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Grants

The Society makes grants both to individuals and to organisations in support of cultural and scientific activities which increase innovation, outreach and diversity in Leeds and its immediate area. It also supports local museums and galleries and publications relating to the city.

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About the Society

The Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, founded in 1819, is a charity that promotes interest in science, literature and the arts – in the city of Leeds and beyond. We have meetings, lectures, entertainments, publications and visits.

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Event recordings

Tamoxifen is a famous for its effect in controlling breast cancer or lowering the risk of recurrence. Here’s a chance to hear from the academic who was the first to discover the breast cancer prevention properties of tamoxifen and the scientific principles for adjuvant therapy with antihormones. Craig Jordan was born in Texas but his family moved to England when he was a child. He studied at Leeds, where he received BSc and PhD degrees in Pharmacology. He was also lecturer in Pharmacology here 1974-1979 and later he was awarded a Leeds DSc. After Leeds, he took up a post in Massachusetts and in 1979-80 he worked at a cancer research institute in Switzerland. Since 1980, his career has been within the USA: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Northwestern University (Chicago), Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.) and latterly at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas where he is Professor of Breast Medical Oncology and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Oncology.
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Tamoxifen Tales: suggestions for scientific survival by Professor Craig Jordan,

20 July 2022 9:19 pm

A hundred years ago, a diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes was a death sentence. The best that could be done was to put a patient on a starvation diet to delay inevitable death. But all this changed in January 1922 when Leonard Thompson, a 14 year old boy received the first injection of insulin. Clinicians were understandably delighted at the power of what one doctor described as simply ‘15cc of thick brown muck’ to save the lives of diabetic patients. Yet by the end of the 1970s, this ‘thick brown muck’ had been transformed into the very first pharmaceutical to be produced using genetic engineering making the founders of US biotech company Genentech overnight multimillionaires after a spectacular stock market debut. The discovery of insulin was a landmark that has saved countless lives. But who really deserves the credit for this milestone? And why was Canadian scientist Fred Banting furious when he first heard that he had just been awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for this discovery? In this talk, based on his new book ‘Insulin – the Crooked Timber’ (Oxford University Press), Kersten Hall (Visiting Fellow, Centre for History and Philosophy of Science, University of Leeds) summarises a story that is at times a tale of monstrous egos and toxic career rivalry. It’s also one in which, thanks its wool industry, Leeds played a little-known but crucial role in the transformation of insulin from thick brown muck into Wall Street gold. And as we face challenges such as climate change and global pandemics, the story of insulin may well have many wider lessons for us all, not just for those of us who happen to be injecting ourselves with it. Kersten Hall worked as a research fellow in molecular biology in the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds before hanging up his white coat and swapping the lab for the library to write about science. His first book, ‘The Man in the Monkeynut Coat’ told the story of pioneering scientist William Astbury whose role in the story of DNA has been largely forgotten. The book was featured on a list of ‘Books of 2014’ by The Guardian and a new edition is due to be released in paperback later this year. His latest book, Insulin – the Crooked Timber has just been published by Oxford University Press to mark the centenary of the discovery of insulin, and was inspired by his own sudden diagnosis with Type 1 Diabetes just over ten years ag
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100 Years of Insulin

20 June 2022 4:39 pm

The textile industry is the oldest and largest manufacturing industry in the world. But since the late twentieth century there have been unprecedented changes in its structure. Global textile demand has doubled just since the turn of the millennium to reach 100 million tonnes a year. This aggressive growth has been accompanied by huge migration in textile supply chains, reflecting dynamic shifts in regional competitive advantage. How did we get from West Yorkshire as the centre of the wool industry to a global multi-fibre business with China dominating more than 50 per cent of world textile activity? In this presentation David Hart defines the key strategic drivers of these historical and current business dynamics. Shirley-Anne Sherriff examines the consequent challenges for this huge global industry as it confronts demands for more sustainable patterns of activity. This presentation addresses key questions: • What factors are driving aggressive increase in global textile demand? • How has this influenced the range of fibres types that we use? • What are the key forces determining migration of textile supply chains? • How is the massive environmental impact in both manufacturing and waste disposal being addressed, and where are the opportunities for innovation? • What will the future of this crucial global industry look like?
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The battle for textiles by David Hart and Shirley-Anne Sherriff

11 May 2022 11:50 am

Building on Leeds Museums & Galleries’ hugely successful expansion and development over the past decade, and responding to the more recent experience of the pandemic, the service has produced an ambitious new five-year strategic plan. Head of Service David Hopes will outline what makes this strategy different and where he hopes it will take the city’s cultural offer, particularly during 2023, Leeds’ Year of Culture. David will also reflect on the process of forming the strategy, and on how his own background has helped shape the service’s vision. Dr David Hopes is Head of Service for Leeds Museums & Galleries. David was formerly Head of Interiors and Collections for the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) from 2016-2021 and, previous to this, Director of the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway (also part of the NTS). He has over 20 years’ experience as a curator working on a range of initiatives from the Open Museum’s Pollok Kist Project to new-build capital projects such as MUSA (now the Wardlaw Museum, University of St Andrews) and Robert Burns Birthplace Museum (shortlisted for the Museum of the Year Prize, 2011). David is a member of the Recognition Committee and the UK Accreditation Committee, and a trustee of Robert Burns Ellisland Trust and the Leeds Art Fund. Research interests include digital humanities, the subject of a research fellowship with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and The Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham). He is also interested in how historic house museums can be made relevant to contemporary audiences.
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Thinking ahead about presenting the past - Deepening connections, widening impact

2 March 2022 11:50 am

‘The rays are not coloured,’ wrote Isaac Newton in 1666. He was claiming that light in the visible spectrum is not actually coloured; it just looks coloured. This idea stretches back much further than the seventeenth century to ancient thinking and Democritus. Yet it certainly seems that colour is a property of the world. It feels as though objects in the world really are coloured. This lecture will explore our modern understanding of colour and present many visual examples, including those that are often referred to as illusions. Are we any closer to understanding the nature of colour and can we finally answer the question of whether colour exists? Stephen Westland, Professor of Colour Science at the University of Leeds, teaches and researches on many aspects of colour including colour ontology, colour design, colour imaging and the use of colour in textiles, automotive industry, cosmetics and dentistry. He’s published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and several text books and is currently a member of the Colour Literacy Project.
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Does Colour Exist? A talk by Professor Stephen Westland

17 February 2022 9:45 am

A talk that explored the relationship between central and local government in the UK's largest county Yorkshire has roughly the same population as Scotland. Yet Scotland has a high level of devolution whereas Yorkshire does not. What would it mean if the twenty-two local authority areas that make up Yorkshire were to have a ‘One Yorkshire’ devolution deal? How might it affect the nearly five and a half million people who live within the boundaries of an area that comprises more than eleven per cent of the land area of England? Michael Meadowcroft, journalist and author specialising in British politics as well as honorary secretary of the Phil & Lit, summarised the way local government’s role has changed over the decades and how powers have been eroded. He made a case for stronger devolved powers at the level of the whole of Yorkshire.
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Yorkshire - devolution or division? LPLS Meadowcroft 20 Jan 22

21 January 2022 9:42 pm

Professor Nicholas Tosca talked about the scientific motivation for the Mars mission and the potential consequences of the findings. He introduced the questions surrounding the origins of life on Earth and why Mars exploration is a key part of solving that puzzle. He went on to discuss the scientific significance of the landing site, the analytical capabilities of the rover, and what sorts of information the team is looking to acquire. Finally, there was a quick update on recent and future activities. Nicholas Tosca is a professor of mineralogy and petrology at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on unravelling the processes that shape planetary surfaces and their environments over time. Professor Tosca’s research group uses analytical, experimental and theoretical approaches to understand how sediments and sedimentary rocks on early Earth and Mars record aspects of paleo-climate and habitability. Professor Tosca served on the International Mars Sample Return Objectives and Samples Team (iMOST), the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return Planning Group. As a graduate student, he was one of just two people in the room when the first images of Endurance Crater were returned on the big screen – the first time a Mars Rover peered into an impact crater.
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The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover and the search for ancient life on Mars by Professor Nick Tosca

19 November 2021 12:34 pm

The annual Priestley Lecture keeps alive a link with scientist Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) who spent six years in Leeds from 1767 as Minister of Mill Hill Unitarian Chapel. He continued his scientific experiments and it was in Leeds that he identified what later came to be recognised as oxygen. He was a founding member and first secretary of The Leeds Library. The Priestley lecture is organised jointly by LPLS, The Leeds Library and Mill Hill Chapel. Mechanical engineer Professor Cath Noakes thought she was tucked away in a fairly obscure niche area of academic work as a specialist on the modelling and management indoor air quality. That all changed when SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) started to spread in early 2020. She stepped into a high-profile position as a member of SAGE, the Government’s scientific advisory group on emergencies, contributing her knowledge of the fluid dynamics of airborne infection and of ventilation as a means to reduce transmission. From summer 2020, she joined with other scientists to put across the implications of insights about aerosol transmission of the virus and appropriate mitigation techniques, resulting in the amendment of the simple public health slogan to ‘Hands, space, face, fresh air’. Cath Noakes has a degree in Mathematical Engineering and a PhD from the School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds. As a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Civil Engineering she modelled air disinfection systems. She became a Lecturer in 2007, Reader in 2010 and Professor in 2014. On top of several prestigious academic awards, in October 2020 it was announced that she was to be given an OBE for ‘services to the Covid-19 response’ in recognition of her vital role and achievements in convening the SAGE environmental modelling working group.
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Priestley Lecture 2021: The air we breathe - Professor Cath Noakes

2 November 2021 10:16 am

The development of AI and its integration into society has created an intimate relation between us and data-based technologies. In this talk Gabriela will give an overview of the different areas of concern of the Ethics of AI as a discipline, including topics like Machine Ethics, Data Ethics, and Robot Human Interaction. She will go on to present some of the current challenges of integrating ethics into these disruptive technologies. Gabriela Arriagada Bruneau is a PhD candidate by the Inter-disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre (IDEA) and the Leeds Institute for Data Analysis (LIDA) at the University of Leeds. MSc in Philosophy, University of Edinburgh. Director of Applied Ethics for the Think Tank “Thinking Network” (Pensar en red) in Chile. Her work is mostly focused on fairness, bias, explicability, and interpretability in Data Science and AI. She is also interested in gender discrimination and feminist approaches to understand these issues.
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Artificial Intelligence – Part 2 by Gabriela Arriagada Bruneau

27 October 2021 9:15 pm

When Artificial Intelligence emerged as area of study in the 1950s it showed potential for transforming computer-based technologies. Have its early challenges been met, and which challenges still elude computer scientists today? What have we learned from AI about human intelligence, and can intelligence in organisms other than humans help us advance AI? What developments might we expect in AI in the 2020s and beyond, and how may they transform future technologies? Netta Cohen is Professor of Complex Systems in at the University of Leeds. In her research, she aims to elucidate fundamental principles and mechanisms that allow biological systems to generate robust and adaptive function. She then works to harness those principles in control engineering and robotics. Her contributions have generated new understanding of the organisation and function of different nervous systems, rhythm generation in heart cells, and mechanisms of motor control and decision making in invertebrates. In parallel, she is developing intelligent and autonomous robotic platforms for self-repairing cities and underground pipe inspection. Netta joined the School of Computing University of Leeds as a Lecturer in 2002. Previously she was a Postdoctoral Fellow, jointly across Physics and Zoology. She received her education in Physics from Columbia University, New York and the Technion-IIT. At Leeds, she has led or co-led a number of projects, spanning topics from neuroscience and plant biology to robotics. She serves on a number of editorial boards, professional bodies and scientific advisory boards.
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Artificial Intelligence - Part I by Netta Cohen

24 September 2021 11:52 am

The facts about the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921 are disputed and its early years were characterised by division. The Soviet Union dictated an urban focus, which was followed by Nationalists, yet Mao Zedong split from this approach and turned towards establishing his power base in rural China. This proved to be the deciding factor in the long struggle to combat the Japanese invasion, leading to the CCP victory in 1949 and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Mao took this vast country through The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, with profound consequences for millions. In the mid-70s, as a student of Chinese language, Frances Wood spent a year in Peking, attending compulsory classes in which students were taught about the long struggles to bring about a unified version of a one-party state. She witnessed the campaign against Deng Xiaoping (‘person in high office following the capitalist road…’), though after Mao’s death in 1978 it was Deng who led China into a new era in which it developed ‘capitalism with Chinese characteristics’. More than 40 years on, under Xi Jinping (the 4th ‘paramount leader’ since Deng’s era), China remains firmly in the grip of the CCP. Frances is still captivated by the evolution of this increasingly powerful country, with all its complexities and contradictions. She was Curator of the Chinese collections at the British Library 1977 to 2013. In this role, she visited the country many times, travelling widely and meeting Chinese people in many walks of life. She has published about 20 books on China including ‘The Blue Guide to China’, ‘Did Marco Polo Go To China?’, ‘The Silk Road: 2000 years in the heart of Asia’, ‘The Forbidden City’, ‘The First Emperor’, ‘No Dogs and Not Many Chinese: Treaty Port life in China 1843-1943’ and an account of her year in the capital: ‘Hand Grenade Practice in Peking: my part in the Cultural Revolution’.
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100 years of the Chinese Communist Party

28 July 2021 4:10 pm

Professor Hicks has been at Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum since 2007 and oversees world archaeology. He spent a decade as a field archaeologist before becoming a student at Oxford University. His experience of being a post-graduate in Bristol and doing his PhD fieldwork in the Caribbean drew him into debates about the history and legacy of empire. As a senior academic and an influential curator, he’s been active in unearthing and communicating the reality of how objects on display in our museums come to be there. He plays a strong role in an international movement seeking to change practices of display and ultimately to challenge the continued holding of cultural artefacts that arguably belong with descendants of the people who made them. His recent book, Brutish Museums, is available from: http://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341767/the-brutish-museums/ His recent book, ‘Brutish Museums’, was published at a moment when the debate had become even more heated and high profile. For the Leeds Phil & Lit he’s going to summarise the arguments and how his work is contributing to moving ideas forward.
YouTube Video VVV4ajFBU1dDcUpuaEZfdzAzZ1hXaER3LjE3a3R2UEluQVFz

The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence & Cultural Restitution

25 June 2021 12:39 pm

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Latest news

13 February 2022

Brotherton100 online exhibition

An online exhibition celebrating the start of book and manuscript collecting by industrialist Edward Brotherton
29 November 2021

Reith Lectures 2021

If you enjoyed our lectures on Artificial Intelligence you might want to listen to/read this year's Reith Lectures on this topical subject.

20 November 2021

Events Programme 2022

We're planning a typical range of interesting and challenging topics from speakers who are leaders in their field.

Explore more

Grants

The Society makes grants both to individuals and to organisations in support of cultural and scientific activities which increase innovation, outreach and diversity in Leeds and its immediate area. It also supports local museums and galleries and publications relating to the city.

Events

Since 1819, the Phil & Lit has been inviting the people of Leeds to hear from knowledgeable and entertaining speakers. Many are leaders in their field of science, arts or current affairs. We also hold an annual Science Fair and organise occasional visits. Becoming a member means that you’ll receive invitations to all these activities. In future, we plan to have a mix of real and virtual events.