Mansfield Public Talks
Mansfield hosts a lively and engaging series of free public talks, by leading figures from a variety of fields, convened by our Principal Helen Mountfield KC, every Friday from 5.30pm during Oxford University term time.
Mansfield Public Talks are aimed at the general public, not specialists. They are open to anyone interested in ideas and debate, and are completely free of charge.
Current forthcoming talks and details of how to book a place are listed below.
Recordings of past Mansfield Public Talks can be found on Mansfield's YouTube channel, here.
To be kept informed about future talks, please email PUBLIC TALKS to communications@mansfield.ox.ac.uk and ask to be added to our mailing list.
Mansfield's Public Talks are always free to attend, but if you would like to support us with the costs of hosting and publicising them, we are very grateful for voluntary donations. Please click here to donate.
Mansfield Public Talks: Hilary Term 2023
Friday 27 January 2023
Artists of the Future: the Mansfield-Ruddock Art Prize Private View
With Dr Stephanie Straine, Joy Labinjo, Saba Qizilbash and Eliza Owen.
How does an Oxford college build a contemporary art collection? Where do successful artists come from?
Join us to meet some rising stars of the art world: the winners of the Mansfield-Ruddock Art Prize, a new and exciting purchase prize at Mansfield College for talented artists graduating from Oxford’s Ruskin School.
The discussion with the artists convened by Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Galleries of Scotland, Stephanie Straine, will be preceded by a private view of the artworks and a free drink with the artists.
With thanks to Mansfield alumnus, Sir Paul Ruddock, and the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts, for supporting this Prize.
More details and book: here
Monday 30 January 2023
Holocaust Memorial Day
With Joan Salter MBE
To commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day 2023, join us to hear Joan Salter MBE, speaker for the HMD Trust, addressing this year's theme of 'Ordinary People' through her own personal experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust.
As a dedicated Holocaust educator, Joan has confronted and criticised the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, in a recently gone-viral video for her use of dehumanising language when describing refugees and asylum seekers.
More details and book: here
Friday 3 February 2023
Out of line: Jane Austen on stage and screen
With Professor Ros Ballaster, Samuel West and Laura Wade
Award-winning actor and director, Samuel West, and renowned playwright, Laura Wade, in conversation with eighteenth century specialist and senior Mansfield Fellow, Professor Ros Ballaster, about their stage version of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel The Watsons, and adapting Jane Austen for stage and screen.
More details and book: here
Friday 10 February 2023
The Art of Adaptation: Collaboration Across Literature, Music, Film
With Joanna Lipper, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ and Michael Bakare
Acclaimed writer Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ with director, producer and songwriter Joanna Lipper, and music producer and songwriter Michael Bakare discussing their work in progress on a musical film adaptation of Adébáyọ̀’s internationally-acclaimed novel, set in 1980s Nigeria, Stay With Me.
More details and book: here
Wednesday 15 February 2023
Emergency State: How democracy was put under threat during the Pandemic
With Adam Wagner
Leading human rights barrister, Adam Wagner, will discuss his 'piercing and profoundly troubling' new book, a tale of rights and misdemeanours during the Covid-19 Pandemic, and how the 763 days of ‘covid emergency’ put us at risk of becoming an emergency state.
More details and book: here
Friday 24 February 2023
Telling Women’s Stories
With Professor Brenda Stevenson
Professor Brenda Stevenson, the Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair of Women’s History at the University of Oxford, and Helen Mountfield KC discuss retrieving and recording women’s voices and stories.
More details and book: here
Friday 3 March 2023
The Hands Lecture with Fawzia Koofi
What next for Afghan women and Afghan politics?
Fawzia Koofi, former Vice President of the Afghan National Assembly, outspoken women’s rights advocate, and recently part of the negotiation delegation with the Taliban, in conversation about where next for women, women’s education and politics in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.
The Hands Lecture is Mansfield’s annual named lecture in politics, economics and current affairs, named for Bancroft Fellow of the College, alumnus Guy Hands (PPE, 1978) and his wife Julia Hands MBE.
More details and book: here
Friday 10 March 2023
The Inaugural Jonathan Cooper Memorial Lecture with Richie Jackson
The Best of Times or The Worst of Times? A Generational Perspective on the New Queer Reality
Richie Jackson is an award-winning Broadway, television, and film producer. Richie went from gay teen activist in New York City at the height of the AIDS crisis to raising a gay son forty years later. Now, as the author of the best-selling book Gay Like Me, he strips away the rainbow-tinted veneer of what it looks like to be LGBTQ+ today, exposing the glorious but treacherous reality.
In memory of Jonathan Cooper OBE
We are proud to name this lecture for the late Jonathan Cooper OBE, an inspiring human rights lawyer, tireless advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, and commentator on issues such as trans rights, conversion therapy and the rights of people living with HIV. Jonathan died suddenly in September 2021.
In February 2022, Mansfield College, in association with the Faculty of History, established Oxford University's first Professorship in LGBTQ+ History, the Jonathan Cooper Chair of the History of Sexualities.
The Jonathan Cooper Professor will lead and expand the study and teaching of LGBTQ+ History at Oxford University, and is the first fully endowed specialist post of its kind in the UK. It has been made possible by a generous donation from Professor Peter Baldwin and Dr Lisbet Rausing, historians and co-founders of the Arcadia Fund. The first post-holder will be appointed in 2023.
Supported by the Sigrid Rausing Trust.
More details and book: here