Archive for the ‘Watch’ Category

The dark side of sugar: a historical journey

Posted on: February 24th, 2025 by mlpEditor

Discover the complex history of sugar – from its ancient origins to its modern-day impact on global health and society. Dr Neil Buttery explores how this seemingly simple ingredient has shaped our world in profound and often troubling ways.

 

Key Topics

This fascinating talk recorded in January 2025 explores the evolution of human taste preferences and why we developed such a strong attraction to sweet foods. Dr Buttery traces sugar’s journey from ancient honey-hunting practices through to early sugar production, examining its significant role in medieval European society.

The discussion covers the colonial sugar trade and its lasting impact, before addressing modern sugar industry practices and their implications for public health. The talk concludes with an examination of current challenges and governmental responses to sugar consumption.

 

What You’ll Learn

You’ll discover how our ancestors sought out sweet foods as an essential survival strategy and follow sugarcane’s remarkable 10,000-year journey from Papua New Guinea across the globe. Dr Buttery explains sugar’s transformation from luxury item to everyday commodity, while addressing the environmental and social impact of its production. The talk concludes with an examination of current debates surrounding sugar consumption and public health initiatives.

 

Content Notice

This talk includes discussion of historical events including colonialism, slavery, and exploitation. While these topics are handled sensitively, some content may be challenging.

Imagined Manchester: what our city could have been

Posted on: February 17th, 2025 by mlpEditor

Discover the hidden stories of Manchester’s urban landscape. This talk explores incredible city plans that were never built, revealing fascinating “what if” moments in Manchester’s history.

 

What You’ll Experience

Recorded on 23 January at Friends’ Meeting House, Manchester, this engaging presentation showcases extraordinary images of imagined city schemes, shares stories about unrealized architectural projects, and provides deep insights into Manchester’s urban development.

 

Fascinating Plans

Jonathan discusses remarkable unbuilt designs including a part-Eiffel Tower in Piccadilly Gardens, a Deansgate travelator, a communications tower behind Piccadilly Station, a mini-Parthenon on Upper Brook Street, and potential city boulevards and heliports.

 

Key Questions Explored

The talk delves into how cities develop, why some ambitious plans succeed while others fail, and what truly shapes urban landscapes. These explorations challenge our understanding of city planning and architectural imagination.

 

Perfect for

Anyone curious about Manchester’s history, urban planning, and alternative city visions.

Reducing your Carbon Footprint – Consumer Products

Posted on: December 2nd, 2024 by mlpEditor

This is a recording of an online seminar that explores how we can make sounder choices about our future consumer purchases.

It begins with a brief introduction about the challenges that our consumer society presents in terms of carbon emissions associated with the production and distribution of the goods “we love to buy” on both a personal and societal level.

This is followed by a presentation from David Lovell – a regulatory consultant with wide experience in the environmental impact of white goods and lead author of PAS 7770:2024, the new national standard with implications for how products are made, bought, used and disposed. He addresses the steps that industries and retailers are taking to be a part of a more circular economy and explore some of the challenges that this change faces.

What are the greenwashing tactics that companies might produce and how can you identify them?  What are the best options for consumers who want to reduce the environmental impact of their purchases?

David’s presentation is followed by questions from the audience.

How has British Imperialism shaped the modern world?

Posted on: October 16th, 2024 by mlpEditor

Manchester Lit & Phil were delighted to welcome back acclaimed author, journalist and broadcaster Sathnam Sanghera for this special in conversation event with eminent historian Professor Alan Lester.

Sathnam’s seminal 2021 bestseller Empireland revealed how Empire continues to shape life in Britain today. Its inspired sequel Empireworld, published in 2024, takes a significant step further in examining the wider global significance of British Imperial power. Sathnam and Alan’s conversation will reflect on just how deeply British Imperialism remains baked into our world today.

Together, they look at how the effects of Empire continue to be felt globally, shaping cities, cultures, and societies in profound ways. Alan Lester, a Professor of Historical Geography, shares his own and other specialist historians’ profound insights into the intricate relationship between colonial legacies and the contemporary debates surrounding them.

The event offers a critical look at Empire’s lasting impact, both negative and positive, on the 2.6 billion inhabitants of former British Colonies. From the spread of Christianity by missionaries, to the shaping of international law, to possibly being the single most significant incubator, refiner, and propagator of white supremacy in the history of the planet.

Through their conversation, Sathnam and Alan explore why a nuanced understanding of colonial history, clearly important for Britain today, has become so politically controversial – engendering backlash from the right and often taking a personal toll on writers and academics entering the debate.

We are at a point of unprecedented social change. Does this moment offer an opportunity to acknowledge and embrace Empire’s contradictions and paradoxes? Can we move beyond sterile monologues and embrace meaningful dialogues about history, identity and global legacies? Can Britain hope to have a productive future in the world without acknowledging what Empire did to the world in the first place?

Watch this recording and decide for yourself.

Reducing your Carbon Footprint – Effective Carbon Offset

Posted on: June 20th, 2024 by mlpEditor

This is a recording of an online seminar that explains how you can offset your own personal carbon footprint, both ineffectively and effectively.

It begins with an introduction to the carbon offset methods available to the public and their efficacy.

After the introduction, Dr Jan Huckfeldt, Chief Commercial Officer of Climeworks, the largest Direct Air Capture (DAC) organisation on the planet, gives a presentation. Jan describes the role that atmospheric CO2 (the largest greenhouse gas contributor to anthropogenic climate change) plays in climate change. He explains the reality of what this really means, and the science and practice of DAC on the journey to scale the operation to gigatonne capability.  There is also a discussion on the economic challenges that have to be overcome.

Maybe you want to know more about ‘greenwash’? Or better understand the relative scale of the challenge we face to restore atmospheric levels of CO2 to what is considered a safe level.  Whatever your interest, watching this seminar with give you an understanding of what you can do in reality to correct excess levels of CO2 that is already present in the atmosphere.

*The Percival Lecture* – South Africa’s Modernism, Modernism’s South Africa

Posted on: May 1st, 2024 by mlpEditor

When and where does modernism begin?

Is it in Paris in Spring 1907, when Pablo Picasso, inspired by the African masks he has seen on display in the Palais du Trocadéro, returns to his studio to paint Les Demoiselles d’Avignon?

Or, is it in the semi-desert region of South Africa in the 1870s, when teenage governess, Olive Schreiner, writes her first novel: The Story of an African Farm?

In the first origin story, Europe is the site of modernist innovation. Here, African art is viewed as little more than a repository of “primitive” imagery, in need of reinvention by the European artist in order to become truly “modern”.

In the second origin story, a South African writer produces a highly experimental, already-modernist novel that establishes forms and ideas that would later appear in, even influence, the development of English modernist literature.

One of these origin stories is more widely known that the other because modernism is primarily associated with early-twentieth century European and American artists and writers. Familiar figures from literature include James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound. And writers associated with the Bloomsbury Group, such as Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster.

Yet Schreiner wasn’t alone amongst her countryfolk in using innovative literary techniques to engage with conditions of modernity. Others came in her wake. These pioneers included Solomon Plaatje, the first black South African to write a novel in English. Others were H.I.E. Dhlomo, a pioneering poet, playwright, essayist and journalist; poet Roy Campbell, who became embroiled in friendships and feuds with members of the Bloomsbury Group; and novelist William Plomer, one of the most prolific writers for the Hogarth Press, run by Leonard and Virginia Woolf.

In this recording of Jade Munslow Ong’s talk – the 2024 Percival Lecture – she discusses a range of South African origin stories, taking in both South Africa’s modernism and modernism’s South Africa. She offers an account of the modernist aesthetics and politics established and promoted by South African writers. And she explores the debt owed by English modernists to the South African innovators that preceded, coincided with, collaborated on, and influenced their work.

How can we best help those in need during and after a Humanitarian Crisis?

Posted on: March 19th, 2024 by mlpEditor

What does it take to save lives in war, disaster, and disease?

Tony Redmond has over 30 years’ experience of responding to wars, disease outbreaks, and sudden onset disasters all around the world. In this recording of his highly engaging talk, he details the lessons learned, the improvements that have been made in the international response, and how we can continue to ensure the assistance provided is both effective and focused on those most in need.

He describes the type of medical assistance that is needed across the various types of humanitarian emergencies and how international support can best complement, and not compete with, the work of others and that of the affected country itself.

Delivering medical assistance during humanitarian crises, especially during conflicts, can be incredibly dangerous. Tony outlines how we can attempt to mitigate these risks, though never eliminate them. He describes his personal experiences of practicing medicine under fire.

A particular focus of the presentation is his work in Ukraine and that of his colleagues in UK-Med. He explains how the programs they are running there been shaped by their experience of delivering emergency medical aid to Sarajevo and Kosovo for the duration of the wars in the Balkans.

Helping those in need during a Humanitarian Crisis is not without personal cost. Tony discusses how we can look to reduce this amongst team members. He also gives an insight into the physical and mental challenges he has had to deal with – the legacy of over 30 years of committed work.

What are you drinking? A look at chemicals in the urban water cycle

Posted on: March 7th, 2024 by mlpEditor

When you turn on the tap to get a glass of water, do you think about where that water has come from? Or rather, where it’s been and what treatment processes it has had to go through?

It’s true that chemicals can extend, improve and enrich our health, wellbeing and life experiences. But the rate at which new chemicals are being generated is resulting in widespread contamination of water. Arguably, the impacts of chemicals in our environment represent the third greatest planetary crisis behind climate change and biodiversity loss. And yet they are inextricably linked to both.

Currently, more than 56% of the world’s human population lives in cities. And daily use, release and exposure to chemicals in our environment is an emerging concern.

In this recording of an online talk, Dr Leon Barron outlines how chemicals move in our urban water cycle. From the wastewater we generate, to river pollution, to contamination of our drinking water and their occurrence in both humans and biota. Advances in measurement technology has underpinned much of this, especially the use of mass spectrometry, to fingerprint chemical sources.

Leon describes the role of wastewater in understanding exposure to chemicals, with respect to continuous release of treated effluents to our rivers, lakes and seas. He also talks about using the analysis of wastewater generated in cities to understand consumption and exposure patterns to every-day-use chemicals – like pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, lifestyle chemicals and many others.

He assesses potential solutions to this issue, to ensure that we balance the environmental impacts of chemicals and their immense benefit to society.

If we’re going to survive and thrive in the future, there is no doubt that we will need to look after our water supply.

Plastic Ocean

Posted on: February 21st, 2024 by mlpEditor

In this recording of an online talk, we explore a photographic artist’s response to the worrying state of our oceans today.

Oceans are essential to life on earth. They cover more than 70% of the planet’s surface, regulate the climate, and supply the oxygen we need to survive. But every year, more than 8 million metric tons of plastic enters our oceans, affecting marine environments, biodiversity, over 700 different species, and ultimately human health.

For more than 13 years, artist Mandy Barker has created different series of work to try to engage new audiences with the harmful effects of marine plastic pollution. Captions alongside Mandy’s work detail the ‘ingredients’ of the plastic objects photographed, list brands, or provide descriptions about locations and countries and what was recovered there. The aim is to provide the viewer with a realisation of what exists in our oceans. It is hoped that raising awareness of the scale of plastic pollution that is affecting our oceans, through the passing on of these facts combined with scientific research, will ultimately lead the viewer to want to make change and take action.

Mandy writes:

“Art alone cannot change the world. But by bringing attention to marine plastic pollution in this way, it is hoped my work will help inform, and raise awareness about the overconsumption of plastic and the wider issue of climate change, and in doing so encourage a wider audience to want to do something about it.”

The Chinese in Britain – the latest chapter

Posted on: December 13th, 2023 by mlpEditor

How do the recent influx of Chinese migrants from Hong Kong compare to previous ones in British history?

The Chinese in Britain are a simultaneously visible and invisible community. Historically rooted in the port cities of Liverpool and London – as witnessed by their once bustling Chinatowns – the Chinese diaspora in Britain has now spread to towns and cities throughout the UK.

Much Chinese immigration to Britain has stemmed from political upheaval in China in the last century. Compared to the diaspora in the US, the influence of Britain’s historic ties to Hong Kong has been apparent. Families are overwhelmingly from Guangdong, China’s southern region, and mainly Cantonese speaking.

The economic and social pressures that greeted many of these refugee families were often similar to those experienced by the Windrush generation. The pace of Chinese immigration to Britain picked up as Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997 became imminent.

Another influence is the role British universities have played since the 1970s, in training successive generations of Chinese scientists. Bilateral exchanges have created valuable connections to a multi-ethnic country of continental proportions. Cultural and educational links formed with Britain have meant that Chinese migration, predominantly from Hong Kong, has been enriched by a small but growing settlement from other Chinese regions, together with inward investment.

In this recording of a Manchester Lit & Phil event with Newsnight Economics Editor Ben Chu, we seek to address questions such as what are the barriers to integration for this specific cohort of young British-born Chinese, sometimes tagged as “BBC Chinese”? How might their aspirations and world view be influenced by the experience of being torn from Hong Kong’s cosmopolitan 24/7 oriental hothouse atmosphere to a distant European alternate “motherland”? Could their imposed isolation and diminished status as refugees give rise to a growing nostalgia for Chinese culture? And might they be susceptible to blandishments from Beijing aimed at the Chinese Diaspora?

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