Encounters Lent term 2023
We are pleased to announce another term packed full of diverse, exciting, and thought-provoking talks from a range of inspiring speakers. Pupils from all year groups are welcome to attend what is sure to be another fantastic term of events.
All from 4.15pm - 5.30pm. Unless otherwise stated, events are unticketed and open to all of our Foundation community.
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Encounters Lent term 2023 |
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An Encounter with an Auschwitz survivor Mindu Hornick MBE was born in 1929 in Czechoslovakia. Mindu was deported to Auschwitz in 1942 with her mother, sister and two younger brothers. She was subsequently sent to work in an ammunition factory and in 1948, as Czechoslovakia, fell under Soviet domination, she began a new life in the UK. Mindu has been awarded the Pride of Birmingham’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her work with the Holocaust Memorial Trust and the Anne Frank Trust. “By the painful sharing of what happened to me and my family in those terrible years, I have played my part in keeping the memory alive in the hope that those that will hear us will take on board the message that it is wrong to stand up when others are being persecuted”. (Mindu Hornick) |
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An Encounter with Devil-land: England under Siege, 1588-1688 (with book-signing) Clare Jackson is Senior Tutor of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Clare is an expert on Tudor, Stuart and Georgian Britain and in 2021 wrote the brilliantly acclaimed “Devil-land: England under siege, 1588-1688”, which was awarded the coveted Wolfson History Prize in 2022. |
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An Encounter with Trade Unionism Stephen Brown is the Musicians' Union Regional Organiser for the Midlands, covering both East and West of the region. It is a trade union representing professional musicians. He sits on the regional Trades Union Congress (TUC) executive and chairs the regional creative and leisure industry committee. He has been an active trade unionist for some 30 years both in the public and private sector, as well as being a political and community campaigner championing important issues on the environment, democracy, worker and people’s rights. Stephen co-founded Birmingham’s only employment rights charity ‘Birmingham Peoples Centre’ in 2012. He has been a touring musician having performed all over UK, Europe, and North America, appearing at a large number of festivals including Glastonbury. |
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An Encounter with Mind and Brain “David Papineau has held academic posts at the University of Reading, Macquarie University, Birkbeck College London, and Cambridge University. He has served as President of the British Society for Philosophy of Science, the Mind Association, and the Aristotelian Society. He has written widely on epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of science and mind. His most recent books include Knowing the Score (2017) and The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience (2021). His current research project is about the nature of causation.” |
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An Encounter with Lawrence of Arabia TE Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, is one of the most iconic Britons of the Twentieth Century. A brilliant archaeologist and linguist, Lawrence played the decisive role in encouraging the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Rule in 1916-1818 during the First World War. By 1918 the film “With Lawrence in Arabia” had made him perhaps the most famous face in the world. He subsequently retired from public view, joining the army as a private soldier under the assumed name TE Shaw. In 1935, he was killed in a motorbike accident. David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) starring Peter O’Toole as Lawrence tells his story. |
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An Encounter with the Conservative Party Daniel Kawczynski is the only member of the Westminster parliament to have been born in Warsaw. A firm believer in Brexit and strong supporter of closer UK relations with Saudi Arabia, Daniel has been the Conservative MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham since 2005. He argues that Boris Johnson was unjustly hounded out of office by the media and called Liz Truss “a courageous woman brought down by pygmies”. |
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An Encounter with Holly: from confused undergrad chemist to start up CEO Holly studied at King’s High School and then at Oxford University. She is CEO and Co-founder of HydRegen Limited and a Senior Research Lead and Project Manager on a major £2.9m grant awarded to translate the industrially relevant research from her DPhil (PhD) towards commercialisation. During her DPhil, she demonstrated and developed a highly innovative approach to using cofactor-dependent redox enzymes for H2 driven biotransformations. This system combines the exquisite selectivity of biocatalysts with the perfect atom economy of catalytic hydrogenations and represents a step-change for implementation of biocatalytic processes for fine chemicals synthesis. |
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An Encounter with Political Lobbying Chris Guyver was educated at Warwick School and then studied Modern History at Oxford. Chris’ long career in political lobbying has involved him in a branch of politics often seen as being dark unaccountable. Chris will be laying some of these myths to rest and reminiscing about some of the great and not so great people he has known down the years. |
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An Encounter with Britain’s Future Sunder Katwala is the director of British Future. He has previously worked as a journalist. He was general secretary of the Fabian Society think tank from 2003 to 2011, and was previously a leader writer and internet editor at the Observer British Future is an independent, non-partisan thinktank and registered charity, engaging people’s hopes and fears about integration and immigration, identity, and race. Our long-term aim is a country where we are no longer ‘Them and Us’ but rather a confident and welcoming Britain, inclusive and fair to all. |
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An Encounter with the Earl and the Pharaoh (with book-signing) The Countess of Carnarvon lives at Highclere Castle, best-known as the setting for the popular television programme Downton Abbey. Lady Carnarvon has written several bestselling books including Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, Lady Catherine, and At Home at Highclere. Her most recent book tells the incredible tale of Lord Carnarvon, Howard Carter and the greatest archaeological discovery of all time. |
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An Encounter with Manufactured Memories Professor Kim Wade is a cognitive psychologist and expert in legal psychology. Much of her work focuses on how psychological science can provide constructive explanations for —and solutions to— key problems in the criminal justice system. Wade’s longest running line of research has focussed on autobiographical memory distortions, examining how and why people can come to falsely remember minor details of witnessed events or even entire events that never occurred. Wade’s research has influenced policy and practice within criminal justice and civil law contexts in the UK and beyond. |
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An Encounter with Russia Bridget Kendall became the first female Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge in 2016. She spent over 30 years working for the BBC, becoming one of the Corporation’s most respected international correspondents. She was BBC Moscow correspondent from 1989 to 1994, covering the final years of the Soviet Union and the first years of post-Soviet Russia and from 1994 to 1998 she was the BBC’s Washington correspondent. She conducted two long interviews with President Vladimir Putin in 2001 and 2006, both broadcast live to the world from inside the Kremlin. |
