Mansfield Public Talks

Holocaust Memorial Day encourages remembrance in a world scarred by genocide. Survivors of Nazi persecution have borne witness for generations – by their very presence, compellingly so. As the last of them die, BAFTA and Emmy award-winning filmmaker Simon Finch (himself the child of a Holocaust survivor) asks how their stories can still be told.

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Simon Finch is a filmmaker, himself the child of a Holocaust survivor). His political and historically-focused work has won or been nominated for numerous awards, including multiple Emmys and BAFTAs.

Screen International has described his dramas as ‘innovative and convincing. Acclaimed for their plausibility, naturalism and integrity’. The include ‘Death of a President’, which won the international critics’ prize at the Toronto Film Festival, and ‘The Day Britain Stopped’.

Recent documentary credits include ‘9/11: Inside the President’s War Room’ for Apple TV, ‘Inside North Korea’s Dynasty’ for National Geographic, and a BBC series on Syria, ‘Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad’.

His latest project, a film on the Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia, will air as ‘World Wide Mafia’ on Disney +.

Net Zero is becoming political. Professor Myles Allen argues that this is a good thing: climate policy is too important to be left to civil servants. But the debate must be about how we achieve net zero, not whether to give up.   In this talk, Professor Allen addresses what must be done about the future of fossil fuels, when, and by whom, to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

He will argue that to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, we must stop fossil fuels from causing global warming before the world stops using fossil fuels. But banning new fossil fuel exploration and investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, and requiring consumers to buy electric cars or heat-pumps, risk proving ineffective, divisive, or both. The solution is not to go slower: it is to come up with different or complementary policies that would be equally effective and place the responsibility for fixing this problem where it belongs, with those who benefit most from the products that are causing it.

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Myles Allen is Professor of Geosystem Science in the Department of Physics and School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. His research focuses on how human and natural influences on climate contribute to observed climate change and extreme weather and, in 2005 introduced the concept of global carbon budget.

He served on successive IPCC Assessments, including as Coordinating Lead Author on the 2018 Special Report on 1.5°C. Dubbed by the BBC as the ‘Physicist behind Net Zero’, he was awarded the Appleton Medal from the Institute of Physics, a CBE for services to climate change attribution, prediction and net zero, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Come and celebrate Valentine’s Day by growing your own love poem with Mansfield College’s acclaimed Poet in Residence Kate Clanchy.  Bring your own pen or pencil – Valentine’s  Day cards will be provided.

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Baroness Warsi, Britain’s first Muslim cabinet minister, author, and co-host of podcast ‘A Muslim and a Jew Go There’ talks about whose voices matter in public life, what works in widening political participation, and what does not.

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Sayeeda, Baroness Warsi, Britain’s first Muslim cabinet minister, is also a lawyer, businesswoman and racial justice campaigner, and has consistently been listed as one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world.

Appointed to the House of Lords as a life peer at the age of thirty-six, she served as Chairman of the Conservative Party, in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and as Minister for Faith and Communities.

Sayeeda is now a regular TV presenter and news commentator and an advisor including to  the Bridge Institute, Georgetown University and University of Notre Dame.  She is Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bolton and has four honorary doctorates.

She is author of two books; ‘The Enemy Within’, ‘A Tale of Muslim Britain’ and ‘Muslims Don’t Matter’. In 2024 she launched the award winning podcast with David Baddiel –  ‘A Muslim and A Jew Go There’.

Luke Tryl is the director of More in Common, a thinktank which uses segmented data and public opinion research to understand the forces driving us apart, to counter division, find common ground, and to tackle our shared challenges. He discusses the state of public opinion, the rise of populism and how we can build a united, inclusive and better functioning democracy.

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He is a regular commentator on UK public opinion across both print and broadcast media and has appeared on Radio 4’s Today Programme, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Times Radio and Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge. He has also written for various publications including the Times, Telegraph, Guardian, New Statesman and the Spectator.

Professor Leah DeVun of Rutgeres University focuses on ideas and individuals who allegedly combined or crossed sex or gender categories in Europe from 200–1400 C.E. Ranging widely across premodern European thought and culture, she explores how and why efforts to define ‘the human’ so often hinged on ideas about nonbinary sex and gender.

In a moment when questions about sex, gender, and identity have become incredibly urgent, this lecture will cast new light on a complex and often contradictory past, and show how pre-modern thinkers created a system of sex and embodiment that both anticipates and challenges modern beliefs about what it means to be male, female—and human.

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Leah DeVun is Professor of History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University in the United States. DeVun is the author of many books and articles most recently, of ‘The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance’, and co-editor (with Zeb Tortorici) of ‘Trans*historicities’, a special issue of TSQ devoted to transgender history.

DeVun’s work has been featured  widely including in the New York Times, Artforum, Huffington Post, and she has lectured across the United States and in Europe.

Martha Swales is an urban gardener, social media influencer (with 1m+ followers) and TV producer, and a Mansfield College alumna.  Martha talks science, stories, gardening tips, and how growing food – even in small and transient spaces – can connect us to nature and bring joy.

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Martha Swales is an avid urban gardener. She is a London-based television producer and social media influencer who has been growing food for over twelve year, after studying Human Sciences at Mansfield College Oxford.

Her  television career and love of food have taken her to bakeries in Cairo, hawker markets in Singapore and bean to bar chocolate makers in Peru.  But her favourite thing of all is growing food on an allotment and now in her own little London garden.

Sharing her passion for gardening online, with easy, inspiring and accessible projects has gained her over one million followers. She believes that gardening is powerful and life changing  and wants as many people as possible to experience the joy of giving it a grow.

Her new book “Give it a Grow” is published by Penguin, and will be on sale after the event.