Empire, History and the Contemporary Global Order

This lecture discusses empire in its entirety across the millennia and across all the regions of the world. It presents an argument that power in its many manifestations is the core and essence of the empire. The lecture also seeks to address the concerns of both historians and students of international relations. It stresses the crucial significance of power in a way that is more familiar to international relations scholars than to many contemporary historians of empire. Finally, the lecture shows how important empire has been in shaping the contemporary global order, and that it still has much to tell about the nature of modern international politics.

Imagining Pan-Islam: Religious Activism and Political Utopias

This lecture gives an overview of religious activism and political utopias. It begins by detailing the emergence of a political symbol, pan-Islam. The second section focuses on how Muslim politics today is partly pre-occupied with contestation over this symbol. Pan-Islam emerged as an idea and a symbol that is conditioned by modern contexts. It is also seen to be shamelessly used and manipulated, but is still able to exercise a pull on the modern Muslim imagination.

The New Political Economy

This lecture discusses important issues that arise in the policy sphere. It is primarily concerned with extending the competence of economists to analyse issues that require some facility with economic and political decision-making. The lecture serves as a highly selective and personal view of the motivation behind the field and some of the key themes in the literature. It shows the value in focused research in asking a specific question and of using appropriate data. It also determines that the New Political Economy rises to specific challenges, is not about economic imperialism, and rarely discusses grand issues of states versus markets and democracy versus non-democracy.

Robert Graves and The White Goddess

This lecture discusses The White Goddess, a novel written by Robert Graves that was first published in May 1948. It is an intellectual and difficult book that has a toehold in many academic disciplines, including anthropology, literary studies, and Celtic studies. As an author, Graves has been described as the ‘bard’ of ‘an alternative society’ and as a ‘a unique figure in British literary life’. The lecture determines that The White Goddess can be both a help and a hindrance when it comes to looking at Graves' life and work. It also presents the literary techniques Graves used in the novel.

Nomad’s Progress

This lecture discusses the usefulness, the appropriateness, and the viability of the metaphor of pilgrimage, as it is applied in the post-twentieth century world to the search for moral and spiritual fulfilment. The lecture suggests some parallels with Isaiah Berlin's rejection of the central premise in utopian thought, where the idea of a perfect whole where all good things existed was coherent. It is also implied that there were parallels to some concerns in the recent work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Ernest Gellner; several themes that were central to their theses are identified.

The Future of Our Universities

This lecture discusses the broad ideas that underlie the Robbins Report, as well as its passionate belief in the crucial value of universities to society. It addresses four broad issues that were considered by both Robbins and Dearing. These issues are concerned with the overall number of students going into higher education, the possibility of financial backing, further expansion, and concerns regarding the relations between universities and the State. The lecture expresses a worry over the gradual degradation of the universities, and stresses that high-ranking officials should help solve the problem of continuous underfunding.

‘They Worship Death Here’: William Faulkner, Sanctuary and Hollywood

This lecture discusses William Faulkner's experiences in Hollywood, which he described as a place that worships death and not money. It shows that nearly all of his experiences in Hollywood were bad, but were eventually redeemed in part by friendships, most notably with director Howard Hawks. Faulkner also had a passionate affair with Meta Carpenter, Hawks' script clerk. Faulkner is shown to have never fully settled down or felt secure in Hollywood, and eventually things became worse for him as time went on. However, Faulkner was able to recognise the determining significance of Hollywood in his time and culture, and subsequently penned a number of novels and written works, including The Wild Palms. The lecture examines several of Faulkner's works that were written during his stay in Hollywood, most particularly Sanctuary, a notorious and controversial novel during that time.

Montaigne

This lecture presents a sketch of another kind of historical reading of the Essais. This reading might help in recovering at least something of the modes of thinking and writing that is peculiar to the period during which they were written. It states that Montaigne was often claimed to be distinctively ‘early modern’, since his mental landscape appeared to anticipate many of the features one would regard as belonging to the modern period. The modes of thinking and writing that characterise the Essais are also the focus of this lecture.

What Fates Impose: Facing Up to Uncertainty

This lecture discusses risk, specifically how people think, talk, and manage risk. It illustrates two propositions: thinking in terms of probabilities and the public receiving accurate and objective information about the risks. These propositions are illustrated by considering public policy about pensions as an example. The lecture also stresses that most public policy decisions are a matter of balancing risks. It determines that modelling and recognising risks means understanding the limits to a person's present knowledge, while communicating risk is about transparency.