Centre for Advanced Study

at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

  • Illustration of a bacteria being destroyed by anticiotics. Photo: Shutterstock

    How can you and I prevent antibiotic resistance?

    – It is not like a disease, such as Ebola or swine influenza virus (SIV), but antibiotic resistant bacteria are spreading around the world like an invisible pandemic; it will cause big problems the day they make us sick and we do not have antibiotics that work.

  • Levi Bryant at Litteraturhuset event by Centre for Advanced Study/ CAS Oslo

    Talk by Levi Bryant: A Critique of Object-oriented Philosophy

    In this talk, philosopher Levi R. Bryant talks about the history of speculative realism and object-oriented ontology. He then moves into a brief discussion of Graham Harman’s object-oriented philosophy, and an alternative vision he would like to propose.

  • Medieval war, computational linguistics and molecular chemistry are the topics of next year's projects.

    2017/2018: Molecular Chemistry, Medieval War and Computational Linguistics

    The academic year of 2016/2017 is just about to come to an end, and CAS is looking forward to the next. In August, we will welcome three new research groups working on computational linguistics, molecular chemistry, and the Nordic “civil wars”. No doubt next year’s groups will be as versatile as their predecessors.

  • Spraps of things left by the Germans in the POW camps in Norddal.

    The Heritage of War

    In autumn 1944, Norddal, in the north of Troms County, was occupied by German army forces in retreat. They had brought with them an unknown number of Soviet prisoners, who were distributed among four prisoner-of-war (POW) camps. When the war ended, the camps were abandoned and their stories almost lost in time.

  • Hansen's disease, hands of old man suffering from leprosy, amputated hands. Karen Thornber describes the disease as highly stigmatised in many societies, despite its being completely curable and not very contagious. Photograph: Shutterstock

    Humanities Can Help Improve Human Health

    Karen Thornber argues that humanities can help improve human health and in particular can alert us to the need to tackle persistent stigmas against diseases.

  • Robert Macfarlane went to Greenland in 2016, and found it difficult to articulate what happened in front of his eyes: a drastically changing landscape.  Photo: Helen Spenceley

    Robert Macfarlane: – We are the Generation Anthropocene

    April 6 2017 writer and scholar Robert Macfarlane gave the talk Deep Time, Thin Place And Thick Speech in the Anthropocene at Litteraturhuset in Oslo.

  • Erlend Fornæss Wold and Berit Stensønes are group leaders of the CAS maths project 2016/2017 Photo: Centre for Advanced Study, CAS Oslo

    – Complex numbers make the world bigger

    Their mathematics is already used outside the mathematical sphere, from calculating an asteroid’s position to measuring the size of an iceberg, but Berit Stensønes believes it is only the beginning of the developments and applications of these powerful tools.

  • Robert Macfarlane in Greenland summer 2016. Photo: Helen Spenceley

    Articulating the Anthropocene

    We are Generation Anthropocene, according to Robert Macfarlane, who argues that our need for change seems to greatly exceed our capacity to make it happen.

  • Bryan Tilt held a seminar during lunch for all the scholars at CAS Oslo.

    Air Pollution: ‘I Haven’t Seen the Stars for Years’

    Our second lunch-time seminar this semester was given by Associate Professor Bryan Tilt, who shared his research on perceptions of air pollution in rural and urban areas in China: – There is little research on whether one needs to have reached a certain economic level in order to worry about environmental issues.

  • Fracture of tectonic plates in Tingvellir Park, Iceland. Photograph: Shutterstock

    Former CAS group leader wins the Fridtjof Nansen Award of Excellence

    Former CAS group leader Professor Trond Helge Torsvik has been awarded this prestigious prize for his outstanding work in geophysics.

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