Category Archives: Public engagements

The Real Night at the Museum

01 Tuesday Feb 2022

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(And how I spent mine)

Mathilde Victoria Prietzel Nielsen (she/her)President of King’s College London Philosophy Society
Undergraduate at King’s College London Department of Philosophy

Mathilde stars with the crew in the adspot for ‘The Pleasures of Regret’

We were summoned at the Prêt across the National Gallery to meet each other, get fuel, a run-through of the plan, and role assignments. I was to be the checker, that is, to keep track of which shots we had done and which we hadn’t (this was not done sequentially!). Other roles included clapper (the wooden board, not hands), extra set of ears, extra set of eyes, prompter/stylist, equipment gather-carrier-set-upper. Once the roles had been assigned we went to the gallery to be let into the gloriously silent halls to get our badges (so as to not get hand-cuffed for wandering the halls at night) before going through the galleries to our first shot, and I must say: Monet, Picasso, and the rest of the gang makes a whole other experience when not diffused by the usual museum buzz.

Though not required, you intuitively lower your eyes, widen your gaze, and raise eyebrows to communicate to and agree with the others that this is not the usual museum experience – it is of course far better.

That is, it is better when you are together with your crew or for the first 150 meters walking alone.

Around 160 you start wondering whether you’re lost and, if so, whom to call on. Cézanne? Raphael? As a team, our main job turned out to be how to keep the lights on whilst keeping the sound off: light sensors required us to keep walking about when filming in order to keep the light on, but it happens that wooden floors may squeak, so we caught ourselves in quite the dilemma (a suitable environment for philosophers, sure). The dilemma we solved with a fusion of modern dance and loss of shoes. The night we rounded off with a communal, laugh, stretch, and yawn.

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What do you regret?

31 Monday Jan 2022

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Still from: ‘The Pleasures of Regret’

The centre for Philosophy and Arts (KCL) are delighted to announce a new series of events exploring the relationship between art and our emotions. The series launches at The National Gallery with a film, panel discussion, and Q&A on regret. Reserve your free zoom seat here and join Vanessa Brassey from King’s College London, Andy West, author of ‘The Life Inside: A Memoir of Prison, Family and Philosophy’, and author and arts journalist Chloë Ashby. The event will be chaired by Sacha Golob, King’s College London.

So, what will we be discussing?

Regrets may be painful or bittersweet. They can be ethically loaded or merely a plaintive ‘perhaps’. Perhaps you could’ve been a contender; loved more kindly; been more philanthropic; or sold your bitcoin before December?

This means that regret is an aromatic concoction of nostalgia, reminiscing and grief with gentle top notes of longing. We will be thinking about the ways it can also be intensely and weirdly pleasurable. And how pictures help us to understand this, on their own special way.  

The Art & Emotion series. Free (but pre-registration required). Make sure you get your seat.

In collaboration with and hosted by The National Gallery London.

Click here to register for tickets

Review Review : 2021 Mark Sainsbury lecture

12 Monday Apr 2021

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Mark Sainsbury (right) attending Dom Lopes’ (left) Mark Sainsbury Annual Lecture

In case you missed the fantastic reviews of the recent Dom Lopes’ Mark Sainsbury lecture, here is a round up of what was said, by whom, with links to the original post.

Winnie Ma

Irene Martinez-Marin

Mari Maldal

Mathilde Victoria Prietzel Nielsen

Thank you to all the attendees who made this such a lively event – can you spot yourself in the images below?

And here are some screen grabs from (a) Dom Lopes’ talk (b) Mark attending the lecture and (c) Mark sneaking in a catch up with colleagues.

Please do get in touch if you would like to review an upcoming or recent event. Email vanessa.brassey@kcl.ac.uk

Join us for the Annual Sainsbury Lecture

05 Friday Mar 2021

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Dominic McIver Lopes - Department of Philosophy
Distinguished University Scholar and Professor Dominic Lopes

The Department of Philosophy, King’s College London is delighted to welcome

Dominic Lopes

on Tuesday 16 March 18:00-20:00

for the Annual Sainsbury Lecture on the topic of

Aesthetic injustice

Dominic Lopes is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. He has worked on pictorial representation; the aesthetic and epistemic value of pictures, including scientific images; theories of art and its value; the ontology of art; computer art and new art forms; and aesthetic value, wherever it may be found.

All very welcome!

Register here to be sent a ZOOM link on 16 March:

Eventbrite Sainsbury Lecture Tickets

More about Professor Lopes

Dominic Lopes is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. A member of the UBC aesthetics group, he has worked on pictorial representation; the aesthetic and epistemic value of pictures, including scientific images; theories of art and its value; the ontology of art; computer art and new art forms; and aesthetic value, wherever it may be found.

His most recent books are a collection of his essays on methodological themes, Aesthetics on the Edge: Where Philosophy Meets the Human Sciences, a book on Being for Beauty: Aesthetic Agency and Value, and Les Arts et les images: Dialogues avec Dominic McIver Lopes. Many of his books have been or are being translated into Chinese, Farsi, French, Japanese, and Korean. Lopes is now at work on a book on Aesthetic Injustice: A Cosmopolitan Theory. He is also co-authoring Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters with Bence Nanay and Nick Riggle and The Geography of Taste with Samantha Matherne, Mohan Matthen, and Bence Nanay. Both books will be published by OUP.

Lopes is chair of the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association, past president of the Canadian Philosophical Association and the American Society for Aesthetics, a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics, Cognitive Semiotics, and Imaginations.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has been a Canada Council Killam Research Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow of the National Humanities Center, Distinguished Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, and Leverhulme Visiting Research Professor at the University of Warwick. He has won two teaching awards, a Philosophical Quarterly essay prize, a Canadian Philosophy Association essay prize, the American Society for Aesthetics Outstanding Monograph Prize, the Killam Research Prize, and the APA’s Quinn Prize, given for “service to philosophy and philosophers”.

Sin, Art and Philosophy

16 Monday Nov 2020

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This week Sacha Golob (CPVA) and the National Gallery are hosting a panel discussion on Sin and Art.

Speakers include writer, drag performer and filmmaker Amrou Al-Kadhi; philosopher Deborah Casewell; art historian and Chaplain at King’s College, Cambridge, Ayla Lepine; and Director of the Centre for Philosophy and Visual Art Sacha Golob.

Find out more and/or book your tickets here: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/events/a-philosophy-of-sin-and-art-17-11-2020

To find out more about CPVA, a multi-disciplinary initiative based at King’s College London, click here.

Kneading Knowledge.

30 Friday Oct 2020

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In May 2020, the Arts & Humanities Research Institute (AHRI) worked in collaboration with the charity Migrateful on the project Breaking Bread, providing King’s staff with the opportunity to participate in online cookery classes that were led by refugees, asylum seeker and migrants. Kneading Knowledge builds on the success and positive feedback from this project, and registration is now open for King’s student and staff to take part in eight online cookery classes running across October to November 2020

780x440 Migrateful 5

To find out more about Migrateful, a charity supporting asylum seekers, refugees and vulnerable migrants on their journey to employment, independence and integration into the community, click here.

One of the key academics involved in this project is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy Dr. Sarah Fine.

To register for one of the delicious remaining classes, maximum 10 per class, please use the links below.

Philosophy in Prison x The View Magazine blog takeover

10 Friday Jul 2020

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The charity, Philosophy in Prison, has collaborated with The View Magazine to curate a series of blog posts on women, philosophy, and prison, with contributions from King’s philosophers MM McCabe, Jessica Leech, Sarah Fine, and Mike Coxhead. The series also includes a piece by a participant from one of the charity’s courses at HMP Downview.


Philosophy in Prison, founded by MM McCabe, Bill Brewer, and Tom Harrison, promotes and delivers philosophical education in prisons. The View Magazine is a publication by and for women in prison, with paid content by women prisoners, women on license, and those affected by the incarceration of women.


You can read the posts, dated 5th-10th July 2020, here.

A Layperson’s Guide to Epidemiological Modelling – Prof Alexander Bird

06 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by in Announcements, Ideas, News, Public engagements, Public talks

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Epidemiological models have been frequently mentioned in the media lately. What are they? And how do they work? Professor Alexander Bird with the Sowerby/King’s Philosophy & Medicine project has helpfully produced this introduction to epidemiological modelling for the layperson.

The particular model he will be looking at is the SIR model developed by Kermack and McKendrick in 1927.

Here’s a link to the project. Professor Bird has also produced a paper to accompany the video which is available here.

New philosophy videos from Clayton Littlejohn

27 Friday Mar 2020

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As everyone is locked up, Clayton Littlejohn has been helpfully recording and gather talks on some recent work in philosophy. This talk is an informal presentation of a paper written with Julien Dutant on epistemic rationality and defeat. It presents a new unified theory of defeat according to which the toxicity of rationality defeaters has to do with the way in which they serve as indicators that we cannot know certain things. The paper engages with recent work on epistemic paradoxes, epistemic rationality, and recent work on defeat. 

If you are interested, there are more videos available here.

Prof. Maria Alvarez Podcast

06 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by in Ideas, Interviews, News, Public engagements

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Image result for maria alvarez philosophy

Prof. Maria Alvarez recently appeared on the podcast Aleks Listens, here. Over the course of the interview, she discusses being Head of Department, what it means to be an agent, and the importance of talking with people who have different views. 

If you are interested in hearing a thoughtful discussion of some important issues, give it a listen.

The interview begins about 10 minutes from the beginning or 1 hour 8 mins from the end (depending on the direction you are coming from).