St.Clare's, Oxford

Senior Seminar Series - a forum for sustained academic reflection

The St. Clare's Senior Seminar Series has been devised as a forum for sustained academic reflection for our undergraduates and other adult students. The Academy, where the series takes place, provides the perfect social setting - informal, yet conducive to lively debate.

The Senior Seminar Series offers students an opportunity to discuss a range of interesting issues and ideas as well as a chance to interact with scholars from Oxford University and other renowned academic institutions.

Art, Society and Belief
The Seminar Series is linked by a common theme which will be considered from a variety of disciplinary perspectives - Art, Religion, Literary Studies, Philosophy, Politics and the social sciences. The theme of this semester's series is Art, Society and Belief, and different aspects of these will be examined over the weeks.

Seminar 1: Art: A good thing?

Speaker: David Ripley, English Department, St. Clare's

Seminar 2: The Pre-Raphaelites in Oxford

Speaker: Dr Jon Whiteley, Senior Assistant Keeper, Department of Western Art, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Seminar 3: Calligraphy and Carpets: the Sacred and Secular in Islamic Art

Speaker: Peggy Morgan, Lecturer in the Study of Religions, Mansfield College, University of Oxford; Director of the Religious Experience Research Centre

Seminar 4: The Scent for Perversion: Nasal Myths and Fictions in the Late Nineteenth Century

Speaker: Nick Kneale, Tutor in English Studies, Ruskin College, Oxford

Seminar 5: Company of Wolves: Freud, Feminism and Fairytales

Speaker: Keith Hopper, Junior Research Fellow, St Cross College, University of Oxford

Seminar 6: The Nativity in Art

Speaker: Rt. Rev. Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford