Exploring Immigration: A Dialogue on Building Our Shared Future

Posted on: March 3rd, 2025 by mlpEditor

Join us for an illuminating evening of honest conversation about one of the most significant forces shaping our society. As Manchester continues to evolve into an increasingly diverse metropolis, we’re bringing together remarkable community leaders to explore how immigration enriches our city while thoughtfully addressing the challenges of creating a truly integrated society.

Tickets are free but booking is essential. To book your ticket, please visit MACFEST’s Eventbrite page

 

Our Distinguished Speakers

Qaisra Shahraz MBE JP FRSA

An acclaimed British-Pakistani novelist and activist, she has dedicated her life to weaving connections between communities. As founder of MACFEST (Manchester’s Muslim Arts and Culture Festival), she creates spaces where different cultures can meet, share stories, and discover their common ground. Her work demonstrates how art and culture can transform understanding between people of all backgrounds.

Erinma Bell MBE DL JP

Brings invaluable perspective as a British-Nigerian community peace activist, councillor, and pioneering leader. Her groundbreaking work in Moss Side and Longsight has shown how strong communities can overcome serious challenges through cooperation and mutual support. As the first woman honoured with a sculpture in Manchester Town Hall / Central Library, her legacy inspires new approaches to building safer, more connected neighbourhoods.

 

Topics for Discussion

Together, they’ll explore questions that matter to all of us: How do we honour both shared identity and cultural distinctiveness? What role can education play in bringing communities together? How can we support newcomers while strengthening existing community bonds? Drawing from their rich personal and professional experiences, our speakers will share insights into creating a society where everyone can thrive.

 

Event Chair

Guiding this important conversation will be Darryl Morris, the award-winning broadcaster, filmmaker, and writer known for his thoughtful approach to complex social issues. His skilled facilitation will help us move beyond simplified debates to explore practical paths forward.

 

Audience Participation

This evening isn’t just about listening – it’s about participating in shaping our future. We warmly invite audience members to share their experiences, questions, and ideas as we work together to envision and build a more connected Manchester.

Join us as we explore how our city’s diversity can become its greatest strength.

 

Practical Information

Tickets are free but booking is essential. To book your ticket, please visit MACFEST’s Eventbrite page

 

Accessibility Information

Please contact us regarding any specific accessibility requirements you may have by emailing events@manlitphil.ac.uk

Engels in Manchester: Past Meets Present

Posted on: February 4th, 2025 by mlpEditor

Step into the footsteps of Friedrich Engels and discover Manchester’s hidden histories through fresh eyes. What happens when a descendant of Angel Meadow’s residents retraces one of history’s most influential urban walks?

 

A Book That Echoes Through Time

Join us on a fascinating journey through Manchester’s industrial past as we explore one of history’s most influential urban studies – Friedrich Engels’s The Condition of the Working Class in England. First published in 1845, this groundbreaking work opened the world’s eyes to life in Victorian Manchester and continues to influence how we think about cities today.

 

Uncovering Angel Meadow’s Secrets

Engels walked through Angel Meadow’s working-class courtyards, documenting the harsh realities of industrial life. But what stories lay beneath his observations? What hidden narratives await discovery in those historic streets?

 

Walking in Two Sets of Footsteps

In this special talk commemorating the 180th anniversary of The Condition, we’re thrilled to welcome Orwell Prize-nominated journalist and historian Dean Kirby. As a descendant of Angel Meadow residents, Kirby brings a unique personal connection to this story. He’ll take us along Engels’s original route, sharing fresh insights and unexpected discoveries that add new dimensions to our understanding of Manchester’s transformation from industrial powerhouse to modern metropolis.

 

Practical Information

Booking is essential. Lit & Phil members: we recommend logging into the website to make booking your free member ticket quicker and easier.

 

About the Speaker

Dr Dean Kirby is an award-winning writer and historian-at-large, who writes and consults on the history of Manchester.

 

Accessibility Information

The venue is wheelchair accessible with an accessible toilet on the ground floor. Please contact us regarding any specific accessibility requirements you may have by emailing events@manlitphil.ac.uk

Interview with Professor Dame Athene Donald

Posted on: November 4th, 2024 by mlpEditor

Q: What were your most significant personal experiences that prompted you to write your book ‘Not just for the boys: why we need more women in science’?

A: Although I went to university many years ago, it has been depressing to see that the number of girls studying Physics has increased so little, and hardly at all in the last decade or so.

“During my career I have too often been the only woman in the room, the only woman put on some committee or other and had too many people express surprise that I, a woman, am a physicist. It is a ridiculous waste of talent to let this situation persist for another fifty years.”

 

Q: How optimistic are you that educational institutions and policy makers are taking seriously the removal of barriers to the promotion of women to senior positions in STEM?

A: Institutions certainly play lip service to this, but there can be significant differences between policies in educational institutions and actual implementation. I suspect this is often true in businesses too.

“Additionally, we still have an environment which favours certain styles of behaviour – e.g. being more focussed on grant income than supporting students, for instance – which is a stereotypically male way of doing things.”

There are subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which certain, not necessarily ideal behaviours are rewarded. As for policymakers, I don’t think they are particularly interested in this in the abstract.

 

Q: In your book, you write that gendered perceptions of being a scientist have their foundations in many cases in the home and in the early years of education. Do you have a wish list to fix this?

A: Probably the easiest place to start would be with teacher training. I don’t think teachers are actively encouraged to think about the problems of stereotypes and often inadvertently propagate them in the way they interact with children in the classroom – or indeed earlier in nurseries.

“Girls should be encouraged to build things and boys to play with dolls and play out being nurses. Otherwise, we will continue to see gendered professions.”

The media and our screens also have a crucial role to play in encouraging all children to believe all options are open to them. The current situation is as bad for boys as for girls. Our whole culture has to recognize that pushing children into the pink or blue aisles (figuratively as well as literally) is not healthy for society.

 

Q: What would be the main gains for society in having more equal representation of gender (and diversity in general) across STEM careers?

A: We are losing talent by not ensuring all who want to pursue the STEM subjects are encouraged to do so. This means there are shortages in some technical areas where there is a crying need, and we lose innovation opportunities which is also bad for the economy.

 

Thank you to Dame Athene for taking the time to answer our questions.

Dame Athene Donald will be giving her talk – Not just for the boys: why we need more women in science – at Friends’ Meeting House, Manchester, on Thursday 14 November.

The dark side of sugar: a historical journey

Posted on: October 16th, 2024 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 will explore the evolution of human taste preferences and why we developed such a strong attraction to sweet foods. Dr Buttery will trace sugar’s journey from ancient honey-hunting practices through to early sugar production, examining its significant role in medieval European society.

The discussion will then move to 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 will explain 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.

 

Practical Information

The talk includes a Q&A session and light refreshments can be purchased from the venue’s bar. Booking is essential.

 

About the Speaker

Dr Neil Buttery combines expertise in food history and evolutionary biology to offer unique insights into how our relationship with sugar has evolved over millennia.

 

Accessibility Information

The venue is wheelchair accessible with an accessible toilet on the ground floor. Please contact us regarding any specific accessibility requirements you may have by emailing events@manlitphil.ac.uk

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.

Not just for the boys: why we need more women in science

Posted on: August 20th, 2024 by mlpEditor

Pioneering physicist Professor Dame Athene Donald wrote her book Not just for the boys: why we need more women in science not simply for those practicing science, male or female, but for the wider public, educationalists and policy-makers.

Despite it being many years since the formal barriers to women pursuing the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) being removed, and there being many more women entering universities around the world to study them, still there are fewer and fewer women working in these areas as they move up the career ladder.

In Biology, for instance, the numbers starting a university course in the discipline may well be dominated by women, but by later career stages the numbers are barely better than in Athene’s own subject of Physics, where (in England) still less than 25% of the A Level cohort are girls.

Some of the reasons for the dearth of women are subtle, but many are not. Somehow society is still stuck in a time warp, where women are generally expected not to get their hands dirty on a construction site or in labouring at a lab bench. This is despite many recent examples – something particularly noticeable during the Covid pandemic, where the role of women in developing vaccines and contributing to public health was so prominent – indicating just how old-fashioned these views are. The problems start early in life, when school, parents and the wider world of media all too often stereotype what are girls’ and boy’s subjects and correspondingly suitable career aspirations.

It is arguably too easy to say the problems lie simply in the fact that women want families, although too often that excuse is rolled out. The reality is, almost from birth, children receive messages steering them in particular directions. This can be as bad for boys (too often deterred from subjects such as Psychology and Languages) as for girls, who feel computing or engineering are not for them. Policymakers do not seem to worry about this in the context of school inspections or teacher training.

Dame Athene wants the next generation of would-be female scientists not to continue to face the same obstacles. She firmly believes that society will be the stronger for it if we welcome these women into the scientific world; diversity improves outcomes, as business has begun to recognize. It is time for our laboratories and industries to do the same.

Don’t miss this inspiring and important talk by this multi-award-winning female scientist.

Covid-19: the importance of history in a global pandemic

Posted on: June 25th, 2024 by mlpEditor

What is the role of a historian in a health crisis? As Covid-19 became a full-blown pandemic in the spring of 2020, historians across the world produced rapid and imaginative responses, bringing historical perspectives to bear on how people and societies in the past responded to cholera, Spanish Flu, and more recently ebola. They paid much less attention to capturing and preserving the unfolding of Covid-19.

This talk draws on Stephanie Snow’s experience of leading a national oral history project on the UK’s National Health Service that metamorphosed into the creation of a national collection of Covid-19 testimonies in partnership with the British Library between 2020-2023.

History shows that individual and collective memory can fade rapidly after health crises. Recording testimonies in the moment plays a vital role in supporting individuals and communities to find meaning from their lived experiences in the face of complexity and uncertainty. It creates a permanent historical record of a crisis that captures societal responses that were not prominent in public narratives at the time. It also counters retrospective attempts to establish new public narratives of crisis for socio-political purposes.

Critiques of capturing experiences during crisis focus on the potential harm to participants. Stephanie’s talk will use evaluation data to show how such risks can be minimised if the work is undertaken in a supportive, responsive framework.

Should historians be as concerned with preserving the present as they are about exploring the past? Stephanie certainly thinks so. Join us to find out why.

How has British Imperialism shaped the modern world?

Posted on: June 11th, 2024 by mlpEditor

We’re 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 will 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, will share his own and other specialist historians’ profound insights into the intricate relationship between colonial legacies and the contemporary debates surrounding them.

The event will offer 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 will 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?

Sathnam and Alan will discuss all of this and more. Don’t miss this very special event.

Rest as a Radical Act – We Invented the Weekend

Posted on: June 4th, 2024 by mlpEditor

Rest is sometimes seen as a luxury by those who want to ‘get ahead’. We are being asked to do more, to achieve more, to live ‘fuller lives’. But many of us are experiencing burnout. Something needs to change. We need to reframe rest – to see it as an investment in our wellbeing; as an antidote to burnout culture.

If you’re feeling frazzled, this panel discussion promises some incredible insights from people whose stories you really need to hear. What does ‘self-care’ actually mean or look like? What’s the difference between physical rest and creative rest? How can we make space for rest? Inspiring panellists will talk about their personal journeys towards greater wellbeing, and share insights into what they have learned along the way.

Kya Buller is joined by Scottee of Wonkee Yoga, Emma Campbell from the podcast Open, and Business Psychologist Liam Brodigan.

It’s going to be an impactful discussion, so don’t miss out.

Good Enough Life – We Invented the Weekend

Posted on: June 3rd, 2024 by mlpEditor

What did anthropologist Daniel Miller discover about the role community and place plays in making our lives more fulfilling when he spent time living in a small Irish town?

Dr Sheila McCormick interviews Daniel to explore his findings, and encourage us to reflect on the idea of living a ‘good enough’ life. Professor Daniel Miller’s latest book Good Enough Life tackles the age-old question: ‘what is the purpose of life?’.

By turning to the ‘ordinary’ lives of people in a small Irish town, Miller explores the ways the smaller things in life can lead to fulfilment. Professor Daniel Miller, in conversation with Dr Sheila McCormick (University of Salford), discusses the inspiration behind the book and his methods in beginning to measure happiness. Together, McCormick and Miller prompt the audience to reflect on what creates fulfilment in their own lives.

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