The last of John Dupré’s lectures fell on a beautiful sunny Edinburgh day! It was followed by a succinct and passionate word of appreciation from Professor Stewart Brown. Below is the lecture summary and a response from PhD Student in Religious Studies Joseph Sedgwick. Aware that throughout the lectures he had been promoting the social […]

Dupré’s penultimate lecture of this Gifford series concerned human nature. Chaired by Professor of Natural Theology Mark Harris. After the summary we have two excellent students providing responses, Jenny Zhang, PhD Cand. in Philosophy and Samuel Horsley, a PhD Student in Religious Studies. A necessary part of belonging to the human species is to fit […]

Professor Dupré bravely faced his fourth lecture on a bank holiday Monday, to a well-attended audience. The Lecture was chaired by Professor Lesley McAra, which included interesting reflections on how the process framework might relate to the criminal justice system, and involved lively questions. A response by Msc English Literature Student Anand Narayanan Neelamana Sankarankuttan […]

The most celebrated scientific idea in biology- evolution, of course is fundamentally based on a process of change. Dupré wants to expand this process of change through applying a processual perspective. What follows is a summary of the lecture and a short response from Ade, a PhD student studying at the University of Edinburgh.  The […]

‘The very highest of which humankind is capable.’ Neiman believes this phrase is entirely applicable to Robeson. She points out that she had nevertheless not known of Robeson until her Chilean friend gifted her some albums in 1988, since his memory has been virtually erased in America. His voice was known to her but not […]

Do we need heroes? When I was a graduate student, one of my professors asked me whether I had any academic heroes. This question really threw me. I had no idea how to answer and took – in his perception at least – an inordinately long time to think about it. Eventually, I came out […]

The photo of Einstein sticking out his tongue captured public attention in his day and continues to represent popular opinion of him today. Neiman admitted that she had this image of him in her head when she took up the position of Director at the Einstein Forum, in fact, in 2000 she admits that she ‘didn’t […]

Professor Neiman started her lecture with the question- ‘was she beautiful or not beautiful?’ Henry James commented that she was hideous but he was ‘literally in love with this great horse-faced bluestocking.’ Was this just a preoccupation of the male gaze? Her voice and eyes were described as beautiful ‘positive light’, as if Eliot had […]

This blog gives a summary of Neiman’s third lecture in her series. The focus is on John Brown and it presented an overview of his life and actions and argued why he should be seen as a hero. Below the summary is a response from Kofi Akan Brown, a masters student in Religious Studies and […]