Photo by Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash
Photo by Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash

Walls 2019

The 2019 SHAPS theme is “Walls” — walls we build to exclude and contain the Other, to control the movement of people, bodies, information, capital, ideas. Speakers will approach the theme from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, we look at the historical rise and fall of walls; we examine the wall as a metaphor for organising space and societies; we look at walls visible and invisible, physical and mental; and at the histories of movements to destroy walls, and to imagine and create alternatives to walls.

The theme will be addressed in a series of public lectures and other activities. These are free events but, in most cases you need to register online to book your seat. Links to registration pages or further information on the events will be provided here as they become available.

Program

Monday 4 March: Dr Dinah Eastop (UCL/Glasgow), ‘Spaces and Bodies, Walls and String’

Thursday 4 April: Professor Brian Nosek (Virginia), ‘Walls can Fall: The Open Science Movement’. Listen to the lecture via ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas.

Tuesday 30 April: Associate Professor Vanessa Ogle (UC Berkeley), ‘Capital Beyond Walls: The History of Money Escaping to Tax Havens’ (Cancelled)

Friday 31 May: Dr Yevgenia M. Albats (Editor-in-Chief, The New Times, Moscow), “The Russian Media Landscape, 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall”

Thursday 8 August: Natalie Haynes (UK writer & broadcaster), ‘Beyond the Walls of Troy’

Monday 12 August: Professor Simon Kel ‘Mental Illness and the Aspiration for Mental Health’

Image: Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash