UCL Press Play
UCL Press Play is a new initiative presenting documentary videos and podcasts featuring aspects of UCL’s sector-leading research, and casting light on the contribution UCL makes to society.
Just as UCL Press makes its work accessible through Open Access, UCL Press Play brings the groundbreaking research of London’s global university to audiences worldwide.
The Greatest Good
The 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.
Documentary film: Bentham’s Defence of Sexual Liberty
Based on original research, the flagship documentary film takes an interdisciplinary approach to Bentham’s pioneering defence of sexual liberty, at a time when society took a very different view.
Watch the documentary (13 mins 13 seconds) to hear more from UCL researchers.
Professor Philip Schofield is the Director of the Bentham Project, based in UCL’s Faculty of Laws.
Professor Judy Stephenson is an economic historian based at UCL’s Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction.
Dr Xine Yao is Associate Professor in American literature to 1900 in UCL’s Department of English, and the co-director of qUCL, the Queer Studies network.
Podcasts
The inaugural series of podcasts, The Greatest Good, hosted by Professor Philip Schofield, Director of UCL’s Bentham Project, features a series of five conversations with UCL’s world-leading academics.
Episode 1: Professor Gregory Dart – Bentham, Romanticism and the ‘Cockney College’
Professor Philip Schofield and Professor Gregory Dart, from UCL’s Department of English, 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 conscience.
Professor Gregory Dart is an expert in Romanticism in the Department of English at UCL, and the Chair of the Hazlitt Society.
- View transcript for Episode 1
- Suggested open access reading
Episode 2: Dr Jonathan Galton – Queerness, Islam and the Left
Professor Philip Schofield hosts Dr Jonathan Galton, a social scientist from UCL IOE’s Thomas Coram Research Unit, 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 contemporary theological work reinterpreting Quranic verses on homosexuality today.
Dr Jonathan Galton is a Lecturer in Sociology and Social Sciences at the Thomas Coram Research Unit in the UCL Social Research Institute. The research discussed in this episode was funded through a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship.
- View transcript for Episode 2
- Suggested open access reading
Episode 3: Dr Xine Yao – Queer Aesthetics and the Panoptic Gaze
Professor Philip Schofield discusses queer aesthetics and the idea of a racialised panoptic gaze with Dr Xine Yao, co-director of qUCL (UCL’s Queer Studies network) 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 life today.
Dr Xine Yao is Associate Professor in American literature to 1900 in UCL’s Department of English, and the co-director of qUCL, UCL’s Queer Studies network.
- View transcript for Episode 3
- Suggested open access reading
Episode 4: Dr Luciano Rila – The UK’s First Gaysoc
Professor Philip Schofield sits down with Dr Luciano Rila, from UCL’s Department of Mathematics, to delve into the history of the UK’s first university-affiliated Gaysoc, founded at UCL by Jamie Gardiner in 1972. 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 the movement gained momentum, slowly leading to nationwide improvements in the lives of queer students.
Dr Luciano Rila is Associate Professor (Teaching) in UCL’s Department of Mathematics.
- View transcript for Episode 4
- Suggested open access reading
Episode 5: Professor Bob Mills – Nonbinary Gender in the Middle Ages: Recognising Wilgefortis (video podcast)
Episode 5: Professor Bob Mills – Nonbinary Gender in the Middle Ages: Recognising Wilgefortis (video podcast)
Professor Philip Schofield engages with art historian and former director of qUCL (UCL’s Queer Studies network), Professor Bob Mills, to explore the legend and cult of St. Wilgefortis in medieval Europe. Professor Mills highlights Wilgefortis as a non-binary figure, challenging both the popular belief that the Middle Ages adhered to strictly binary gender norms, and the notion that gender diversity is a modern phenomenon.
Professor Bob Mills is Professor of Medieval Studies in the Department of History of Art at UCL, and former director of qUCL, UCL’s Queer Studies network.