Background Since its inception in 2000, the St. Clare's Seminar Series has provided an opportunity for students to explore a stimulating range of issues and ideas. Each semester the series is linked by a common theme. Themes in previous years have included: Death and Love; Dreams and Nightmares; Creation and Inspiration.

Tragedy and Joy is this semester's theme. Life can be described as a search for joy, yet throughout our lives we are constantly at the mercy of its darker twin: tragedy. It can be debilitating or illuminating; we can lose or find ourselves in it. Over the millennia, the greatest thinkers have asked whether we can ever have one without the other.

Date	Seminar title	Speaker
Tuesday 29 January	Tragic Joy: Philosophers on why we like to cry at the movies	Dr Jessica Frazier St. Clare's, Oxford
Tuesday 5 February	Ancient China and Ancient Greece: Meditations on Joy and Sorrow	Dr Brandon Miller Christchurch College, Oxford
Tuesday 12 February	From Burma with Love: Tragedy and Joy in the Life of Aung San Suu Kyi	John Rolfe St. Clare's, Oxford
Tuesday 19 February	The Fascist Hobbit: The Tragic Tale of Middle Earth and White Supremacy	Anna Castriota St. Clare's, Oxford
Tuesday 4 March	Melody in Mayhem: Songs of Joy from an Ancient Indian Battlefield	Anuradha Dooney University of Lampeter
Tuesday 11 March	Songs from the Heart: Transforming Tragedy with the Joys of Jazz	Joan Davis Truevoice Music School
Tuesday 18 March	The New Science of Happiness Studies	Dr Ines Molinaro St. Clare's, Oxford
Tuesday 25 April	Elegy: Poetic Perspectives on Tragic Loss	Dr Jonathan Herapath Oxford Brookes University
Tuesday 22 April	The Tragicomedy of Urban Decline in Popular Cinema	Dr John Field, University of Oxford