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Friends of Scott Polar Research Institute lecture series
Lectures on Polar matters.
Lectures are usually held in the lecture theatre at the Scott Polar Research Institute.
Lectures are free to members, non-members are very welcome and will be charged £5 to attend.
For details of how to join the Friends please see the link to the left (under Friends of SPRI).
Refreshments are available for purchase at a small charge.
Please check details below, some lectures may be at different times, locations or be charged at a different rate.
View the archive of previous seminars.
- # Saturday 9th February 2013, 7.30pm - 'Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins' by Gavin Francis
- Lent Term Lecture 1
- Venue: SPRI Lecture Theatre, Lensfield Road
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Gavin Francis is the author of ‘Empire Antarctica’, a book published by Chatto & Windus this year which describes his 14 months as base doctor at Halley, a British Antarctic Survey station on the Caird Coast at 75 deg South. The base is the most remote operated by the British, and has been continuously occupied since it was set up for the International Geophysical Year in 1956.
It is also beside one of the continent’s largest colonies of emperor penguins. Join us for an illustrated talk as Gavin takes us through the seasons at Halley, visits aspects of the ‘Heroic Age’ of Antarctic Exploration, and what lessons it still has to teach BAS staff today about overwintering. He will also describe a year in the life of the emperors which, as Gavin writes, ‘through the months of cold and isolation reminded me that I was part of a community of the living.’ - # Saturday 23rd February 2013, 7.30pm - 'The Sirius Dog Sledge Patrol' by Lieutenant Commander John S Ash
- Lent Term Lecture 2
- Venue: SPRI Lecture Theatre, Lensfield Road
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In the 21st Century, a vast area of the Arctic is still protected by a naval dog sledge patrol. Rejecting more modern transport, the Patrol employs traditional methods and undergoes some of the most testing conditions imaginable to guard the resources of the largest island on the planet. This lecture describes the origins of the Patrol in a 20th Century weather war and how it operates today; examining the life of a modern military dog in the Arctic, and explaining why the Patrol has never abandoned its sledges for a more mechanically sophisticated alternative.
- # Saturday 9th March 2013, 7.30pm - 'Discovering Bellingshausen' by Rip Bulkeley
- Lent Term Lecture 3
- Venue: SPRI Lecture Theatre, Lensfield Road
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Rip Bulkeley is an independent historian of the earth sciences who lives in Oxford. He speaks, or at least reads, several languages including Russian. Since taking degrees in Peace Studies and Strategic Studies in the 1980s his main interest has been in the interaction between international relations and international scientific cooperation. His research into the International Geophysical Year of 1957—58 led him to develop an interest in the history of Antarctica and the (exaggerated) claim that scientific cooperation laid the basis for the Antarctic Treaty. While working in that field he came across the Russian Antarctic expedition of 1819—21, which was only the second voyage in history to cross the Antarctic Circle, 47 years after James Cook. What he found next will be the subject of this short talk about his research project.
- # Saturday 23rd March 2013, 7.30pm - Speaker to be confirmed
- Title to be confirmed
- Venue: SPRI Lecture Theatre, Lensfield Road
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Abstract not available