This conference addresses current thorny ethical questions in the contemporary India but with implications for the whole globe. The starting point is a reflection on classical texts, and the method is comparative philosophy and political theory. Is the particularity of ethical problems addressed by Indian Philosophy? Conference Convener: Richard Sorabji

This October, Violence Studies Oxford and The University of Exeter’s Centre for the Study of War, State and Society will co-host a 2-day conference at Wolfson College Oxford. The program has two primary themes: ‘Writing Violence’ and ‘Understanding Violence’. From the overwhelming response to our call for papers we have designed a program of 9 panels to interrogate these two major themes. The program will allow for the presentation of the fruits research which examines violence as a phenomenon in its own right, in addition to exploring the challenges facing scholars of violence from different disciplines. Tickets available at: https://www.oxforduniversitystores.co.uk/conferences-and-events/wolfson-college/wolfson-college-events/the-microdynamics-of-violence

In 'Making the Most of It', the final volume of his autobiography, Wolfson Member of Common Room Bryan Magee completes his life story with his customary candour and clarity. He takes up the thread when he comes up to Oxford, where he has his biggest love affair and is elected President of the Union. At the heart of the book is his harrowing account of ‘a fairly disastrous period of my life’ – his relationship with Ingrid Söderlund, whom he married after she became pregnant with their daughter Gunnela. His chief priority has been writing books, and his major achievement to make philosophy more accessible, and to produce two outstanding books on Wagner, as well as a celebrated book on Schopenhauer. He has also presented acclaimed television and radio programmes, and written much theatre and music criticism. Finally, for ten years he was a Member of Parliament.

Join us for a weekend of talks, readings, music, and ballet; a reading by poet John Balaban and the world premiere of a new Owen-inspired composition by Tim Watts.

Any study of Owen's life is by definition overshadowed by his death and the bitter irony of its timing, at the very end of the war. Unlike some of his lesser discussed contemporaries, such as Ivor Gurney and Isaac Rosenberg, Owen’s poetry has been appreciated and analysed by many scholars in previous decades. It remains enduringly popular, and has lost little of its capacity to move and shock its readers. It is taught across the country as part of the National Curriculum, and has become the lens through which we view what, with Owen’s help, has been dubbed the most literary war in history.

This conference is concerned with Owen’s afterlife. How has his work been received, and how has it changed our view of the war? What effect has his verse had on writers, composers and other intellectuals, and how has Owen himself been portrayed, appropriated and discussed posthumously?

Following the tradition started by Professor Dame Hermione Lee, the College’s New President, Mr Tim Hitchens, will continue to host the President’s Seminar, which gives the opportunity to Wolfson researchers from all levels and fields to discuss emerging research and to exchange ideas. Since Tim Hitchens will soon be joining Wolfson College as its new president, the theme he selected for seminar is "Beginnings". In his first ever Seminar, he will be joined by Prof Pedro Ferreira, Dr Olivia Smith, and Mr Joshua Stubbs, who will address the theme from points of view related to their research and their fields. Wine and juice will be served. All members and friends of Wolfson College, as well as anyone else who might be interested in attending, are warmly invited to join this event and continue the discussion in hall over an informal supper.

This 2-day colloquium, convened by Dr Katherine Collins and Dr Kate Kennedy, will bring together writers and scholars from across the humanities and the social sciences. With keynotes from Alison Light and Alexander Masters; Panels on representing marginalised lives and children's lives, everyday aesthetics and creative representations, diaries, newspapers and autograph books, and lives of crime. Workshops on autobiographical comic-making with graphic artist Una and duoethnographic writing-as-activism. Screening and discussion of Village Tales, Sue Sudbury's award-winning participatory film about child marriage in India.

In social science, the tension between the universal and the particular and the problems of making meaningful generalisations from specific case studies are nowhere more apparent than in relation to capitalism. Dominated by European industrial models, phenomena like the informal economy, unfree labour, petty commodity production, merchants/commercial capital, intermediate classes and primary/primitive accumulation are marginalised. Yet throughout the world they persist. This workshop brings these residualised concepts centre stage, and discusses their implications for the capitalist mode of production and for politics.

China’s $800 bn investment in land communications (the belt) and sea routes (the road) is perhaps the biggest infrastructure project the world has ever seen. It will have impacts on transport and trade, on industrial competitiveness and market access, on development finance and debt, on geopolitical and military relations. This workshop brings together scholars of OBOR to discuss and compare its impact in Pakistan which is directly involved through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor with other South Asian countries where its outcomes will be indirect.

Wars, conflicts, and genocides, are not indivisible events. Rather, they are the aggregate of many distinct acts of violence, each with its own causes and contexts. At Violence Studies Oxford, it is our contention that to best understand the aggregate of mass violence, we should first examine these micro-dynamics. Taking place in October 2018, the Violence Studies Workshop invites papers from scholars across all different disciplines and subject matters. Here we will present and discuss our works in progress, and in doing so share and benefit from the alternative perspectives and methodological approaches of our various disciplines.

Religious violence has gained a lot of scholarly attention lately. But much of this scholarship is focused on America’s war on terror against Islamic groups. Recent Sikh history is also replete with violent episodes and is a rife topic for greater scholarly attention. Since 1984, when the Indian army attacked Sikhs’ holiest shrine, Sri Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, violence has become a regular part of Sikh politics and discourse. This conference seeks to address the different modalities of violence in the contemporary Sikh situation. It brings together scholars working in different disciplines to share their insights about the uniqueness of the Sikh experience of religious violence.