TRINITY TALKS
Trinity Talks offer a public platform for Trinity fellows and the broader academic community to share their latest research and thinking. Wide ranging in subject, from Brexit to poetry, and from international criminal justice to the visual arts, these highly informative and engaging talks are a chance to hear some of the leaders in their fields.
Trinity College is pleased to announce the launch of the third season of Events at the College – featuring a fantastic line-up of fascinating Trinity Talks on topical subjects of interest to students and the general public. The programme is open for everyone to attend – no specialist knowledge required.
We are particularly keen to engage our partners in schools who may have students studying subjects that link to these talk themes. Whilst there is usually a small charge to attend, we are offering free tickets to teachers, students and parents of young people who register with us in advance, from state schools in our linked areas. Tickets will be offered on a first come first served basis. Students are welcome to attend independently of their school but those under the age of 16 should attend with a parent who should also have a (free) ticket. To reserve tickets for any of the events listed below, please note the booking opening date and contact julia.paolitto@trinity.ox.ac.uk directly and include your name, address of your associated school and the number of tickets required in your email.
This term we are excited to have the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, talking about the role of the court in ongoing conflicts such as Ukraine and Gaza; disaster response expert Lucy Easthope talking about the lessons learned and challenges ahead for the UK after major events from Grenfell to the Covid pandemic; and early next year we will host a panel assessing the impact of Brexit five years on from formally leaving the European Union – featuring a panel of experts including Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Lewis.
The Trinity Talks Programme Karim Khan - No one above the law: the International Criminal Court in a world on fire
Thurs 7 November 2024–5:30pm, de Jager Auditorium
The International Criminal Court seeks to hold to account those guilty of some of the world’s worst crimes. Champions of the court say it deters would-be war criminals, bolsters the rule of law, and offers justice to victims of atrocities. But major governments including the USA, China and Russia are not ICC parties, and the ICC’s ongoing investigations of alleged crimes including arrest warrants in the Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars represent a critical test for the court’s power. The ICC’s Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan will discuss the role of the court and the challenges it faces in ongoing conflicts such as those in Ukraine and Israel / Gaza. He will be joined in conversation by GCHQ Director of Legal Affairs and Mission Policy Shehzad Charania MBE.
Links and information: Tickets now open for booking until midday 21st October https://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/public-event/karim-khan-no-one-above-law-international-criminal-court-world-fire
Professor Lucy Easthope - When the dust settles
Weds 13 November 2024–5:30pm, de Jager Auditorium
Lucy Easthope has been a disaster planner for two turbulent decades. She works in preparedness, response and aftermath and throughout this time has challenged others to think differently about what comes next, after tragic events. She is a passionate and thought-provoking voice in an area that few know about: emergency planning. However, in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, her work became decidedly more mainstream. Alongside advising both the Prime Minister’s Office and many other government departments and charities during the pandemic, she has found time to reflect on a life in disaster. She is known globally for her work and holds research positions in the UK and New Zealand, and is a Professor in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath. Her book When the Dust Settles: Stories of Love, Loss and Hope from an Expert in Disaster was released in March 2022 and was a Sunday Times bestseller.
In her talk, Lucy will share lessons on a life in extremis and insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Links and information Tickets now open for booking until midday 21st October https://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/public-event/professor-lucy-easthope-when-dust-settles
Reckoning with Brexit five years on: what happens next?
Weds 22 January 2025–5:30pm, de Jager Auditorium
Five years on from the UK officially withdrawing from the EU, we try and separate the facts from the noise about what Brexit has meant for the UK, and ahead to what a post-Brexit economy and country mean under a new Labour government. Join our expert panel chaired by Professor Anand Menon, Director of UK in a Changing Europe, with the Institute for Government’s Director, Hannah White, and Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Links and information Booking opens 21st October until 6 January 2025
https://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/public-event/reckoning-brexit-five-years-what-happens-next
Ping Pong Diplomacy: Growing up in Chairman Mao’s inner sanctum
Weds 5 February 2025–5:30pm, de Jager Auditorium
Sirin Phathanothai was the daughter of a high-ranking Thai government advisor. As an 8-year-old child in the 1950s, together with her 12-year-old brother, she was given by the Thai Government to China as a diplomatic goodwill offering, to be brought up as the ward of Premier Zhou Enlai. For 13 years, Sirin had a unique upbringing in the heart of the leadership: holidays with Chairman Mao and pool parties in the leadership compound; but she also experienced the most turbulent years of Chairman Mao’s rule. She was caught up in the Cultural Revolution, vilified and persecuted by Red Guards, and forced to denounce her family. Sirin escaped China to Britain following a private request from Zhou Enlai to Edward Heath. This evening, Sirin tells her remarkable story.
Links and information Booking opens 6th January until 20th January 2025
https://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/public-event/ping-pong-diplomacy-growing-chairman-maos-inner-sanctum
Cristina Rivera Garza - Richard Hillary Memorial Lecture
Thurs 6 February 2025 - 5pm, de Jager Auditorium
Each year the Richard Hillary Memorial Lecture is given by notable creative writers and remembers Richard Hillary, the author of The Last Enemy, who was a student at Trinity. Cristina Rivera Garza is an author, translator and critic whose latest book, Liliana’s Invincible Summer, won the Pulitzer Prize in Memoir and Autobiography. A MacArthur Fellow from 2020 to 2025, she is the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Chair and head of the PhD program in Creative Writing at the University of Houston.
Links and information Booking opens 6th January until 20th January 2025
https://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/public-event/cristina-rivera-garza-richard-hillary-memorial-lecture
Judge Theodor Meron - Standing up for justice: one life, four careers
Weds 19 February 2025–5:30pm, de Jager Auditorium
Few people will have lived lives as remarkable as that of Trinity Honorary Fellow Judge Theodor Meron CMG, Visiting Professor at Oxford’s law faculty. He has spent more than seven decades working in roles ranging from academia to legal adviser to the US and Israeli state departments, judge and president of UN war crimes tribunals, and special adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Judge Meron has been credited with advancing humanitarian law and justice for war crimes victims across the world. He will discuss the principles that have guided a life of extraordinary influence on international criminal justice. He will be joined in conversation by Helena Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, LT, KC, FRSA, and Member of the House of Lords.
Links and information Booking opens 6th January until 10 February
https://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/public-event/judge-theodor-meron-standing-justice-one-life-four-careers
In Conversation: Antony Gormley with Simon Armitage - Bridging disciplines in public art
Weds 12 March 2025–5:30pm, de Jager Auditorium
His special event brings together two of the UK’s most acclaimed artists to discuss themes that cross creative disciplines and that have featured in some of their recent collaborations: the integration of poetry and sculpture, form with metaphor, and how audiences experience and interact with physical objects and words.
Sir Antony Gormley is the recipient of numerous awards and his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space have been widely exhibited throughout the UK and internationally.
Simon Armitage CBE is the UK Poet Laureate and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College; he is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds, and former Oxford Professor of Poetry. His numerous awards include the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and an Ivor Novello.
Links and information Booking opens 6th January until 3 March
The future of the NHS: balancing competing priorities for the benefit of patients and policy
Weds 14 May 2025–5:30pm, de Jager Auditorium
Even before the demands of the recent pandemic, the NHS was operating severe pressure. Against a backdrop of greater life expectancy and the critical need for effective social care, coupled with the development of revolutionary new treatments, can the 75-year-old NHS model adapt to provide fit-for-purpose prevention, early detection and treatment, and social, primary, secondary and tertiary care? What is the future of the NHS?
Join our distinguished panel including Jonathan Van-Tam, former Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, and leading figures from the sector in conversation with Trinity Fellow and Clinical Director of the University of Oxford Primary Care Clinical Trials Unit, Christopher Butler as they consider and discuss the future of the NHS.
Links and information Booking opens 10 February until 5 May