News

Andy Clark has been awarded the Dennett Prize by the International Centre for Consciousness Studies in recognition of significant advances in the fields of philosophy of mind, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and artificial intelligence. 

Jim Endersby has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust major research fellowship to explore how different groups, from mothers and progressive activists to spiritual thinkers, interpreted and used Darwin’s ideas - shedding new light on how scientific ideas shape culture, past and present. 

Bleue Liverpool has been appointed the Stuart Hall Fellow for 2025. 

Catherine Packham has been offered a two-week research fellowship at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.  

David Berry spoke with Live Science about his involvement in the groundbreaking project resurrecting 'ELIZA', the world's first chatbot, 60-year-old computer code. The news was also featured in New Scientist. 

David Hendy, former Principal Investigator of the Connected Histories of the BBC (CHBBC) project, has written a funny and fascinating resource on the history of comedy priests on the BBC. This joins the extensive CHBBC resource already hosted on the BBC’s History pages.  It marks the 30th Anniversary of The Vicar of Dibley. 

In more CHBBC news, The Keep has catalogued the archive of DJ Annie Nightingale. Special Collections also has the CHBBC oral history: find the playable, free and open access version here. 

Ben Highmore spoke with Laurie Taylor on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed about his book Playgrounds. The podcast recording is available through the Sounds app or on the BBC website. 

Tanya Kant and project partner Jo Sutherland from Magenta were featured as the weekly guests on the PRWeek podcast, talking about their white paper report ‘CheatGPT? Generative text AI use in the UK’s PR and communications profession’. They are presenting on the project at the world’s biggest search engine optimisation conference, brightonSEO in April.  

Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden presented the opening lecture at the 'Conference on AI and the Holocaust Remembrance, Research and Education Sectors', which prologued the London plenary of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (the IHRA). She hosted an online workshop with 70 delegates and participated in a roundtable discussion. Read the IHRA's report and the policy briefing 'Does AI have a Place in the Future of Holocaust Memory?'. Victoria also explored the implications of using of AI in Holocaust memory on ComputerWeekly.com.  

Lucy Robinson was invited by the family of Black British rapper Smiley Culture to speak at the unveiling of his blue plaque. This connection grew out of his family reading and appreciating two of Lucy’s publications on Smiley Culture's significance. Lucy will be working with them on a future documentary project.  

The Sussex Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies' annual Holocaust Memorial Day event took place in the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts last week. The day included talks by Gideon Reuveni and Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden, and seven local schools were in attendance.

David Tal spoke on Heart Sussex about the ceasefire in Gaza and the possibilities for lasting peace.

Clive Webb was in the studio with Reginald D Hunter and presenter Matthew Parris for BBC Radio 4's Great Lives when Reginald chose Eugene V Debs as his inspirational historical figure.  

Tom Wright appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Human Intelligence, a new series on the history of ideas hosted by Naomi Alderman. He was an expert guest to talk about George Washington’s ‘Farewell Address’ of 1796 and the idea of the peaceful transition of power.

Alba Arias Álvarez’s article ‘Graffiti and Urban transformation: the ideological discourse in the semiotic landscape of the Asturian Mining Valley’ has been published in Social Semiotics.   

Beatrice Fazi’s article, “The Computational Search for Unity: Synthesis in Generative AI”, has been published in the Journal of Continental Philosophy. In the piece, Beatrice addresses the representational reality of Large Language Models through the philosophical concept of synthesis. Additionally, the latest issue of the journal Media Theory includes a lead piece by Beatrice on "Machines That Create". In the article, Fazi considers what has happened in AI since her book Contingent Computation was published in 2018 and how the book's arguments fit with these more recent developments in artificial intelligence.

A track from Chris Kiefer's new musical release was featured on Radio 3's Late Junction. The album was created entirely with custom-made instruments, all of which use feedback and circular signal paths in varied ways. The instruments are a product of ongoing research into feedback musicianship, including the AHRC Feedback Musicianship Network. The album was released in November on the Flaming Pines label. 

Ambra Moroncini has received a contract from Oxford University Press for her second monograph The Poetry of Michelangelo, Giordano Bruno, and Galileo: Ekphrasis, Faith, and Cosmology. The Delegates found the book “highly original, well-conceived, stylish, and clever". 

Lynne Murphy’s paper ‘Separated by a common im/politeness marker: please in American and British web-based English’ has been published in English Language & Linguistics. 

Charlotte Taylor’s co-edited collection The Discursive Construction of Migrant Identities has been published by Bloomsbury.