods and our emotions and our values are shaped by life with the other person. And so, appealing to these values can give us a sense of a continued presence. But what in those relationships where the connection isn't that close? For example, given the topic of this podcast, the connection that a patient has with their doctor and vice versa. In what sense can we talk about a shared world of experience? Well, I think, obviously, we should admit degrees to the kind of relationship that can sustain our connection with another person. But at the same time, I don't think there's a clear cutoff point. And I think part of emotional engagement in medical practice is finding yourself somewhere on that spectrum rather than thinking you're completely off of it. That's what I would say. Dr. Hope Rugo: That's very helpful and I think a very helpful way of thinking about how to manage this challenging situation for all of us.  One of the things that really, I think, is a big question for all of us throughout our careers, is when to address the dying process and how to do that. Dr. Brenner, you know, I still struggle with this – what to do when patients refuse to discuss end-of-life but they're very close to end of life? They don't want to talk about it. It's very stressful for all of us, even where you're going to be, how you're going to manage this. They're just absolutely opposed to that discussion. How should we approach those kinds of discussions? How do we manage that? How do you address the code discussion, which is so important? You know, these patients are not able to stay at home at end-of-life in general, so you really do need to have a code discussion before you're admitting them. It actually ends up being kind of a challenge and a mess all around. You know, I would love your advice about how to manage those situations. Dr. Keri Brenner: I think that's one of the most piercing and relevant inquiries we have within our clinical work and challenges. I often think of denial not as an all-or-nothing concept but rather as parts of self. There's a part of everyone's being where the unconscious believes it's immortal and will live on forever, and yet we all know intellectually that we all have mortality and finitude and transience, and that time will end. We often think of this work as more iterative and gradual and exposure based. There's potency to words. Saying, “You are dying within days,” is a lot higher potency of a phrase to share than, “This is serious illness. This illness is incurable. Time might be shorter than we hoped.” And so the earlier and more upstream we begin to have these conversations, even in small, subtle ways, it starts to begin to expose the patient to the concept so they can go from the head to the heart, not only knowing their prognosis intellectually but also affectively, to integrate it into who they are as a person because all patients are trying to live well while also we're gradually exposing them to this awareness of mortality within their own lived experience of illness. And that, ideally, happens gradually over time. Now, there are moments where the medical frame is very limited, and we might have short days, and we have to uptitrate those words and really accompany them more radically through those high-affective moments. And that's when we have to take a lot of more nuanced approaches, but I would say the more earlier and upstream the better. And then the second piece to that question as well is coping with our own mortality. The more we can be comfortable with our own transience and finitude and limitations, the more we will be able to accompany others through that. And even within my own life, I've had to integrate losses in a way where before I go in to talk to one of my own palliative care patients, one mantra I often say to myself is, “I'm just a few steps behind you. I don't know if it's going to be 30 days or 30 years, but I'm just a few steps behind you on this finite, transient road of life that is the human experience.” And that creates a stance of accompaniment that patients really can experience as they're traversing these tragedies. Dr. Hope Rugo: That's great. And I think those are really important points and actually some pearls, which I think we can take into the clinic. I think being really concrete when really the expected life expectancy is a few days to a couple of weeks can be very, very helpful. And making sure the patients hear you, but also continuing to let them know that, as oncologists, we're here for them. We're not abandoning them. I think that's a big worry for many, certainly of my patients, is that somehow when they would go to hospice or be a ‘no code', that we're not going to support them anymore or treat them anymore. That is a really important process of that as well. And of course, engaging the team makes a big difference because the whole oncology team can help to manage situations that are particularly challenging like that. And just as we close, I wanted to ask one last question of you, Dr. Brenner, that suffering, grief, and burnout, you've really made the point that these are not problems to fix but dimensions that we want to attend to and acknowledge as part of our lives, the dying process is part of all of our lives. It's just dealing with this in the unexpected and the, I think, unpredictability of life, you know, that people take on a lot of guilt and all sorts of things about, all sorts of emotions. And the question is now, people have listened to this podcast, what can they take back to their oncology teams to build a culture that supports clinicians and their team at large to engage with these realities in a meaningful and sustainable way? I really feel like if we could build the whole team approach where we're supporting each other and supporting the patients together, that that will help this process immeasurably. Dr. Keri Brenner: Yes, and I'm thinking about Dr. Sławkowski-Rode's observation about the combat analogy, and it made me recognize this distinction between suppression and repression. Repression is this unconscious process, and this is what we're taught to do in medical training all the time, to just involuntarily shove that tragedy under the rug, just forget about it and see the next patient and move on. And we know that if we keep unconsciously shoving things under the rug, that it will lead to burnout and lack of sustainability for our clinical teams. Suppression is a more conscious process. That deliberate effort to say, “This was a tragedy that I bore witness to. I know I need to put that in a box on the shelf for now because I have 10 other patients I have to see.” And yet, do I work in a culture where I can take that off the shelf during particular moments and process it with my interdisciplinary team, phone a friend, talk to a trusted colleague, have some trusted case supervision around it, or process rounds around it, talk to my social worker? And I think the more that we model this type of self-reflective capacity as attendings, folks who have been in the field for decades, the more we create that ethos and culture that is sustainable because clinician self-reflection is never a weakness, rather it's a silent strength. Clinician self-reflection is this portal for wisdom, connectedness, sustainability, and ultimately transformative growth within ourselves. Dr. Hope Rugo: That's such a great point, and I think this whole discussion has been so helpful for me and I hope for our audience that we really can take these points and bring them to our practice. I think, “Wow, this is such a great conversation. I'd like to have the team as a whole listen to this as ways to sort of strategize talking about the process, our patients, and being supportive as a team, understanding how we manage spirituality when it connects and when it doesn't.” All of these points, they're bringing in how we process these issues and the whole idea of suppressing versus sort of deciding that it never happened at all is, I think, very important because that's just a tool for managing our daily lives, our busy clinics, and everything we manage. Dr. Keri Brenner: And Dr. Rugo, it's reminding me at Stanford, you know, we have this weekly practice that's just a ritual where every Friday morning for 30 minutes, our social worker leads a process rounds with us as a team, where we talk about how the work that we're doing clinically is affecting us in our lives in ways that have joy and greater meaning and connectedness and other ways that might be depleting. And that kind of authentic vulnerability with one another allows us to show up more authentically for our patients. So those rituals, that small 30 minutes once a week, goes a long way. And it reminds me that sometimes slowing things down with those rituals can really get us to more meaningful, transformative places ultimately. Dr. Hope Rugo: It's a great idea, and I think, you know, making time for that in everybody's busy days where they just don't have any time anymore is important. And you don't have to do it weekly, you could even do something monthly. I think there's a lot of options, and that's a great suggestion. I want to thank you both for taking your time out for this enriching and incredibly helpful conversation. Our listeners will find a link to the Ed Book article we discussed today, which is excellent, in the transcript of this episode. I want to thank you again, Dr. Brenner and Dr. Sławkowski-Rode, for your time and for your excellent thoughts and advice and direction. Dr. Mikołaj Sławkowski-Rode: Thank you very much, Dr. Rugo. Dr. Keri Brenner: Thank you. Dr. Hope Rugo: And thanks to our listeners for joining us today. Please join us again next month on By the Book for more insightful views on topics you'll be hearing at the education sessions from ASCO meetings and our deep dives on new approaches that are shaping modern oncology. Disclaimer: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Follow today's speakers:      Dr. Hope Rugo @hope.rugo Dr. Keri Brenner @keri_brenner Dr. Mikolaj Slawkowski-Rode @MikolajRode Follow ASCO on social media:      @ASCO on X (formerly Twitter)      ASCO on Bluesky     ASCO on Facebook      ASCO on LinkedIn      Disclosures:     Dr. Hope Rugo: Honoraria: Mylan/Viatris, Chugai Pharma Consulting/Advisory Role: Napo Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi, Bristol Myer Research Funding (Inst.): OBI Pharma, Pfizer, Novartis, Lilly, Merck, Daiichi Sankyo, AstraZeneca, Gilead Sciences, Hoffman La-Roche AG/Genentech, In., Stemline Therapeutics, Ambryx Dr. Keri Brenner: No relationships to disclose Dr. Mikolaj Slawkowski-Rode: No relationships to disclose    

Amid the fanfare around AI and autonomous weapons, decision-makers - both military and political - are imagining an augmented future for warfare that minimises human influence and connection. But in their rush for speed and lethality, leaders have failed to understand the behavioural and technical challenges that accompany these new weapon types, as well as the detail of their operation and the practicalities involved in deploying these assets on tomorrow's battlefields. Indeed, as autonomy starts to flood fighting practices, the classical concepts of combat, tactics and strategy may no longer be fit for task. We are not ready and, as Paddy Walker makes clear in War Without Oversight: Why We Need Humans on the Battlefield (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2025), human oversight over lethal engagement is critical if we are to do more than suffer defeats faster. Formerly commissioned into the Fifth Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, Dr Paddy Walker is Managing Director of the Leon Group. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and an Associate at the Institute for the Public Understanding of War and Conflict at the Imperial War Museum. Previously London chair of NGO Human Rights Watch, Paddy is a Board Member of NGO Article 36 and co-authored War's Changed Landscape, also published by Howgate, with Professor Peter Roberts in 2023. Check out the New Books Network episode on that book here. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Amid the fanfare around AI and autonomous weapons, decision-makers - both military and political - are imagining an augmented future for warfare that minimises human influence and connection. But in their rush for speed and lethality, leaders have failed to understand the behavioural and technical challenges that accompany these new weapon types, as well as the detail of their operation and the practicalities involved in deploying these assets on tomorrow's battlefields. Indeed, as autonomy starts to flood fighting practices, the classical concepts of combat, tactics and strategy may no longer be fit for task. We are not ready and, as Paddy Walker makes clear in War Without Oversight: Why We Need Humans on the Battlefield (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2025), human oversight over lethal engagement is critical if we are to do more than suffer defeats faster. Formerly commissioned into the Fifth Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, Dr Paddy Walker is Managing Director of the Leon Group. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and an Associate at the Institute for the Public Understanding of War and Conflict at the Imperial War Museum. Previously London chair of NGO Human Rights Watch, Paddy is a Board Member of NGO Article 36 and co-authored War's Changed Landscape, also published by Howgate, with Professor Peter Roberts in 2023. Check out the New Books Network episode on that book here. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Amid the fanfare around AI and autonomous weapons, decision-makers - both military and political - are imagining an augmented future for warfare that minimises human influence and connection. But in their rush for speed and lethality, leaders have failed to understand the behavioural and technical challenges that accompany these new weapon types, as well as the detail of their operation and the practicalities involved in deploying these assets on tomorrow's battlefields. Indeed, as autonomy starts to flood fighting practices, the classical concepts of combat, tactics and strategy may no longer be fit for task. We are not ready and, as Paddy Walker makes clear in War Without Oversight: Why We Need Humans on the Battlefield (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2025), human oversight over lethal engagement is critical if we are to do more than suffer defeats faster. Formerly commissioned into the Fifth Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, Dr Paddy Walker is Managing Director of the Leon Group. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and an Associate at the Institute for the Public Understanding of War and Conflict at the Imperial War Museum. Previously London chair of NGO Human Rights Watch, Paddy is a Board Member of NGO Article 36 and co-authored War's Changed Landscape, also published by Howgate, with Professor Peter Roberts in 2023. Check out the New Books Network episode on that book here. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Amid the fanfare around AI and autonomous weapons, decision-makers - both military and political - are imagining an augmented future for warfare that minimises human influence and connection. But in their rush for speed and lethality, leaders have failed to understand the behavioural and technical challenges that accompany these new weapon types, as well as the detail of their operation and the practicalities involved in deploying these assets on tomorrow's battlefields. Indeed, as autonomy starts to flood fighting practices, the classical concepts of combat, tactics and strategy may no longer be fit for task. We are not ready and, as Paddy Walker makes clear in War Without Oversight: Why We Need Humans on the Battlefield (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2025), human oversight over lethal engagement is critical if we are to do more than suffer defeats faster. Formerly commissioned into the Fifth Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, Dr Paddy Walker is Managing Director of the Leon Group. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and an Associate at the Institute for the Public Understanding of War and Conflict at the Imperial War Museum. Previously London chair of NGO Human Rights Watch, Paddy is a Board Member of NGO Article 36 and co-authored War's Changed Landscape, also published by Howgate, with Professor Peter Roberts in 2023. Check out the New Books Network episode on that book here. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

Amid the fanfare around AI and autonomous weapons, decision-makers - both military and political - are imagining an augmented future for warfare that minimises human influence and connection. But in their rush for speed and lethality, leaders have failed to understand the behavioural and technical challenges that accompany these new weapon types, as well as the detail of their operation and the practicalities involved in deploying these assets on tomorrow's battlefields. Indeed, as autonomy starts to flood fighting practices, the classical concepts of combat, tactics and strategy may no longer be fit for task. We are not ready and, as Paddy Walker makes clear in War Without Oversight: Why We Need Humans on the Battlefield (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2025), human oversight over lethal engagement is critical if we are to do more than suffer defeats faster. Formerly commissioned into the Fifth Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, Dr Paddy Walker is Managing Director of the Leon Group. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and an Associate at the Institute for the Public Understanding of War and Conflict at the Imperial War Museum. Previously London chair of NGO Human Rights Watch, Paddy is a Board Member of NGO Article 36 and co-authored War's Changed Landscape, also published by Howgate, with Professor Peter Roberts in 2023. Check out the New Books Network episode on that book here. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Amid the fanfare around AI and autonomous weapons, decision-makers - both military and political - are imagining an augmented future for warfare that minimises human influence and connection. But in their rush for speed and lethality, leaders have failed to understand the behavioural and technical challenges that accompany these new weapon types, as well as the detail of their operation and the practicalities involved in deploying these assets on tomorrow's battlefields. Indeed, as autonomy starts to flood fighting practices, the classical concepts of combat, tactics and strategy may no longer be fit for task. We are not ready and, as Paddy Walker makes clear in War Without Oversight: Why We Need Humans on the Battlefield (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2025), human oversight over lethal engagement is critical if we are to do more than suffer defeats faster. Formerly commissioned into the Fifth Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, Dr Paddy Walker is Managing Director of the Leon Group. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and an Associate at the Institute for the Public Understanding of War and Conflict at the Imperial War Museum. Previously London chair of NGO Human Rights Watch, Paddy is a Board Member of NGO Article 36 and co-authored War's Changed Landscape, also published by Howgate, with Professor Peter Roberts in 2023. Check out the New Books Network episode on that book here. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology

Amid the fanfare around AI and autonomous weapons, decision-makers - both military and political - are imagining an augmented future for warfare that minimises human influence and connection. But in their rush for speed and lethality, leaders have failed to understand the behavioural and technical challenges that accompany these new weapon types, as well as the detail of their operation and the practicalities involved in deploying these assets on tomorrow's battlefields. Indeed, as autonomy starts to flood fighting practices, the classical concepts of combat, tactics and strategy may no longer be fit for task. We are not ready and, as Paddy Walker makes clear in War Without Oversight: Why We Need Humans on the Battlefield (Howgate Publishing Limited, 2025), human oversight over lethal engagement is critical if we are to do more than suffer defeats faster. Formerly commissioned into the Fifth Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, Dr Paddy Walker is Managing Director of the Leon Group. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and an Associate at the Institute for the Public Understanding of War and Conflict at the Imperial War Museum. Previously London chair of NGO Human Rights Watch, Paddy is a Board Member of NGO Article 36 and co-authored War's Changed Landscape, also published by Howgate, with Professor Peter Roberts in 2023. Check out the New Books Network episode on that book here. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, military history, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

Paddy Walker and Elke Schwarz discuss the operational and ethical implications of autonomous systems in warfare. Paddy and Elke highlight the gap between expectations and reality, arguing that while AI-enabled technologies are often marketed as revolutionary, their real-world effectiveness remains uncertain due to data limitations, technical vulnerabilities and the challenges of human–machine integration. Dr Paddy Walker is an Associate Fellow at RUSI and a Senior Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham. His latest book, War Without Oversight, was published in January 2025. Professor Elke Schwarz is Professor of Political Theory at Queen Mary University of London and the author of Death Machines: The Ethics of Violent Technologies.

Today, Michael welcomes Dr. Shai Tubali. Shai blends academic philosophy and mysticism to explore the transformative power of expanded consciousness. Integrating Eastern and Western philosophies, Shai offers comprehensive insights into the nature and potential of consciousness. He holds a PhD in religion from the University of Leeds and is also a research fellow at its Arts and Humanities Research Institute. Since 2000, Shai has guided workshops, retreats, and professional trainings. His passion has led him to the creation of several original methods for psychological transformation, including the medically-researched Expansion Method. Highlights from Michael and Shai's rich conversation include: -How Shai's academic religious studies left him unfulfilled, sparking him to travel to India to take a deeper inner journey which initiated a series of spiritual awakenings and experiences around Universal Love and unity consciousness that ultimately transformed his approach to his academic work -The difference between collective consciousness and thinking -Explaining how technology, particularly social media and AI, can challenge or potentially expand our own understanding of individual and collective consciousness  -The benefits of shifting from ‘Mental Rigidity'–the entrenchment of fixed identities, unchanging narratives, and absolute perspectives–to ‘Mental Fluidity', which allows people to move past the “us vs. them” divisiveness that's rife in social and political discussions, especially online -How consciousness expansion can heal collective trauma on a societal and global scale -Shai's techniques for healing deep trauma through exploring our power to realize that we are bigger than our past pain, memories, and life experiences -The Expansion Method and how it liberates us from limitations and to see life from a place of possibility; why healing trauma requires us to tap into our “heart-power”; Shai's free 7-day challenge, “Your Guide to Expanded Consciousness”; and so much more!  Next, Michael leads a guided meditation to expand and perfect our loving and compassion.  Connect with Shai and access his free 7-day challenge, “Your Guide to Expanded Consciousness” at his website: https://shaitubali.com/ and visit his YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/shaitubali - featuring over 800 videos including guided and expansion meditations.  Remember to Subscribe or Follow and set an alert to receive notifications each Wednesday when new episodes are available! Connect with Michael at his website – https://michaelbeckwith.com/ – and receive his guided meditation, “Raise Your Vibration and Be Untouchable” when you sign up to receive occasional updates from Michael! You can also connect with him at https://agapelive.com/. Facebook: @Michael.B.Beckwith https://www.facebook.com/Michael.B.Beckwith  IG: @michaelbbeckwith https://www.instagram.com/michaelbbeckwith/  TikTok: @officialmichaelbeckwith   https://www.tiktok.com/@officialmichaelbeckwith  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqMWuqEKXLY4m60gNDsw61w  And as always, deep gratitude to the sponsors of the Take Back Your Mind with Michael B. Beckwith podcast: -Agape International Spiritual Center: https://agapelive.com/  and -NutriRise, the makers of Michael's AdaptoZen products: -Superfood Greens: https://nutririse.com/products/greens-superfood?_pos=1&_sid=2057ecc52&_ss=r  -Superfood Reds: https://nutririse.com/products/adaptozen-superfood-reds   -ELEVATE+: Organic Fermented Mushrooms: https://nutririse.com/products/elevate-fermented-mushrooms-powder  

Antoinette Burton's Gender History: A Very Short Introduction introduces the field of gender history--its origins, development, reception, recalibrations, and frictions. It offers a set of working definitions of gender as a descriptive category and as a category of historical analysis, tracing the emergence, usage, and applicability of these entwined subjects across a range of times and places since the 1970s. Inevitably political, gender history has taken aim at the broader field of historical narrative by asking who counts as a historical subject, what difference gender makes, and how attention to it subverts reigning assumptions of what power, culture, economics, and identity have been in the past--and what they are today. The book explores how gender analysis has changed interpretations of the histories of slavery, capitalism, migration, and empire. As a field, gender history has been extraordinarily influential in shaping several generations of scholars and students. The fact that its early emphasis on the relationship between masculinity and femininity was part of a larger set of challenges to universal history by poststructuralism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism positions it at the heart of some of the most fractious intellectual debates of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. And, as part of the movement toward gender equality that is key to modern western progress, gender history has been caught up in the culture wars that continue to shape post-global society. What is intriguing and ultimately defining about gender history is the way that the centrality of gender, so important for revealing how identity is structured in and through regimes of power, has been unable to hold its own over the half century of the field's own history. The practice of gender history has always run up against the forces of race, class, and sexuality that challenge the singularity of gender itself as an explanatory category of historical analysis. That powerful, unruly tension is at the heart of this Very Short Introduction. Antoinette Burton is a feminist historian of 19th and 20th century Britain and its empire, and Director of the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois. She is also the Principal Investigator for Mellon Foundation grants which support The Odyssey Project and the 16-partner consortium, Humanities Without Walls. In 2023 she was appointed to the Board of Illinois Humanities. She also serves as the chair of the Faculty Board of the University of Illinois Press. Her most recent book, Biocultural Empire: New Histories of Imperial Lifeworlds is available open-access here. Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and is an editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Antoinette Burton's Gender History: A Very Short Introduction introduces the field of gender history--its origins, development, reception, recalibrations, and frictions. It offers a set of working definitions of gender as a descriptive category and as a category of historical analysis, tracing the emergence, usage, and applicability of these entwined subjects across a range of times and places since the 1970s. Inevitably political, gender history has taken aim at the broader field of historical narrative by asking who counts as a historical subject, what difference gender makes, and how attention to it subverts reigning assumptions of what power, culture, economics, and identity have been in the past--and what they are today. The book explores how gender analysis has changed interpretations of the histories of slavery, capitalism, migration, and empire. As a field, gender history has been extraordinarily influential in shaping several generations of scholars and students. The fact that its early emphasis on the relationship between masculinity and femininity was part of a larger set of challenges to universal history by poststructuralism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism positions it at the heart of some of the most fractious intellectual debates of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. And, as part of the movement toward gender equality that is key to modern western progress, gender history has been caught up in the culture wars that continue to shape post-global society. What is intriguing and ultimately defining about gender history is the way that the centrality of gender, so important for revealing how identity is structured in and through regimes of power, has been unable to hold its own over the half century of the field's own history. The practice of gender history has always run up against the forces of race, class, and sexuality that challenge the singularity of gender itself as an explanatory category of historical analysis. That powerful, unruly tension is at the heart of this Very Short Introduction. Antoinette Burton is a feminist historian of 19th and 20th century Britain and its empire, and Director of the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois. She is also the Principal Investigator for Mellon Foundation grants which support The Odyssey Project and the 16-partner consortium, Humanities Without Walls. In 2023 she was appointed to the Board of Illinois Humanities. She also serves as the chair of the Faculty Board of the University of Illinois Press. Her most recent book, Biocultural Empire: New Histories of Imperial Lifeworlds is available open-access here. Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and is an editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Antoinette Burton's Gender History: A Very Short Introduction introduces the field of gender history--its origins, development, reception, recalibrations, and frictions. It offers a set of working definitions of gender as a descriptive category and as a category of historical analysis, tracing the emergence, usage, and applicability of these entwined subjects across a range of times and places since the 1970s. Inevitably political, gender history has taken aim at the broader field of historical narrative by asking who counts as a historical subject, what difference gender makes, and how attention to it subverts reigning assumptions of what power, culture, economics, and identity have been in the past--and what they are today. The book explores how gender analysis has changed interpretations of the histories of slavery, capitalism, migration, and empire. As a field, gender history has been extraordinarily influential in shaping several generations of scholars and students. The fact that its early emphasis on the relationship between masculinity and femininity was part of a larger set of challenges to universal history by poststructuralism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism positions it at the heart of some of the most fractious intellectual debates of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. And, as part of the movement toward gender equality that is key to modern western progress, gender history has been caught up in the culture wars that continue to shape post-global society. What is intriguing and ultimately defining about gender history is the way that the centrality of gender, so important for revealing how identity is structured in and through regimes of power, has been unable to hold its own over the half century of the field's own history. The practice of gender history has always run up against the forces of race, class, and sexuality that challenge the singularity of gender itself as an explanatory category of historical analysis. That powerful, unruly tension is at the heart of this Very Short Introduction. Antoinette Burton is a feminist historian of 19th and 20th century Britain and its empire, and Director of the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois. She is also the Principal Investigator for Mellon Foundation grants which support The Odyssey Project and the 16-partner consortium, Humanities Without Walls. In 2023 she was appointed to the Board of Illinois Humanities. She also serves as the chair of the Faculty Board of the University of Illinois Press. Her most recent book, Biocultural Empire: New Histories of Imperial Lifeworlds is available open-access here. Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and is an editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Antoinette Burton's Gender History: A Very Short Introduction introduces the field of gender history--its origins, development, reception, recalibrations, and frictions. It offers a set of working definitions of gender as a descriptive category and as a category of historical analysis, tracing the emergence, usage, and applicability of these entwined subjects across a range of times and places since the 1970s. Inevitably political, gender history has taken aim at the broader field of historical narrative by asking who counts as a historical subject, what difference gender makes, and how attention to it subverts reigning assumptions of what power, culture, economics, and identity have been in the past--and what they are today. The book explores how gender analysis has changed interpretations of the histories of slavery, capitalism, migration, and empire. As a field, gender history has been extraordinarily influential in shaping several generations of scholars and students. The fact that its early emphasis on the relationship between masculinity and femininity was part of a larger set of challenges to universal history by poststructuralism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism positions it at the heart of some of the most fractious intellectual debates of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. And, as part of the movement toward gender equality that is key to modern western progress, gender history has been caught up in the culture wars that continue to shape post-global society. What is intriguing and ultimately defining about gender history is the way that the centrality of gender, so important for revealing how identity is structured in and through regimes of power, has been unable to hold its own over the half century of the field's own history. The practice of gender history has always run up against the forces of race, class, and sexuality that challenge the singularity of gender itself as an explanatory category of historical analysis. That powerful, unruly tension is at the heart of this Very Short Introduction. Antoinette Burton is a feminist historian of 19th and 20th century Britain and its empire, and Director of the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois. She is also the Principal Investigator for Mellon Foundation grants which support The Odyssey Project and the 16-partner consortium, Humanities Without Walls. In 2023 she was appointed to the Board of Illinois Humanities. She also serves as the chair of the Faculty Board of the University of Illinois Press. Her most recent book, Biocultural Empire: New Histories of Imperial Lifeworlds is available open-access here. Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and is an editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/lgbtq-studies

Antoinette Burton's Gender History: A Very Short Introduction introduces the field of gender history--its origins, development, reception, recalibrations, and frictions. It offers a set of working definitions of gender as a descriptive category and as a category of historical analysis, tracing the emergence, usage, and applicability of these entwined subjects across a range of times and places since the 1970s. Inevitably political, gender history has taken aim at the broader field of historical narrative by asking who counts as a historical subject, what difference gender makes, and how attention to it subverts reigning assumptions of what power, culture, economics, and identity have been in the past--and what they are today. The book explores how gender analysis has changed interpretations of the histories of slavery, capitalism, migration, and empire. As a field, gender history has been extraordinarily influential in shaping several generations of scholars and students. The fact that its early emphasis on the relationship between masculinity and femininity was part of a larger set of challenges to universal history by poststructuralism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism positions it at the heart of some of the most fractious intellectual debates of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. And, as part of the movement toward gender equality that is key to modern western progress, gender history has been caught up in the culture wars that continue to shape post-global society. What is intriguing and ultimately defining about gender history is the way that the centrality of gender, so important for revealing how identity is structured in and through regimes of power, has been unable to hold its own over the half century of the field's own history. The practice of gender history has always run up against the forces of race, class, and sexuality that challenge the singularity of gender itself as an explanatory category of historical analysis. That powerful, unruly tension is at the heart of this Very Short Introduction. Antoinette Burton is a feminist historian of 19th and 20th century Britain and its empire, and Director of the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois. She is also the Principal Investigator for Mellon Foundation grants which support The Odyssey Project and the 16-partner consortium, Humanities Without Walls. In 2023 she was appointed to the Board of Illinois Humanities. She also serves as the chair of the Faculty Board of the University of Illinois Press. Her most recent book, Biocultural Empire: New Histories of Imperial Lifeworlds is available open-access here. Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and is an editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Antoinette Burton's Gender History: A Very Short Introduction introduces the field of gender history--its origins, development, reception, recalibrations, and frictions. It offers a set of working definitions of gender as a descriptive category and as a category of historical analysis, tracing the emergence, usage, and applicability of these entwined subjects across a range of times and places since the 1970s. Inevitably political, gender history has taken aim at the broader field of historical narrative by asking who counts as a historical subject, what difference gender makes, and how attention to it subverts reigning assumptions of what power, culture, economics, and identity have been in the past--and what they are today. The book explores how gender analysis has changed interpretations of the histories of slavery, capitalism, migration, and empire. As a field, gender history has been extraordinarily influential in shaping several generations of scholars and students. The fact that its early emphasis on the relationship between masculinity and femininity was part of a larger set of challenges to universal history by poststructuralism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism positions it at the heart of some of the most fractious intellectual debates of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. And, as part of the movement toward gender equality that is key to modern western progress, gender history has been caught up in the culture wars that continue to shape post-global society. What is intriguing and ultimately defining about gender history is the way that the centrality of gender, so important for revealing how identity is structured in and through regimes of power, has been unable to hold its own over the half century of the field's own history. The practice of gender history has always run up against the forces of race, class, and sexuality that challenge the singularity of gender itself as an explanatory category of historical analysis. That powerful, unruly tension is at the heart of this Very Short Introduction. Antoinette Burton is a feminist historian of 19th and 20th century Britain and its empire, and Director of the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois. She is also the Principal Investigator for Mellon Foundation grants which support The Odyssey Project and the 16-partner consortium, Humanities Without Walls. In 2023 she was appointed to the Board of Illinois Humanities. She also serves as the chair of the Faculty Board of the University of Illinois Press. Her most recent book, Biocultural Empire: New Histories of Imperial Lifeworlds is available open-access here. Jessie Cohen holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and is an editor at the New Books Network.

Recorded November 26th, 2024. The Trinity Long Room Hub is delighted to welcome author and columnist Fintan O'Toole to present the 2024 Edmund Burke Lecture, 'Terror and Self-Pity: The Reactionary Sublime', which is supported by a generous endowment in honour of Padraic Fallon by his family. Fintan O'Toole is an author and columnist. His books include We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958, Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain, and Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger. A member of the Royal Irish Academy, he is a winner of the European Press Prize and the Orwell Prize for political writing. He is also Professor of Irish Letters at Princeton University. About the Annual Edmund Burke Lectures Edmund Burke (1729-1797) graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1748. As a student he founded what would later become the College Historical Society, the oldest student society in the world. Burke entered Parliament in 1765 and quickly became a champion for political emancipation. After 1789, he directed his attention to the French Revolution and its immediate ramifications for political stability in England. To mark the university's deep and lasting connection, and to express the inspiration his life and work as a public intellectual offer to us, the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute has instituted a prestigious annual Edmund Burke lecture, delivered by a leading public intellectual of our time on a topic that engages with the challenges facing us today. One of Burke's central and life-long concerns was what moral codes should underpin the social order, constrain the use of power and inform our behaviour as responsible citizens. This is as important today as it was in Burke's time, and the Edmund Burke lectures will keep his manifold legacies alive by providing a prominent forum for contributing in his spirit to the wider discourse about what society we want to live in and what traditions, perspectives and values we need to draw on in the shaping of our future. Learn more at www/tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub

Today's guest is the funny and brilliant Matthias Strohn. Matthias is Head of the Historical Analysis Program at the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research and an Honorary Visiting Professor at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham. Matthias has also served as a senior lecturer in War Studies at the UK Ministry of Defence and a Military History Instructor at the German Staff College in Hamburg. He is a Lieutenant-Colonel in the German Bundeswehr and as a member of the German Military Attaché Reserve served in Paris, London, and Madrid. Matthias deployed to Iraq with the British Army and Afghanistan with the British Army and Bundeswehr. In 2022, he was awarded the Golden Cross of Honour, the German Armed Forces' highest non-combat decoration. Matthias was educated at the University of Münster before earning his MSt and DPhil at the University of Oxford. He is the author or editor of more than 20 books, including The German Army and the Defence of the Reich (Cambridge), How Armies Grow: The Expansion of Military Forces in the Age of Total War 1789-1945 (Casemate), Winning Wars: The Enduring Nature and Changing Character of Victory from Antiquity to the 21st Century (Casemate), and World War I Companion (Osprey). His forthcoming book Blade of a Sword: Ernst Jünger and the 73rd Fusilier Regiment on the Western Front, 1914–18, will be published by Osprey in 2025. Outside of his military and academic life, Matthias gives battlefield tours through The Cultural Experience. “So join us for an energetic and wide-ranging discussion of speaking English, studying at Oxford, growing up in Muenster (the “most livable place on Earth”), being a historian while deployed, Stalingrad staff rides, pink Stetsons, and Johnny Cash! Rec. 02/08/2024

Recorded February 9th, 2024. Hosted by the School of English of Trinity College Dublin and the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute. The way violence is represented always influences its reception and integration within the cultural imaginary. The narration of violence is ingrained in our perception of ourselves and our communities, and those who report traumatic events then carry the responsibility of how they are received and memorialised. Just as the world emerged from the COVID-19 crisis, the Russian invasion of Ukraine turned the general atmosphere of hope for a new beginning into an even darker and more oppressive state of uncertainty, fear, and sorrow. As scholar Judith Lewis Herman has observed, “[t]he conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.”[1] How do newspapers and media reports choose which pieces of information are to be shared with the public? Why are certain stories considered more important than others? On which premises are specific pieces of news discarded? How geographically, culturally, and socially inclusive are these narratives? And, most importantly, when it comes to trauma, how ethical and accurate can its depiction be when told by someone else?

Recorded September 19th, 2023. *Please note that this discussion contains topics of sexual violence and graphic descriptions of war. Please listen at your own discretion. ‘Women and War' is the theme of the 2023 Wexford Festival Opera (24 Oct-5 Nov). Developed by Wexford's Artistic Director, Rosetta Cucchi, this year's programme uses the medium of opera to explore how war is experienced, endured, and articulated by women. The three main stage operas at Wexford will be: Zoraida di Granata (1822) by Gaetano Donizetti; L'Aube Rouge (1911) by Camille Erlanger; and La Ciociara (Two Women) (2015) by Marco Tutino, based on the novel by Alberto Moravia. In anticipation of this innovative programme, the Trinity Long Room Hub is hosting a special discussion to explore the representation of ‘Women and War' in literature, theatre, music, and visual art. The Festival's acclaimed Artistic Director Rosetta Cucchi will join the celebrated Irish Times foreign correspondent Lara Marlowe and the Trinity Long Room Hub Director, Eve Patten, for a wide-ranging conversation on the themes and vision behind this year's Wexford Festival Opera. This unique collaboration event, which will include both film and music excerpts from the opera programme itself, is open to all and not to be missed. Speakers: Rosetta Cucchi is the Artistic Director of the Wexford Festival Opera and an experienced director in many of the world's greatest opera houses. She is also a pianist, and has a master's degree in Theatre Studies from the University of Bologna. From 2006 to 2018, she was the Artistic Director of Fondazione and Symphonic Orchestra Arturo Toscanini, Parma. Her most recent and future directing projects include Tutino's La Ciociara, Wexford Festival, Figaro and La Bohème, Boston Lyric Opera, Adriana Lecouvreur, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Rossini's Otello, Rossini Festival Pesaro, Eugene Onegin, Opera Omaha, USA, and L'Amico Fritz, Teatro del Maggio Musical Fiorentino. Lara Marlowe became a foreign correspondent for The Irish Times in 1996. Since her official retirement in April 2023 she has continued to contribute regularly to the Irish Times and radio stations in France, Ireland and the UK. She has worked extensively in France, the Middle East and the US, and reported on the war in Ukraine in 2022. Before the Irish Times, she wrote for Time Magazine, the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune, covering many major world events and conflicts. Lara has received four press awards for her work for The Irish Times and was also awarded a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur for her contribution to Franco-Irish relations. In 2020, she published the best-selling memoir Love in a Time of War, My Years with Robert Fisk. Eve Patten is Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and Professor of English at Trinity College, Dublin. She lectures and writes in the area of nineteenth and twentieth-century British and Irish literary history and has a special interest in the literature of war. Her most recent book is Ireland, Revolution, and the English Modernist Imagination (2022), and previous publications include Imperial Refugee: Olivia Manning's Fictions of War (2012), and, as co-editor with Richard Pine, Literatures of War (2008).

Recorded April 20, 2023. A lunchtime discussion featuring Professor Premesh Lalu (University of the Western Cape) in conversation with Professor Eve Patten (Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub). Professor Lalu will discuss his new book ‘Undoing Apartheid', which he worked on while a visiting fellow at the Hub in 2019. Premesh Lalu is the former Director of the DSI-NRF Flagship on Critical Thought in African Humanities of the Centre for Humanities Research. Following an MA from the University of the Western Cape, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Doctoral Fellowship to read towards a doctorate in History at the University of Minnesota. In 2003 he successfully defended a doctoral dissertation titled “In the Event of History”. After sixteen years in the Department of History as an Associate Professor, Lalu was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to convene a fellowship programme on the Study of the Humanities in Africa. He was promoted to full professor upon being appointed as Director of the Centre for Humanities Research in 2008. Eve Patten is Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and Professor of English at Trinity College, Dublin. A scholar in nineteenth and twentieth-century Irish and British literature and cultural history, she is editor of the volume of essays, Irish Literature in Transition, 1940-1980 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and author of a monograph on representations of Ireland's revolutionary decade in English writing, Ireland, Revolution, and the English Modernist Imagination (Oxford University Press, 2022). She is also co-PI on the Ireland's Border Culture project, funded by the HEA Shared Island programme.

Our guest today is the prolific scholar and Arsenal supporter Gary D. Sheffield. Gary is Visiting Professor at the Humanities Research Institute of the University of Buckingham and Professor Emeritus at the University of Wolverhampton, where he set up the First World War Programme. He was previously Chair of War Studies at the University of Birmingham and Professor of Modern History at King's College London. He also served as Land Warfare Historian on the Higher Command and Staff Course at the Joint Services Command and Staff College. Gary earned his undergraduate and MA degrees in History at the University of Leeds and went on to take his PhD at King's College, London. Gary's list of publications is extensive. He is the author or editor of more than 15 books. His book Forgotten Victory: The First World War – Myths and Realities was a bestseller. Gary's contribution to The British General Staff: Innovation and Reform earned him a share of the Templer Medal in 2003. The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army was selected as a military book of the year by The Times and shortlisted for the Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military Literature. Among Gary's numerous other books are Leadership in the Trenches: Officer-Man Relations, Morale and Discipline in The British Army in the Era of the First World War, The Somme: A New History, A Short History of the First World War, and The First World War in 100 Objects. He is currently completing a project titled Civilian Armies: British and Dominions Soldiers' Experience in the Two World Wars, which will be published by Yale University Press. Gary is a member of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts, he sits on the Advisory Boards of the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, the Academic Advisory Panel of the National Army Museum, and the Academic Advisory Board of the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Trust. He also served as the President of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and the Honorary President of the Western Front Association. Finally, Gary frequently appears on television and documentaries, writes for the press, and speaks to podcasters like us. We can't thank Gary enough for taking the time with us. Join us for a delightful chat about reading military history as a kid, Tony Adams, battlefield tours, curries, and Bob Dylan. You'll enjoy this one. Check out the @MHPTPodcast Swag Store! Rec.: 03/03/2023

A seminar by Dr Kata Szita (TCD) as part of the School of Creative Arts Research Forum. Recorded October 3, 2022. Dr Kata Szita is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and ADAPT Centre of Excellence for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Her research involves the cognitive studies of immersive digital media technologies and she has authored a wide range of publications on attention, recollection, narrative engagement, and social behaviour in terms of smartphone spectatorship, augmented reality, cinematic virtual reality, social virtual reality, and the Metaverse. Currently, she leads interdisciplinary and cross-sector research projects on user experiences in social virtual reality and augmented reality and, as a collaborator, is involved in studies of the cognitive processing of fictional information, virtual youth behaviour, and digital personas. Szita is guest editor for PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality (MIT Press). The School of Creative Arts Research Forum meets weekly on Mondays from 10am-11am in the Neill Lecture Theatre in Trinity Long Room Hub. The aim of the Forum is to provide a space for School researchers, both staff and postgraduate students, to share their ideas in an informal and supportive environment. It is also an opportunity for the School to hear about the research of colleagues both from within TCD and from outside the university who share our research interests. In line with the research agenda of the School, talks encompass traditional research and practice-based research.

Join Robert Child for a conversation with British historian and Sunday Times bestselling author Saul David. Saul is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham's Humanities Research Institute. From 2009 to 2021, he was Professor of Military History at the University of Buckingham and Programme Director for Buckingham's London-based MPhil in Military History. His book is called, Devil Dogs: King Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines: From Guadalcanal to the Shores of Japan. Watch a video podcast excerpt from this episode on our Point of the Spear Youtube Channel https://youtu.be/vjvLIJWNLe4 Check out an earlier WWII Episode, Fierce Valor with Jared Frederick. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6xCS2S3DzliIVSZQZLHFtM?si=3d17bada350b4d1b Watch our new military history documentary, Weather and Warfare, FREE on Tubi the streaming service from Fox. LINK https://tubitv.com/movies/680635/weather-and-warfare-millennia-to-modern-time Sign up for our twice monthly email Newsletter SOCIAL: YouTube Twitter Facebook Website --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/robert-child/support

In this essay, Nathaniel Andrews explores both the role of children within anarchist activism, and anarchist understandings of childhood, focusing specifically on the Argentinian city of Rosario, in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Nathaniel Andrews is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute. His most recent publication is a co-authored article with Professor Richard Cleminson, titled ‘Introduction: New Directions in Spanish Anarchist Studies', which forms part of a co-edited special issue of the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies . He is currently working on his first monograph: a study of prefigurative politics in the Spanish and Argentinian anarchist movements, between 1890 and 1930. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro Artwork by Sam G.

Wednesday, 6 April 2022, 12:30 – 1:30pm ‘“They attached no blame to the staff in charge”: The Role of Dublin Workhouse Officials in Preventing and Contributing to Institutional Mortality, 1872-1913' a seminar by Shelby Zimmerman (TCD) as part of the Medical and Health Humanities Lunchtime Seminar Series in association with Trinity Long Room Hub. The Trinity College Dublin Medical and Health Humanities Initiative brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplines including history, philosophy, sociology, drama, health sciences, religion, cultural studies, arts, literature and languages. Medical and health humanities seeks to provide insights into the cultural and social contexts within which diverse but interrelated concerns such as the human condition, the individual experience of illness and suffering, and the way medicine is (or was) practiced, might be understood. The Trinity College Dublin Medical and Health Humanities initiative seeks to cultivate a richer understanding of the interactions and synergies between practices and discourses of wellness, health or medicine and the arts, humanities or culture through interdisciplinary research and education. During the Great Famine from 1845 to 1852, the Irish workhouse was associated in the public consciousness with dying and the mistreatment of the dead. By the end of the nineteenth century, the role of the workhouse shifted from poor relief to medical relief and thus became the largest and most accessible medical institution for the poor. Despite the workhouse's newfound status as a medical institution, it was still plagued by the reputation of its Famine counterpart. Through an analysis of the North and South Dublin Unions, this paper will examine whether that stigma was warranted in post-Famine Dublin. It will look at the treatment of inmates to ascertain whether the Board of Guardians and medical officers were complicit in mortality rates. It will analyse ward management and staffing to determine whether negligence was inherent or a reflection on the medical officers. This paper will also examine how the Guardians responded to infectious disease and whether it revealed different attitudes towards different classes of inmates. Ultimately, this paper will determine if workhouse staff sought to reduce institutional mortality or contributed to the workhouse's stigma. Speaker Biography Shelby Zimmerman is a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin studying the medicalisation of death in the Dublin city workhouses from 1872 to 1920 centring on the role the workhouse played in Dublin's medical landscape for the sick and dying poor. She is primarily interested in the history of medicine, institutions, the Irish Poor Law, poverty, and death. She received her BS in History and Museum Studies from Towson University in Maryland and her MPhil with Distinction from Trinity College Dublin in Modern Irish History. Shelby is an Early Career Researcher in the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute. She is also the co-curator of the Little Museum of Dublin's upcoming exhibition on Victorian medicine.

Christopher Pastore is Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany, State University of New York.Focusing on early American environmental history, his most recent book, titled Between Land and Sea: The Atlantic Coast and the Transformation of New England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), examines the Narragansett Bay watershed from first European settlement through the early nineteenth century. As a journalist, he has contributed articles on sailing or related topics to the New York Times, Boat International, Cruising World, Newport Life, Offshore, Restoration Quarterly, Real Simple, and Sailing World, where he worked as Associate Editor. He also served as Editor of American Sailor and Junior Sailor, the official publications of U.S. Sailing, the sport's national governing body. In 2005 (paperback 2013), he published a biography of Nathanael Herreshoff titled Temple to the Wind: The Story of America's Greatest Naval Architect and His Masterpiece, Reliance (Lyons Press, 2005).Christopher Pastore holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in American History and M.S. in college teaching from the University of New Hampshire as well as a B.A. in Biology from Bowdoin College and M.F.A. in nonfiction Creative Writing from the New School for Social Research, where he has taught courses in the Writing Program for fourteen years. During the 2018-2019 academic year he was a Marie Curie COFUND Fellow at the Trinity College Dublin Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute.Learn more about Christopher at: www.christopherpastore.comChristopher's faculty page: https://www.albany.edu/history/faculty/christopher-pastoreYou may order his book Between Land and Sea at: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674281417Original music for podcast composed by Nela Ruiz Music Soundtrack Composer For Films | Nela Ruiz Music Composer (nelaruizcomposer.com) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused immense human suffering, a refugee crisis, the renewed spectre of nuclear attack, and now, international outrage at evidence of war crimes. How is an international media reporting on these horrific developments? This panel discussion assesses the role of traditional war correspondents, citizen journalists, and open-source information, to ask how the ‘news' stands witness to the atrocities in Ukraine. Paul Cunningham is the Political Correspondent (and former European Correspondent and Environmental Correspondent) for RTÉ News and Current Affairs. He has been reporting on the war in Ukraine, including live from the Medyka border crossing between Ukraine and Poland. Paul is an award-winning journalist and has covered conflict in a number of countries, including Bosnia, Lebanon, Kosovo, Algeria, Pakistan/Afghanistan, Guatemala, Nepal, Darfur, and Northern Ireland. Orysia Kulick is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Political Studies and German and Slavic Studies at the University of Manitoba. She previously held postdoctoral fellowships at Trinity College Dublin, where she worked on an EU-funded research project exploring the cultural heritage of dissent in former socialist countries, and the University of Toronto. She was the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship to Ukraine, where she researched civic mobilisation in the 2004 presidential elections. Orysia is currently working on a book provisionally title How Ukraine Ruled Russia: Regionalism and Party Politics after Stalin and a microhistory of the concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora. Tanya (Tetyana) Lokot is Associate Professor in Digital Media and Society at the School of Communications in DCU. She researches threats to digital rights, networked authoritarianism, internet freedom, and internet governance in Eastern Europe. She is the author of Beyond the Protest Square: Digital Media and Augmented Dissent (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), an in-depth study of protest and digital media in Ukraine and Russia. Ciaran O'Connor is a disinformation and extremism researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, working in the Research and Policy unit, where he tracks and monitors disinformation, hate and extremism online. He specialises in researching extremist activity and communication across open and closed networks and platforms through the use of open source research methodologies. Mark Little is the Schuler Democracy Forum Media Fellow in the Trinity Long Room Hub and co-founder and CEO of Kinzen. Mark spent 20 years as a reporter and presenter for RTÉ and won the Irish TV Journalist of the Year award for his reporting from Afghanistan in 2001. He was the founder of Storyful, the world's first social news agency, and the former Vice President for Media in Europe and Managing Director of Twitter International Headquarters. In 2017, Mark co-founded Kinzen, which combines editorial skills and artificial intelligence to protect online conversations and communities. The event is hosted by the Schuler Democracy Forum in the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. It is part of the 'Behind the Headlines' discussion series supported by the John Pollard Foundation.

Frances Haugen is a data engineer, and formerly a product manager with Facebook. In 2021, she disclosed tens of thousands of Facebook's internal documents to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In October 2021, she told the US Congress that Meta's "leadership know how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people". She has testified to the US Congress, the European Parliament, the UK Parliament, and the Oireachtas, that government regulation of Meta is increasingly necessary. In her conversation with Jess Kelly, she will discuss what changes Meta can make, and what regulations legislators can introduce, to make platforms safer. About Frances Haugen Frances Haugen is a specialist in algorithmic product management, having worked on ranking algorithms at Google, Pinterest, Yelp and Facebook. She was recruited to Facebook to be the lead Product Manager on the Civic Misinformation team, which dealt with issues related to democracy and misinformation, and later also worked on counter-espionage. During her time at Facebook, Ms. Haugen became increasingly alarmed by the choices the company makes prioritizing their own profits over public safety and putting people's lives at risk. As a last resort and at great personal risk, Haugen made the courageous decision to blow the whistle on Facebook. The initial reporting was done by the Wall Street Journal in what became known as ‘The Facebook Files.' Since going public, Haugen has testified in front of the US Congress, UK and EU Parliaments, French Senate and National Assembly and has engaged with lawmakers internationally on how best to address the negative externalities of online platforms. Haugen has filed a series of complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to how Meta, Facebook's parent company, has allegedly misled the public and investors on issues such as climate and COVID-19 disinformation. The complaints also argue that the platform has misled investors about its role in the January 6 Capital attack, hate speech removal, the impact of its services on teens, and the use of the platform for human trafficking. About Jess Kelly Jess Kelly is Newstalk's Technology Correspondent and hosts Tech Talk on Saturday evenings at 5pm. ​Having worked at Newstalk for over ten years, Jess' role has seen her travel across the globe reporting from some of the biggest conferences in the world including; CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Jess is an experienced MC and has conducted interviews with high-profile guests such as YouTube mega-star Casey Nesitat and former secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff. In 2019, Jess Kelly was awarded the Irish Tatler Woman of the Year Media Award. The event is presented by the Technologies, Law and Society Research Group in the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin and the Schuler Democracy Forum in the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute. Find out more here https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/Schuler-Democracy-Forum.php

Tuesday, 15 February 2022, 7 – 8:15pm A panel discussion organised by Trinity Centre for Resistance Studies in partnership with the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute to mark the start of a new multiannual discussion series ‘Literature and Resistance.' The discussion will be chaired by Professor Darryl Jones. Literature, says Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's Ulysses, is “the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man”. For many writers, in many different times, places, and contexts, to affirm has been to resist. In the first event in the Hub's new signature series, Literature and Resistance, four Trinity experts consider the ways that literature – and the act of writing itself – can function or be understood as resistance. Exploring what this means for writers, readers, and critics, they will consider issues including freedom of expression, the circulation, censorship and survival of literary texts, and the aesthetics of protest, dissent, and opposition. Panellist Julie Bates Dr Julie Bates, Assistant Professor in Irish Writing, School of English, Trinity College Dublin. Mary Cosgrove Professor in German, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies, Trinity College Dublin. Jude dal Fernando Dr Jude Lal Fernando is Assistant Professor inSchool of Religion, Theology and Peace Studies, Trinity College Dublin. Carlo Gébler Carlo Gébler Adjunct Professor in Creative Writing, Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College Dublin. About the Trinity's Centre for Resistance Studies The Centre for Resistance Studies fosters interdisciplinary research in Trinity College Dublin in relation to the various types and forms of resistance and its cognate notions, including opposition, dissent, resilience, protest, and non-conformism. https://www.tcd.ie/resistance/about/

A keynote lecture delivered by Hugh Haughton as part of the 'Derek Mahon: Conference to celebrate poet's life and work'. The life and work of poet Derek Mahon will be celebrated (Friday 19th & Saturday 20th November) in Trinity College Dublin. A conference, which is being held in advance of what would have been the poet's 80th birthday, has been organised by Trinity's School of English in association with Poetry Ireland and will be hosted in Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. To mark the occasion an online exhibition entitled Derek Mahon: Piecing Together the Poet has been organised jointly by the Library of Trinity College Dublin and the Stewart Rose Library of Emory University (home to the principal Mahon archive). The exhibition features readings by Mahon himself and Stephen Rea along with specially commissioned interviews with friends and fellow poets. The exhibition also features atmospheric photographs by John Minihan.

A keynote lecture delivered by Edna Longley as part of the 'Derek Mahon: Conference to celebrate poet's life and work'. The life and work of poet Derek Mahon will be celebrated (Friday 19th & Saturday 20th November) in Trinity College Dublin. A conference, which is being held in advance of what would have been the poet's 80th birthday, has been organised by Trinity's School of English in association with Poetry Ireland and will be hosted in Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. To mark the occasion an online exhibition entitled Derek Mahon: Piecing Together the Poet has been organised jointly by the Library of Trinity College Dublin and the Stewart Rose Library of Emory University (home to the principal Mahon archive). The exhibition features readings by Mahon himself and Stephen Rea along with specially commissioned interviews with friends and fellow poets. The exhibition also features atmospheric photographs by John Minihan.

A keynote lecture delivered by Lucy Collins as part of the 'Derek Mahon: Conference to celebrate poet's life and work'. The life and work of poet Derek Mahon will be celebrated (Friday 19th & Saturday 20th November) in Trinity College Dublin. A conference, which is being held in advance of what would have been the poet's 80th birthday, has been organised by Trinity's School of English in association with Poetry Ireland and will be hosted in Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. To mark the occasion an online exhibition entitled Derek Mahon: Piecing Together the Poet has been organised jointly by the Library of Trinity College Dublin and the Stewart Rose Library of Emory University (home to the principal Mahon archive). The exhibition features readings by Mahon himself and Stephen Rea along with specially commissioned interviews with friends and fellow poets. The exhibition also features atmospheric photographs by John Minihan.

Tuesday, 21 September 2021, 4 – 5pm A seminar by Professor Eve Patten, Trinity College Dublin, as part of the School of English Staff Postgrad Seminar Series in association with Trinity Long Room Hub. In 1919 D.H. Lawrence wrote of Ireland as ‘a blank round O on the map – a sort of nowhere', yet Irish references permeate his later novels, often in relation to his fears of an English revolution. This talk traces his Irish connections and considers them in the broader context of English-Irish literary relations after the First World War. Professor Eve Patten lectures in the School of English, TCD, and is Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. Her most recent publication is, as editor, Irish Literature in Transition, 1940-1980 (Cambridge UP, 2020), and her talk is from Ireland, Revolution, and the English Modernist Imagination, forthcoming from Oxford UP.

This special centenary joint symposium will address the cultural, political and social legacies of Irish partition in 1921. The symposium consists of two panels: the first, from Trinity College, Dublin, will discuss the cultural and literary legacies of partition; the second, from Queen's University, Belfast, will cover the political and social consequences. Each panel consists of three speakers who will present for 10 minutes each, followed by audience Q and A. The symposium is hosted by the Trinity Long Room Hub. Chair: Ciaran O'Neill Ciaran O'Neill is Associate Professor in Nineteenth Century History at Trinity College Dublin and Deputy Director of Trinity Long Room Hub. He is editor (with Finola O'Kane Crimmins) of the forthcoming MUP collection, Ireland, Slavery and the Caribbean (2022) and is currently completing a second monograph, entitled Life in a Palliative State (OUP, 2022). His current research projects focus on the Eastern Caribbean. Speakers: Stephen O'Neill Stephen O'Neill's monograph, Irish Culture and Partition 1920-1955 is forthcoming with Liverpool University Press. From 2019-2020 he was an National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the University of Notre Dame's Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies. A graduate of Queen's University Belfast, he completed his PhD in the School of English at Trinity College in 2018. Stephen will discuss the early literature and culture of partition in Ireland, with a focus on the 1920s. Guy Woodward Guy Woodward is the author of Culture, Northern Ireland, and the Second World War, published by OUP in 2015. He completed his doctorate and IRC-funded postdoctorate in Trinity College, and is currently Post-Doctoral Research Associate on the project ‘The Political Warfare Executive, Covert Propaganda and British Culture' in the Department of English Studies, Durham University. He will talk on ‘Border crossings in Irish wartime writing'. Eve Patten Eve Patten is Professor in Trinity's School of English and is currently Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. She is the editor of Irish Literature in Transition, 1940 – 1980 (CUP, 2020) and is completing a monograph, Ireland, Revolution and the English Modernist Imagination, for OUP. She will discuss depictions of the Irish border in English film and literature.

HUMAN+ presents 'The New Cybernetics? Making sense of the 21st century' a lecture by Professor Genevieve Bell, Director of the 3A Institute, Florence Violet McKenzie Chair, and a Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University. Organised by Human+ project in partnership with the Trinity Long Room Hub and ADAPT, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Digital Content Innovation at Trinity College Dublin. Professor Bell who is described as an anthropologist, technologist and futurist, is best known for her work at the intersection of cultural practice and technology development. She has spent over 15 years at Intel where she was promoted to Vice President for Strategy and was also elected as a senior fellow, the first female to achieve such a prestigious position in the company. She now heads up a new institute at the Australian National University called the Autonomy, Agency and Assurance (3A) Institute, launched in September 2017 focusing on “building a new applied science around the management of artificial intelligence, data, technology and their impact on humanity''. About HUMAN+ HUMAN+ is an international and interdisciplinary fellowship programme led by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and ADAPT, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Digital Content Innovation at Trinity College Dublin, and supported by the prestigious European Commission (EC) Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Action. Find out more about Human+ here

Wednesday, 10 March 2021, 7 – 8pm A panel discussion as part of the ‘Sonic Spaces' series. Discourse around gender and sound often reflects biases about who should be allowed to take up sonic space: from historical assumptions that women's voices were unsuitable for the radio, to contemporary biases in institutional policies that work to exclude the work of women in the music industry, as well as continued critiques of female speaking voices for expressing unappealing vocal traits like “uptalk” and “vocal fry”. This event will bring together a diverse panel to discuss these and other ways in which sonic spaces can reflect broader social and cultural issues around gender and representation: Dr. Megan McGurk, host of the popular podcast and film club, “Sass Mouth Dames”, devoted to women who ruled the Hollywood box office from the 1930s-1950s; Dr. Ann Cleare, a multi-award-winning composer and Assistant Professor in Trinity's Music and Media Technologies programme who will introduce “Sounding the Feminists,” an Irish-based collective committed to promoting and publicising the creative work of female musicians; and Dr. Jilly Boyce Kay, Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester and author of Gender, Media and Voice (2020), who will discuss the ways that feminist voices on television were construed as “domestic nags” in the 1970s. The panel will be chaired by Dr. Ciara Barrett, a scholar of gender and screen media and lecturer in film studies with the Dingle Hub and Sacred Heart University. ‘Sonic Spaces' is organised by Jennifer O'Meara, Department of Film, as part of the Creative Arts Practice Research theme. The series considers the creative possibilities of audio and sound culture as they relate to issues of society, technology, the environment and the body. It aims to encourage the academic and broader community to reflect on our relationship to listening and its significance. ‘Sonic Spaces' is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.

I'm delighted to be joined by the wonderful and highly knowledgeable Dr. Ed Stevens for this episode on teacher's professional identity. Ed is Manager of the Arts & Humanities Research Institute at King's College London having previously been Deputy Head of Public Engagement at the University of Bath. He has recently completed a professional doctorate in Education, where he explored how educators' professional identities may be transformed by, and transform, community engaged research. In this episode Ed helps us to delve further into the language teacher beliefs we explored in Episode 31. For full details a list of these strategies, check out the programme notes with further information and links to research and resources at www.liamprinter.com/podcast. Are you a regular listener and enjoying The Motivated Classroom podcast? Join me on my patreon page here. Follow The Motivated Classroom on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation with the hashtag #MotivatedClassroom Keep sharing and spreading the word. I'd love to know what you think, please get in touch or leave me a review

Thursday, 18 February 2021, 7 – 8pm A panel discussion as part of the 'Trinity and the Changing City' Series in partnership with Trinity Long Room Hub. This panel discussion will focus on the artistic representation of refugees and direct provision. It will include as speakers Vukasin Nedeljkovic, Dr Bisi Adigun, Bulelani Mfaco, and Dr Roja Fazaeli. Vukasin Nedeljkovic compiled an archive of photographs while in direct provision and afterwards to document the conditions in Direct Provision. Vukasin Nedeljkovic holds a Masters in Visual Arts Practice at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Arts, Design and Technology. He will present images from his archive. Dr Bisi Adigun (adjunct lecturer in drama, TCD and Senior Lecturer in Bowen University, Iwo Nigeria) will speak about his work with Arambe Theatre Company in bringing awareness of African immigrant experiences to Irish audiences through his work as a director and writer. His adaptation, co-written with Roddy Doyle, of a Nigerian Playboy of the Western World, was presented at the Abbey Theatre. Bulelani Mfaco is a South African refugee who has spent several years in Direct Provision in Ireland after receiving a Masters degree from UCD. He has been a representative for MASI, the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, on the government's expert group tasked with reforming direct provision. Dr Roja Fazaeli (Middle Eastern Studies, TCD) will speak about her work with refugees and the importance of TCD to become a university of sanctuary. Dr Fazaeli has served on the boards of Amnesty International, the Irish Refugee Council, and the Irish Immigrant Council. Steve Wilmer (Professor Emeritus in Drama, TCD) will chair the panel. Trinity and the Changing City is organised by the Identities in Transformation research theme, led by Daniel Faas, Department of Sociology, and is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.

Wednesday, 10 February 2021, 7 – 8pm A panel discussion as part of the ‘Sonic Spaces' series. From the soothing sounds of lapping waves and bird song, to the uncomfortable disruption of construction work and traffic, our daily lives are subject to a wide range of natural and man-made environmental sounds. The impact of such sounds on human well-being has led to a range of interventions in recent years. These include an EU directive to examine public noise exposure through the creation of noise maps, and artistic initiatives to introduce professional live music into hospital settings to improve patients' experience. This event will bring together a multi-disciplinary panel to discuss a range of works that emerge from, or aim to benefit, our experience of listening in natural, urban and social environments: Laurence Gill, Professor in Environmental Engineering at Trinity, and composer Norah Walsh who will discuss their collaboration on ‘Inception Horizon,' which used an understanding of the movement of water through limestone as the basis of a choral piece inspired by a karst cave system in County Clare; Antonella Radicchi, an architect and scholar based at TU Berlin, and Simon Jennings, Executive Scientist in the Environment Section of Limerick County Council, who will introduce the ‘Hush City' app which empowers people to identify and assess quiet areas in cities including Limerick; and Gráinne Hope, an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at Trinity's Global Brain Health Institute, who will discuss her work as founder and artistic director of ‘Kids' Classics', Ireland's leading music in healthcare organization. The panel will be chaired by Jimmy Eadie, an artist-engineer based in Trinity's Electronic & Electrical Engineering programme, who works within the field of recording, production and sound design. ‘Sonic Spaces' is organised by Jennifer O'Meara, Department of Film, as part of the Creative Arts Practice Research theme. The series considers the creative possibilities of audio and sound culture as they relate to issues of society, technology, the environment and the body. It aims to encourage the academic and broader community to reflect on our relationship to listening and its significance. ‘Sonic Spaces' is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.

An 'in conversation' event featuring Dr Lilith Acadia and hosted by Professor Eve Patten, Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub. Dr Acadia will discuss her career and her latest research, as well as her time with the Trinity Long Room Hub as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Fellow for 2019–20, in association with Trinity's Identities in Transformation Research Theme. Dr Lilith Acadia Dr Acadia is an Assistant Professor of Literary Studies at National Taiwan University (A.B. Smith College, PhD UC Berkeley) who recently completed a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Cofund Fellowship at the Trinity College Dublin Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute.

Wednesday, 2 December 2020, 7 – 8pm A panel discussion as part of the ‘Sonic Spaces' series. Wind-up music boxes; phonograph cylinders; gramophones; microphones; radio; magnetic tape; compact discs; MP3 players; synthetic voices. These are just a few of the sound technologies that have framed our experience of listening since the 19th century until the present day. And while audio transmission and recording processes have increasingly moved from analogue to digital systems, the cross-disciplinary nature of sound technologies remains. Frequently dependent on the technical expertise of audio engineers, such technologies heavily shape the media industries and, indeed, our daily lives. This event will bring together a diverse panel of experts to discuss their experiences of employing sound technologies in creative ways: Enda Bates, deputy director of Trinity's Music and Media Technologies programme, who will discuss his use of spatialized audio in 360-degree music videos; Zeynep Bulut (Queen's University Belfast) will discuss the collaborative research initiative Map a Voice, which explores sonic and social interactions between voice and environment; Mattia Cobianchi (Goldsmiths University and acoustic engineer at Bowers & Wilkins) on his historical sound project ‘London Street Noises'; and Neasa Ní Chiarain, from Trinity's Phonetics & Speech Laboratory, who will discuss the ABAIR.ie Irish language learning website, and the development of synthesized voices for Irish. The panel will be chaired by Linda Doyle, Professor of Engineering & The Arts at Trinity, and the founder Director of the SFI Research Centre CONNECT, a national research centre focused on telecommunications. ‘Sonic Spaces' is organised by Jennifer O'Meara, Department of Film, as part of the Creative Arts Practice Research theme. The series considers the creative possibilities of audio and sound culture as they relate to issues of society, technology, the environment and the body. It aims to encourage the academic and broader community to reflect on our relationship to listening and its significance. ‘Sonic Spaces' is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.

A panel discussion as part of the 'Trinity and the Changing City' Series in association with Trinity Long Room Hub. A follow-up to our social class panel in last year's series: this panel will ask a focused question: how do we fix inequality in education in our city? Most fee-paying schools cluster in the Dublin commuter belt, and some of the most disadvantaged schools in the country can be found here too. Dublin is a microcosm for a wider problem in Ireland, and in education systems elsewhere. Speakers include: Joe Humphreys (Journalist, The Irish Times), Dr Delma Byrne (Maynooth University) and Professor Jan Skopek (Department of Sociology, Trinity), the evening will be chaired by Dr Ciaran O'Neill, Deputy Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub. Trinity and the Changing City is organised by the Identities in Transformation research theme, led by Daniel Faas, Department of Sociology, and is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. Find out more here https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/whats-on/details/2019/trinity-and-the-changing-city.php

A panel discussion as part of the ‘Sonic Spaces' series. A rise in the number of sound-focused cultural productions is one of the key trends to emerge in the performing arts in recent years, including the reworking of various literary works and figures in the direction of sound and music centred experiences. How do artists and practitioners adapt written works into coherent listening experiences? What principles of sound design guide the development of creative soundscapes for the performing arts? A panel of established creative practitioners discuss these and related issues: Evangelia Rigaki, Head of Music at Trinity, who will discuss her installation opera This Hostel Life (Irish National Opera, 2019) based on Melatu Uche Okorie's book of the same name; Kevin Gleeson, a prominent sound designer for theatre and film, who will discuss recent collaborations with Dead Centre (Hamnet, Beckett's Room, To Be A Machine); and Nicholas Johnson, Associate Professor of Drama at Trinity and co-founder of the Samuel Beckett Laboratory, who will discuss his recent dramaturgical work on Beckett's Room, a sound-focused play and co-production of Dead Centre and Gate Theatre. The panel will be chaired by Ruth Barton, Head of School of the Creative Arts at Trinity. ‘Sonic Spaces' is organised by Jennifer O'Meara, Department of Film, as part of the Creative Arts Practice Research theme. It is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.

Voices of the past, stories for the future: a Research Showcase from the 1641 Depositions Project How can we best tell our research stories and demonstrate the value of investing in Arts and Humanities projects? How can we be better prepared to capture a project's impact along the way? On the 10th anniversary of its launch, we example the legacy and impact of 1641 Depositions Project, a transdiciplinary digital humanities endeavour which transformed our understanding of how the controversial events of the mid-seventeenth century are recorded and remembered. Join Director Eve Patten in a lunchtime conversation with the Trinity lead PIs of the 1641 Depositions Project, Professor Jane Ohlmeyer and Professor Micheál Ó'Siochrú, Professor John Morrill from the University of Cambridge, and Dr Giovanna Lima, Trinity's Research Impact Officer for the Arts and Humanities, to understand the impact journey of a digital humanities project 10 years on. ‘Voices of the past, stories for the future: a Research Showcase from the 1641 Depositions Project' is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. The 1641 Depositions Project received funding from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, the Arts & Humanities Research Council in the UK and the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.

A panel discussion as part of the 'Trinity and the Changing City' Series. Unlike Cork, Waterford and Galway, Dublin is not a ‘healthy city'. Why is this? And what makes a city ‘healthy'? What policies and actions are in place? And how can evidence-based research inform such policies and actions? A panel of distinguished experts discusses these and related issues. Contributors include Anna Davies, Professor of Geography, Environment and Society at Trinity who will speak about findings from her ERC project SHARECITY in relation to physical/mental wellbeing from food sharing; Denise Cahill, Healthy Cities Coordinator Cork City, who will discuss her work in Healthy Cities including work with the Cork Food Policy Council; and Professor Richard Layte, Professor of Sociology at Trinity, who will examine the links between food environment and health. Trinity and the Changing City is organised by the Identities in Transformation research theme, led by Daniel Faas, Department of Sociology, and is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.

Unlocking the Archives: A Research Showcase from the Beyond 2022 Project Marking the anniversary of the terrible fire of June 30th, 1922, which destroyed seven centuries of Ireland's historical memory, the Beyond 2022 Project presents "Unlocking the Archives"—a virtual research showcase and panel discussion on the 98th anniversary of the fire (June 30th, 2020). Unlocking the Archives 2: Next Generation Access. The evening will include an introduction of the project by Dr Peter Crooks, Programme Director of Beyond 2022, responding to the project's research is Professor Guy Beiner, Burns Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies at Boston College, and Orlaith McBride, Director of the National Archives of Ireland, will discuss 'recovering the memory' of the Four Courts Blaze, and how archives can respond creatively to the challenge of commemoration within Ireland's Decade of Centenaries. The evening will be chaired by Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub. Join the conversation and come on a journey into the newly-constructed 'virtual search room' within Beyond 2022's Virtual Record Treasury. ​​​​​​​ • Dr Peter Crooks, Programme Director Beyond 2022 • Prof. Guy Beiner is Burns Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies, Boston College; Professor of Historyat Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel • Orlaith McBride is Director of the National Archives, having served as Director of the Arts Council for almost a decade Moderator: Professor Jane Ohlmeyer, Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. Unlocking the Archives: A Research Showcase from the Beyond 2022 Project is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts. Beyond 2022 is funded by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht under Project Ireland 2040.

As we move exclusively online for work, education and communication, our Behind the Headlines discussion explores how the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the immersion of technology into our lives. Covid-19 has given us a glimpse of what a technological-based future might look like. As society applies technology to recover from global events that trigger a shift in human thinking and behaviour, it is clear that the fundamental issues that we face today cannot be solved by one discipline, industry or approach alone. Amplified by social isolation, there has never been a better time to consider the implications of these virtual environments on human societies, both in the present crisis and beyond Covid-19. Our expert panel will explore a human-centred approach to technology innovation; how it can empower and disempower; and why technological design must begin and end with the human experience at the fore. This discussion marked the start of a new five year programme in Trinity, HUMAN+, cofunded by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Marie Slodowska-Curie Actions. The programme will appoint international researchers from across the arts, humanities and computer sciences to work together and with enterprise partners to develop human centric approaches to technology innovation that will have long term benefits for society. HUMAN+ is led by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute and ADAPT, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Digital Content Innovation at Trinity College Dublin. Panellists: Lorna Ross, is Chief Innovation Officer with VHI Health & Wellbeing. With a design career spanning 30 years, Lorna recently participated in RTE's Big Life Fix, challenging a group of leading designers, engineers, computer programmers and technology experts to create inventions that will transform people's lives. Until recently she was Group Director at the Fjord design studio inside Accenture's global R&D centre The Dock, where she founded and led the Human Insights Lab before her move to VHI in April 2019. Vincent Wade is Director of the ADAPT Centre for Digital Media Technology and Chair of Computer Science, School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin. His research focuses on intelligent systems, AI and Personalisation. As Director of ADAPT, Vincent heads a world leading research Centre uniquely focused across the life cycle of digital media, which pioneers technologies for media analytics, advanced machine learning, machine translation, media personalization, speech & multimodal interaction and eithics & privacy in media. Jennifer Edmond is Associate Professor of Digital Humanities and Director of Strategic Projects for the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences in Trinity College Dublin and the co-director of the Trinity Center for Digital Humanities. She has developed a significant profile in European research and research policy circles, and has led and coordinated a number of major EU projects around knowledge complexity, digital historical research, virtual research environments, and infrastructures for digital research in the arts and humanities. Ann Devitt, is Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Director of Research at the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin, and academic director for Learnovate. She is interested in technology enhanced learning and the use of computational, corpus and network science methods to examine language data. Learnovate is the the research and innovation centre focused on education tech funded by Enterprise Ireland and hosted in TCD. You can find out more about Human+ at our new website www.humanplus.ie/ For general enquires about Human+ contact humanplus@tcd.ie

A panel discussion as part of the 'Trinity and the Changing City' Series. Racist attacks in Dublin have been in the news recently, and for the first time for decades there is an organised far-right In Ireland. Yet racism is not a preserve of the far right but an everyday experience for a growing number of Dubliners. Considering the experiences of Dublin's ethnic minorities and travellers both in the labour market and everyday life, and discussing the growth of the far right online in Ireland, this session features Dr Eugenia Siapera, Professor of Information and Communication Studies and head of the ICS School at UCD, Dr Ebun Joseph of the Sociology Department in TCD and chair of AfSAI (African Scholars Association Ireland), Bulelani Mfaco of MASI (Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland) who is campaigning for the right to work of asylum seekers,and David Joyce of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission The session will be chaired by Dr David Landy, Director of the Masters in Race, Ethnicity, Conflict, Trinity College. Trinity and the Changing City is organised by the Identities in Transformation research theme, led by Daniel Faas, Department of Sociology, and is supported by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. Trinity College Dublin has been a key witness, over many centuries, to Dublin's development into the cosmopolitan city it is today. This multidisciplinary discussion series will look at the lived experience of Dublin's citizens through the prism of Trinity's Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences research. By drawing on historical, cultural, linguistic, sociological and economic perspectives, it will consider how we can understand a changing Dublin and influence plans for the city's future. Dublin has been transformed by the economic crash, the austerity measures that followed and recent improvements in aspects of the Irish economy, as well as wider issues such as displacement and migration. The city's built environment and economic, demographic and linguistic mix have all developed apace. But these changes, and their relationship to issues around religion, the environment, poverty, health, housing and governmental policy, have not generally been well represented in the media or in public discourse. There is a representative gap between the city in which Trinity resides, not least in terms of language, race and class, and the images and narratives of that city put forth in the broader culture. Trinity and the Changing City will seek to address and interrogate this gap, bringing internationally recognised scholars in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, from Trinity and further afield, together with key stakeholders and practitioners from across the city.

'And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently …' - Kitty O'Meara As health systems struggle to cope with the rapid spread of Covid-19, billions of people worldwide are currently living in some state of lockdown. Schools are closed. Movement is restricted. Physical interactions are limited to members of the same household. In the most extreme cases, permits are required to leave the house at all. In a new world of social distancing and #stayathome, access to green spaces and time outdoors is increasingly valued. Online concerts and digital exhibitions are opening up new virtual worlds. The arts are not only providing much-needed sources of distraction, but also the tools to process the trauma of the crisis. Humans are adapting and creating new routines. The lasting psychological impacts of the pandemic and the associated isolation and economic downturn, however, are not yet known. The fourth in a five-part series, this workshop will examine the implications of the Covid-19 on the everyday. Our speakers will discuss their daily lockdown routines, how their work has been shaped by the pandemic and why walking is a superpower. The floor will then be open for participants to respond: to ask questions and to widen the parameters of the conversation. Panellists Rita Duffy is currently Artist in Residence at the Trinity Long Room Hub. She is one of Northern Ireland's groundbreaking artists who began her work concentrating primarily on the figurative/narrative tradition. Her art is often autobiographical, including themes and images of Irish identity, history and politics. Read about Rita's Raft Project at the Trinity Long Room Hub here. Rishi Goyal is Director of Medicine, Literature and Society at Columbia University, and an Emergency Medicine doctor. He is broadly interested in the intersection of medicine and culture and is more specifically interested in the areas of medical cognition and identity and representation after illness. Shane O'Mara is a Professor of Experimental Brain Research and Director of the Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. His work explores brain systems supporting learning, memory, and cognition, and brain systems affected by stress and depression. He is the author of In Praise of Walking: The new science of how we walk and why it's good for us (2019). Resources Crises of Democracy curriculum Duffy, Rita. Art in a Time of Pandemic: Jogging in Lipstick. Goyal, Rishi. A Letter from the Emergency Room. Synapsis. May 15, 2020. About the series This is a special five-part series organised by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute in partnership with the Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University in response to the Covid-19 crisis.