The Greatest Good

Nov 04 2024 4 ep. 27 mins 2
The Greatest Good Podcast artwork

UCL Press Play’s inaugural series, The Greatest Good, explores the lasting influence of the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, whose radical progressivism was the intellectual inspiration for UCL. As the first entirely secular university to admit students regardless of religion, UCL was inspired by Bentham’s principles of equality and intellectual freedom. Hosted by Professor Philip Schofield, Director of UCL’s Bentham Project, The Greatest Good features a series of five conversations with UCL’s world-leading academics. Website and transcripts: https://uclpress.co.uk/ucl-press-play/

  Society & Culture  History
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Episode 4 - Dr Luciano Rila on the UK’s First Gaysoc

Nov 04 2024 25 mins  
Professor Philip Schofield sits down with Dr Luciano Rila, from the Department of Maths, to delve into the history of the UK’s first university-affiliated Gaysoc, founded by Jamie Gardiner in 1972, at UCL. Dr Rila discovered archival materials in UCL’s Special Collections revealing that though the society was initially met with backlash, UCL’s liberal tradition prevailed, and

Episode 3 - Dr Xine Yao on Queer Aesthetics and the Panoptic Gaze

Oct 28 2024 32 mins  
Professor Philip Schofield discusses queer aesthetics and the idea of a racialised panoptic gaze with Dr Xine Yao, the co-director of qUCL and an expert on American literature in the Department of English. They dig into the archive of bestselling, but now forgotten, American novels, and tease out the ways in which the biggest issues of the 19th century still resonate in everyday li

Episode 2 - Dr Jonathan Galton on Queerness, Islam and the Left

Oct 21 2024 26 mins  
Professor Philip Schofield hosts Social Scientist Dr Jonathan Galton, to explore his research into the perceived political tension on the progressive left between queerness and Islam. Discussing the historical and cultural context surrounding queerness and Islam, they find surprising affinities between Bentham’s writing on freedom of religion and sexual liberty, and the contempor

Episode 1 - Professor Gregory Dart on Bentham, Romanticism and the ‘Cockney College’

Oct 14 2024 26 mins  
Professor Philip Schofield and Professor Gregory Dart discuss the philosophical differences between Utilitarianism and Romanticism, in the context of the founding of the “Cockney College”, as UCL was known at the time. They explore how Bentham’s utilitarian principles, emphasising happiness and the greatest good, contrasted with Romantic notions of moral intentions and consci