Gallery Talks
What if? How the history of 17th century Britain might have been different
with curator Arnold Hunt
Tuesday 6 January 2009
Discover more about Taking Liberties by coming along to one of our 30 minute gallery talks given by the exhibition's curators.
Event Time: 13.00 – 13.30
Location: PACCAR Gallery
Price: Tickets are free but must be booked in advance. Spaces are limited (these talks are not seated)
Book
Storytelling performance
Taking Liberties
The Liberty Tree
Wednesday 7 January 2009
To live outside the law you must be honest
An evening of storytelling, music and song with two of the country's most dynamic performers, Hugh Lupton and Nick Hennessey: Liberty Tree tells tales of lawlessness and liberty.
For more than 600 years the stories of Robin Hood have held sway in the English imagination. With Little John, Will Scarlet, Much the miller's son, Friar Tuck and the rest of the merry fellowship, he inhabits a leafy clearing in our hearts where it's always high summer, where venison is always roasting, and the wrongs and injustices of the world are mended by subversion and trickery.
In Liberty Tree, master storytellers Hugh Lupton and Nick Hennessey sing and tell their way deep into the secret, dappled, winding ways of Sherwood…. and at the same time tell true stories of the ancient tradition of English Dissent from Robin Hood to Tom Paine and the English Radicals. Mischievous, poignant and radical, this is storytelling at its best.
‘They have spearheaded the revival of storytelling in this country, helping to transform it from a moribund anachronism to a vigorous and contemporary form of entertainment' The Independent.
‘Sheer wizardry in the guise of utter simplicity' Eastern Daily Press
PLEASE NOTE: This performance is aimed at adults (not suitable for under 12s)
Event Time: 18.30 -20.30
Location: Conference Centre, British Library
Price: £7.50 (concessions £5) (advance booking recommended)
Book
Gallery Talks
Voting and the franchise from Hogarth to the Suffragettes
with curator William Frame
Tuesday 13 January 2009
Discover more about Taking Liberties by coming along to one of our 30 minute gallery talks given by the exhibition's curators.
Event Time: 13.00 – 13.30
Location: PACCAR Gallery
Price: Tickets are free but must be booked in advance. Spaces are limited (these talks are not seated)
Book
Music at the British Library
Haydn's English Canzonettas on record
Tuesday 13 January 2009
In the 1790s, Haydn published two sets of English Canzonettas, songs for accomplished ladies to sing and play. In the 20th century, the Canzonettas returned to prominence by way of recordings that also transformed the original meanings associated with the songs, especially by reflecting on new perspectives about femininity.
Sarah Day-O'Connell offers a case study in the perception of Haydn, and of his music's protean significance over time.
A reception will be held after this event.
Event Time: 18.30-20.00
Location: The British Library, Conference Centre
Price: £7.50 (concessions £5) (Free seats on production of Student ID on the night)
Book
Talk and Discussion
Taking Liberties
Can we save the planet yet keep our freedoms?
Wednesday 14 January 2009
Possibly the crucial world issue now and in the coming decades is global warming and environmental catastrophe. Will it be necessary for governments to force us to change our lifestyle through controls on our liberty far more draconian than obligatory recycling?
The panel includes Andy Atkins, director of Friends of the Earth; David Kennedy, chief executive, Committee on Climate Change; Ken Livingstone until recently mayor of London; and David North, government and communities director, Tesco. Chaired by writer and broadcaster Gabrielle Walker.
Event Time: 18.30 -20.00
Location: Conference Centre, British Library
Price: £6 (concessions £4) (advance booking recommended)
Book
Gallery Talks
Highlights of Taking Liberties
with Curator Mathew Shaw
Tuesday 20 January 2009
Discover more about Taking Liberties by coming along to one of our 30 minute gallery talks given by the exhibition's curators.
Event Time: 13.00 – 13.30
Location: PACCAR Gallery
Price: Tickets are free but must be booked in advance. Spaces are limited (these talks are not seated)
Book
Talk and Discussion
Time for a new transatlantic partnership?
Fulbright 60th anniversary lecture
Tuesday 20 January 2009
On the day the new president is inaugurated, journalist and author Timothy Garton Ash explores the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. Professor Garton Ash is Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford, and the author of eight books. His essays appear regularly in New York Review of Books, and he writes a column for the Guardian which is syndicated internationally.
This lecture is part of the celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Fulbright Treaty between the US & UK governments to create an educational and cultural exchange programme between the two nations.
A wine reception will be held after this event
Presented by the US-UK Fulbright Commission and the Eccles Centre for American Studies, The British Library with the generous support of the ESRC as part of the 2009 Festival of Social Science.
Event Time: 18.30-20.00
Location: The British Library, Conference Centre
Price: £6 (concessions £4)
Book
The Inspiring Entrepreneurs' series
Business nightmares and how to recover from them
The entrepreneurs' masterclass
Wednesday 21 January 2009
Is the current economic downturn keeping you awake at night? Weighing up the risks of setting up a new business or adapting to maintain your existing business becomes even more important in turbulent times. But difficult times can bring unexpected opportunities as well.
‘Business Nightmares' is a unique chance to hear from a panel of leading entrepreneurs about how they survived their roller coaster ride and built business success on the back of the lessons learned.
Hear from Rachel Elnaugh, one of the original Dragons' Den team whose own business, Red Letter Days, collapsed into administration in 2005, Gavin Griffiths, ex-owner of the Erotic Review, Bradley Chapman of Million Impossible, and Aamir Ahmed of Dwell.
A networking reception will be held after the event.
Supported by HSBC, the world's local bank.
Event Time: 18.15 – 21.00
Location: The British Library, Conference Centre
Price: £10 (concessions £7.50)
Book
Comedy Event
Glitch
A 30 minute black comedy performance set in an imaginary near future. A lone woman traveller finds herself trapped in a holding cell during an automated security check. Rather than succumb to the totalitarian surveillance, she attempts to outwit the machine and make a bid for freedom - hopefully in one piece…
Created and performed by actress Lois Tucker.
Event Time:
Tuesdays 20, 27 Jan and 3, 10 Feb at 17.30 and 19.00
Saturdays 24 Jan, 31 Jan, 7 Feb and 14 Feb at 13.00, 14.30 and 16.00
Location: PACCAR gallery, British Library
Price: Free (No booking required)
Book
Music and Spoken Word
Taking Liberties
On common ground: An afternoon of stories, songs and music
Sunday 25 January 2009
An afternoon of stories, songs and music exploring the life and times of poet John Clare within the context of the Enclosures Act. We see how the imposed grid of ownership on the countryside, which brought wealth to the landowners and the farmers, disenfranchised the poor and began the shift of the working class from the countryside to the factories of the Industrial Revolution. Giving insights into the folk traditions of the 18th century, evoking landscape and class structure, the narrative is punctuated by excerpts from Clare's poetry, and from ballads of the time.
Performed by two of Britain's leading artists of their genres. Storyteller Hugh Lupton is a master wordsmith; Chris Wood is the leading folk musician of his generation. Together they weave a beguiling magic.
'A packed house sat in a thrall of enchantment, no movement, no intrusive sounds… Hugh Lupton is joined by singer/fiddler Chris Wood, whose style is timeless and beguiling, his songs wonderfully evocative' Eastern Daily Press
'….the images that billowed and faded in that darkened auditorium were quite different from those that unspool across a screen. I could put my hands in front of my face and the pictures would not vanish. They were inside me. They belonged to me. They were part of the history of the whole of human life' The Times
Hugh and Chris were the winners of the BBC Folk Award for Best Original Song 2006, for ‘One in a Million'.
PLEASE NOTE: This performance is aimed at an adult audience, not suitable for under 12s.
Event Time: 14.30 -16.30
Location: Conference Centre, British Library
Price: £7.50 (concessions £5) (advance booking recommended)
Book
Talk and Discussion
Taking Liberties
Equality and human rights in modern Britain: Trevor Phillips in conversation
Tuesday 27 January 2009
Building greater awareness about human rights and making them real and relevant to everyone is an ongoing process - a 'project for our society'. If we understand more about human rights we can help our public institutions bring these rights to life and make a real difference to the quality of people's lives.
Trevor Phillips is chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the national body responsible for promoting human rights in Britain.
Event Time: 18.30 -20.00
Location: Conference Centre, British Library
Price: Free (advance booking recommended)
Book
Gallery Talks
Voting and the franchise from Hogarth to the Suffragettes
with Curator William Frame
Tuesday 27 January 2009
Discover more about Taking Liberties by coming along to one of our 30 minute gallery talks given by the exhibition's curators.
Event Time : 13.00 – 13.30
Location : PACCAR Gallery
Price : Tickets are free but must be booked in advance. Spaces are limited (these talks are not seated)
Book
Conservation advice clinic
An introduction to looking after photographs
Wednesday 28 January 2009
Many families have photographic collections ranging from those taken over 100 years ago to the present day. Learn about different types of photographs, how to mount them correctly and take the opportunity to talk to conservators about ways to improve the storage of your photographs.
Participants are invited to bring along a photograph from their own collection.
Please note that we are not able to give valuations or provide secure storage for items while you visit other parts of the Library.
Event Time: 14.00 – 16.30
Location: The British Library, Centre for Conservation
Price: Free (advance booking recommended)
Book
Talk and Discussion
Is Liberty British?
Linda Colley in conversation with A.C. Grayling
Wednesday 28 January 2009
Views of liberty in these islands have been polarised. On the one hand, it has been proclaimed as a marked and precocious British achievement and quality ("Britons never shall be slaves!"). On the other hand, the British state has often been viewed as a conspicuous agent of un-freedom: a polity that in the past practised empire overseas and internally, and that lacks still a written constitution and a modern bill of rights. Professor Linda Colley, guest curator of Taking Liberties, and philosopher Professor AC Grayling discuss and dissect this mixed heritage and reputation.
Historian and Princeton scholar Linda Colley is author of Britons: Forging the nation 1707-1837 and Captives: Britain, Empire and the world 1600-1850.
AC Grayling is a writer and professor of philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. His many books include Towards the Light: The story of the struggles for liberty and rights that made the modern west.
Event Time: 18.30 -20.00
Location: Conference Centre, British Library
Price: £6 (concessions £4) (advance booking recommended)
Book
Home > 
