Category Archives: Talks

Film screening and round-table discussion, ‘Letters from Baghdad’, Royal United Services Institute

letters from baghdadApril 2017 saw the release of a new documentary-length film about Gertrude Bell, Letters from Baghdad featuring remarkable footage and recreations of Bell’s life from her correspondence and photography. Helen Berry joined the film’s Directors, Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum, diplomats and politicians from the Middle East for a round-table discussion of Bell’s life and legacy with a public audience of 200 at the Royal United Services Institute, London. View a trailer for ‘Letters from Baghdad’ narrated by actor Tilda Swinton here, and a video of the panel debate.

Gertrude Bell and the ‘Woman Question’

Click here to listen to Helen Berry’s ‘Insights’ public lecture at Newcastle University (February 2016) on ‘Gertrude Bell and the ‘Woman Question’, including fascinating examples of photography from the Gertrude Bell Archive.

This lecture was in association with ‘The Extraordinary Gertrude Bell’, a blockbuster exhibition at the Great North Museum, Newcastle Upon Tyne (January-May 2016).

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Are we living through a new eighteenth century?

Chairing the Member by William Hogarth

If Mrs Thatcher thought she was living again through Victorian England, we are now living through the eighteenth century. This special edition of BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking series explores London as the centre of the world then and now, financial bubbles bursting then and now, and the lust for consumption then and now, whether of bodies or bodices.

Listen to historian Helen Berry in conversation with chairman Philip Dodd, the MP and author Kwasi Kwarteng, historians Jerry White and AN Wilson, and playwright April De Angelis for a discussion which was part of BBC Radio 3’s eighteenth century season of programming
Free Thinking Listen Again.