Humanities Society

Our Society

The Humanities Society is made up of a lively group of students, researchers and fellows, who come together throughout term to discuss exciting developments in the arts, humanities or social sciences.

Who can join

All College members (students, Fellows, Visiting Fellows, and scholars) are welcome to attend our events and join our society. The talks are also open to the wider University community and the general public. We define the Humanities in a broad sense to include history, religion, philosophy literature, languages, law, economics, political science, music and fine arts.

What we offer

We offer a programme of international and interdisciplinary interest, featuring talks on a range of cultural contexts and themes, from a range of historical periods and perspectives. The talks provide a platform both for eminent academics as well as early and mid-career scholars at the forefront of their disciplines.

Many of our speakers are from Cambridge, creating interactions between Wolfsonians and the wider scholarly community at the University, but we also invite speakers from further afield including, in recent years, from Italy, Germany, Israel, South Africa and the US.

How talks work

The talks are organised and coordinated by the Humanities Society Committee. We do our best to make our events informal and inclusive. For each event there is an opportunity to mix with the speaker and other attendees over drinks before and after the talk. Following the talk we usually take the speaker to Formal Hall, and College members (and their guests) are very welcome to join us and continue the conversation over dinner.

Michaelmas Term 2022

This term's Humanities Society talks take place as hybrid events (in the Gatsby Room and over Zoom) on Tuesdays during full term at 17.30. See below for a list of speakers this term.

Tue 24 Jan	Dr Bonnie Nadzam	Storytelling and the Pluriverse
Tue 31 Jan	Wayne Weaver	The Making of Jamaica’s ‘First Composer’: Rethinking Samuel Felsted (1743-1802)
Tue 14 Feb	Dr Anat Rosenberg	The Rise of Mass Advertising: Law, Enchantment and the Cultural Boundaries of British Modernity
Tue 21 Feb	Prof Keith Howard	The Curation of Musical Knowledge - The Royal Anthropological Institute Blacking Lecture
Tue 28 Feb	Dr Sonya Nevin	The Battle of Marathon: How a Battle Can Shape Culture
Tue 14 Mar	Prof Valeria Galimi	Ordinary violence and Street anti-Semitism in the French urban space: the role of the Abbé Lambert, mayor of Oran (1934-1941)

Committee Members

Please feel free to contact any of us if you have any questions about our events or suggestions for speakers.