Wednesday 07 February - 6:00pm

Dr. Peter Jones – A History of Love The first in a new series of talks in collaboration with Geist Sunbeam Theatre

Doors open at 6:00pm, with the talk beginning at 7:00pm

£35 Seated Ticket | Patrons Free Admission, limited availability 

Drinks and light nibbles available

Join us for a romp through history with acclaimed academic Dr. Peter Jones as he takes us through five very different views of love and heartache, in conversation with Geist co-founder Sara Sjölund.

If you would like to continue the conversation after the event, we invite you to book a table at our restaurant by Emanule Pollini.

Is it sharp or quite smooth round the edges? Oh tell me the truth about love.” – W.H Auden

Ancient philosophers called it the “force that moves the universe”, and modern chemists call it C₄₃H₆₆N₁₂O₁₂S₂.

How have our experiences of love been shaped by technology, by revolutions, and by discovery? Do we love in different ways to people who lived a thousand years ago? And has it ever been possible to fall in love without destroying some part of ourselves in the process?

Using the ideas of Plato, Dante, and Kant as a starting point, and ending with an examination of love in the age of pop culture and AI via artworks by Edvard Munch and Frida Kahlo, Peter will chart the intoxicating impulses, the mystic fantasies, and the commercial forces that have shaped the ideas of love we live with today.

Peter Jones Bio

Peter Jones received a PhD in Medieval History from New York University in 2014, and taught for thirteen years at universities including UCL, NYU, the University of Toronto, and Complutense University of Madrid (where he is currently a Marie Curie fellow). For four years he taught at the School of Advanced Studies at the University of Tyumen in Siberia, where he was Chair of History. He has received research fellowships from the Warburg Institute, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, and Brown University, as well as Marie Curie.

His first book, Laughter & Power in the Twelfth Century, came out in 2019 with Oxford University Press. His next book, on the Seven Deadly Sins, is due for release next year. Recent articles of his have been published in top academic journals, including Past & Present, Church History, and The Journal of Material Culture

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