Wadham Thinking

Bringing Wadham thinking to the world

‘It’s a capsule of the Wadham and Oxford experience for people who haven’t had it before, and a reinvigoration for those that have. Wadham prides itself on encouraging serious holistic thinking – on being a place of questioning and experimentation across disciplines.’
George Southcombe, Fellow in History

How are we different?

Intellectual debate for troubled times

John Wilkins, Warden in the mid-17th century – a period of intense ideological conflict and civil war – wanted the college to be ‘a haven of peace and intellectual curiosity in the midst of troubled times’
There were no limits on thinking; Wilkins was a polymath who conceived of travel to the moon and gathered around him creative thinkers who formed the nucleus of the Royal Society
This is the same mission we bring to Wadham Experience participants in the 21st century: our world-renowned professors and unique tutorial system ensure the week is intellectually challenging.

Community without Conformity

History graduate Samuel Barnett’s ideal of social reciprocity ‘to learn as much as to teach; to receive as much as to give’ encapsulates the principles which underpin intellectual and personal interchange within the Wadham Experience
Wadham’s reputation today is as a progressive and outward-looking college, building on its world-changing history of radicalism in previous centuries
Our welcoming and well-connected community provides a stimulating and supportive network for ambitious individuals looking to create change.

An immersive, intellectual retreat

Through an intense week at Wadham we offer an educational pilgrimage in a space for thought which has nurtured innovative thinking over more than four centuries:

The beautiful buildings and gardens at Wadham remain a haven of peace and intellectual curiosity in troubled times
Inspiration comes from all elements, physical as well as intellectual. Your stay with us will include dining in our 400-year-old Dining Hall with fine food and distinctive wines from the College cellars
You will sleep in the very rooms that were occupied by Wadham’s illustrious alumni including the founding fathers of the Royal Society, the birth of modern science
You will walk where they built telescopes and transparent beehives, observed the microscopic world of cells and the motions of the planets, developed new methods of calculation, and invented everything from watches to talking statues.

Testimonials

‘Being in an Oxford college with all of these Oxford institutions for the Wadham Experience makes you feel that there is space here to do something, even for just a short period. That’s all you need to stimulate and make you think. It’s not the data you need, it’s the inspiration and the sense that you can explore things afterwards. With excellent lecturers you become immersed; you see the relevance of those ideas, thoughts, philosophy, art history and the links to the way we live now.’

Matthew Dodd, Arts Editor

‘Wadham has a unique position and its reputation for being at the very centre of important questions, and thinking. That tradition that is very deep in Wadham makes it a unique place to use the humanities and apply them to your business life. The uniqueness of the Wadham Experience and its ability to convey this will bring to all participants a way of thinking that is ‘uniquely Wadham’.’

Leigh Hopkins, Board Member, FinTech & Retail

‘It has helped me enormously to realise that you don’t need to look at your challenges in the workplace, in your business, or your company or corporation just through the lens of leadership or things that are very specific to the corporate world. You can look at your challenges, how to manage a team, how to get the best out of people, through the humanities. It will give you an interesting and different way of doing it, stimulating other ideas. I am not sure I can adequately put the Wadham Experience into words. It’s been a sort of intellectual and emotional journey. I did this amazing thing this week, go and do it.’

Dr Sam Akbar, Clinical Psychologist

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Our Faculty

Engaging with world leading faculty from Wadham College and across the University of Oxford is a key feature of the Wadham Experience
This is an opportunity to collaborate with experts both from the Faculty and amongst your peer group in a unique learning experience
Distinguished academics from a range of subject areas present the afternoon key-note lectures and tackle some of the most challenging questions of our time
We are also introduced to the best of Oxford culture and history with renowned experts and practitioners from across the University

Jane Garnett, Fellow and Tutor in History

‘This is a programme designed for already successful and experienced individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds to develop new ways of thinking in a conceptually ambitious way. This will fundamentally recast their future impact and re-invigorate their role.
We want to challenge our participants, to invite them to question their own previously held beliefs with new ways of thinking critically, underpinned by history, philosophy and the arts. Multi-disciplinary approaches are applicable to all challenges: from why people buy or do certain things to social health concerns; from ideas about creative or innovative processes to global macroeconomics.’

George Southcombe, Fellow by Special Election in History

Dr Southcombe’s research focuses on two broad, overlapping areas: the history of seventeenth-century dissent, and the relationship between early modern literature and history.

Peter Thonemann, Tutorial Fellow and Professor of Ancient History

Professor Thonemann teaches and supervises students across a broad range of Greek and Roman historical topics, with a particular focus on the Greek-speaking world from the archaic period to Late Antiquity, as well as Achaemenid Persia.

Tom Sinclair, Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy

Professor Sinclair writes on political philosophy and ethics. In political philosophy, Tom is particularly interested in questions about the authority of political rule, the nature of justice and injustice, and the relation between political authority and justice.

Robert Hannigan CMG, Warden

Robert Hannigan joined Wadham College as Warden in 2021. He is a cyber security specialist who spent much of his career in government service. He was Director, GCHQ, the UK’s largest intelligence and cyber agency, and established the National Cyber Security Centre.

Eric Clarke, Fellow, Heather Professor of Music

Professor Clarke’s work is in the psychology of music, music theory, and musical aesthetics/semiotics. He is particularly interested in expression in performance, the perception and production of rhythm, musical meaning, the relationships between music and language, the analysis of pop music, the history and aesthetics of recorded music, and music and the body.

Carolin Duttlinger, Ockenden Fellow in German

Carolin Duttlinger’s research interests are in modern German literature, thought and visual culture, with a particular focus on modernist and contemporary literature. She has worked on such areas as Weimar photography, the history and theory of perception, literature, memory and trauma, and on literature and anthropology.

Chris Summerfield, Fellow, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience

Christopher Summerfield is Fellow by special election and principal investigator at the Summerfield lab which conducts research into how humans make decisions. His work lies at the intersection of cognitive science, neuroscience, AI research, and social science.