Jenny Uglow’s Bernal Lecture
for Birkbeck, Tuesday 7 February
Speaker: Jenny Uglow – writer, historian
and winner of the James Tait Black Prize for Biography
Date: Tuesday 7 February, 5pm
Venue: The Mary Ward Hall, Mary Ward House, 5/7 Tavistock
Place, London WC1H 9SN
- Followed by a drinks reception
To reserve a place, call 020 7631 6571 or email events@bbk.ac.uk.
Admission is free.
The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a powerhouse of experiment and bold,
unconventional scientific thought in the eighteenth century. An informal
group of friends, who met and shared ideas over many years, its members
included Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles), Matthew Boulton, James
Watt, Joseph Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood, the geologist John Whitehurst
and the pioneering doctor William Withering.
In this illustrated talk, Jenny Uglow describes their achievements and
colourful lives, and shows how their research was linked, often controversially,
to their political and social ideals – a mix that anticipates
the stance of JD Bernal and other radical scientific thinkers of the
twentieth century.
Described by The Times as “the most perfect historian
imaginable”, Jenny Uglow acts as historical consultant on classic
adaptations for television and film, including the recent Hollywood
film of Pride and Prejudice and the BBC adaptation of Bleak
House.
She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, was on the Advisory
Group for the Humanities of the British Library, and is Vice-President
of the Gaskell Society and an Honorary Visiting Professor at the University
of Warwick.
Jenny reviews for radio and for the Times Literary Supplement,
Sunday Times and the Guardian, and her own books include
The Lunar Men: the Friends Who Made the Future and the biographies
Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories and Hogarth: A Life
and a World – both shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize.
She co-edited The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women’s
Biography (with Maggie Hendry) and Cultural Babbage: Technology,
Time and Invention (with Francis Spufford). Her latest book, published
in May 2004 and written for fun and a labour of love, is A Little
History of British Gardening. Her biography of the engraver Thomas
Bewick will be published later this year.
JD Bernal
JD Bernal was Professor of Physics at Birkbeck from 1938 and
became Chair of Crystallography in 1963. However, his intellectual force
resonated far beyond science through his work as President of the World
Peace Council, 1958-1965. Since 1968, when Professor Bernal retired
from Birkbeck, the College has sponsored an annual lecture in his memory.
The terms of reference of this lecture relate to Bernal's interests,
especially aspects of science that have social consequences.
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