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