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.
The Greatest Good, Episode 5: Professor Bob Mills – Nonbinary Gender in the Middle Ages: Recognising Wilgefortis (video podcast)
Podcast category: The Greatest Good
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.
The Greatest Good, Episode 4: Dr Luciano Rila – The UK’s First Gaysoc
Podcast category: The Greatest Good
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.
The Greatest Good, Episode 3: Dr Xine Yao – Queer Aesthetics and the Panoptic Gaze
Podcast category: The Greatest Good
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.
The Greatest Good, Episode 2: Dr Jonathan Galton – Queerness, Islam and the Left
Podcast category: The Greatest Good
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.
The Greatest Good, Episode 1: Professor Gregory Dart – Bentham, Romanticism and the ‘Cockney College’
Podcast category: The Greatest Good
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 ti…