This talk reviews the extent of Iraq’s transformation over the last ten years, looking at what Iraq’s experience shows about the limits of political change in a region marked by deep legacies of violence and oppression, unresolved social divisions and external interference.

Theatres today are places of entertainment, dark spaces in which we cut ourselves off from the realities of daily life for a few hours. But theatre for the ancient Greeks was anything but a space of entertainment and escapism. It was a central pillar in the way their society – and particularly democratic society – functioned; a space in which every citizen was expected to be active and play their part. In this talk, I use the theatre as a way in to thinking about the nature of ancient Greek society and as a result Greek history. How were the major issues, events and ideas that governed the lives of the Greeks represented, reflected on, articulated and even created within the space of the theatre? And what can an examination of theatre’s own history of artistic and architectural development as well as geographical spread tell us about the changing nature of Greek society and the course of Greek history?

Although there have been a large number of books busy explaining that advances in neuroscience are due to revolutionise, or at the very least underpin and accelerate, our understanding of human nature, there has been less reflection on just how likely or unlikely that is. In this talk I hope to suggest that the issue is a good deal more complex than some of the more triumphalist, and optimistic, writings in this genre seem to think.