Thursday 9 September 2004
Authority and Intertextuality in the Works of Ælfric
By Professor Joyce Hill, University of Leeds
Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture
Venue: The British Academy
Time: 5.30-6.30

The tenth-century Anglo-Saxon homilist Ælfric saw his vernacular writings as standing within the patristic tradition of textual authority, although modern source-study has increasingly demonstrated his use of Carolingian intermediaries. The lecture will demonstrate the compelling need to distinguish between immediate and ultimate sources and will show how such distinctions might systematically be established by modern scholars, who must necessarily engage with a multi-dimensional and richly intertextual body of source materials. The particular examples will be set within the larger framework of a discussion about the nature of textual authority in the early Middle Ages, which is the lecture’s principle purpose.

ABSTRACT

Friday 24 September 2004
Montaigne
By Professor Terence Cave, FBA, St John’s College, Oxford
Master-Mind Lecture
Venue: The British Academy
Time: 5.30-6.30

Do the Essais belong to philosophy, the history of ideas, or literature? In what ways do they represent the activities of the mind? And in what sense may Montaigne's arresting yet elusive mode of thought be said to be 'early modern'? This lecture will engage with his writing at close range in order to recover from it features of a mental landscape which looks familiar but is not yet our own. It will argue that Montaigne's claim to be ranked as a Master Mind rests primarily on his ability to imagine that world for us and give it linguistic substance.

ABSTRACT

Wednesday 6 October 2004
Early Globalisation: Transnational Anarchism as Practice and Mediated Imaginary in the Late Nineteenth Century
By Professor Benedict Anderson, Cornell University
Special Joint British Academy/Committee for South East Asian Studies Lecture/School of Oriental and African Studies
Venue: The Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS
Time: 5.30-6.30

Why did anarchism, which did not have a Karl Marx of its own, spread so rapidly and influentially around the world between the Paris Commune and the onset of the Great War? With half an eye on our own time, the talk will consider the role of massive transnational migrations, the consequences of high imperialism, the participation of alienated avant-garde intelligentsias, and the impact of the telegraph and the photograph in the early age of mass literacy and the popular press.

This special joint lecture will begin at 6.00 pm at the Brunei Galley Lecture Theatre, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 10 Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Wednesday 13 October 2004
The New Political Economy
By Professor Timothy Besley, FBA, London School of Economics and Political Science
Keynes Lecture in Economics
Venue: The British Academy
Time: 5.30-6.30

Political economy has been a thriving field in mainstream economics over the past fifteen years. The new political economy uses ideas from incentive theory to understand the interaction of political and economic forces in shaping policy. The aim of the lecture is to provide an overview of the achievements in this field in a way that is accessible to a wide audience. We will discuss the main theoretical ideas and the growing body of evidence that supports their relevance. It will also set these ideas in the history of economic thought. The lecture will demonstrate how these ideas have practical relevance in thinking about specific policy issues including on-going debates about the organisation of government and the role of the state.

ABSTRACT

Tuesday 19 October 2004
Nomad’s Progress
By Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, FBA
President, The Royal Society of Edinburgh
Isaiah Berlin Lecture
Venue: The British Academy
Time: 5.30-6.30

There was a time when the metaphor appropriate to the individual in search of moral and spiritual fulfilment was 'pilgrim'. The goal or telos of human life was known and identifiable; the problem was how to get there. From Plato's attempt to show us the way out of the Cave to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the problems of the journey were recognised, but the point of arrival was not, in these accounts, in dispute. This implied unity of vision has unravelled through the vagaries of post-Enlightenment life. The problem today is not simply 'how to get there', but rather where 'there' is. The metaphor of 'pilgrim' has lost its force and I wish to examine the effectiveness of two alternatives 'tourist' and 'pilgrim'.

Tuesday 19 October 2004
Patents and Public Health: Principle, Politics and Paradox
By Judge Edwin Cameron, Supreme Court of Appeal, South Africa
Inaugural British Academy Law Lecture
Venue: The Playfair Library Hall, University of Edinburgh
Time: 5.30-6.30

The inaugural British Academy Law Lecture will begin at 6.00 pm at the Playfair Library Hall, Old College, University of Edinburgh, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL

Wednesday/Thursday/Friday 20-22 October 2004
Ashkelon, Seaport of the Canaanites and the Philistines
By Professor Lawrence Stager, Harvard University
Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology
Venue: The British Academy

The Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology are a series of three lectures which will be delivered on this occasion on three successive days from Wednesday 20 October to Friday 22 October at 5.30 pm.

Wednesday 20 October 2004
Lecture 1: The Rise and Fall of the Canaanites (c. 1900-1175 B.C.)

During the first half of the second millennium B.C., Ashkelon was one of the largest and richest seaports in the Mediterranean, with commercial relations with countries as far away as Cyprus, Crete, Egypt, and Anatolia. Its massive ramparts form an arc of earthworks extending for more than a mile and a half, enclosing all but the seaward side of the city, which, in the Middle Bronze Age, spread over 150 acres (60 hectares), and held more than 12,000 inhabitants. The world’s oldest arched gateway led out of the city and down to the sea.

We shall examine the origins and spread of Canaanite culture in the light of recent archaeological discoveries in Ashkelon, relating to Canaanite military might, economic power, maritime religion, and social organisation. DNA analyses of human skeletal remains from the Middle and Late Bronze Age cemetery provide new insights into the marriage and inheritance patterns of their society

Comparative study of the archaeological remains from Ashkelon and from Avaris (Tell el-Dab`a), capital of the Hyksos, support the low chronology and shed light on the period when Canaanites ruled Egypt for nearly a hundred years (The Hyksos or Second Intermediate Period). The tables were turned in the Late Bronze Age when the Egyptians attacked Canaanite Ashkelon (known from Egyptian inscriptions and wall reliefs) and established a military garrison there (attested by archaeology).

Egypto-Canaanite control of Ashkelon ended when the Philistines took over during the reign of Ramesses III (1182-1151 B.C.).

Thursday 21 October 2004
Lecture 2: The Arrival of the Philistines

From the perspective of Ashkelon, we examine this non-Semitic culture, new to the shores of Canaan and compare the Philistine lifeways with those of the Canaanites, the Egyptians, and the Israelites, all of whom co-existed during part of the 12th century B.C., living within a few miles of one another.

Our excavations reveal fresh evidence for Philistine domestic houses and households, their eating and drinking habits, their commercial economy, and family religion centered on the earth goddess Gaia. The origin of the Philistines and the homeland from which they came come into sharper focus through the recent, complementary excavations of the Pentapolis sites: Ashdod, Ekron, and Ashkelon. Correlation of the stratigraphy from these three cities eliminates one of the anchor points for the so-called ‘low chronology’ of the Iron Age.

Friday 22 October 2004
Lecture 3: Ashkelon on the Eve of Destruction

We examine a royal winery and a marketplace in 7th century B.C. Ashkelon, complete with administrative centre, counting house, storage magazines, and a row of shops. The seaport thrived on trade with Judah, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Ionia and the Greek islands, and Egypt. The Philistines of Ashkelon performed a delicate balancing act between the two imperial powers, Assyria and Egypt, until the rise of the Neo-Babylonian empire.

According to archaeological evidence and the testimony of the prophet Jeremiah, the Philistines leaned too heavily on Egypt. In November-December (Kislev) 604 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar totally destroyed Ashkelon and Ekron, making the former a ‘tell forever’, according to the Babylonian Chronicle. The Philistines who survived, like the Jews after them, were exiled to Babylon. For nearly 75 years Ashkelon lay a desolate ruin. It was rebuilt, not by Philistines, who never returned from Mesopotamia, but by Phoenicians whom the Persians settled there c. 525 B.C

Tuesday 26 October 2004
The Prehistory of Chinese Music Theory
By Professor Robert Bagley, Princeton University
Elsley Zeitlyn Lecture on Chinese Archaeology and Culture
Venue: The British Academy
Time: 5.30-6.30

The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (d. 433 BC), excavated by Chinese archaeologists in 1978, contained thirty well-preserved musical instruments, among them sets of chimestones and bells that bear lengthy inscriptions concerning pitches and scales. These inscriptions, the earliest texts on music so far known from China, reveal a high level of theoretical sophistication, in particular a clear understanding of the chromatic scale. The lecture will describe the instruments and inscriptions, then, in an attempt to account for the music theoretical knowledge they embody, it will propose a hypothetical prehistory for Chinese music.

ABSTRACT

Tuesday 2 November 2004
The Future of Our Universities
By Lord Moser, FBA
Thank-Offering to Britain Fund Lecture
Venue: The British Academy
Time: 5.30-6.30

Our universities have been much in the news, which is no bad thing. But in the predominantly political context of public discussion, too much focus has been on student fees, and on widening the social intake of students.

Both issues are important. But what about the fundamental question: the role of universities? Obviously this lies in the combination of teaching and research, with everything else being by-products. The key question is whether current pressures – especially the unquestioned funding gap plus government interventions – are forcing universities to lose their way?

The lecture explores this risk, and seeks to find a vision for our university system as a whole.

ABSTRACT

Tuesday 9 November 2004
Imagining Pan-Islam: Religious Activism and Political Utopias
By Dr James Piscatori, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
Elie Kedourie Memorial Lecture
Venue: The British Academy
Time: 5.30-6.30

This lecture will look at the development of Islamic transnational sentiment from the abolition of the Caliphate early in the twentieth century.  The sense among Muslims that something has gone wrong with the broad community of faith, the umma, has been all-pervasive, but incapable of generating unity of purpose. Although the stirrings of cross-border networks have been noted, cosmopolitanism has not inevitably resulted. Pan-Islam has had an undeniable utility, however: political elites have used it to solidify their rule, and new counter-elites, the would-be revolutionaries, find in Islam the means to mount a formidable challenge to the post-imperial and even national orders.

Thursday 11 November 2004
Robert Graves and The White Goddess
By Dr Fran Brearton, Queen’s University, Belfast
Chatterton Lecture on English Poetry
Venue: The British Academy
Time: 5.30-6.30

Robert Graves’s The White Goddess (1948), was described by T. S. Eliot as a 'prodigious, monstrous, stupefying, indescribable book'. Read as a profession of faith in 'one story only', the book offers an interpretive model for Graves’s life and loves. But The White Goddess is about Graves's style as well as theme, a style which, with its rhythmical and syntactical complexities, its reiterations, repetitions and reversals, its playing of surface against depth, and its quality of apprehension, is genuinely innovative. The White Goddess is here re-read as offering insights into poetic form, thereby also affirming Graves’s significance to an understanding of twentieth-century poetry.

ABSTRACT

Tuesday 16 November 2004
Everybody Counts But Not Everybody Understands Numbers: the Unrecognised Handicap of Dyscalculia
By Professor Brian Butterworth, FBA
British Academy/British Psychological Society Annual Lecture
Venue: The British Academy
Time: 5.30-6.30

Poor numeracy is a serious educational and social problem. It is more of a handicap in employment than poor literacy. One of the most important causes of poor numeracy is dyscalculia, a selective congenital disability for arithmetic. Although the current best estimates put its prevalence at more than 5%, more than dyslexia, few parents, teachers, or government bodies recognise it, as they failed to recognise dyslexia thirty years ago. However, recent research has discovered that the dyscalculic’s painful struggle to acquire basic arithmetical facts and procedures seems to be due to a pathologically weak grasp of basic number concepts, despite normal intelligence, memory and language. This can be detected even in simple tasks that come easily to most of us, such as estimating small numbers of objects and comparing numbers. The brain systems underlying these tasks have now been identified, and there is evidence suggesting that these systems are abnormal in dyscalculics.

Thursday 9 December 2004
The Inquisition and The Renaissance
By Mr Alexander Murray, FBA, University College, Oxford
Raleigh Lecture on History
Venue: The British Academy
Time: 5.30-6.30

The terms ‘Inquisition’ and ‘Renaissance’ belong to our basic historical vocabulary. This is because we have taken them from their original milieu and ‘type-cast’ them (as villain and hero respectively) to serve our own political and ideological programmes. They are like slaves bought at a market and domesticated far from their real home. The lecture will seek to restore them to their home in the late medieval and early modern periods, and in doing so will reveal them as two aspects of a single phenomenon, the emergence – to use another term edging its way into our basic vocabulary – of the territorial nation state.

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