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Twenty First Annual Darwin College Lecture Series 2006

SURVIVAL

Fridays at 5.30 p.m.
The Lady Mitchell Hall
Sidgwick Avenue
Cambridge

ALL WELCOME

Abstract

'Survival of the fittest' is probably the best known reduction of Charles Darwin's thought. The 21st Darwin College Lecture Series will address various aspects of human survival. It will start by examining the survival of one of the main types of polity within which humans have chosen or been compelled to live: empires. Culture and language have been integral parts - and problems - not just of empires but of the human experience in the broadest sense, and will form the subjects of the following two lectures. Subsequent lectures will consider questions of survival in the face of disease, disaster, and famine that are both prosaic and profound for many - perhaps most - human beings, now as in the past. The final two lectures will conclude the series by examining aspects of survival which have a distinctively modern feel: the biological challenge of living longer, and the future survival as a species on a planet influenced by climate change.

Schedule

20 January Paul Kennedy SURVIVAL OF EMPIRES

27 January Edith Hall SURVIVAL OF CULTURE

3 February Peter Austin SURVIVAL OF LANGUAGES

10 February Richard Feachem SURVIVING DISEASE

17 February James Jackson SURVIVING NATURAL DISASTERS

24 February Andrew Prentice SURVIVING FAMINE

3 March Cynthia Kenyon SURVIVING LONGER

10 March Diana Liverman SURVIVAL INTO THE FUTURE

The lectures are given at 5.30 p.m. in The Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue, with an adjacent overflow theatre with live TV coverage. Each lecture is typically attended by 600 people so you must arrive early to ensure a place.