11 - 20 of 102 results for: OSPOXFRD

What kinds of evidence exists to allow contemporary students to evaluate a country's history of human endeavor? What different roles do buildings, monuments, and records play in forming collective memory? What other kinds of cultural objects - like art, music, and literature - create and augment varying identities within political borders? What role does a nation's established record and its interpretations play in perpetuating particular perspectives?This course asks how and why British communities and institutions preserve and sustain their material record asking how monuments were built, used, and described. We shall explore how (the potentially collective) memories of Britain are gathered, categorized, described, made accessible and felt. We shall investigate how to read the traces of landscapes layered through time, and inquire about the work archives, museums, public monuments, and tourist sites do to testify to a past that was glorious for some and deeply oppressive and violent for others. The course will introduce students to the fundamental skills and methodological framework required for working with an informed humanities expertise; a professional expertise that is critical, recognizing complexity, different viewpoints, and open-ended interpretation. Students will learn to read and interpret archival sources, and to practice the description, analysis, and public-facing discussion of primary materials. Among the places we may visit are the Bodleian Library, Oxford History Centre, and the museums in Oxford; the British Library and the British Museum in London; Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire; Offa's Dyke (Shropshire); and a variety of monuments and preserved features in the local landscape.

This course engages with the work of most prominent English feminist thinkers (including founders of British feminist thought who were pioneers of feminism in the English speaking world), and will stage 'conversations' between them and influential feminist thinkers in the U.S.

Rich history of Oxford, the place in which students are studying; skills to become aware of the profound influences the experience of living and studying abroad can have on self-conceptions. Appreciation of study in a town with such a marvelous tradition of scholarship through understanding of the history of learning in Oxford. How Oxford came to be the university town it is today.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform society in a way that has not been seen before. AI can bring many positive benefits, such as allowing ideas to more flexibly cross language barriers, improve medical outcomes, and enhance the safety and efficiency of our transportation systems. However, as with the introduction with other technologies, there is the potential of negative consequences, such as job insecurity and the introduction of vulnerabilities that come with greater levels of automation. We will delve deeply into the core issues at stake that comes with the greater integration of AI into society. The course will be composed of discussion and guest lectures from industry leaders and academics associated with Oxford. Assignments include readings, class presentations, individual research projects, and essays. Field trips will include visits to London and Edinburgh.

The role of archaeological sites, expeditions and archaeologists in the intrigues of war from Britain's occupation of the Middle East, two world wars, through the Suez Crisis to the current conflicts involving ISIS and its destruction of heritage sites. Focus specifically on the historic Oxford connection using university archives and collections, as well as exploring current initiatives by Oxford scholars to document and preserve heritage during recent conflict in the Middle East. How have the British empire and British interests been served by archaeology, in the past and present, and how has that mission been entangled with struggles over religion, sovereignty, territory, oil, and antiquities.

This course is inspired by the ongoing pandemic and the interplay between the complex science of vaccine and drug development, science communication, and public policy. We will discuss the history of vaccines and pandemics/epidemics, the science and engineering of vaccine and therapeutic technologies, the regulatory process for development of novel vaccines and therapeutics, public policy related to medical and non-medical interventions. We will also touch on biotechnology entrepreneurship covering invention, business models, and business partnerships (e.g., BioNTech/Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca). In addition to the infectious disease focus, we will briefly cover how core discoveries in immunology have led to critical advancements in the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disorders. Throughout the course we will discuss how interdisciplinary collaboration is critical in the effective and equitable translation of scientific advancements. The course will be composed of discussions, guest lectures, and field trips integrating the unique local resources. Assignments will include readings, class presentations, individual research projects, and writings.

Introduction to contemporary analytic philosophy of language, examining some of its central concepts, including reference, meaning, and context. Students explore these concepts, by studying some of the major questions in the field, including: How do expressions esp. names secure their referents? What are the connections and differences between literal meaning and speaker meaning? What is the role of context in language? How philosophy of language impacts other areas in philosophy, by covering such topics as Meaning Externalism (metaphysics), Contextualism about 'know' (epistemology), and Propositional Attitudes (philosophy of mind).

It is not a coincidence that the first president of the Stanford House was Dr Geoffrey Tyack, a renowned historian of architecture: over centuries, the setting for the intellectual and creative activities at Oxford has been as important as the activities themselves. We are embodied creatures, so space affects the way we think and the way we feel - and Oxford uniquely offers a diverse open-air classroom to examine a thousand years' development of spaces used by people for multiple purposes as well as the history of people's responses to them. Answering Juhani Pallasmaa's call voiced in his famous work The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, we will attempt to break away from the study of space from the exclusive perspective of discourse analysis by treating our examples holistically as multisensory objects and by experiencing them directly, in situ, as a small group of scholars. E-motion about Oxford Seminar uses the wealth of the city's heritage to achieve two main objectives: one is to help students recognise and make sense of the main artistic and architectural styles and their key ingredients; the other is to apply environmental psychology and affect theory to explore the relationship between man-made space and emotions. After all, affect arises from relationships between people, between people and spaces, and between people and objects - it's about how things make us feel through interaction.

How English democracy developed historically. How did the "Mother of Parliaments" first get going? How did it survive repeated attempts by the monarch to make it subservient, ultimately turning the latter into a figurehead? How did laws, which were once royal decrees enforced by judges who served "at royal pleasure," become parliamentary statutes enforced by judges who held their offices "during good behavior." How did elections transform from affairs in which less than 10% of adult men could vote into mass elections with universal suffrage?