Oxford Abridged Short Talks

Platonic love? Plato's main text on love, the Symposium, takes a broad look at what love means, offering a serious yet humorous, poignant and flippant, literary philosophical discussion of the topic, with some famous but also surprising outcomes.

Theatre was a forum for early twentieth-century feminists to challenge romantic ideals of marriage, arguing against society blocking women's access to alternative professions. Did one playwright solve the problem of selling seats without selling out?

Dr Hogan explores values towards online dating, relating them to whether one's friends have dated online and whether social network software or online personals are responsible for the continued rise in popularity of online dating. This presentation will explore the many facets of online dating that have emerged from our recent Pan-European study of couples and relationships. In particular, we find that online dating is now a common part of the tool kit for those seeking a new relationship, regardless of country. We also find that while there are more young people meeting online, older singles appear to be far more active in finding a spouse or partner online.

In Swift's letters to his adored Stella, we see an elaborate combination of language and code to tease his reader but still communicate intimacy. The denial of full disclosure and the refusal to reveal all is part of the game of seduction.

This advert introduces a series of 4 talks on the subject of love and romance. The 10 minute talks took place at Oxford University on Valentine's day 2011.

Professor Robin Dunbar explores if there is a limit to the number of friends we can keep track of and explains the origin of "Dunbar's Number".

Professor Sunetra Gupta explains the surprising relationship between blood disorders and malaria in humans. Could two blood disorders ever be better than one? Part of the Oxford Abridged series of short talks.

Should we let slime moulds run our railways? Slime moulds can produce networks as efficient, cost-effective and resilient as railway networks designed by people, despite having no central control over what they build.

Sexual attraction and pheromones? Dr. Tristram Wyatt talks about pheromones and evolution in a short talk about the "Success of the smelliest". Recorded as part of an ongoing series of short lectures.