Novelist Elif Shafak and linguist Ross Perlin to headline Summer Showcase 2025

Novelist Elif Shafak and linguist Ross Perlin will be among a stellar line-up of leading thinkers at the British Academy’s free festival of ideas on Friday 20 and Saturday 21 June.

The Academy’s annual Summer Showcase invites a curious public to learn about and be part of the innovative humanities and social sciences research that is shaping how we understand our world.

Visitors will travel back to an ancient Roman laundry, through the 1600s plague, the fashion of 1800s ballrooms, around an iconic Birmingham bus route and into the soundscape and lights of Antarctica’s Aurora Australis. Comic-making and sampling the evocative tastes of UK-Chinese food are among the interactive exhibits. Meanwhile, digital exhibits will showcase the clothing of Muslim men at Jummah (Friday prayers), as well as a VR reimagining of a baroque chapel.

The 2025 Showcase includes a relaxed ‘Friday Late’ on 20 June and a family-friendly day on 21 June. Event highlights include:

• Elif Shafak, winner of the British Academy President’s Medal 2024, headlining the Friday Late, where she will discuss her latest novel There are Rivers in the Sky with broadcaster Ritula Shah. The Friday Late will also feature insightful workshops, such as ‘Alcohol Crime and Justice: A Complex Cocktail’ and ‘Vegan Influencers: Does Social Media Change Your Mind?’
• On Saturday, Ross Perlin, winner of the British Academy Book Prize, will make a rare UK appearance to share the importance of preserving mother tongues.
• Fashioning Fancy Dress Through the Ages: an exhibit shedding light on the making and wearing of fancy dress through the centuries, looking at its cultural significance to class, gender, and race over time.
• The Taste of Memory: An immersive journey of food, migration and memory which connect generations within British-Chinese communities.
• Number 11: Know Your Place: A whistlestop tour of the extraordinary yet underappreciated landscape and cultural histories of Birmingham, as seen from its iconic circular Number 11 bus.

The Showcase is a unique chance for visitors to freely explore the British Academy’s historic, Grade-I listed town house, located a stone’s throw from the Mall and Buckingham Palace, following a £10 million redevelopment completed last Autumn to transform the Academy’s lower ground floor and make the building more accessible to the public. The Academy is also home to a world-class art collection, including works by Paula Rego, Yinka Shonibare and Hew Locke.

Professor Julia Black, President of the British Academy, said: “Throwing our doors open to connect researchers with the public has always been a highlight of our year, and this year’s Showcase will be bigger and better than ever before. We are hosting our Summer Showcase for the first time in our newly transformed and modernised home, and all the changes we have made to our building have been designed with visitors’ experience front of mind. The exchange of knowledge and ideas, the spirit of curiosity and the conversations fuelled by the Showcase are always inspiring – as is the collective awareness that the humanities and social sciences help us all relate to and understand one another. Something to lift the spirits in the unsettling times in which we all live.”

Events are free but booking is recommended. For the full Summer Showcase 2025 programme, visit www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/summershowcase.