TERM 2

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21 January 2026 | 16.00-17.30 (S 8.08)
 

Welcome to 2026!​

 

​In this catch up session current affiliate staff and PhD students will talk about their research, ongoing and upcoming research!

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4 February 2026 | 15.00-17.30 (S 8.08)
 

BOOK MANUSCRIPT WORKSHOP​

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Modern Times: A Global History of Production since 1900

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David Edgerton, Department of History, King's College London

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In this experimental session, we will discuss Professor David Edgerton's manuscript of his upcoming book Modern Times: A Global History of Production since 1900, to be published with Allen Lane in 2027.

If you would like to participate and attend, please contact Francisca Valenzuela (francisca.valenzuela_villaseca@kcl.ac.uk).

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18 February 2026 | 16.00-17.30 (S 8.08)

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NEW PROJECT TALK​

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Deep Time and the Polycrisis

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Chris Manias, Department of History, King's College London

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Abstract      We are currently facing overlapping crises: climate change and biodiversity loss; hardening international borders and rising political radicalism; upsurges in health issues, including mental health and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic; continued legacies of colonialism and extractivism; and scepticism towards expertise. These are connected, and require holistic engagement. We do not just need technical solutions, but new modes of thinking and expression.

One means of doing so is through bringing in deep time – the geological timescales of earth history, which stretch backward and forward millions of years. Knowledge of deep time simultaneously provides possibilities for new modes of thinking, but also poses challenges, being implicated in many of the issues confronting us. My KAHRD project will use the cultural position of the deep-time sciences as the basis for new collaborations and transformative research linking the humanities and sciences.

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In the session, I’ll be talking about the background to the project, and some of the ideas I’m having around this.

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3 March 2026 | 18.00-19.30 (8th Floor Open Space, Strand Building)

 

Book Launch Party

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Smart: A History of Intelligence (Footnote Press, 2026)

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Dr David Brydan, King's College London

Commentators: Professor Fay Bound Alberti and Professor Federico Turkheimer

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Please register in the event's Eventbrite.​

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We encounter the idea of intelligence everywhere in our modern lives. Parents are told that their children will grow up smart if they are made to listen to Mozart, play with the right toys, and eat the healthiest foods. Schools and universities plunge everyone into the ruthless world of testing and academic competition. We are told repeatedly that some of the richest and most successful people in society – the tech pioneers, CEOs or financial wizards – are rich and successful precisely because they’re so smart. And we now have to worry about the impact of artificial intelligence on our jobs, our societies, and the very survival of our species.

Intelligence, then, is an idea that infuses our world, and one that we think matters. This hasn’t always been the case. Like all ideas, intelligence has a history.

​Smart draws on the history of science, politics, and popular culture to uncover the stories of the people and projects that built the idea of modern intelligence – the men and women who created Mensa, the priest who built a village for gifted children in the mountains of Sicily, and the plan to boost the intelligence of the Venezuelan people by teaching them lateral thinking skills. These stories also reveal the dark side of intelligence, an idea that drove the modern counter-revolution against equality.

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More information here: https://footnotepress.com/books/smart/

 

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11 March 2026 | 15.30-17.00 (S 8.08)

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Pre-circulated paper

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Title: Taylorism Transcends: Contested Terrain, Generational Conflict and the Growing Case for Historical Reflixivity in Management Scholarship

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Dr Michael Weatherburn, Imperial College London

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18 March 2026 | 15.30-17.00 (S 8.08)

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Session tbc

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