And we’re back. Join us for our first seminar of summer term:
Diary of a Vandalized Car
Dominique Routhier (@routhier.bsky.social)
Friday 24 April, 5.30pm
@ucl-ias.bsky.social
Common Ground G11, South wing, UCL, Gower St, WC1E 6BT
All welcome. No booking required.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
Cropped section of a print by Durer, "Draughtsman making a perspective drawing of a reclining woman". The image just shows the draughtsman drawing. The woman has been cropped out to prevent the image being banned for adult content as she is wearing no clothes.
Call for papers: Reframing Poetics: Language, Structure, Form
A one day symposium at the UCL Institute of Advanced Study, 22nd July, considering the materiality of language in poetics. Deadline for submissions: 15 May 2026.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
Diary of a Vandalized Car
24 April, 5:30–7:30 pm
Join this 'Marxism in Culture' seminar with Dominique Routhier (Roskilde University). His talk traces the “decline and fall” of American civilization through the decomposition of its most emblematic form: the automobile.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
Our last big hurrah before we're shut down.
We hope you can join us (free lunch!)
28 April 2026, 9am-5pm
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
‼️Registration closing soon!‼️
The Devil Made Me Do It: Understanding Occult Crime in South Africa
20 April, 5:30 pm, UCL
Prof Nicky Falkof will discuss how beliefs in occult crime intersect with problems of gender, race and class.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
Out Laws: Screening and discussion
11 May 6–8:30pm, UCL East
Out Laws follows three queer activists, from Namibia, Sri Lanka and Barbados, as they fight to overturn the colonial-era laws that still criminalise their lives.
www.ucl.ac.uk/lgbtq-resear...
‼️Registration now open!‼️
The Devil Made Me Do It: Understanding Occult Crime in South Africa
20 April 2026, 5:30 pm, UCL, London
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
An open matchbox with bank notes and matches showing inside and 'Fires & Fascism' on the label with a forest fire in the background.
FIRES AND FASCISM is a new 57-min documentary linking increasing wildfires of Europe with fascism, big business, organised crime, and the rise of the far right. It showcases community action, protest, rewilding.
Screening: 7 May 5–7:30pm @sprc-ucl.bsky.social
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants. Deadline: 3 June 2026 Independent Scholars Deadline: 27 May 2026
The British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants is now open for applications, supported by DSIT, @leverhulme.ac.uk and @wellcometrust.bsky.social. Apply now: https://bit.ly/4t0MDRl
🎓️ If universities become STEM-heavy, 'we end up with a small number of elite universities that do arts and humanities, and then arts and humanities doesn’t become a driver of social mobility,' said Professor Bowden
🔗 Read more in @timeshighered.bsky.social 👇
buff.ly/EqLOxub
photo of person on a bike with a statue in the background. The photo appears to have been taken out of the window of a car, as it's slanting and not centered.
And Just Like That / I Find Myself in Port-au-Prince
13 May 5pm
Sigrid Thomsen explores how Laferrière’s texts can be said to turn toward diaspora both through switching between forms and through the protagonist switching between Montréal, Port-au-Prince, and New York
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
large and small pieces of confetti and glitter falling down
Celebrating the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies
28 April 9am-5pm
Not so much about marking its closure as signposting its accomplishments, and remembering what the IAS did best - preserving the tacit and the unspoken.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
Image of the book cover 'Edith Wharton and German Culture' and a photo of the author, Maria-Novella Mercuri
IAS Book Launch: Edith Wharton and German Culture
23 April 6-8pm
Each chapter centers on one main novel or theme recurring in a group of works including poetry, plays and short fiction, as well as posthumously published autobiographical work.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
A young person running through a field with flowers, with a city in a hazy fog in the background.
If you're interested in concepts of withdrawal, escape, refusal, retreat, silence and absence then this could be the symposium for you!
Retreat and the Politics of Escape
29 April 2026, 4:30 pm–9:00 pm
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
IAS Book Launch: Critical Conditions: My Diary of the Syrian Revolution.
21 April 2026, 5pm–6:30pm
We welcome award-winning Syrian journalist and media activist Hadi Abdullah for the presentation of his book.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
The Devil Made Me Do It: Understanding Occult Crime in South Africa
20 April 5:30-8pm
With author Prof Nicky Falk. In a vastly unequal country, why are South Africans so quick to blame the supernatural for violence & misfortune?
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
The Song of Songs: Poetry in History
10 April 2–5pm
How does poetry work in the medieval and early modern and other worlds? This workshop will take the example of the Biblical Song of Songs.
www.ucl.ac.uk/early-modern...
The Politics of Life and Death in Extractive Capitalism
9 April 5-6:30pm @sprc-ucl.bsky.social
The speaker, Laleh Khalili, is Professor at the University of Exeter, at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, and specializes in colonial and imperial infrastructures.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
The more things change - Digital Humanities in a tumultuous world
2 June 2026, 6pm
We're delighted to welcome our former director ✨@melissaterras.bsky.social ✨Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh, to give the 2026 Susan Hockey Lecture 🎉
www.ucl.ac.uk/digital-huma...
This event will be followed at 18:30 by a reading of WASTELAND, written by former IAS / Urban Lab Creative Fellow, Nicola Baldwin. Please book tickets for this event separately.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
IAS Reflections Symposium: Celebrating the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies
28 April 2026 9am-5pm
This symposium will celebrate the wealth of highly innovative, interdisciplinary research that has been generated within the auspices of the IAS over the last ten years.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
Digitalised childhood and the Gandhi-Tagore Legacy
11 May 5:30–7:30pm
Gandhi & Tagore and their pedagogic legacy offer us a rare perspective and direction for contemplating our response to digitalised childhood.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
May be of interest? @artshumsucl.bsky.social @uclselcs.bsky.social @ghilondon.bsky.social @uk.diplo.de @goethe-institut-uk.bsky.social @peterzusi.bsky.social
IAS Book Launch: Edith Wharton and German Culture
23 April 2026, 6-8pm
Maria-Novella Mercuri offers a close analysis of Wharton's engagement with German literature and philosophy.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
Event poster for 'All Tomorrow’s Parties: What Central and Eastern Europe Teaches Us About Party Politics'. In person event.
We are delighted to invite you to Prof. @allansikk.bsky.social's Inaugural Lecture 'All Tomorrow’s Parties: What Central and Eastern Europe Teaches Us About Party Politics'.
🗓️ 13 May at 6pm BST
📍 Gustave Tuck
🗓️ Free and open to all: www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanit...
Award-winning journalist & activist Hadi Abdullah presents his book 'Critical Conditions: My Diary of the Syrian Revolution' 📅21 Apr 5pm
From the aftermath of revolution, war & exile, the book is an account of survival & a meditation on witnessing, resistance & memory.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
Why are South Africans so quick to blame the supernatural for violence and misfortune? How do beliefs in occult crime intersect with problems of gender, race and class?
Join us on 20 Apr where author Nicky Falkof will examine these & other questions from her new book.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
Painting by Joos van Winghe (circa 1600) entitled 'Elegant company, playing with torchlight'. Group of musicians playing lute, flute, harpsichord and a singer, with other instruments on a table in the foreground.
⚠️Register before 12 April ⚠️
Marking Music: the Use of Music Books in Early Modern Europe
11–12 May 2026 @cemskcl.bsky.social & online
For scholars of music, book history & related to explore how people engaged with books containing music in early modern period.
www.tickettailor.com/events/aheve...
TODAY!!
