Undressing Anne Boleyn
Hilary Mantel
SOLD OUT
Monday 4 February, 18.30
BP Lecture Theatre, British Museum
Is royal flesh different from ours? Do royal bones live? From Anne Boleyn to Kate Middleton, we are fascinated by the regal body, its contested attributes, its capacity for shape-shifting and posthumous survival. Hilary Mantel stares rudely at some royal persons, and wonders if they will stare back.
Hilary Mantel has written 11 novels, a memoir and a collection of short stories. The first two novels in her trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, both won the Man Booker Prize. She is working on the third, The Mirror and the Lamp.
The Crisis of American Democracy
David Runciman
SOLD OUT
Monday 11 February, 18.30
BP Lecture Theatre, British Museum
American democracy is in trouble again: divided, broke, its power on the wane. In the past, it has always seen off its doubters: every time it has faced a crisis it has found a way to renew itself. Will American democracy rediscover its promise this time? Or is this the crisis too far?
David Runciman’s books, which include Political Hypocrisy and The Politics of Good Intentions, have been nominated for the Orwell and David Watt Prizes. He is a professor of politics at Cambridge and a fellow of Trinity Hall.
Is Wagner bad for us?
Nicholas Spice
SOLD OUT
Monday 25 February, 18.30
BP Lecture Theatre, British Museum
No composer before or since has divided taste and opinion as violently as Wagner has. In every generation of musicians and listeners there are those who worship Wagner, those who cannot abide him and those who feel love and distaste by turns. At the start of the Wagner bicentenary year, Nicholas Spice asks: how do we get Wagner straight in our heads? How does his music work on us and what does this tell us about our relationship with music in general?
Nicholas Spice has written on music, psychoanalysis and fiction for the London Review of Books, where he has been publisher since 1982.
To purchase tickets click here or call +44 (0)20 7323 8181 – Ticket Desk in Great Court Open 10.00 to 16.45 daily. The ticket prices are £10 (£8 concessions including LRB subscribers and Friends of the British Museum).
