The second Peterhouse Graduate Symposium of the 2017/18 academic year took place on Saturday 17 February 2018. The day kicked off with a hearty brunch of bacon sandwiches and Danish pastries before the Symposium proper began. The first two panels of the event saw eight MCR members present their research on a wide-ranging field of topics, offering a ten-minute talk on their work before taking questions from the floor. There was a great diversity of subjects on show: from pharmacogenetics to the connection between religion and right-wing populism; from a management case study in the healthcare sector to sarcasm in Greco-Roman literature; from nanofoams to a universal solution for Sudoku puzzles.

After the lunch break the Symposium reconvened for two further panels, each themed around the concept of “modernity”. These panels offered MCR members the opportunity to respond to the theme in question with their own research, thereby offering a multi-faceted approach to a broader topic that affects us all. The first panel, entitled “Ancient yet Modern”, drew talks on angels, the Large Hadron Collider, hurricanes and theories of mind, while the second (“Modernity and the Human”) hosted papers on paediatric medicine, testimonios of victims of abuse, genetic discoveries and quantum computing. In both of the afternoon panels it was fascinating to see the links develop between these disparate fields of research. The day wrapped up with a buffet supper in Upper Hall, offering the opportunity to reflect on the day with the other attendees and speakers.