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Being Human Festival

Being Human Festival 2025: Get Involved!

The Being Human Festival brings together universities, museums, galleries, creative organisations, and community groups to run public engagement activities which showcase humanities research in ways that are accessible to the public.

Festival Dates: 6–15 November 2025

Application Deadlines:

  1. Festival Event Grants: 10 April 2025
  2. Unfunded Event Applications: 4 July 2025 

Apply now!

The CPE strongly encourages applicants to apply for the 'funded' route first. However, if your application is unsuccessful, please email us at publicengagement@qmul.ac.uk. We have limited funds available that may support your project if it is approved via the 'unfunded' route.

 

2025 Theme: "Between the Lines"

"Our festival theme in 2025 is Between the Lines —a space of hidden histories, shifting borders, and unspoken meanings. From migration routes that redraw the map to the traces of erased histories, from the margins of a poem to the frontlines of protest, we invite researchers to explore boundaries, crossings, and intersections—and the spaces in between, where meaning is made and remade."

Advice Drop In Sessions

The CPE will be running a number of Advice Drop In Sessions over the forthcoming weeks to assist you with the development of your Being Human application. These will be held online on Teams. You do not need to register to attend, simply join in at any point in the meeting, staff from the CPE will be available to answer your questions. We will operate on a first come first served basis. Please bookmark the time in your diary.

Wednesday 12th March - 2:00-3:00 - meeting link

Thursday 27th March - 1:00-2:00 - meeting link

Tuesday 8th April - 10:00-11:00 - meeting link

If you cannot make any of the dates available, email publicengagement@qmul.ac.uk with your questions, if needed we can arrange a call. Alternatively, you can also book one of our usual Advice Surgery slot for one-to-one support.

Being Human at Queen Mary

Since 2015, the Centre for Public Engagement have been supporting Queen Mary researchers to run activities as part of the Being Human Festival. The Festival offers our researchers the opportunity to:

  • Develop an exciting public engagement activity/event that can have positive impacts on their work
  • Get involved with a nation-wide showcase of humanities research
  • Develop public engagement skills with tailored support from the CPE 

You can get a taste of some of our previous Being Human Festival programmes by watching our video from the 2019 'This Time It's Personal' Festival Hub above that we ran in collaboration with Kings' College London. 

Being Human 2023

Our 2025 programme is currently being developed—watch this space! In the meantime, here’s a look back at Being Human 2023, where QM researchers explored the theme "Rhyme or Reason" through interactive workshops, talks, and performances.

Portraits of commemorated thinkers in gold frames situated against a colourful background

Great and Good?

Whose lives do we remember as ‘great’ and why?  Join two experts in the history of humanism and freethought – Clare Stainthorp (Queen Mary University of London) and Madeleine Goodall (Humanists UK) – for discussion and hands-on activities at this family-friendly event where we will think together about notions of the ‘great and good’, inspired by the history of Conway Hall. Workshops take place on 11 November.
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Black and white photo of a man standing in front of a number of analogue clocks each showing different times

Re-Sounding the East End

'Everything is different, nothing has changed’ is the first ever sound art installation at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives and draws on newly digitized oral history recordings of Jewish and Bengali migrants to Tower Hamlets. Join the artists, Alastair Levy, Emily Peasgood and Syma Tariq for an introduction to their work, along with curators Tamsin Bookey and Professor Nadia Valman, postcolonial scholar Dr Rehana Ahmed and broadcaster Alan Dein. Takes place 16 November. 
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‘Early Modern Latin in London’ Walking Tours

Join this walking tour of Early Modern Latin in London – the City’s best-kept secrets hidden in plain sight. The City is full of Early Modern Latin (from the 16th-18th centuries): in large letters on public monuments, in poetry, and in other writing from the period which celebrates or commiserates life in historic London. Tours take place on 11 November and 12 November.  
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A women in a long pink and grey coat and strappy silver sandals pushes a shopping trolley across the centre of a spiraling concrete ramp

Mobile Home Fashion Studio and Screening

Have you ever wanted to be part of your own Vogue-inspired fashion shoot? Are your clothing choices inspired by different cultures and the hybrid cultures of London's street style? If so, award-winning German artist and photographer Catrine Val would like to arrange a photoshoot with you! Catrine will share some of her work and the stories she collects during these photoshoots at an in-conversation screening.
Pop-up studio: 9-15 November Screening: 18 November
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