Newsletter: Events at Clare Hall, Easter 2025
Dear Clare Hall members and friends,
Please find below a list of events taking place this week and beyond, to which you are warmly invited.
Upcoming Events
Tuesday 29 April – Tuesday 17 June 2025, 7.30pm
Clare Hall Colloquium
Clare Hall’s Colloquia provide members of the College – especially (but not exclusively) Visiting Fellows and Life Members – with an opportunity to present their research, whether in its early stages or already published, in a friendly setting. They are a great way to discuss your ideas, meet fellow members and to contribute to our vibrant community. The full Easter Term 2025 programme can be found here.
Potential SIG – Genealogy
Professor Kevin Edwards, the Colloquium Convenor, would like to gauge interest in a potential new Special Interest Group in genealogy. The SIG would aim to introduce Clare Hallers (and especially Life Members, Visiting Fellows and any accompanying partners) to basic methods in genealogy and to encourage personal research in a collective, encouraging environment, sharing progress and helping each other with the inevitable ‘brick walls’ encountered along an absorbing, often addictive path. If you would be interested in participating in this in-person in Oct 2025 or Jan 2026, please send any responses to kevin.edwards@abdn.ac.uk .
Mondays, starting 5 May 2025, 5:30-6:30pm
Clare Hall Cricket Club practice sessions
Fancy trying a new sport or dusting off your pads to play for Clare Hall?
Well, Corpus Christi is kindly letting us use their nets for practice. Every Monday from the 5th of May, we have weekly nets or practice sessions from 5:30pm to 6:30pm. We’ll meet at the porters’ lodge at around 5pm and head over together. For those who don’t know where the ground is, it is a mere 11-minute walk from the porter’s lodge:
There’s absolutely no need to have any experience at all, we’ll teach you how to play cricket. Of course, if you’re already an experienced cricketer we are very keen for you to be there too!
You can stay up to date with the latest info by subscribing here. You can also find us on our WhatsApp community group.
Thursday 15 May – Thursday 5 June 2025, 2:15-4pm
The Betty Behrens Seminar on Classics of Historiography
The Betty Behrens Seminar on Classics of Historiography offers a unique opportunity for students and scholars to reflect on some great historical works and engage in discussion with renowned experts. Read more about this term’s fantastic speakers and book your place through this page.
Thursday 29 May 2025, 7:30pm
Art and Architecture SIG: Film Screening
Join the Art and Architecture Special Interest Group for a film screening of Gianfranco Rosi, Fuocoammare – Fire at Sea (2016). The screening will be held in the Clare Hall Meeting Room, from 7:30pm.
Saturday 7 June 2025, 7:30pm
Schubert’s Winterreise with Jean-François Rouchon and Billy Eidi
Schubert’s Winterreise hardly needs an introduction. It is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest song cycles in the repertoire, a work of exceptional depth and emotional intensity. Composed 1827, a year before Schubert’s premature death from syphilis, it is a reflection of his state of mind at this stage in his life. The dark mood of the “horrifying songs” as Schubert called them, puzzled his friends exceedingly. Like many of the great masterpieces, its acceptance by the general public was a slow process. Jean-François Rouchon and Billy Eidi are regular partners in song and lieder repertoire, and have a distinguished career in France. It is a rare chance to be able to hear them in England, in a cycle they have often performed together.
Monday 9 June 2025, 11am
Literature SIG – “The Bog Ate My Homework: What We Can Learn from a Medieval Russian Boy’s Lessons and Doodles on Birchbark”
Join the Literature SIG for the first talk of the term by Professor Sara Pankenier Weld (Visiting Fellow). This talk will address what we can learn from 17 birchbark fragments of text and image made by Onfim, a boy about 7 years of age who lived in 13th century Novgorod, Russia. Thanks to a waterlogged bog, these remnants of a bygone age, comprising a young boy’s lessons, doodles, and drawings, which I have otherwise playfully called “The Collected Works of Anthemius of Novgorod,” were miraculously preserved. Written around 1234-1268 and found primarily in 1956, these works, casual, pedagogical, and playful as they may be, have survived the centuries as material traces of a 13th century child, even as the experiences of countless other children have been lost to the historical record. This talk will examine the verbal and visual production of this 6 or 7 year-old child from the perspective of childhood studies, history of childhood, and children’s literature research to illuminate what these artifacts have preserved about Onfim’s childhood experience, pedagogical training, circumstances, perspective, and imagination and how this might further illuminate childhood in 13th century Novgorod and over time. At the same time, it will demonstrate how the 13th century collected works of Anthemius of Novgorod prove remarkable and live a vibrant afterlife still today even in a global context.
The talk will be held in the Clare Hall Meeting Room, followed by an optional lunch in the dining hall.
Thursday 12 June 2025, 7:30pm
Art & Architecture SIG: Talk by Romeo V. Turcan, Legitimation and Art
This talk explores the intersection between legitimation and art, trying to expand our understanding of ‘how art engages’, ‘how it elicits response’, how ‘eye-of-the-beholder’ value interacts with ‘judgement-of-the-community’ value through several legitimation conceptual lenses such as instantiation, emergence, newness, objectivation of meaning, manifest and latent functions.
Romeo V. Turcan is a Professor at Aalborg University Business School, Denmark and Adjunct Professor at the Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Romeo’s main research interests include legitimation of newness and theory building across diverse disciplines and contexts
The talk will be held in the Clare Hall Meeting Room.
Saturday 21 June – Sunday 22 June 2025
CHBC 30th Anniversary Events
It’s time to celebrate Clare Hall Boat Club’s 30th Anniversary! And what better way to celebrate than over the 2025 May Bumps weekend, Saturday 21-Sunday 22 June 2025. Join us for the three events we’re hosting in honour of CHBC glory on the Cam since 1995, including a Bumps Tent on the final day of May Bumps, a Gala Dinner, and a Morning Paddle. Read more about the events and the details for booking your place here.
Monday 23 June 2025, 7:30pm
Joint Concert – the Choirs of Clare Hall and Darwin College
The choirs of Clare Hall and Darwin are hosting another a joint concert on Monday 23rd June at 7:30pm in the Clare Hall dining hall. Both choirs will sing individually and together, including music by Goss, Chilcott, Kirby Shaw and Amy Beach. The concert will also feature musical performances from members of both colleges. There are still performing slots available – please email Ben de Souza (bd402) for more information.
There will be refreshments served afterwards, courtesy of the Clare Hall Tutorial office.
Entry is free, but audience members are requested to complete the attendance form.
Wednesday 25 June 2025, 12:30pm
Annual Cricket Match
Join us for this year’s annual cricket match! There will be an enjoyable game of cricket, followed by afternoon tea. The event is free and open to all, and if you would like to learn more or get involved, please email cricket@clarehall.cam.ac.uk.
Please RSVP for the match and tea through this form.
Current Exhibitions
Thursday 1 May – Thursday 12 June 2025
Fen & Flow: an exhibition of paintings by Fred Ingrams
Clare Hall is pleased to present an exhibition by Fred Ingrams, an artist inspired by the landscapes of the Fens and the Flow country of Caithness.
The artist showed a talent for drawing and painting and began his career with a spell at Camberwell and St Martin’s School of Art. His early career was spent in the lively environment of Soho, London. He worked for several magazines as graphic designer and artistic director. He also continued to paint and was exhibited in several London galleries. In the 1990s the artist moved to Norfolk and found in the Fenland countryside his true vocation. Here he discovered his affinity with the landscape which he has painted ever since. Those who know this linear, flat, man-manipulated landscape report that the artist has captured something precious of the essence of this landscape. More recently he has discovered that other flat land – Caithness’s Flow country. Lying in the far northeast of Scotland, the Flow country is formed from ancient rock, scoured by ice in the last ice age and now made up of peat bogs and lochs. Both landscapes speak of nature -one tamed and utilised for agriculture, one forgotten and remote, both are fragile and vulnerable to climate change and both stimulate Fred’s particular perception of these flat and evocative places.
Fred gives life, movement and vigour to overlooked landscapes of Britain. We hope that viewers will respond to these landscapes and be captivated as many before them.
Ongoing
The Bell Collection of British Studio Pottery, 1920-1980
A rotating display of some 320 pieces of studio ceramics. Learn more at https://www.clarehall.cam.ac.uk/bellcollection/
Activities and Societies
Monday 2 June 2025, 8:00pm
Clare Hall Book Club
Join the College’s Book Club as they discuss Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World by Marcia Bjornerud. All College members are welcome to attend in-person, meeting in Clare Hall’s Meeting Room, or via Zoom. If you are not on the mailing list and would like to be, please send an email to gloria.carnevali@icloud.com, confirming your Clare Hall connection and putting the following as the email title: I would like to join the Book Club mailing list.
Learn more about the Book Club on this page.
Mondays and Fridays, 25 April – 20 June 2025
Pilates Sessions – Easter Term 2025
We are delighted to host pilates classes at Clare Hall throughout Easter Term. The classes will be held on Mondays during lunchtime, with additional bi-weekly Friday evening classes. Pilates is a form of low-impact exercise that aims to strengthen muscles while improving postural alignment and flexibility.
A full list of dates and the sign up sheet can be found here.
Tuesdays, 29 April – 17 June 2025
Mindful Meditation Sessions
Through mindfulness we cultivate attention to the here and now. We aim to witness our thoughts and feelings with detachment. We develop concentration, peace of mind and enjoyment of life with all its challenges.
As a group, we explore different means of developing mindfulness, including relaxation, guided meditation and attention to the breath or to a mantra. The sessions are led by Elizabeth Garnsey, and meet in the King Room on Main Site on Tuesdays 1-2pm. The door is open 1-2 but you are welcome to slip in and out whenever convenient for you. All members of the college and friends are welcome, including students, staff, fellows, researchers and visitors. Please contact ewg11@cam.ac.uk with any questions.
Thursdays and Sundays, 4 May – 19 June 2025
Yoga Sessions – Easter Term 2025
We are delighted to host regular lunchtime yoga sessions, starting on 8 May 2025. Due to new instructor arrangements, the weekday lunchtime sessions will now occur on Thursdays.
In addition, we offer Sunday afternoon yoga after the allotment sessions, starting on 4 May 2025.
Please sign up for both sessions through the spreadsheet here.
Various Dates
Choir Practice
A reminder that Clare Hall Choir practice takes place in Robinson College Chapel every Monday (in term-time, but not always restricted to the official Cambridge term dates) from 7:30-9pm. New members are always welcome, and no previous singing or musical experience is necessary. The only requirement is that you want to sing and have fun doing it! If you are interested in joining, please email Ben de Souza, the Choir’s Director, who is a Clare Hall Associate, freelance choral conductor and accordionist: bd402@cam.ac.uk.
Recent recordings of the choir can also be found on our YouTube channel.