Ruth Finnegan FBA is Emeritus Professor and Visiting Research Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University. Her edited volume ‘Participating in the Knowledge Society: Researchers Beyond the University Walls’ was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2005.
Dr William Noel, Curator of Manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, discusses the project to retrieve the unique classical texts in the ‘Archimedes Palimpsest’ – a manuscript that contains treasures undiscovered for centuries.
Dr Piers D Mitchell and Dr Andrew R Millard describe the first surprising results from their research into the migration patterns of Europeans taking part in the Crusades. Their project illustrates the significant role scientific archaeology can play in supplementing knowledge based on the historical record.
The current research of Dr Rachel Beckles Willson is concerned with examining western classical music in the Middle East. As one element in her programme, she spent time with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, founded by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said. In this article, she considers the impact of the founders’ …
Professor Robin Law, Chairman of the Africa Panel, describes the establishment and current work of the Panel.
The medieval English Church prohibited the use of the translation of the Bible made in Wyclif’s time. Traditionally, the Wycliffite Bible has been understood as a reformist document, but Dr Mary Dove argues that, contrary to received opinion, the readership was prodominantly devout and orthodox. She sets out the evidence …
Dr David Lambert, Reader in Historical Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, tells the story of an unlikely alliance in British efforts to stem the sources of the slave trade in Africa, and describes how geographical knowledge – derived from displaced slaves themselves – contributed to abolitionist endeavours.
Professor Albert Weale FBA, Chairman of the British Academy’s Peer Review Working Group, reports on the main findings and recommendations of the Review.
Through its series of research-related reviews, the British Academy seeks to examine issues crucial to the condition and health of its areas of interest. Professor John Kay FBA, Chairman of the British Academy’s Copyright Working Group, reports on the main findings and recommendations of the Review.
Professor Stephen Graham, of Durham University, analyses the extent to which society has become subject to visible and invisible surveillance, tracking, and sorting technologies. He draws attention to the radical and divisive social consequences of ‘software-sorting’ and calls for public regulation of the systems that are coming to pervade so …
Dr Will Rea, of the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds paints a picture of Ibadan, sketching the history and describing the unique characteristics of the city, that gave rise in the 1960s to the remarkable ‘Ibadan renaissance’ of writers and …
In 1972, Professor Stanley Cohen FBA published his seminal work ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics’. On 9 March 2007, Professor Cohen was joined at the British Academy by Professor David Garland, and Professor Stuart Hall FBA, in an evening meeting to reflect on what has happened to the notion of …
Professor Marian Hobson FBA reports on the various activities the Academy is undertaking to draw attention to the crisis in language learning.
Karen Wise, Professor John Sloboda FBA, and Professor Isabelle Peretz describe recent research into the condition of tone deafness, or ‘congenital amusia’, and consider the phenomenon of those who are not apparently tone deaf but who classify themselves as such.
Dr Meredith Shafto is engaged on a long-term project to understand the cognitive changes that happen as we age. In this article, she describes her current work on language comprehension.
Professor W. John Morgan discusses the life and thought of Martin Buber, and asks whether his concepts of dialogue can help today in efforts to resolve conflicts in the Middle East, and between other communities in dispute.