The 2019 Festival of Social Science will return this November with a packed series of events and talks exploring different aspects of society today.
The week-long event will kick off at Aberdeen City Library on Saturday, November 2, with Outlander Fandoms, an exploration of Scottish identity and a journey through the world of Outlander, the award-winning historical drama.
The packed series of free events continues Monday, November 4, with a Café Med discussing the today’s challenges of seeing your GP, exploring how through a variety of opportunities the University is working alongside NHS Education for Scotland to encourage more GPS of the future.
On Tuesday, November 5, the research team behind a unique study - The Aberdeen Children of the 1950s: Health, Wealth and Happiness - which followed 12,000 people who were born in Aberdeen in the 1950s, will provide an overview of what this important study has taught us so far. Researchers from throughout the world have used the study to investigate vital questions about how life experiences and circumstances affect our health, wealth and happiness.
A Chilean Craftivism Workshop will be held on Wednesday, November 6, with an opportunity to learn how to sew the distinctive, colourful Chilean protest dolls called arpilleras. Later that day there will be a talk called Lost & Found Home, a comparative biography study of Scottish migrants living in the Netherlands and Dutch migrants living in Scotland. Simone Haarbosch will explore ideas of home and learn how immigrants position themselves in their new environment and who they identify with.
Polish Migrants and the Health System is the topic of an interactive talk and film presentation on Thursday, November 7, with Robert Nartowski, who will explore the health care experiences of Poles living in different countries, drawing on research conducted in London, Paris and Berlin.
Also that day, coinciding with the exhibition Walking with Birds, Andrew Whitehouse will explore the fascinating relationships between humans and birds and the role that sound plays in this.
On Friday, November 8, there will be a special one-off showing of the classic sci-fi mystery Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston, at the Belmont Filmhouse. Aberdeen researchers will talk about how themes touched on in this classic dystopian film – the food production industry and environmental collapse – are more relevant today than they ever have been.
The Festival closes on Saturday, November 9, with Out of the Frying Pan: Scotland, Food and the Future, a series of talks discussing healthy food, how it is produced, the role of food banks and food poverty in Scotland. Discover also how food is being promoted in schools. Finally, the Kinetic Reading Workshop: Dancing Through Language Learning. The Use of dance in ESOL Classroom, is a workshop which will explore the potential of dance for language learning.
Festival organiser Chris Croly, of the University of Aberdeen’s Public Engagement with Research team, said: “The line-up for the Festival this year shows a wide range of diversity of topics, reflecting the strength and diversity of social science across the University of Aberdeen.
“There are so many researchers working on different aspects of social science and our festival this year takes in subjects are broad as food insecurity in Aberdeen today, the archaeology of food in Aberdeen, to our wonderful relationship to birds. This is a great chance for people to hear about some of the most important research being conducted by the University, and it’s all free.”
Full details of the programme, which is also available from Aberdeen City Libraries, University of Aberdeen Sir Duncan Rice Library and Aberdeen Maritime Museum, are available at www.abdn.ac.uk/foss
ENDS