Nobel laureates explore life, imagination and the search for meaning at Oxford

Two Nobel laureates from literature and science came together at Oxford’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities for a wide-ranging conversation on life, imagination, curiosity and the search for meaning.

Order and Disorder: Life, Imagination, and the Search for Meaning brought together Mo Yan, the 2012 Nobel Laureate in Literature, and Sir Paul Nurse, the 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine and President of the Royal Society. The event formed the Annual Lecture of the Mo Yan Interdisciplinary Writing Project, an Oxford Prospects and Global Development Institute initiative supported by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities.

Hosted by Dr Shidong Wang, Director of OPGDI, and moderated by Professor Christine Gerrard, former Director of TORCH and Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, the event was opened by Professor Irene Tracey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Distinguished guests included Professor Sir Roger Penrose, 2020 Nobel Laureate in Physics; Dame Caroline Wilson DCMG, former British Ambassador to China; and Professor Yu Jihong, President of Beijing Normal University.

Held in the Sohmen Concert Hall only weeks after the launch of the Schwarzman Centre’s public programme, the occasion reflected the Centre’s ambition to create new spaces for dialogue across the humanities, sciences, arts and wider public life. In her opening remarks, Professor Tracey connected the significance of the new building to the urgency of the event’s theme: ‘Building spaces and creating opportunities for dialogue between the sciences and the humanities, at a time of rapid global change and the rise of artificial intelligence, is more important now than ever. This building is a physical testament to Oxford’s desire to keep humans and the humanities at the epicentre of all things and all subjects.’

Read the full blog here.