British Academy events

Statistics are vital in helping us tell stories – we see them in the papers, on social media, and we hear them used in everyday conversation - and yet in this era of fake news we doubt them more than ever. In his timely new book 'How to Make the World Add Up', Tim Harford navigates a world of disinformation, bad research and misplaced motivation to help us make sense of the numbers that swirl around us. Join him in-conversation with Hetan Shah as he outlines his 10 rules – plus one golden rule – for thinking differently about numbers.

Speaker: Tim Harford, Economist, journalist and broadcaster; Author 'How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers'.

Chair: Hetan Shah, Chief Executive, The British Academy

The course of human history has been shaped by war, disease and natural disaster. Whether the Black Death, world wars or COVID-19, these crises have sent shockwaves across the globe, with far-reaching social, political and economic consequences. In this event, distinguished historian Margaret MacMillan joins Hetan Shah to discuss major turning points in history, and how insights from the many and varied catastrophes of the past can help us to make sense of the present.

The British Academy’s Shape the Future programme examines the societal, economic and cultural implications of the pandemic

Speaker: Professor Margaret MacMillan Hon FBA, Historian; public intellectual; Emeritus Professor of International History, University of Oxford; Professor of History, University of Toronto

Chair: Hetan Shah, Chief Executive, The British Academy

Governments across the world are using behavioural ‘nudges’ to help slow the spread of coronavirus: wash your hands, don’t touch your face, stay at home. Based on an idea popularised by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, nudge theory encourages us to do the “right thing” by making the desired action easy, more obvious and more normal. But how far does nudging work in the context of a global pandemic, and what are its limits? If we are expected to nudge our way out of a crisis, what behavioural barriers – or sludge – need to be removed? In this event, eminent political scientist and Fellow of the British Academy Cass Sunstein joins Hetan Shah to discuss nudge and sludge in the age of COVID-19.

The British Academy's Shape the Future programme examines the societal, economic and cultural implications of the pandemic

Speaker: Professor Cass Sunstein FBA, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard Law School; Co-author Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness; former Senior Advisor to President Obama

Chair: Hetan Shah, Chief Executive, The British Academy

In this talk Professor Cass Sunstein FBA’s comments could be taken to imply that the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) was involved in the creation of the UK's 'Stay Alert' message. BIT have asked us to make clear that they were not involved in the creation or implementation of this message.

Françoise Vergès discusses the history of counter revolution against women’s liberation from the 1970s to the 2000s and the forms it concretely took (femonationalism, femi-imperialism in the name of women’s rights) and current forms of decolonial feminism.

Speaker:

Dr Françoise Vergès, Chair of Global South, Collège d'études Mondiales, Paris

Chair:

Professor Tamar Garb FBA, Durning-Lawrence Chair of History of Art, UCL

Professor Martin Kemp FBA reflects on Leonardo's extraordinary life and legacy, the commercial implications of his worldwide fame, and the endless conspiracy theories he inspires.

Thinkers for our Time: Merce Cunningham by The British Academy

What does ‘TubeCrush’ reveal about modern desire? by The British Academy

Author, broadcaster and editor-at-large for The Guardian Gary Younge discusses how identity politics has effectively come to mean anything you want it to, so long as you don’t like it. As such, since it is a term so wilfully misunderstood, he argues it is no longer worth claiming or even necessarily critiquing. But the original idea that underpins it still holds true. None of us come to politics from a vacuum – we arrive with affiliations that mould our worldview. Who and what we are does not define what we think, but it certainly helps shape it.

Speaker:

Gary Younge, Author, broadcaster and editor-at-large for The Guardian

Chair:

Professor Ann Phoenix FBA, Professor of Psychosocial Studies, Institute of Education, UCL