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Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life as a Children's Heart Surgeon

Few people are lucky enough to save lives or change them for the better. Few also experience the horror of losing lives or worsening them. In this lecture I want to share some of the astonishing experiences of a paediatric heart surgeon.

Is Matter Evil?

A dialogue with Philip Pullman's complex 'Dark Materials' trilogy which provides a framework for discussing how human beings relate to the material world, and the origin of evil.

The Poetry of Robert Frost, The Power and Intrigue of Simile

Frost's line, 'I found a dimpled spider... holding up a moth like a white piece of rigid satin cloth' exploits simile... But how can a moth be like cloth? -This is one of a number of examples that will be explored with a view to refining our understanding of smilie.

Is Humanity Naturally Good?

Can we give a purely scientific account of human nature in terms of its physical, chemical and biological components. Richard Dawnkins' 'The Selfish Gene' is considered to see how a scientific narrative about selfish genes might correlate with a theological narrative about sin.

The Rise and Fall of Sourdough: 6000 Years of Bread

The lecture will cover the history of the western world as seen through the food that nourished builders for the Great Pyramids, free men of the Roman Empire, the expansion of Christianity, and the development of Europe.

I Won't Have Blood! A Battle Between Belief and Duty?

There is a tension between clinical teams and the families of devout Jehovah’s Witnesses. This lecture explores that tension, and considers how we might perform open-heart surgery without blood.

The Value of Heritage and the Heritage of Value

There was a time when old places were valued simply for their beauty and interest, but now this is not enough. Are calculations of the financial contribution of our history adding to the value of our heritage or have they fundamentally devalued it?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and Poetic Technique

In the line, 'The Western wave was aflame', the 'Western wave' refers to the sea. But is it this simple? What do forms of substitution, synecdoche for example, lend to this magnificent and shadowy poem?

Respecting and Transcending Nature

Science and technology creates moral problems in being able to both improve life and destroy it. How might Tolkein's 'Lord of the Rings' offer us reflections on scientific and religious frameworks which enable us to respect nature on the one hand, while transcending its limits on the other?

Affairs of the Heart: An Exploration of the Symbolism of the Heart in Art

A celebration of the heart for St Valentine’s Day. How is it that a simple pump has become a symbol of the highest human emotions of love, truth, conscience and moral courage? How have artists represented this? An interdisciplinary presentation.

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