̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Hay Festival

Cambridge researchers at the Hay Festival

Anonymous — Wed, 17 May 2023 08:43:07 +0000

Four Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� academics will speak at the Hay Festival 2023 as part of the Cambridge Series.

̽��ֱ��menace of monolingualism

mjg209 — Fri, 18 May 2018 09:41:48 +0000

Is monolingualism harming us, both as individuals and as a society? Wendy Ayres-Bennett, Professor of French Philology and Linguistics, is leading a major interdisciplinary research project which looks at the value of languages for everything from health and well-being to social cohesion, diplomacy and conflict resolution.

̽��ֱ��MEITS project (Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies) is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Open World Research Initiative and seeks to transform the health of the discipline of Modern Languages in the UK, attitudes towards multilingualism and language policy at home and abroad. ̽��ֱ��motivation for the project comes from an awareness that language learning in the UK is in a very difficult state. “There is a sense that modern languages are in crisis,” says Professor Ayres-Bennett, “and that traditional motivations to get people studying languages are not working. We need exciting new reasons to learn languages and to demonstrate the value of speaking more than one language.”

̽��ֱ��project, which finishes in 2020, involves around 30 non-academic partners including schools and voluntary groups and has six interlocking research strands which investigate how the insights gained from stepping outside a single language, culture and mode of thought are vital to individuals and societies.

Professor Ayres-Bennett will speak about three areas of the research in a talk at the Hay Festival for the Cambridge Series, now in its 10th year. ̽��ֱ��first involves health and builds on research which shows that if you are bilingual dementia onset is on average delayed by up to five years compared to people who are monolingual, and that stroke victims who are bilingual recover cognitively twice as well as monolingual ones. What is more exciting, says Professor Ayres-Bennett, is that even those who learn a language later in life can enjoy certain cognitive benefits. One experiment conducted as part of the project involved a group who learnt Gaelic intensively for a week and were monitored to see if there was any impact on their cognitive abilities. ̽��ֱ��results were positive. “ ̽��ֱ��kind of mental gymnastics that learning a language involves is good for us and for our ageing society. They help us to stay mentally active a bit longer,” says Professor Ayres-Bennett. “It’s a benefit that is little known, but learning a language is better than any drug currently available for delaying dementia.”

A second area she will speak about is how languages can bring people together and create greater social cohesion. Language is at the heart of some of the current political problems in Northern Ireland, with Irish tending to be viewed with suspicion by the Protestant-Unionist-Loyalist (PUL) community. ̽��ֱ��MEITS project has been working with two charities in Northern Ireland to enhance understanding between the Catholic and Protestant communities. It has been teaching former paramilitaries and future PUL leaders basic Irish. Professor Ayres-Bennett says: “ ̽��ֱ��Irish language doesn’t have to be associated with sectarianism; the aim is to normalise it and show how it is part of everyone’s culture. In addition, demonstrating the origins of Irish place names can show that Irish is part of PUL heritage as well.”

̽��ֱ��third area she will touch on involves the work the project is doing with a number of schools in London and East Anglia to change attitudes to languages. It is comparing language learning for children who are monolingual and started learning a language at school with those who have English as an additional language. ̽��ֱ��students are being tracked over a two-year period. “We want children to value the languages they speak and schools to think consciously about what it means to be multilingual and to see children with more than one language as a resource rather than an inconvenience,” says Professor Ayres-Bennett. She mentions one Polish student who placed himself near the monolingual end of a scale which asked children to consider how multilingual they were because he was just starting to learn French. “He didn’t value his ability to speak Polish. We need to get away from the hierarchy of good and bad languages,” she states. She adds that looking at multilingualism in a positive way improves social cohesion in the classroom as well as potentially improving students’ motivation for learning and their proficiency.

̽��ֱ��MEITS project’s findings will be widely disseminated with the aim of raising awareness of all the different areas of policy which language learning affects. “Language is so central to who we are, to our identities, that it has to have a higher profile across all government departments,” says Professor Ayres-Bennett.

Professor Wendy Ayres-Bennett will speak at the Hay Festival about her research into the health and social benefits of multilingualism.

̽��ֱ��kind of mental gymnastics that learning a language involves is good for us and for our ageing society. They help us to stay mentally active a bit longer.

Professor Wendy Ayres-Bennett

MEITS project

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Cambridge heads for Hay

jfp40 — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 09:20:09 +0000

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Series has been running for six years at the prestigious Festival and is part of the ̽��ֱ��’s commitment to public engagement. ̽��ֱ��Festival runs from 22nd May to 1st June and is now open for bookings.

This year's line-up includes Sir John Gurdon who was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that mature cells can be converted to stem cells. He will talk about his pioneering work on cloning.

Other speakers include Dr Ha-Joon Chang on economics, classicist Professor Paul Cartledge on after Thermopylae, Dame Barbara Stocking, former chief executive of Oxfam GB and president of Murray Edwards College, on the challenges for women in the workplace, Professor Chris Dobson and Dr Mary Dobson on Alzheimer's and other plagues, economist Professor Noreena Hertz on smart thinking and Professor Robert Mair on tunnelling into the future of our cities.

Professor Richard Evans, president of Wolfson College, will talk about the history of conspiracy theories, Dr John Swenson-Wright from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies will ask if North Korea is the perennial crisis state and Dr Robin Hesketh from the Department of Biochemistry will attempt to demystify cancer.

Several of the talks will take the form of a conversation: Professor Simon Blackburn will debate the uses and abuses of self love with journalist Rosie Boycott; novelist and playwright Biyi Bandele, a former Judith E. Wilson Fellow at Churchill College, will be in conversation with Dr Malachi McIntosh from the Department of English about migrant writing; Professor Henrietta Moore, William Wyse Chair of Social Anthropology, will talk about the future of civil activism with Ricken Patel, founding President of Avaaz, the world's largest online activist community; and psychologist Dr Terri Apter will debate how women follow, resist and play with the stereotypes that define them with author and alumna Zoe Strimpel.

Other Cambridge academics speaking at Hay are Professor Stefan Collini discussing higher education’s two cultures - the humanities and science - and historian Professor David Reynolds.

Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival, said: "Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� nurtures and challenges the world's greatest minds, and offers the deepest understanding of the most intractable problems and the most thrilling opportunities. And for one week a year they bring that thinking to a field in Wales and share it with everyone. That's a wonderful gift."

Nicola Buckley, head of public engagement at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��Cambridge series is a wonderful way to share fascinating research from the ̽��ֱ�� with the public. ̽��ֱ��Hay Festival draws an international cross-section of people, from policy makers to prospective university students. We have found that Hay audiences are highly interested in the diversity of Cambridge speakers, and ask some great questions. We look forward to another fantastic series of speakers, with talks and debates covering so many areas of research and key ideas emerging from Cambridge, relevant to key issues faced globally today."

For tickets, go to: www.hayfestival.org

A host of Cambridge academics, including Nobel Laureate Sir John Gurdon, will be speaking on subjects ranging from stem cell technology and Alzheimer’s to the future of North Korea and the history of conspiracy theories at this year’s Hay Festival.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� nurtures and challenges the world's greatest minds, and offers the deepest understanding of the most intractable problems and the most thrilling opportunities

Peter Florence, Director of Hay Festival

Hay Festival

Night shot at Hay Festival

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Catch some Hay fever online

tdk25 — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 14:36:31 +0000

A selection of talks from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s series at this year’s Hay Festival, which ended on Sunday, are now available online.

̽��ֱ��collection can be found on iTunesU, or via Soundcloud by clicking here.

This was the fifth year that the ̽��ֱ�� has run a series of talks at the famous literary festival as part of its public engagement work. Thousands of people attended the Cambridge series, which covered subjects as diverse as domestic service, women’s equality, US politics, nanotechnology, and smart drugs.

Alumni including Chris Blackhurst, editor of the Independent, and Gaby Hinsliff, author of Half a Wife: ̽��ֱ��Working Family’s Guide to Getting a Life Back, also took part in discussions with Cambridge researchers. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Alumni Relations Office meanwhile held an event which was addressed by Peter Florence, the Festival’s director and a Cambridge alumnus.

Professor Martin Rees’ talk on a post-human future drew an audience of about 1,000 people, Professor Simon Blackburn ‘s discussion with Chris Blackhurst on the nature of declining trust in institutions pulled in about 750, and several other talks and sessions had to be moved to bigger venues because of their popularity among festival-goers.

Dr Alex Jeffrey, who spoke on justice and recovery in Bosnia with Guardian journalist Ed Vulliamy, said: “It was superb! It was a welcome change from more scholarly styles of discussion and forced me to think differently about my work.”

A total of 16 researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� took part in the Festival’s Cambridge series. Elsewhere, a further six Cambridge academics appeared as part of the broader Festival programme.

Nicola Buckley, Head of Public Engagement, said: " ̽��ֱ��audience reaction to the Cambridge series at this year's Hay Festival was fantastic, and the question and answer sessions were thought-provoking for speakers and audiences alike. We met a number of people at Hay who had chosen to go to several of the talks in the Cambridge series because they enjoyed them so much. We are grateful to Peter Florence and the team at Hay and all the speakers for taking part."

Eight of the talks from the Cambridge Series from this year’s Hay Festival are now available for users to stream or download online.

It was superb! It was a welcome change from more scholarly styles of discussion and forced me to think differently about my work.

Alex Jeffrey

Hay Festival.

Reading at the Hay Festival.

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