University of Dundee
Old Hawkhill
Dundee
DD1 5EN
Join us for an evening with award-winning author Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Religion and sex are inextricably tangled in politics across our contemporary world, often in toxic ways, and the long history of that tangle in the Christian world has frequently been fatally simplified and misunderstood. Diarmaid MacCulloch, drawing on his recent book Lower than the Angels, seeks to set up ways of understanding the past that may help us calm present-day fears and unsettle what are often taken as settled historical facts. He shows how three thousand years of constant change in Judaism, Christianity and Islam have shaped the ways in which we look at sexuality and families in our own age: part of the extraordinarily varied saga of Christian attitudes to sex over the centuries.
Diarmaid MacCulloch is Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church, and Fellow of St Cross College and of Campion Hall, Oxford University. His History of Christianity: the first three thousand years won the 2010 Cundill Prize for History and was accompanied by a BBC TV series; he was knighted in 2012. His latest book (2024) is Lower than the Angels: a history of Sex and Christianity.
The Harris Lecture, named after Margaret Harris an early benefactor of University College Dundee, is a landmark public event in the University Calendar and past speakers have included Sir Jonathon Porritt, Terry Waite, Arun Ghandi, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Professor Dame Sue Black. This year, we are delighted to combine the event with the Forbes Lecture - an annual event hosted by The Diocese of Brechin exploring faith, ideas, and contemporary challenges that celebrates Bishop Forbes who was a visionary pastor, scholar, and philanthropist.