10-Minute Talks
Episodes
Fake News and the Victorians: Literature in the First Information Age
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 19th century became the age of the first information revolution. Driven by colonial and imperial geopolitics, rapid technological innovation, and ...
Figuring Forth: Cervantes’ Don Quijote, Poet in Prose
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cervantes’ groundbreaking novel, Don Quixote, is a comic but profound meditation on dreams, disillusionment and the blurred line between illusion an...
What can ancient civilisations teach us about sustainability?
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A cosmology or worldview is the framework of beliefs and attitudes through which we interpret and make sense of the world, including how we think abou...
Why are cities an important part of climate change?
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cities are central to both the problems and solutions of the climate crisis. Climate change is often seen as a global issue that can only be resolve...
Tutankhamun’s Table: Food & Drink for a King
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1922, the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings astounded archaeologists and the public alike. Beyond the ornate treasures, ...
Judith Butler on Gender
11 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“Gender studies as a discipline is by definition interdisciplinary, drawing from several paradigms, and it is defined by a set of debates and proble...
Who invented the potato? And why should we care?
25 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"How did Sir Walter Raleigh invent the potato?” In this 10-Minute Talk, Rebecca Earle FBA takes up Philomena Cunk’s question to explore the global...
The Man Who Shot Nelson: A French Take on Trafalgar
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From a fake news report claiming a French victory to fictional memoirs and literary retellings, the Battle of Trafalgar’s legacy in France became sh...
Why Truth is Not Enough
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a post-truth world, can we always trust data? And what about our human biases? Walking us through ‘the ladder of misinference’, Alex Edmans FBA...
The 21st Century Resurgence of Eugenics
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Eugenics is a coercive ideology with a destructive history over the course of the 19th and 20th Centuries. But did support for eugenics die out after ...
The Dead Sea Scrolls and Beginnings of Western Mysticism
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What are the Dead Sea Scrolls? Who discovered them? And why are they important? Professor Philip Alexander FBA explores the history of the scrolls, an...
The rise and fall of Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What really happened when a breakdown of the legal system in the English Civil War fuelled a series of witch-hunts? In this 10-Minute Talk, Professor ...
Schubert’s Die Forelle: how a classical music piece changes over time
29 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Classical music is often wrongly considered to be unaffected by political and social change. Exploring Franz Schubert’s ‘Die Forelle’, Laura Tun...
'Salvator Mundi': Leonardo da Vinci's missing masterpiece?
15 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
‘Salvator Mundi’ is a painting surrounded by mysteries. In this talk, Professor Martin Kemp FBA explores evidence that it is indeed a work of Leon...
What does a neuropsychologist do?
01 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What exactly is the work of a neuropsychologist? In this 10-Minute Talk, Professor Barbara Sahakian FBA unpacks some of her key work over the years an...
Traditional Japanese theatre and audience interaction
25 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Japanese theatre has, from its beginnings, encouraged audience participation – from formal fan-clubs to lessons on dancing and chanting. Hear Profes...
What are empires, nation states and colonialism?
18 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do we understand empire in the modern age? In this 10-Minute Talk, Professor Gurminder K Bhambra challenges the idea that modern nation-states eme...
Books in wartime: innocent victims or guilty parties?
11 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
While books are often thought of as victims of war, looted or burned in libraries, in this 10-Minute Talk Professor Andrew Pettegree suggests an alter...
What was the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings?
04 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Expanding on her book, ‘Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy’, Professor Annette Gordon-Reed unpacks the evidence around th...
Shakespeare in popular culture
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is it that makes great works from the past endure in the present? In this 10-Minute Talk, Professor Sir Jonathan Bate FBA explores Shakespeare’...
What have sign languages taught us about human language development?
20 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sign language and how we use it and implement it into society has developed rapidly in the last 50 years, from little-to-no representation in educatio...
Aesthetics and emotions in pre-modern India
13 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the West, emotions are often understood through the philosophy of cognition and experimental psychology – separated from the world of art and aes...
Freud, Hollywood and the male gaze
06 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this 10-Minute talk, Laura Mulvey FBA responds to three key questions regarding her 1975 essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. Returnin...
Genocide and International Law
30 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
‘Genocide’ (meaning “to kill a group”) was first used as a legal term in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin in the hope that it would come to signal the a...
Hannah Arendt's lessons for our times: the banality of evil, totalitarianism and statelessness
28 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was one of the most influential political theorists and philosophers of the 20th Century. In this 10-Minute Talk, Professor ...
What is extremism?
16 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a famous 1963 letter, Martin Luther King Jr. argued that ‘extremism’ is not an inherently bad thing because it can be a way of describing radic...
South Asia, the partition of India and the birth of three nations
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Following the partition of India in 1947 and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, what was once one nation became three. Presenting anecdotes from h...
Plato, Aristotle and the question of self: what makes you 'you'?
02 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The question of what makes you ‘you’ has been a central theme in philosophical thought since ancient times. In this talk, Professor Richard Swinbu...
Coffee as connection – tradition, controversy and literary representations
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Traversing the history of coffee through several literary examples, Professor Wen-chin Ouyang FBA explores coffee as not only a drink, but as traditio...
Why politics fails
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sharing insights from his book 'Why Politics Fails', in this 10-Minute Talk Ben Ansell FBA unpacks the challenges of democracy. Given that humans rare...
What makes us social? Autism, mentalising, and the need for new labels
12 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How we understand autism has changed greatly over time. In this talk, Uta Frith FBA discusses developments in the scientific study of autism and its r...
The Lion of the 17th: the story of Georges Dukson and the Liberation of Paris
05 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gary Younge Hon FBA explores the French Liberation of 1944 and the story of Georges Dukson, "le Lion du 17ème", a soldier from French Equatorial Afri...
Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Ato Quayson shares insights drawn from his book Tragedy and Postcolonial Literature. He argues that disputatiousness is one of the start...
Hypermasculine leadership
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Georgina Waylen discusses hypermasculine leadership within the context of the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Speaker: Professor ...
The politics of humiliation
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The modern history of humiliation is different from the history of public shaming; both share certain features and practices, but differ as to intenti...
Paradoxes of the Roman Arena
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Professor Kathleen Coleman FBA highlights certain paradoxes at the root of Roman civilisation, specifically those related to the staging...
Public finances and the Union since 1707
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Professor Julian Hoppit FBA introduces his new book, The Dreadful Monster and its Poor Relations. Taxing, Spending, and the United Kingd...
The making of Oliver Cromwell
28 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) is, in terms of sheer achievement, the greatest English commoner of all time and yet remains a deeply controversial figure...
Poetry as Experience
28 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Derek Attridge addresses the question: "What is a poem's mode of existence?" Using a poem by William Wordsworth as an example, he argues...
Disastrous: thoughts on a pandemic inspired by ancient astrology
08 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Jane Lightfoot considers what a particular corner of the classical world, astrology, thought about disease – how it classified it, wha...
The 1951 UN Refugee Convention: its origins and significance
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Peter Gatrell discusses the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, signed in Geneva on 28 July 1951. He explains ...
Syntax: where the magic happens
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Syntax is the cognitive system that underlies the patterns found in the grammar of human languages. In this talk, David Adger explains what syntax as ...
Looking at sign languages
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This talk introduces research on the sign languages of deaf communities: natural, complex human languages, both similar to and different from spoken l...
The Shogun’s Silver Telescope: The East India Company and the English quest for Japan
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Over the winter of 1610-11, a magnificent telescope was built in London. It was almost two metres long, cast in silver and covered with gold. This w...
Crèvecœur: What is an American?
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur (1735-1813) was a farmer as well as a complex thinker of the contradictions of American identity as described in his...
Goods and possessions in late medieval England
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Goods and possessions offer us ways into understanding how late medieval people saw the world and their position in it. In this talk, Christopher Wool...
Writing the history of the British Academy
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The British Academy is the UK's national academy for the humanities and social sciences and was founded in 1902. In this talk, Professor Sir David Can...
The Early Foucault
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk Stuart Elden discusses his new book, The Early Foucault and the research he did on the first period of Michel Foucault’s career. In par...
George II Augustus von Welf, British King and German Prince-Elector
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland and Elector of Hanover from 1727-60, was considered short-tempered and uncultivated, but during his reign...
The Spectre of War - International Communism and the Origins of World War II
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why was there no alliance to block Hitler from launching aggression in Europe? The usual explanation given is that the British led by Neville Chamberl...
Women and mental health – talking about feelings
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During the COVID-19 pandemic women’s mental health has been a topic of concern as women have disproportionately carried the burden of care. In this ...
Napoleon and God
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Napoleon had no religion, but he spent much of his career dealing with it. In this talk to mark the bicentenary of his death, William Doyle discusses ...
Choosing a title – George Eliot and 'The Mill on the Floss'
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
By late 1859, when she had almost finished writing her second novel, The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot was still unsure of its final title. Two othe...
More than one language - why bilingualism matters
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Research shows that multilingualism in any languages, regardless of prestige or worldwide diffusion, can provide a range of linguistic, cognitive, and...
The miners’ strike of 1984-85
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The miners’ strike of 1984-85 can be considered the last great battle of the organised industrial working class in the UK. The defeat of the strike ...
The nature of friendship
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is it to be friends with someone? Why do we have friends? What do they do for us? In this talk, Robin Dunbar provides evidence that friendships a...
Spinoza on philosophising
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Philosophy, as Spinoza understands it, is the art of learning to live as joyfully and securely as we can. But because we can only practice this art ...
Dealing with the past in Northern Ireland
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dealing with the past in relation to the Northern Ireland conflict is a politically sensitive topic often characterised by more heat than light. In th...
What does the Good Friday Agreement mean?
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the Good Friday Agreement moves closer and closer to centre stage in Anglo-Irish relations, and potentially to UK-EU relations post-Brexit, how it ...
The history of Belfast, a strange case of shared identity and sectarian division
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Marianne Elliot reflects on the existence and history of a 'shared space' Belfast identity, focusing particularly on the 1940s and 1950s...
China’s 14th Five Year Plan – the bold and the beautiful
17 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Every five years since 1953, the Chinese Communist Party has produced a strategic blueprint setting out the broad framework and specific targets meant...
In praise of Queen Astrid of Norway
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Judith Jesch introduces Astrid, a Swedish princess married to King, later Saint, Olaf of Norway, and her remarkable political interventi...
The power of stories and the practice of rhetoric
03 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With the rise of the internet and social media, the performance of storytelling and the arts of oratory have returned to centre stage. In this talk ah...
The death of John Keats and his early reputation
24 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk to mark the bicentenary of the Romantic poet John Keats’ death on 23rd February 1821 in Rome, Nicholas Roe takes us back to the hours, ...
The origins of Stonehenge
17 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Where did Stonehenge come from? In this talk Mike Parker Pearson investigates the origins of Stonehenge, its stones and their transportation as well a...
Charles Darwin and ideas of evolution
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution changed the way we think about our place in the world, although it took some time for its full implications to ...
Saladin and the Crusades: medieval and modern perspectives
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What has been the legacy of the Crusades in Europe and across the Muslim world in modern times? Why is the evolution of the Saladin legend throughout ...
Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and warnings from Hannah Arendt
27 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) the political thinker Hannah Arendt warned of the dangers if the distinction between fact and fiction – and...
Atheism in debate
20 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Heralded as the exponents of a 'new atheism', critics of religion such as Richard Dawkins are highly visible and vocal today. In this talk, David Ferg...
Religion, theology and the ultimate nature of reality
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Keith Ward argues that most sophisticated religions are correct in thinking that there exists a spiritual dimension of reality based on ...
Racism and religion in America – sin and the elusive 'problem of seeing'
09 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Unites States remains unusually religious as a country, but the issue of American racism is inextricably, and very problematically, related to its...
The Hitler Conspiracies
02 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Conspiracy theories are becoming more popular and more widespread in the twenty-first century. Nowhere have they become more obvious than in revisioni...
The function of cynicism at the present time
25 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Broadly described, a cynic (in the primary modern sense) is a person given to casting doubt on the motives that drive other people. Often disparaged, ...
Dark data
18 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the era of big data, it is easy to imagine that we have all the information we need to make good decisions. But in fact, the data we have is never ...
Domestic and sexual violence during COVID-19
11 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pandemics throughout history have provided stark reminders of how the vulnerable can be exploited and abused and COVID-19 is no different. In this t...
Science hasn't refuted free will
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It is often suggested that free will is an illusion and a left-over from an outdated worldview; and that the idea of free will has no place in modern ...
Early Medieval Wales – a matter of identity
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How did people in early medieval Wales live? And how did their lives change between the departure of the Romans in the early fifth century AD and the ...
What defenders of the slave trade have to teach us
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The eighteenth-century writers who tried to mount a principled defence of the slave trade look like monsters to us today - quite rightly. But before w...
Why laughter matters
14 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this 10-Minute Talk, cognitive neuroscientist Sophie Scott introduces her pioneering research into laughter. She talks about why we laugh, laughter...
Britain and Europe in a Troubled World
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Is Britain a part of Europe? Ahead of the publication of his latest book Britain and Europe in a Troubled World, Vernon Bogdanor untangles the history...
The crisis of the meritocracy - why Britain has needed more and more education
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Before the Second World War, only about 20% of the population had any secondary education or only a few percent went to university; today secondary ed...
COVID-19 and inequalities
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The COVID-19 pandemic has been unequal and complex in its social and economic impact. It has amplified existing inequalities and has created new insec...
Entrepreneurship
16 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this talk, Rajesh Chandy discusses a topic he has been studying for several years: entrepreneurship. What is entrepreneurship? What are its drivers...
COVID-19 public inquiry - a case of when, not if?
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The pandemic of 2020 has caused untold disruption around the world, and the United Kingdom has suffered particularly seriously. What kind of public ac...
Religion and the history of terrorism
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this 10-Minute Talk Richard English asks four questions about religion and terrorism: Should religion be seen as a cause for terroristic violence o...
Art historian, professor, writer, spy – the extraordinary story of Anthony Blunt
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In November 1979, Margaret Thatcher exposed the distinguished art historian Anthony Blunt as a former Soviet spy - part of the infamous Cambridge Spy ...
War, revolution and pandemic 1918-19
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The 'Spanish Flu' of 1918-19 remains the most devastating pandemic of modern times, possibly killing up to 100 million people world wide. The loss of ...
Keeping a diary in 1941
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How do people manage when their lives are utterly transformed by circumstances beyond their control? Fiona Stafford discusses a diary kept by a woman ...
The life and work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) was one of the most popular poets of the Victorian period, remembered for her challenging poetry and courage ...
Climate and war
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The idea that climate change has caused, and will cause, war has been embraced by journalists and politicians, popular science writers and academics a...
America first and American fascism
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As ongoing protests against racial injustice and police brutality in the United States are met with militarised police action, tear gas, the National ...
Westminster Abbey - A Church in History
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Westminster Abbey has a fascinating history to tell. As well as being a place of worship, it is an architectural masterpiece and treasure house of art...
Theatre marketing and ballads in the time of Shakespeare
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why are Shakespeare plays filled with songs – not all of them relevant to the story? In this 10-Minute Talk, Tiffany Stern discusses sales of printe...
Parenting for a digital future
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Reflecting on years spent talking to parents, teachers and children about the influx of digital technologies in their lives, Sonia Livingstone will di...
Can watching films be good for us?
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As a film historian, Ian Christie has become increasingly interested in how audiences respond to films, which we can now view in so many different way...
Philosophy in prison
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If a society is measured by how it treats its worst off, we have reason to think hard and well about how we manage the lives of those in prison. Philo...
Music and wellbeing
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Music can keep us physically, emotionally, and socially strong. But just how does music help? In this talk Tia DeNora considers everyday musical engag...
How disabled people achieve good lives in three African countries
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Shakespeare discusses how people with a range of physical and sensory disabilities in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia have achieved educational, employme...
China's good war
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, in Asia as well as Europe. Today's China is drawing on its collective memory of the...
Making the real Thomas Cromwell stand up
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Revd Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch Kt FBA talks about how to understand Thomas Cromwell, even though so many of his own letters have vanished from his...