Academic Guest Lectures

1. A Battle from Space: The Archaeology of a Second World War North African Battlefield.

In this session, students will learn about the Battle of Gazala and explore the archaeology of the battlefield by using satellite images. Students will also compare historical documents with the physical traces of the battle. By analysing the landscape of the Libyan desert, students will gain an understanding of the different tactics employed by the Allies and Axis.

2. The Archaeology of the Cold War.

Between 1945 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the world was split between the political ideologies of capitalism and Soviet bloc communism. The military standoff between the USA and the Soviet Union shaped the history of the second half of the twentieth century. Archaeology is the study of human history through objects and as such, the Cold War, with its bunkers, missile silos, airfields, and other installations, has an archaeological footprint. In this session, we explore some of the buildings and structures built during the Cold War.

3. The Archaeology of the Friendly Invasion.

Over the course of the Second World War, the American strategic bombing campaign aimed at Western Europe was predominantly based in East Anglia. Although only entering the war in December 1941, by May 1942, the United States Air Force had already been allocated 28 sites from which to operate in the east of England. In this session, we will explore the archaeological legacy of the ‘Friendly Invasion’.

4. The Infrastructure of the Special Operations Executive, 1940-1946.

In 1940 the British Government established the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to ‘coordinate’ all action, by way of subversion and sabotage, against the enemy overseas.’ From the time of its creation, SOE has been one of the most controversial of Britain’s secret services. The focus of this session, however, is SOE’s agent-facing ‘infrastructure’; we will explore the facilities required to run a secret service and what these can tell us about SOE.

5. Outposts of Empire: Forts and Fortifications throughout the British Empire.

In this session we will explore the forts and fortifications constructed by the British throughout the empire. Students will discover how fortifications changed over time and across the British Empire.

1. Workplace health & wellbeing – Why it’s important and how to embed it into your organisation.

This lecture is aimed at educating the next generation of entrepreneurs to understand the value of having a healthy workforce & how it positively impacts on the bottom line of an organisation.

2. Positive workplace culture - creating a happy, healthy, and engaged workforce.

This lecture is aimed as celebrating employees as individuals and the value they bring to an organisation if they are engaged and enjoy being at work.

3. How to create a creative thinking workplace culture.

This lecture is aimed at showing that creative thinking works within any organisation and how to harness the potential of employees.

4. Political and Economic Risk.

The world is increasingly volatile and uncertain. A key aspect of business strategy is the ability to identify risk and opportunities through environmental scanning. One aspect of environmental scanning is the ability to spot risks and opportunities emerging from the world of politics and economics. This lecture introduces students to the political and economic world and techniques for spotting the risks and opportunities that emerge from them.

5. An Introduction to Business Strategy.

The difference between success and failure in any area of performance might be whether an individual/organisation has an appropriate strategy. This lecture introduces students to theories and concepts related to business strategy taking students on a journey that begins with identification of what we mean by strategy all the way to exploring what makes a good strategy through examination of successful case studies.

6. Leadership Styles.

Exploring the difference between leadership and management from an organisational perspective.

7. Understanding Organisational Environments.

Using environmental scanning tools to better understand the environment in which organisations operate within.

8. Marketing in a digital age.

Looking at the power of social media and the use of influencers in marketing.

9. Corporate Financing and Firm Innovation. How do firms finance their innovation activities?

This lecture is aims to explore the intrinsic relationship between capital structure and firm’s innovativeness. It tries to answer how different leverage levels influence firms’ innovation investment decisions and performance; and tries to reveal the nonlinear effect imposed by leverage on innovation.

1. Counselling and Self-Compassion.

This talk will explore a little about what counselling is and why we might study it. It will also consider some important counselling concepts including self-compassion and the importance of self-reflection and self-care. You will be able to gain a sense of what becoming a counsellor might look like and consider whether this could be a career for you.

1. What Is the Purpose of Education? The Transmission of Knowledge and Beyond.

Education is regarded as an important aspect of all human cultures. There is a desire to pass on ‘the best of what has been thought and said’ to the next generation in a society. How can this broad purpose of education be characterised and captured by academic theory? Is education simply the unproblematic ‘transmission of knowledge’ from teacher to learner or are there other ‘dimensions’ (perhaps ‘hidden dimensions’) to education that might challenge this unproblematic transmission from one generation to the next? Current cognitivist views of education (popular in the English education system) will be contrasted with alternative conceptions of the purpose(s) of education.

2. Schooling England: Have the Last Schools Been Built?

What is the difference (if any) between schooling and education? How might schooling transform over the next decades in England? The perspective of ‘21st Century Skills’ will be explored in the context of the increasing digital enhancement of schools and classrooms. Is it possible to educate and ‘school’ learners at a distance? Is the promise of digitally enhanced education ultimately to abolish the need for school buildings? Can a school exist ‘in the cloud’? If the last schools have been built, what is the future of education.

1. AO3 Lecture: A Streetcar Named Desire.

This is a single session designed to help students recognise, illustrate, and evaluate the influence of key contextual factors upon Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Specifically, it will offer readings of the play in relation to Williams’ family life and personal relationships, post-war American culture and the decline of the South, the Cold War and cultural conformity, and the new theatrical radicalism of the 1940s. Each contextual area will be illustrated through close reading and textual reference, and the reflective analysis will encourage students to move beyond reductive assumptions about the relationships between literature and context.

2. Guidance for Non-Examination Assessment: Selection, Connection and Research.

This session is designed to help students with the key requirements of the AQA or Edexcel non-examination essays. It will include guidance upon the selection of suitable literary texts and thematic connections, advice on how to frame and refine a question or thesis, and most importantly, how to locate secondary research materials, and successfully employ critical resources within a comparative essay. This session can be customised in terms of breadth and timings to either focus on a specific guidance area or to include a greater number of practical workshop tasks.

3. ‘Is there ever such a thing as a new story?’

Have you ever stopped to think about where your favourite stories originate from? When you do, you will probably realise that the tales we know and love are simply modernisations of those from thousands of years ago. Whether you’re thinking about recent film releases, novels, or video games, Sherlock Holmes was certainly right when he reported that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’. In this informal lecture, Dr Amy Albudri explains how since the ancient Sumerian hero Gilgamesh stepped off the (stone) pages of epic legend more than 5000 years ago, human beings have continued to rearticulate the same characters, settings, and plotlines. The enduring nature of storytelling not only connects us with our ancestors, but leads us to pose the question: ‘is there ever such a thing as a new story?’ The session will explore the origins and development of some of humanity’s most loved myths and legends; where have they come from and where are they going? Using well known examples from popular culture, students are encouraged to discuss how stories continue to be retold and reinterpreted. There will be an opportunity for questions.

4. ‘To Tweet, or not to Tweet? Shakespeare’s plays as Elizabethan social media.

When speaking about social networks today we immediately think of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Yet the concept of social networks came long before the invention of the Internet; the ‘Great Bard’ himself was a pioneer of literature as a form of social networking. Not only did the ‘new media’ of print in sixteenth-century England enable theatres to draw together more diverse communities than ever before, we also find different metaphors for social media in Shakespeare’s plays. These range from ‘Tweeting’ to ‘trolling’ and highlight how technology and the humanities have historically shared the same objective: to facilitate communication among people. In this live, participative workshop, students are invited to consider Shakespeare as a forerunner of Elizabethan social networking before engaging in tutor led interactive exercises. There will also be an opportunity for Q&A. The session is led by Dr Amy Albudri and provides students with the chance to experience an Undergraduate style literary discussion. Students will also be encouraged to consider the role and relevance of historic literature in the twenty-first century; this forms the basis for certain modules at Bishop Grosseteste University and provides a useful insight into what students can expect when embarking on a degree in English. It is not a requirement that students have read the texts used for example in the session: these are Hamlet and Twelfth Night.

5. Death and the Victorians: The Age of a Beautiful Death.

This single session investigates Victorian literature through the lens of Victorian culture to discover how this age developed a fascination with death that for those who could afford turn it into a cult. It studies how the Victorians mourned and remembered the death through complex and rigid mourning practices and etiquette, and objects such as funerary and commemorative jewels, photographs of the dead, elaborate headstones, and tombs in municipal cemeteries. We will look into their interest in experimenting with spiritualism, and other nineteenth-century pseudosciences to communicate with the dead and connect with the afterlife. This session will illustrate each aspect of this contextual session with textual reference and encourage the students to see literature from a multitude of lenses.

6. Love and the Victorians.

How was love conceptualised in Victorian literature? How did Victorian writers capture love? And what is their legacy to our understanding of the language of love today? This single session questions assumptions that are still often made when love is conveyed in literary form by exploring how the culture contexts of the nineteenth century reveal the socio-cultural inequalities of Victorian society. From the Bröntes to the Brownings, from Tennyson to Oscar Wilde and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, this session reflects on Victorian moral values, double standards, inequalities, unspeakable love, and reform. We will examine how their writing charmed Victorian audiences or shocked them and demonstrate how contexts connects us to the Victorian literature.

7. Transnational Victorians.

This single session aims to reassess the Victorians through a transnational perspective. Through literature of the nineteenth century, we will look at Victorian society in movement across the globe and how, crossing borders, they create new identities in need of representations. What did it mean to be transnational in the Victorian age? We will rethink the Victorian and their relationship to the world but thinking about the books they travel with and the one they wrote about their travels., or to represent that they learnt about being human as transnational subjects moving between borders and boundaries. This session will illustrate each aspect of this contextual session with textual reference and encourage students to appreciate the value literature from a multitude of lenses.

8. Haunting Gothic: Danger and Desire in Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938).

.This single session focuses on Daphne Du Maurier’s seminal gothic novel and its film adaptations to study the contribution of women’s writing to the Gothic, a genre that remains a popular with persistent influence in our culture. We will study how, making use of fairy tale devices, this novel disrupts assumptions about gender, heteronormativity, and the domestic. Manderley, like Rebecca, haunts this story and its women turning their marital home into the most dangerous place. We will discuss how haunting, belonging, and doubles are central to this gothic tale, whose narrator is unnamed. Contextualising Rebecca through the female Gothic and gender studies, this session demonstrate how literature reflects those concerns, debates, and campaigning that remains relevant today.

9. How to Write a Successful Essay.

This interactive session includes top tips from a university lecturer on improving your essay writing. We will cover a range of essay skills, including structure, embedding quotations, and writing style, to discover what works when writing assignments. The session will be relevant to students studying GCSE and A-Level English, as well as those interested in writing essays at university in the future.

10. The Great Stink: Smelly Sewage and Deadly Disease in Victorian Literature.

In this contextual session we will learn about the Great Stink of 1858, when there was an outcry about the rancid smell of the Thames over a particularly hot summer. We will look at writers from Charles Dickens to Florence Nightingale to understand the range of genres that raised awareness of this foul smell and its health effects. This session is designed to support students and teachers with the AS/A-Level Assessment Objective 3 (AOS3), on showing understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written.

1.How would you teach English to speakers of other languages?

English is the most popular language to learn as a second language, and people around the world (and in the UK) want to learn it. So, how do we teach people to speak English in English? In this session you will learn some of the tools that English Language Teachers use to teach the English language...and learn some Mandarin too.


2. How do we teach primary school children to read?

Children who read are more likely to have well-developed vocabularies and go on to have more success in school in subjects including English. How, then, do we teach children to read? And how can we encourage them to read more? In this session you will find out some tips, tools, and the research on developing children's reading. You will also learn to describe English phonology with the IPA and how it is used in the phonics system of teaching reading in primary schools around the country.

1. Exam Success.

Exam success is a must for students who struggle to perform in the stress of summative examinations. This course will approach key approaches to examinations, including revision, physical health and test techniques used by examiners. It will allow students to break down their subject content in order to create an effective plan for each paper they undertake. Participants will also be given tools to help them prepare for common issues, including anxiety, distraction and time management. ‘Exam Success’ is ideal for AS and A-Level students in any subject area and any level of ability.

1. Caring looks different to everybody.

This session will explore what is meant by informal caring and consider who are carers. We explore how caring roles evolve and contemplate how we can all be carers at some point in our lives and what that means. The session is designed to be interactive and includes a quiz which has been designed to think more broadly about the roles of carers and their responsibilities to those they care for but also to themselves. We will then consider the wider health and social care sector and the role carers play across the sectors. This will stimulate discussion not only about the use of carers but the sector itself.

1. Understanding the Atlantic Slave Trade.

This session introduces the transatlantic slave trade with interactive individual/group exercises designed to get students to examine recent research on the total numbers involved and what this slave trade data can tell us about the wider histories of Africa, the Americas and Europe in the early modern period. The lecture will enable students to work practically with reliable data to answer big historical questions, such as: Why did slave trade happen? On what scale? Over what time period? Who was primarily involved? How did it change the world?

2. The Magna Carta Through Time.

For students interested in medieval England, civil liberties, and historical interpretations through the ages. This lecture will examine the Magna Carta (Lincoln's copy) and how it has been used and abused over time. In this lecture, the document is put in its proper medieval context, before exploring how it was forgotten and resurrected in the Stuart period before becoming a beacon of liberty in the United States. The session will outline how later interpretations of the contents of the Magna Carta often bear little resemblance to the actual document King John agreed in 1215, offering the opportunity for history students to reflect upon the use and abuse of historical documents through time.

3. Viking Lincolnshire – raiders and traders.

A chance to learn about the Vikings who came to raid, but then stayed and built a life in Lincolnshire in the ninth century. Find out how they changed the landscape and townscape of Lincolnshire. Find out if they mixed with the locals or drove them out. Discover what evidence we have, and the links Viking Lincoln had with trading networks that spread as far as Africa and Asia.

4. 1066 – the year of three battles.

In 1066 there were three large scale battles, which was highly unusual. Any of these three could have gone the other way and radically changed the history of northwest Europe. Find out how the battles were fought, what decided the three battles, the tactics and weapons used, and how we know all of this.

5. Fenner Brockway’s conscientious objection during the First World War.

Fenner Brockway energetically campaigned for peace in a variety of ways during the First World War: through his journalism, political activity, work for the No-Conscription Fellowship, and being imprisoned for 28 months as a conscientious objector. This lecture, based on original archival research, explores these varied experiences along with the socialist and spiritual convictions which underpinned them.

1. Women In British Intelligence, 1909 to the Present.

This lecture maps out a fresh and timely approach to the subject of women in intelligence from the founding of the Secret Service Bureau in 1909 through to the present day. During the early part of the Twentieth Century, the British state capitalized on the gendered notion of duty and loyalty, targeting women with good connections, a proper education, and a man of stature who could vouch for them. Women were in a paradoxical position: they were deemed not good enough to exercise the right to vote (only achieved after the First World War), yet they could be trusted to keep the government’s top secrets. It was only during the 1970s that change started to occur, with Stella Rimington finally tapping at the glass ceiling in 1992 when she became the first female Director General of MI5 – a marker we have yet to witness in MI6 and GCHQ.

2. An Unwinnable War? US intervention in Vietnam.

With the threat of unleashing nuclear Armageddon always present during the Cold War, military and political strategists theorised approaches to keep warfare confined geographically, limited to certain objectives, and, above all, how to avoid escalating any conflict into World War Three. This lecture will introduce students to ‘limited war theory’, how it was developed by US strategists during the Korean War – the first ‘hot’ war of the Cold War -- and how it shaped US strategy in the Vietnam War. It will enrich understanding of the Vietnam War, highlighting how the North Vietnamese were fighting a very different war to the United States – one which the Americans were ultimately unable to match. This lecture will be of interest to students studying the Vietnam War and the broader Cold War era.

1. Training To Teach.

There are many different routes into teaching, both as soon as you leave school or after you have completed an undergraduate degree. This talk will consider the routes you might take, why teaching is a fantastic career choice, and what teacher training at university would involve.

1. 'Beyond words': Creative approaches in qualitative Psychology.

The talk introduces creative approaches to the study of subjective experiences in Psychology. From pain to positivity, human experiences are embodied in ways which can appear 'beyond words'. Using examples from advances in qualitative methods in Psychology approaches including haptics, scrapbooking and crafting as research will be explored as techniques to enable expressivity and expand our understanding of what counts as 'data.'

2. Neuropsychology: Functional Neurological Disorder.

Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) is a hidden condition which affects any area of sensory, motor or cognitive functioning in the absence of any organic dysfunction. It affects many people yet is often not discussed, misunderstood and under-recognised. This talk focuses on understanding FND and how this sits between the realms of psychology and neurology and emphasises the importance of discussion and awareness of hidden disorders whilst introducing contemporary research from a researcher who specialises in this topic.

3. Sustained attention and Touchscreen Play.

Joint attention is a psychological concept that has been established in the literature for over forty years. This has gone relatively unchallenged due to the extensive research demonstrating the importance of joint attention for later development. Modern research is now suggesting it is sustained attention, not joint attention, that explains these relationships. Kim is a psychologist with specialties in developmental psychology and presents her research which aims to explore these ideas further, and in relation to how young infants engage in touchscreen play in comparison to traditional toys.

4. Careers in Psychology.

Psychology is one of the most popular degrees to take at university. There are many more exciting career pathways in the field of psychology than you can imagine – and far more than we can squeeze into this talk. The talk focuses around the main and emerging career options in psychology and explores different routes that people can take. During this talk we will discuss some of the essentials you need to consider when applying for degrees in psychology, as well as discuss avenues and career pathways post degree. Our diverse psychology team will also be able to discuss with you their own experiences and interests and highlight how the range of courses that we offer at BGU can support you in beginning your career journey.

5. Biopsychology: a history and contemporary topics.

Biopsychology is an area of psychology which has a dark past with multiple unethical studies which contributed toward the ill treatment of those with mental (and physical conditions). Though from this dark history, have stemmed some brilliant insights into the human mind, behaviour and our success in supporting those with ill mental health today. This talk discusses the history of biopsychology and can be delivered alongside key areas in contemporary biopsychology including stress, AD/HD, FND, schizophrenia, depression or diet and nutrition.

6. Research Ethics.

Arguably the discipline of psychology is built upon research that has challenged standards of acceptable behaviour. Can we develop phobias? Can we encourage people to change their behaviour? Should we be able to blame a person for their own actions? This subject presentation will demonstrate how our understanding of ethical standards has developed over the years, what our current practices are, and how training and working ethically is a core component of research and practice in Psychology. This all starts with knowing how to collect data and undertake research ethically and with integrity.

7. An Introduction to the imperfect mind: Errors in Thinking.

This talk will look at a variety of cognitive biases discovered in psychology. A cognitive bias is a systematic error in processing information that almost all humans are susceptible to. Understanding such biases helps us to understand how the human mind works under normal conditions as well as and circumstances of uncertainty.

8. It is a Laughing Matter: Humour, Health & Psychological Well-being.

“We don’t laugh because we are happy, we’re happy because we laugh.” William James. This lecture introduces contemporary research and theory underpinning our growing understanding on the impact of humour and laughter on physical health and psychological wellbeing. Laugh along and learn about the ways in which humour and play a crucial role in our development and ongoing social connectedness and consider what a world without laughter would be like.

9. The Psychology of Sleep & Dreaming.

This session will provide an overview of the importance of sleep for our mental and physical health, whilst considering ways psychologists can offer solutions to improving sleep quality and quantity. Furthermore, we will consider what happens to our consciousness and cognition during sleep, and what dreaming may tell us about the brain and our behaviour.

10. Mindfulness & Wellbeing.

This talk highlights research to show how Buddhist techniques, such as meditation, can have multiple benefits for our psychology, health, and wellbeing.

1. Crime in the Media.

What is crime? Is it as straightforward as we think it is, or is it more complicated? Is crime a social construction, and if so, what relationship does it have to power? What role does the media play in the creation of crime? What role does Google maps play in crime? Why are some communities seemingly more connected with or impacted by crime than others? These are the questions that we will think through using sociological thinkers such as Stuart Hall and Kimberle Crenshaw.

2. Media, Television and the Moving Image.

The moving image is a central and distinctive feature of modern society, as sociologists we need to be able to critically read them if we are to understand the role and power they have in society. This masterclass will introduce you to the skills needed to do that reading, and give you taking you through films, television shows, adverts and the emerging technology of 3D billboards.

3. Surveillance.

What is surveillance and why does it matter in a technological society? Beginning with the work of Foucault, this master class will help you to understand the theory before taking you into the realm of cyber surveillance and social media. You will have the opportunity to explore the impact of surveillance on social movements such as BLM, Say Her Name, and Take Back the Night through social media – especially Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. We will then turn to Tik Tok to explore how surveillance on social media can be powerful within the political arena and dangerous for our individual bodies.

1. Inequality or Inequity?

A discussion of legislation, attitudes and opportunities which challenge or address experiences of discrimination with society. Students will be encouraged to reflect upon causes and challenges.

2. What’s So Special About Education?

This session will explore the concept of special educational needs and inclusion, focusing upon different syndromes and strategies to support.

1. The Physiological Cost of Exergaming.

Exploration of the benefits of exergaming among a variety of populations, ranging from healthy adolescents to those with chronic conditions.

2. Teaching Games for Understanding.

Exploration of young people’s inherent desire to play – a tactical game approach to teaching and coaching.

1. Religious Identity: What does it mean to be a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc. in Britain today?

In this session we will explore the rituals and actions identified in GCE and GCSE specifications for this topic, but also ask deeper questions about living from a religious perspective in today’s society, comparing religious viewpoints with the norms and assumptions of contemporary secular adults and young people. By attempting to stand in their shoes, we’ll try to see what it feels like to be a practicing religious believer today.

2. Implicit Religion.

In this session we will consider religion outside of religious institutions and traditions. Using the sociological and analytical tools of Implicit Religion we will explore the ways in which football, music, video games and television series have become ‘religious’. Considering these case studies will help us ask questions about what we mean when we use the word ‘religion’; and how people are adapting secular activities to provide meaning and value for themselves.