Life and Language

Julie talks about Shakespeare and adaptation, how he gets used by different times and cultures and what we can learn from his plays about everyday practices. She shares her experience of teaching Shakespeare in the pandemic, where the closure of theatres was not only a historical moment but had become “now”. We chat about the need for languages of the humanities to talk about the climate crisis. W...

Ganna explains how data science can help us understand human behaviour. She talks about different types of biases that affect human behaviour (like when we tend to think we are better drivers than we actually are), how data is biased, too, and how building algorithms needs insights from qualitative research. Ganna gives us lots of examples, including from her work on movies and supporting scriptwr...

Phil shares his thoughts on reading as an aid to living. He talks about the vitality of reading aloud and together in a group. We learn about his work in Liverpool and activities of the Reader. Phil is Emeritus Professor of Literature and Psychology at the University of Liverpool. His most recent books are  Reading for Life  (OUP, 2020) and with Fiona Magee,  Arts for Heal...