The 2025 Cambridge Festival opens this Wednesday (19 March) offering a mix of online, on-demand and in-person events covering all aspects of the world-leading research happening at Cambridge.
Born in 2021 as the Festival of Ideas joined forces with Cambridge Science Festival, this is a chance to meet researchers and thought-leaders working in pioneering fields.
Festival contributions from the Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum include:
Sephardi Ottoman Majlis:
a listening party from the foremost Ottoman Sephardi 78 collection
Thursday 20 March, 20:00 at Peterhouse Brewhouse | Register via Eventbrite.com
In the early 20th century phonographic technology traveled into many living rooms, cafes and even courtyards making what had been repertoires of closed communities available across linguistic and religious divides.
Joel Bresler has been collecting 78s from the Ottoman Empire's Sephardi communities for forty years. Join Joel, musicologist Dr Vanessa Paloma Elbaz and linguist Professor Ioanna Sitaridou, to trace the networks of recording and technology together with linguistic information and shifts, and the politics of voice and listening in the late Ottoman empire. Core to the event will be listening to previously unavailable recordings from Bresler's collection. Registration required.
Divinity Divulged:Â
Live podcast recording
Friday 21 March, 17:00 at the Faculty of Divinity
Dr Joseph Powell hosts the first ever live recording of the Divinity Divulged podcast! Aimed at all of those studying or exploring religious studies, Divinity Divulged shows how real research topics relate to the A Level and Scottish Highers Specifications.
Booking is recommended. View more about the podcast recording via festival.cam.ac.uk.
Intro to Sama:Â
A guided listening session through Islamic devotional sounds
Join anthropologists and ethnomusicologists Wajiha Naqvi and Stefan Williamson Fa to consider: How do sound, music, and poetry shape the search for the divine? What role does sound play in building and sustaining sacred communities? Booking recommended--learn more about this Sama session.Â
Fasting, food and women’s religious spaces
Tuesday 25 March, 17:30 at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Sidgwick Avenue | Register via TeamUp.com
Scholars who have researched women in religious movements and communities connected to Islam, Judaism, and Christianity shed light on how women experience, and shape, religious spaces connected to these major world religions, and the central, empowering role that food-sharing plays in these spaces. Event includes a spread of foods shared with attendees (from 18:30). Registration required.
Family-fun: The World of Water
Saturday 29 March from 11am, New Museums Site
Encounter water in all sorts of ways at this interactive drop-in session, part of a day of family-oriented activities at the New Museums Site. Dr Anastasia Badder and co will be on site from 11am. Suitable for ages 6+ (with accompanying adults). More information about The World of Water.Â
Interactive talks: The Value of Water
Saturday 29 March, 16:15, Michaelhouse (Trinity Street)
Supported by an array of experts and hosted by Dr Anastasia Badder, this interactive discussion session invites participants into an open space to debate the value of water from different perspectives.Â
Please be warned: This event is nearing capacity. We anticipate turning away anyone who has not registered. Learn more about The Value of Water (including how to register).
Film screening: Rivers of Light
Thursday 3 April 17:00 at the Alison Richard Building | Register via lu.ma
Watch the captivating documentary Rivers of Light in the company of its creator James Murray-White and Newmarket Chalk Stream Trust co-founder Kevin Hand.
This Cambridge Festival event follows on directly from a day of discussion, walking, hands-on activity and film to learn about and connect with water in the Cam catchment:
Dear city, water & nature in Cambridge*
Hear from academics with different approaches to water, sink our hands into a rain garden demo, walk along a local river, and screen two short films about UK watercourses.
Bringing together diverse perspectives and relationships, this event is all about finding new ways forward together – through, with and around water.
The event is organised in partnership with CRASSH and Water Sensitive Cambridge CIC, and follows on from October’s Dear community.
*The final event is not part of the main Cambridge Festival. There is a choice of registration fee (£20/£10), covering the cost of lunch and refreshments. View details including how to register via CRASSH.cam.ac.uk.