Abstract

Lecture 1: The Dream of Democratic Culture Raymond Williams’ Culture and Society was published in 1958 and became a cult book for liberal practitioners and critics in the humanities throughout the 1960s and 70s. In this lecture Lisa Jardine looks back at the dreams and ambitions for mass culture, and the vital role of literature in the democratic process, articulated by Raymond Williams. “I will ask whether his was a vain hope, or whether there is something important to be learned from his cultural analysis today”.

Lecture 2: Is Anyone in Charge of Public Opinion?

Friday 31 October 9.30am to 1.00pm Faculty of Law, Room LG 18 Respondents: Mr Alan Rusbridger, Dame Joan Bakewell, Professor Morag Shiach, Professor Frank Kelly Williams anticipated broadening access to culture and increasing participation in the public process by the public at large. In fact, the mass media have developed in entirely different ways from those he anticipated. In this lecture Prof. Lisa Jardine will examine some of the consequences of this, and the inexorable rise of the internet, and ask whether we too can refuse to despair of modern civilisation.