We are pleased to share this year's Roger Scruton Memorial Lectures. Now on its third year, this annual series of free public lectures honours Scruton's legacy by inviting eminent public intellectuals to speak on four topics of civilisational importance. Each lecture and conversation will take place in the Sheldonian Theatre at the University of Oxford during October 2023 from 5 pm - 6:30 pm (British Summer Time). These events are free, but require advance registration to attend. For those unable to attend in-person, lectures will be recorded and made available online at a later date.

Peter Thiel is a world-renowned entrepreneur, philanthropist and author. He co-founded PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund. He was the first outside investor in Facebook and an early investor in SpaceX and Airbnb. Through the Thiel Foundation, he supports research and innovation across a wide range of fields including technology, entrepreneurship and the philosophy of René Girard. He teaches at Stanford University and is the bestselling author of Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (Crown, 2014).

John Gray is a globally-esteemed philosopher, political theorist and intellectual historian. He has an asteroid named after him and until 2008 he was School Professor of European Thought at the LSE. He now writes principally for the New Statesman and has authored over twenty books including the bestselling Seven Types of Atheism, Straw Dogs, Black Mass, The Soul of the Marionette, The Silence of Animals and Feline Philosophy. His latest book, recently published by Penguin in September 2023, is The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism.

MEDIA

We are pleased to share this year's Roger Scruton Memorial Lectures. Now on its third year, this annual series of free public lectures honours Scruton's legacy by inviting eminent public intellectuals to speak on four topics of civilisational importance. Each lecture and conversation will take place in the Sheldonian Theatre at the University of Oxford during October 2023 from 5 pm - 6:30 pm (British Summer Time). These events are free, but require advance registration to attend. For those unable to attend in-person, lectures will be recorded and made available online at a later date.

Lionel Shriver is a world-renowned author and journalist. She has written fifteen novels including We Need to Talk About Kevin (Serpent's Tail, 2003) which won the 2005 Orange Prize and was adapted into the eponymous 2011 film. She is widely published in the British press and is a columnist for The Spectator. Her most recent novel is Should We Stay or Should We Go (HarperCollins, 2021) and her non-fiction collection, Abominations: Selected Essays From a Career of Courting Self-Destruction, was published by Borough Press in 2022.

Ruth Dudley Edwards is an award-winning historian, biographer and crime fiction writer. Her journalism is published regularly across the British and Irish press in the Telegraph, Sunday Independent and The News Letter. Her Amiss and Troutbeck novels have won multiple prizes, as have her numerous works of non-fiction including Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure (Irish Academic Press, 2006) and Victor Gollancz: A Biography (Faber, 2012). Her most recent history is The Seven: The Lives and Legacies of the Founding Fathers of the Irish Republic (Oneworld, 2016).

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Fisher Derderian, Founder and Executive Director of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, will be the guest speaker for the second installment of the "Lectures on the Scruton Principles" series. As one of Roger Scruton's last students, he has sufficient insight into the Master's late, refined thought system.

In the presentation, the author presents three of his favorite ideas: the need for nations, the need for beauty, and how conservative philosophy can become part of our social knowledge. In the latter topic, he presents the operation of the Foundation.

The informal presentation also provides the opportunity for students to debate with the guest in accordance with the Scruton maxim of "peaceful disagreement".

Note: The conversation is in English! The event is free, but due to the limited number of people, please register in advance! Places are reserved on a first-come, first-served basis. We ask our guests to arrive no later than 10-15 minutes before the start of the program!

MEDIA

To be made available soon.

We are pleased to share this year's Roger Scruton Memorial Lectures. Now on its third year, this annual series of free public lectures honours Scruton's legacy by inviting eminent public intellectuals to speak on four topics of civilisational importance. Each lecture and conversation will take place in the Sheldonian Theatre at the University of Oxford during October 2023 from 5 pm - 6:30 pm (British Summer Time). These events are free, but require advance registration to attend. For those unable to attend in-person, lectures will be recorded and made available online at a later date.

Alexander Stoddart FRSE is a world-renowned sculptor, art critic and Honorary Professor at the University of the West of Scotland. In 2008 he was appointed as Her Majesty The Queen’s Sculptor in Ordinary in Scotland and is now His Majesty The King’s Sculptor in Ordinary. He lives and works in Paisley, Scotland. Stoddart’s large-scale monumental statuary is to be found most notably in Edinburgh and the United States of America.

Sir Simon Jenkins is an eminent editor, author and journalist. He was editor of the Evening Standard from 1976-78 and The Times from 1990-92. He has broadcast with the BBC and currently writes a twice-weekly column for The Guardian. He was knighted for services to journalism in 2004 and was chair of the National Trust between 2008-14. Jenkins is the author of over twenty books including England's Thousand Best Houses (Allen Lane, 2003), England's Hundred Best Views (Profile, 2013) and, most recently, Cathedrals: Masterpieces of Architecture, Feats of Engineering, Icons of Faith (Rizzoli, 2022).

Paul Lay is a highly distinguished historian, author and critic. He is Senior Editor at Engelsberg Ideas. He is a former editor of History Today, reviews for The Times, the Telegraph and Literary Review, and is the author of Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate (Head of Zeus, 2020), which was shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize.

MEDIA

We are pleased to share this year's Roger Scruton Memorial Lectures. Now on its third year, this annual series of free public lectures honours Scruton's legacy by inviting eminent public intellectuals to speak on four topics of civilisational importance. Each lecture and conversation will take place in the Sheldonian Theatre at the University of Oxford during October 2023 from 5 pm - 6:30 pm (British Summer Time). These events are free, but require advance registration to attend. For those unable to attend in-person, lectures will be recorded and made available online at a later date.

Douglas Murray is a world-renowned author and journalist. He is host of the Uncancelled History podcast, a columnist for The Sun and New York Post, associate editor of The Spectator, and the author of seven books including the bestselling The Strange Death of Europe (Bloomsbury, 2017), The Madness of Crowds (Bloomsbury, 2019) and The War on the West (HarperCollins, 2022). He was a close friend of Sir Roger Scruton.

Lord Maurice Glasman is a highly distinguished political theorist, social commentator and Labour life peer in the House of Lords. A staunch critic of the neoliberal consensus, his work emphasises the common good and ranges from trade unionism and the living wage to Brexit and conservative socialism. He is the founder of Blue Labour and Director of the Common Good Foundation, and teaches Politics and International Relations at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham. His latest book is Blue Labour: The Politics of the Common Good (Polity, 2022). He was a close friend of Sir Roger Scruton.

Dr Jonathan Price is Barry Fellow of Pusey House and Pusey Fellow of St Cross College, as well as a Research Associate of the Programme for the Foundations of Law in Oxford's Faculty of Law. He is expert in the theological and philosophical foundations of international law, and is the founding editor of Politics & Poetics. He was a close friend and student of Sir Roger Scruton.

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The Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, in partnership with the Mathias Corvinus Collegium and the Grange Festival, was pleased to present the worldwide concert perfomance première of Anna, an opera in two acts. On 14 July 2023 at the Grange Festival hosted the first full concert performance of the opera written by Sir Roger Scruton and set to music by David Matthews. The opera, set in Eastern Europe (possibly Czechoslovakia) a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, deals with the dilemma faced by those who had stood out against Communism but are now left to make sense of the liberation itself and the new materialistic capitalism which accompanies it. Conductor Jac van Steen led the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and a cast of stellar soloists for this free performance.

SYNOPSIS

The Professor, deprived of his university position on account of his dissident profile, had lost his wife some years before the action of the opera, and had then been arrested on suspicion of helping opponents of the system to flee the country. The Professor was never brought to trial but instead died under interrogation, leaving his two children, then 19 and 14, to fend for themselves, without hope of a further education, and condemned to menial employment. They have kept the apartment assigned to their parents, a small, neat place in a modern block on the outskirts of an ordinary Central European town, and Peter has, through his industry and intelligence, risen to the position of floor manager in the run-down local firm, not yet privatized, which makes electrical appliances. Anna has found work in a bookshop, and also gives lessons in the violin. They are devoted to each other, Peter is serious, gloomy, and protective of his sister; she is a quiet, busy, lovable girl, popular with all who know her and for him the one trusted source of love and stability. She is not without ambition and, like Peter, deeply frustrated by the impossibility of pursuing it. The Professor constantly appears in the memory of Peter and Anna, as they puzzle over his fate, Peter longing for justice, Anna desiring to fill the gap in her life, and to bring the work of mourning to an end.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Composer — David Matthews

Story and Libretto — Roger Scruton

Conductor — Jac van Steen

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

The Grange Festival Chorus

CAST

Peter — Alex Otturburn

Anna — Rhian Lois

Marta — Marta Fontanals-Simmons

Miro — Oliver Johnston

Father Antonin — Jonathan Lemalu

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The Berry Center Executive Director Mary Berry and her brother, Den Berry, were raised by their parents, Wendell and Tanya Berry, at Lanes Landing Farm in Henry County, Kentucky from the time she was six years old. She attended Henry County public schools and graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1981. She farmed for a living in Henry County starting out in dairy farming, growing Burley tobacco, and later diversifying to organic vegetables, pastured poultry and grass fed beef. Mary is married to Trimble County, Kentucky farmer, Steve Smith, who started the first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farming endeavor in the state of Kentucky. If daughters Katie Johnson, Virginia Aguilar and Tanya Smith choose to stay in Henry County, they will be the ninth generation of their family to live and farm there. Her writings have appeared in various publications and collections, including “Letters to a Young Farmer: On Food, Farming, and Our Future” (Princeton Agricultural Press, 2016) and the introduction for a new edition of essays, “Our Sustainable Table”, Robert Clark, ed. (Counterpoint, 2017).

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On 23rd May our Executive Director, Fisher Derderian, will be speaking with María Sanchez, Architect and Director of ESTUDIO URBANO, on the topic of Sir Roger Scruton's life and thought. We look forward to this bilingual event, organised in coniunction withf the Fundación Jaime Guzmán from Chile, which will further introduce Scruton's work to the Spanish-speaking world.

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In May 2023, the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation partnered with New Direction and the Foreningen for alle konservative studenter (FAKS) to present the annual Nostos Conference in Oslo. Nordic conservatism is in a renaissance, with new ideas and beliefs emerging to support the old. Chief amongst them is the debate over the foundations and fundamentals underpinning free society. Nordic countries are at the forefront of this debate over the balance of freedom and responsibility in both government and civil society – balancing the role of the state with that of the individual. For many, this freedom is under renewed pressure with the rise of a radical counter cultures in society.

CONFERENCE RECORDINGS

Opening Remarks

Witold d’Humilly de Chevilly - Executive Director of New Direction

Panel #1: The Underpinnings of Free Society in Europe

Mahmoud Farahmand MP - Conservative Party Norway

Mikkel Bjørn Sørensen MP - Danish Peoples Party

Hardo Pajula - Economist

Robert Tyler - Senior Policy Advisor at New Direction (Moderator)

Panel #2: Sovereignty, Security and a thriving society

Rihards Kols MP - National Alliance (Latvia) and chair of the Foreign Affairs committee

Anna Molberg MP - Conservative Party Norway

Christian Anton Smedshaug - Author - “Feeding the World in the 21st Century”

Alexander Christiansson MP - Swedish Democrats

Samuel Rapinoja de Carvalho - True Finns Youth Helsinki (Moderator)

Panel #3: Nordic Conservatism in a European Perspective

Hannes Gissurarson - Professor of Political Science

Jakob Söderbaum - Philosopher

Christian Egander Skov - Historian

Christian Anton Smedshaug - Author - “Feeding the World in the 21st Century”

Emma Webb - Common Sense Society (Moderator)

Panel #4: Academic Freedom and the role of Education

Emma Webb - Common Sense Society

Frank Furedi - MCC Brussels

Ilmari Rostila - Finnish Association

Sturla Ellingvåg - Historian

Jarl Roar Simonsen - FAKS (Moderator)

Panel #5: On Settling Together - Beauty And Civility Among Neighbours

Erik Norin - Sweden - Architect

Prof. Ferenc Hörcher - Academic

Marjo Uotila - Architect

Robert Kwolek - Architect

Haakon Teig - FAKS (Moderator)

Closing Speech

Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson MP - Former Prime Minister Iceland