A SERIES of free lectures exploring how the humanities affect our everyday lives will take place at the University of Reading over the next week.

The Being Human Festival this year explores themes of hope, fear and freedom through workshops, debates and lectures.

The following events are on offer:

FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT?

Migration, mobility and conquest in human history

Saturday November 19 11.00am - 12.30pm

Henley Business School, Whiteknights campus

Short case studies and panel discussions on migration, as a recent and historical phenomenon.

PERSPECTIVES ON FREEDOM

Everyday printed ephemera

Saturday November 19 11.00am - 2.00pm

Department of Typography and Graphic Communication, Earley Gate, Whiteknights campus

A hands on workshop. Attendees can print posters and view the department's collection of Ephemera.

A FREE COUNTRY? A short series of pop-up talks at the Museum of English Rural Life

Thursday 17 - Friday 25 November Each talk starts at 12.00pm

Museum of English Rural Life, Redlands Road

A series of events exploring freedom through ownership, land use, labour, food, movement and decision making, On each day a different researcher will join a colleague from the Museums and Collections service to lead visitors on a tour of the museum.

They include:

November 17: Contested countryside. Space and power in rural England

November 18: Ours to preserve? Protecting the English landscape

November 19: Hard decisions? Freedom and pressure in Second World War mechanisation

November 21: Whose land is it anyway? Commons, smallholdings, allotments and gardens

November 22: Freedom food? Factory chickens and the complexities of industrialised modern farming

November 23: Freedom of movement? Reanimating the evacuee experience

November 24: Free to control? Value judgements and the management of Bovine TB in badgers

November 25: Popular Justice: Right and retribution in rural England

To book free tickets go to http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR705585.aspx