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