EXPeditions - The living library of knowlegde

Aaron William Moore - Interwar science fiction and modern culture

I started my research on science fiction in the early 20th century in China, Japan and the Soviet Union because I was interested in why their stories were so different. How do we explain this difference of attitude towards the future?
About Aaron William Moore"I am the Handa Chair of Japanese-Chinese Relations at the University of Edinburgh and a modern historian of China and Japan. I also work in modern literature. I am a 2014 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.I am a comparative and transnational historian working with documents in Japanese, Chinese and Russian. I predominantly teach modern history of East Asia. My work includes studies of war diaries, the history of childhood and youth and speculative science writing and science fiction."
Key Points• North Asian writers of the early 20th century often saw disruptive technology as a potential path to utopia rather than doom, contrasting with the predominantly dystopian Western outlook.• Their visions of future warfare centered on single, decisive technologies, like death rays, engineered plagues or mechanized armies, that would render conventional military strength irrelevant and directly threaten civilian populations.• Hirabayashi Katsunosuke argued that modern culture is shaped by engineers and technology, anticipating Walter Benjamin’s ideas and insisting that new media would expand rather than exhaust human imagination.• The pragmatic, largely non-theological response to radical technologies in the Soviet Union, China and Japan helps explain their quick adoption of innovations and willingness to reshape society around them.

Aaron William Moore - Civilian suffering in war

The best reason to turn our attention to civilians when studying World War II is that, quite frankly, they are the ones who are most like ourselves.
About Aaron William Moore"I am the Handa Chair of Japanese-Chinese Relations at the University of Edinburgh and a modern historian of China and Japan. I also work in modern literature. I am a 2014 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.I am a comparative and transnational historian working with documents in Japanese, Chinese and Russian. I predominantly teach modern history of East Asia. My work includes studies of war diaries, the history of childhood and youth and speculative science writing and science fiction."
Key Points• Civilians were indispensable to the WWII war effort, and their experiences best reveal the true impact of modern conflict.• Total war erased the boundary between front line and home front, making every aspect of society both essential to victory and a legitimate enemy target.• Diaries and memoirs show a grinding daily misery, from hunger to family separation, that most people today might struggle to endure.• Despite the vast civilian suffering recorded, present-day discourse still treats attacks on non-combatants as acceptable collateral, suggesting the war’s moral lessons remain largely unlearned.

Aaron William Moore - Soldiers' diaries in WWII

One of the reasons why it's useful to look at the diaries and overall life writings of ordinary soldiers is it helps us understand how people like us got involved in supporting modern warfare. 
About Aaron William Moore"I am the Handa Chair of Japanese-Chinese Relations at the University of Edinburgh and a modern historian of China and Japan. I also work in modern literature. I am a 2014 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.I am a comparative and transnational historian working with documents in Japanese, Chinese and Russian. I predominantly teach modern history of East Asia. My work includes studies of war diaries, the history of childhood and youth and speculative science writing and science fiction."
Key Points• Soldiers’ diaries are valuable not because they reveal inner truths, but because they show the linguistic tools people used to make sense of war and survive it.• These writings help us see how individuals absorb, reinterpret, or resist state and media messaging, revealing the limits and possibilities of personal agency.• Diaries can be dangerous because they can convince the writer to take harmful actions, and later become a painful or inescapable record of the self.• The act of diary writing was shaped by education and institutional practices, and became a way for ordinary people to participate in larger political and cultural processes.

Federica Genovese - Public support for climate action

Climate change will affect the lives of everyone and the most effective way to be fighting against climate change requires what, in political science, we call public buy-in, that the public is on board with the issue.
About Federica Genovese"I am a Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Oxford. I specialize in studying the politics of crisis and specifically climate change. I am a 2011 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.My research focuses on international and comparative political economy, with particular attention to climate politics and policy, globalisation, redistribution and the politics of crises in Europe, but not exclusively."
Key Points• Climate action can only succeed if ordinary citizens feel included and see a role for themselves, because the transition rewires whole economies.• Once climate change became a mainstream political issue, leaders began exploiting its costs to rally supporters, deepening partisan divides.• Most voters are worried about climate change but will back ambitious policies only when they see tangible compensation and fair burden-sharing.• Clear, hopeful storytelling, especially by the media, helps counter misinformation and keeps public attention on the opportunities of the energy transition.

Federica Genovese - Climate change and international politics

The only way to deal with climate change effectively and credibly requires some type of international agreement, some level of international cooperation. There is no way in which only one country can solve the problem.
About Federica Genovese"I am a Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Oxford. I specialize in studying the politics of crisis and specifically climate change. I am a 2011 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.My research focuses on international and comparative political economy, with particular attention to climate politics and policy, globalisation, redistribution and the politics of crises in Europe, but not exclusively."
Key Points• Climate change demands cooperative international agreements because no single nation, however powerful, can address its causes or impacts alone.• Annual COP meetings, while slow, are indispensable for focusing global attention and compelling governments and citizens to confront climate issues.• The old "north-south" responsibility divide is giving way to a “strong-weak" state dynamic as emerging economies gain capacity and emissions influence.• Transfers of climate finance from the global North to the South could deliver large returns but face political resistance.

Federica Genovese - Climate change regulation

Only by tackling climate change through regulation – and by monitoring and maintaining a stable climate – can we effectively address the problems it causes.
About Federica Genovese"I am a Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Oxford. I specialize in studying the politics of crisis and specifically climate change. I am a 2011 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.My research focuses on international and comparative political economy, with particular attention to climate politics and policy, globalisation, redistribution and the politics of crises in Europe, but not exclusively."
Key Points• Mitigation and adaptation are complementary pillars of climate action and both must be advanced at the same time to manage existing impacts while cutting future emissions.• Carbon taxes and cap-and-trade dominate mitigation debates; both can curb emissions effectively yet provoke political resistance, the former over taxation and the latter over rising allowance costs.• A “just transition” requires climate policies to confront social inequities so that women, racial minorities, and other vulnerable groups gain real opportunities in the emerging green economy.

Ana Aliverti - State power and migration control

A misconception in relation to citizenship, I think, is this idea of citizenship as a closed status that divides people, in terms of status in increasingly cosmopolitan societies.
About Ana AlivertiI am a Professor of criminal law and criminal justice. My research work looks at the intersections between criminal law and criminal justice, on the one hand, and border regimes, on the other, and explores the impact of such intertwining on the national criminal justice institutions and on those subject to the resulting set of controls. I am a 2017 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.My research examines questions of citizenship and belonging in criminal justice, and law's instrumental and symbolic power for boundary drawing, as well as the place of morality and affects in state power. I concluded a project on the policing of migration which investigated the growing cooperation between immigration enforcement and the police, and explores the new contours of law enforcement in the context of globalization
Key Points• State power isn't just punitive; it also involves humanitarian impulses that shape law and policy.• Migration controls today originate in colonial practices aimed at restricting black and brown populations, embedding race into modern migration policies.• Citizenship increasingly functions as a privilege rather than a right, marked by restrictive criteria that reinforce racial and social boundaries.• Communities globally, especially in the Global South, demonstrate ways of including migrants without relying on formal citizenship, emphasizing coexistence and local inclusion strategies.

Ana Aliverti - Moral dilemmas at the borders

Border workers face significant moral challenges in terms of the work that they do, particularly in terms of the exercise of violence.
About Ana AlivertiI am a Professor of criminal law and criminal justice. My research work looks at the intersections between criminal law and criminal justice, on the one hand, and border regimes, on the other, and explores the impact of such intertwining on the national criminal justice institutions and on those subject to the resulting set of controls. I am a 2017 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.My research examines questions of citizenship and belonging in criminal justice, and law's instrumental and symbolic power for boundary drawing, as well as the place of morality and affects in state power. I concluded a project on the policing of migration which investigated the growing cooperation between immigration enforcement and the police, and explores the new contours of law enforcement in the context of globalization
Key Points• Border workers face profound moral dilemmas due to conflicts between enforcing strict migration policies and providing humanitarian assistance to vulnerable individuals.• We need to remember that the central Mediterranean is the most lethal point in the world.• Immigration enforcement is seen by police as a "magic" or "dark art" due to its unpredictability, arbitrariness, and effectiveness in resolving recurrent criminal issues.• Humanitarianism from below emphasizes the ethical reflections and moral agency of individual border workers navigating contradictions in border policies.

Ana Aliverti - Using criminal law to control migration

Crimmigration describes the merging of criminal and immigration law, creating a punitive system for migrants that lacks criminal justice safeguards and protections.
About Ana AlivertiI am a Professor of criminal law and criminal justice. My research work looks at the intersections between criminal law and criminal justice, on the one hand, and border regimes, on the other, and explores the impact of such intertwining on the national criminal justice institutions and on those subject to the resulting set of controls. I am a 2017 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.My research examines questions of citizenship and belonging in criminal justice, and law's instrumental and symbolic power for boundary drawing, as well as the place of morality and affects in state power. I concluded a project on the policing of migration which investigated the growing cooperation between immigration enforcement and the police, and explores the new contours of law enforcement in the context of globalization
Key Points• Crimmigration describes the merging of criminal and immigration law, creating a punitive system for migrants that lacks criminal justice safeguards and protections.• Public discourse increasingly frames migration as a criminal threat, normalizing policies initially justified as emergency measures post-9/11.• Criminalizing migration relies heavily on symbolic deterrence rather than active enforcement, indirectly leading migrants into riskier and more dangerous migration routes.• Citizenship status significantly influences treatment within criminal justice systems, disproportionately disadvantaging non-citizens through harsher penalties, difficulties accessing bail, and poorer legal representation.

DNA-based materials for real world use - Davide Michieletto

The realm of DNA-based materials combines the way DNA is manipulated and handled inside our cells with innovative ways of thinking about material science outside, for industrial purposes.
About Davide Michieletto "I am a Professor of Biomaterials at the University of Edinburgh working on Topological Problems in Soft Matter and Biology. I am a 2024 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner.I am the group leader of the Topological Active Polymers Lab. We aim to discover new DNA-based topological soft materials and complex fluids that can change properties in time. The group's expertise is rooted in polymer and statistical physics and employs both simulations and experiments to answer our questions. We believe boundaries between disciplines were made to be broken, and we do our best to shatter them every day."
Key Points• DNA can be used to create programmable materials with highly specific interactions, thanks to its unique sequence-based binding properties.• Viscoelastic materials, which behave as both liquids and solids, are common in biology. Cells and tissues are examples of biological objects that can behave as both solid and liquid.• Proteins that naturally manipulate DNA in cells can be repurposed to control the behavior of DNA-based materials in biotechnology.• DNA hydrogels offer promising applications, including tissue regeneration and bio-batteries, but large-scale production remains limited by the cost of DNA synthesis.