York academics making Hay

Posted on Monday 12 May 2014

Academics from the departments of Archaeology, Chemistry, English Literature, History of Art and Philosophy will host and chair events at this year’s Hay Festival, running 22 May – 1 June, and the philosophy festival HowTheLightGetsIn, taking place in Hay-on-Wye over the same period.

On 24 May, Professor Julian Richards, of the Department of Archaeology, will reveal recent discoveries made on a Lincolnshire site where the Viking Great Army wintered from AD 872-3. The following day, Professor Helen Fulton, from the Department of English and Related Literature, will give an illustrated lecture on Trojan legend in medieval Wales, and on 29 May Professor Lucy Carpenter, from the Department of Chemistry, will discuss the chemical exchanges between the world’s oceans and atmosphere. Professor Carpenter will also chair an event with four Royal Society Research Fellows discussing their latest research.

On 30 May, Sarah Brown, Director of the MA in Stained Glass Conservation and Heritage Management in the Department of History of Art, will speak about the current conservation of York Minster’s Great East Window, the largest stained glass window ever made in medieval England.

Sarah Brown, who is also Director of the York Glazier’s Trust, said: “One of our project objectives has been to put the creator of the window – Master-Glazier John Thornton – on the map, so this is a wonderful opportunity to bring his masterpiece to a wider audience.”

On 31 May, the Department of Philosophy’s Professor James Ladyman will take part in a panel event at the HowTheLightGetsIn Festival. Discussing whether we should take scientific discoveries as fact or fiction, Professor Ladyman will be joined by former Home Office drugs advisor David Nutt and Rupert Sheldrake, author of The Science Delusion.