Resetting the Human Compass: The Use and Value of the Arts - Sir Andrew Motion

Sir Andrew Motion, the former Poet Laureate, asks what the role the arts might play in difficult times? Is an instrumentalist approach to the arts and culture ever a good thing?

The Postmodern Detective: Contemporary London Crime Fiction - Dr Jenny Bavidge

Have recent London crime stories abandoned their confidence in the interpretative abilities of the detective? Can we still believe in omniscient figures such as Dickens’ Inspector Bucket or Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes? Is London still a place where mysteries can be satisfactorily solved?

Arthur Conan Doyle and London: "A Stout Heart in the Great Cesspool" - Richard Burnip

From the Sherlock Holmes stories to The Lost World this lecture examines some of the locations which formed such in important backdrop to Conan Doyle's life and work. It will also touch on some of his lesser known works and include the place which perhaps meant more to him than any other in London, and to which he returned in his writing throughout his life.

Literary London Crime: The Dark Eyes of London - Cathi Unsworth

London is a city of secrets, a shifting, seething mass of intrigue, venality and violence, in constant cultural flux. The perfect setting for crime fiction - but how does the modern writer decode this centuries' old conurbation? Cathi Unsworth investigates those authors who haunt certain regions of the capital and along the way she will also explore the cult writers who helped to shape these contemporary authors' visions and the clandestine vocabulary of the City of Slang.

Crime in Dickens’ London: ‘This ain’t the shop for justice’ - Dr Tony Williams

From his childhood acquaintance with London, when he feared he might become ‘a little robber or a little vagabond’, Charles Dickens was fascinated by crime. His novels all include criminal activity of some kind as he investigates criminal psychology and the causes of crime. Dickens lived through a period of considerable development in society’s treatment of criminals: the foundation of the Metropolitan Police in 1829, the Detective Force in 1842, the same year as the New Model Prison opened at Pentonville; the ending of transportation and of public executions; the word ‘penology’ was first used in 1838, the year he began to publish Nicholas Nickleby. Dickens engages with these issues very fully, both in his fiction and in his journalism, as this talk will explore.

The Making of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts - Dr Sally Dormer

Illuminated manuscripts are some of the most beautiful artefacts to survive from the Middle Ages. Their production involved transforming animal skins into parchment; copying texts; painting and gilding minatures; and binding folios between boards, a process that reveals much about medieval scribal and artistic practice.

Literature and Politics in 17th Century London - Dr Anna Beer

The stories of Sir Walter Ralegh and John Milton, through the turbulent times of the Civil War and Restoration.

The Life and Work of Mervyn Peake - Sebastian Peake

A celebration of the Mervyn Peake centenary, looking at the biographical context of the man's art and writing