|
The Centre's first seminar series took place between November 2004 and May 2005. Details of all events and relevant outputs from the first series are available below, along with a synthesis document that brings together ideas from the series as a whole.
Thursday 25 November 2004, Prof Anthony Grayling, Professor of Philosophy, Birkbeck College: 'Imagine the Perfect Polis: Creating Health in the City'
Key ideas:
- Eudemonia - the state of well-being and well-doing usually (although inadequately) translated as 'happiness'.
- There is such thing as 'the good life'.
- Each individual and each community has an ethos.
- 'Civic conversation' and how it might be developed.
Transcript
Listen to the lecture
Summary
Thursday 16 December 2004, Prof Alistair Lawrence, Head of Animal Welfare, Scottish Agricultural College: ‘Animal Farm’
Key ideas:
- Animal modelling can be used to study the likely effects of changing environments on behaviour.
- Control and predictability are important factors that influence health outcomes.
- Obesity can be thought of as the result of the interaction between evolved controls and an artificial environment.
- Social behaviour has a genetic component.
- Stress causes cells to age faster and pre-natal stress may give rise to a general susceptibility to higher stress reactivity in offspring.
Summary
Thursday 24 February 2005, Sholom Glouberman, PhD, Philosopher in Residence, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto: ‘Changing Ideas – Changing Health’
Key ideas:
- Three philosophical ideas:
- Order and chaos / disorder - both are significant aspects of the world.
- Humans' relationships with nature and the need to learn to live in harmony with the natural world.
- The notion of self - how we know who we are.
- Laplace's demon.
- Inflammation and 'bounce-back-ability' - vital aspects of health based on capacity to deal with stress.
Transcript
Listen to the lecture
Summary
Slideshow
Sholom Glouberman's website
Tuesday 5 April 2005, Professor Lord Richard Layard, Founder, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics: ‘Happiness’
Key ideas:
- Happiness is objective and measurable.
- Health improves happiness, and vice versa. Happiness is a good different to all others - it is the good.
- For populations above the poverty line, increasing income does not increase happiness.
- In general, people place more value on relative wealth / income than absolute.
- Individualism negatively affects happiness.
- Better concepts of the common good (compassion to others) and of the private good (compassion to oneself) are required.
- Public policy should be based on producing the greatest happiness.
Transcript
Listen to the lecture
Summary
Tuesday 12 April 2005, Denys Candy, Managing Partner, Community Partners Institute, Pittsburgh: ‘The Art of Engagement’
Key ideas:
- Partnership working should be about having mutually trusting relationships. Insider / outsider role important in work with communities.
- Essence - to work in an effective and accepted way in any area, it is important to try to capture the essence of this area.
- 'The periphery' - to be at the periphery can be both positive (innovation possible at the periphery) and negative (excluding; 'peripheralisation')
- Perspective - of different groups / people, and from different geographical locations.
Summary
Slideshow
Tuesday 17 May 2005, Maureen O'Hara PhD, President, Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco: 'Minding the Future'
Key ideas:
- Glasgow (and cities like it) could be miners' canaries showing others the way ahead.
- How do we respond to the modern world?
- Neurotic response
- Psychotic response
- Transformation.
- We all have a story.
- In the modern world we are all immigrants.
- Need hospice workers for old world that is dying and midwives for the new world that is being born.
- In changing times, the collective consciousness must evolve or collapse => emergent new consciousness.
Transcript
Listen to the lecture
Summary
Slideshow
If you have any queries please contact Valerie Millar on 0141 221 9439 or email
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
