Humanities at the Department for Continuing Education

Can there be such a thing as a ‘moral’ war? Can it ever be right to kill innocent people, even in self-defence? Can there be such a thing as a ‘moral’ war? Can it ever be right to kill innocent peopl...

Prof. Raymond Tallis deepens his argument against the idea that we are our brains. He believes there is a distinction in kind between humans and other animals. This he illustrates by appeal to the dif...

Prof.Iain McGilchrist illustrates his argument by appeal to a number of paintings done by psychotic patients. He points to various commonalities between these paintings and speculates on the ways in w...

Prof. Iain McGilchrist, whilst agreeing with Tallis that we are not our brains argues that we can learn a great deal about our culture by learning more about our brain. In particular we should recogni...

Prof. Raymond Tallis argues that extraordinary claims have been made for neurophysiology. For example it has been said that a person is nothing but his or her brain. Professor Raymond Tallis rejects t...

Another ancient belief held that an art should be governed by rules. Another ancient belief held that an art should be governed by rules. This assumption was discredited in 1674, when Longinus' treati...

E.H. Gombrich famously observed that 'there really is no such thing as Art' (with a capital A). Instead he described the practice of art as 'mastery', which equates to the Quality recovered by Robert ...

Did Medieval people go on learning through their adult life? If so, what kind of things did they learn about, who taught them, and how was it done? This lecture was delivered 23rd May 2013 as part of ...

A new one-day course at the Department for Continuing Education taught by Paul Heiney, writer and broadcaster, this course is intended to help people face a video camera with confidence, and communica...

Dr Anna Beer gives an overview of the life and works of the poet John Milton....

Local history lecture, by Chris Day, giving an overview of the history of the University of Oxford. Visit http://media.conted.ox.ac.uk/lh01 to view the full presentation from Chris Day, including his ...