Gresham College Lectures

England's Unwanted Reformation

02 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Most English people initially saw the Reformation as an unexpected catastrophe, wrenching their religious lives out of shape, and stripping their comm...

Seeing China Through Its Media

01 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

China's media provide a window into the Chinese mind, as the country asserts itself in the world as a great power. What do Chinese people think i...

Making a Monkey out of Darwin

30 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When Darwin finally published the On the Origin of Species, he tried to avoid controversy by ignoring human origins. Yet evolution was soon being atta...

Russian Piano Masterpieces: Rachmaninov

26 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

There is no need to introduce Rachmaninov, considered by many to be the greatest composer-pianist in history and the creator of several famous items o...

Plato

26 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Plato the Athenian was the philosopher who founded the Academy and whose brilliant writings are the foundation texts of the entire western philosophic...

The Changing Geography of Ill Health

25 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Ill health has always been concentrated in particular places; tackling these pockets of ill health is an essential role for public health. These may b...

Data: The Past, the Present and the Future

24 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Digital technology from the early 1990s onwards produced an exponential increase in astronomical data. Within our lifetime, the entirety of the visibl...

Understanding the Universe with AI

23 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Digital technology from the early 1990s onwards produced an exponential increase in astronomical data. Within our lifetime, the entirety of the visibl...

Snow White: Evil Witches

19 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Brothers Grimm's tale of Snow White has been retold dozens of times in print and the cinema over the past two centuries. A central character ...

Fatal Months: Auschwitz and the End of the Second World War

18 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The 2020 Alfred Wiener Holocaust Memorial Lecture Series2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most lethal of all Nazi ca...

Cosmic Vision: Witnessing Fireworks

18 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Accounts of occasional celestial spectacular events in past centuries have provided crucial information for modern-day astrophysicists. One such examp...

The Sound of Mathematics

17 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It has been known since antiquity that there are simple "harmonic" relationships between notes that sound appealing together. This lecture i...

How Are Drones Changing Warfare?

11 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

THE 2020 PETER NAILOR MEMORIAL LECTUREDrones, or unmanned air systems, are changing the face of war in the 21st century, for combatants and civilians....

What Do We Owe Society?

10 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How has Covid-19 re-shaped our ideas about what we owe society? The lockdown has had a terrible impact on the economic prospects of young people - and...

Loving Animals: Historical Reflections on Bestiality, Zoophilia and Post-Human Love

09 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What is meant by 'love' between human and nonhuman animals? Why is sex with animals such a taboo? It is only in very recent years that some ...

Ruling Passions: The Architecture of the Cecils

04 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Father and son, William and Robert Cecil, not only dominated politics for much of Elizabeth I and James I reign but dominated architectural fashion. B...

Connected Nature

03 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the deep, biogeophysical planetary connections and how these are intensifying the effects of climate change and economic development, is ...

Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites

02 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Charles Edward Stuart ('Bonnie Prince Charlie') is one of the most recognisable and romanticised figures of British history. Born in Rome as...

John Evelyn: Britain's First Environmentalist

29 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Air pollution, the usefulness of trees, ideas for a green belt are not concerns we associate with the 1600s. But John Evelyn, writer, diarist and gard...

Convincing Fiction

28 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How does fiction make itself seem like fact? Professor John Mullan begins where novels begin: with Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which showed every no...

Cosmic Vision: Attentive Eyes

28 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Well-trained eyes can be remarkably useful for capturing light curves of evolving objects in the cosmos, even contributing to modern research programm...

Hidden Investment Opportunities

27 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Psychological studies show that humans overweight tangible factors and underweight intangible ones when making decisions. This talk shows how these bi...

The Windrush Thinkers and Artists

26 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Caribbean migrants not only came to work in the buses and hospitals. Many - such as the novelists George Lamming and Sam Selvon - came to Britain in s...

The African Diaspora in Britain

22 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This lecture examines the centuries long presence of the African diaspora as an integral part of Britain's history since Roman times. Unfortunate...

Reserve Currencies in the Era of Fiat Money

21 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This event, jointly hosted with the British Society for the History of Mathematics, will focus upon the relationship between mathematics and money, fr...

Cryptocurrencies: Protocols for Consensus

21 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This event, jointly hosted with the British Society for the History of Mathematics, will focus upon the relationship between mathematics and money, fr...

Thomas Harriot on the Coins of England

21 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This event, jointly hosted with the British Society for the History of Mathematics, will focus upon the relationship between mathematics and money, fr...

An Introduction to Algorithms

20 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Algorithms, loosely translated, are systems for doing things. Algorithms are thus the link from pre-history to the modern world - without algorithms w...

The Political Lawyer

19 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Traditionally a lawyer's own views and political affiliation are irrelevant to the pursuit of the legal process. This lecture will examine - and ...

The Role of the State in Public Health, and its Limits

16 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The relative role of the State and the individual is a recurring theme of political theory. It is also a practical question in public health - what ar...

Silence, and the Dynamising of African Creative Resistance

15 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the face of enslavement, colonialism and cultural suppression, peoples of African descent have fought to maintain cherished cultural practices. Dr ...

Connected Humans

13 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Was Covid-19 the ultimate wake-up call about how we live on planet earth? Looking at the effect on the environment of a near-stoppage of the world&apo...

The Mathematics of Musical Composition

13 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Pattern and structure are essential to music, from the permutations in a Bach fugue, to the structure of a round. This lecture will explore the mathem...

Eve's Evil Legacies

08 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Eve was the original Evil Woman. She was tempted by Satan, introducing sin into the world. In turn, she seduced Adam, bringing the wrath of the Creato...

What Medicine Can Learn from Savile Row

07 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Clinical practice is often seen as the acquisition and application of scientific knowledge to diagnose and treat diseases. Yet every patient is differ...

Cosmic Vision: Watching the Radio

07 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

At longer wavelengths than the normal optical wavelengths to which human eyes are normally sensitive, is the radio part of the electromagnetic spectru...

Engels and Marx: Revolutionaries in London

06 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On the 200th anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Engels, his biographer Tristram Hunt looks at how both Engels and Karl Marx were deeply affected by...

Darwin, Breeding and Barnacles

05 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Following the Beagle voyage, Darwin settled down to a quiet married life, relying on correspondence to gather facts. He wrote thousands of letters as ...

Does The State Really Care When It Kills You?

01 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This lecture will focus on human rights and the wrongs of unexpected and/or sudden deaths in which the state is implicated.It will cover the importanc...

Expert: Understanding the Path to Mastery

30 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We all need experts for things we can't do ourselves. And we are all on a path to becoming expert ourselves, whatever our areas of interest. But ...

Srebrenica: the New Evidence

29 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre and the Dayton Accords resolution of the first two (Croatia and Bosnia) of the three Balkan...

The World of Isaac Newton

28 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This illustrated lecture will cover Newton's life and his mathematical and scientific labours in the context of 17th-century England, and feature...

Number Theory: Queen of Mathematics

28 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In which years does February have five Sundays? How many right-angled triangles with whole-number sides have a side of length 29? How many shuffles ar...

Russian Piano Masterpieces: Musorgsky

24 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Musorgsky was a proficient, but not virtuosic pianist: in his youth, he entertained society ladies with popular marches and quadrilles, and in his las...

England's Catholic Reformation

23 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

England's Catholic Reformation is the reformation that sixteenth-century England nearly had: a reformed and renewed English Catholic Church, its ...

Looking for Life On Mars

23 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Mars has changed since it formed 4.6 billion years ago. When life started on Earth ~4 billion years ago, Mars was habitable too, with volcanism, a mag...

The Psychology of the Stock Market

22 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Efficient Market Hypothesis argues that stock markets are rational - they take into account all relevant information, and incorporate it in an unb...

Offensive Shakespeare

21 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

From The Merchant of Venice to The Taming of the Shrew, it's easy to see how Shakespeare's plays can cause offence to contemporary audiences...

BBC Radio in the 78 Era (1920-1948)

17 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 1920, Nellie Melba's singing was transmitted to Europe and Newfoundland via the wireless. In 1922 the BBC began broadcasting, and from the out...

Tudor Ambition: Houses of the Boleyn Family

16 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A family best known for producing one of England's most famous queen consorts started out owning substantial estates in Norfolk before buying, an...

The Mayflower: A London - Leiden Adventure

15 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the Mayflower is usually presented as a tale of persecuted Pilgrims crossing the Atlantic in circumstances of grave adversity to inhabit ...

The Family Court in Lockdown

25 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How has lockdown affected the Family Court? Gresham Law Professor Jo Delahunty QC chairs a panel of senior lawyers and journalists discussing the issu...

Leadership Lessons From Lockdown

24 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating. But one silver lining has been the tremendous responses from businesses and individual citizens, as we&apo...

De-radicalisation - Illusion or Reality?

18 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lord Carlile will discuss the effect of Covid-19 on counter terrorism policy, including suggestions that terrorist organisations have taken advantage ...

Is Populism a Threat to Democracy?

16 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

THE 2020 ANNUAL PROVOST'S LECTUREWhat is the history of populism? Has it ever been a force for good? In this lecture, Sir Richard Evans, Provost...

William And Mary: The Court Divided

10 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Like James I, King William III was fundamentally unhappy with the stuffy formality of England's vast crumbling royal estate. But unlike James, wh...

Digital Healthcare: Will the Robot See You Now?

04 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It is commonplace for governments to complain that the cost of healthcare is rising. Various reasons are put forward: some claim that modern medicine ...

The Growth Mindset and the Abundance Mentality

03 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This talk will explore the "growth mindset", the evidence-based view that talents are developed rather than genetic. It provides practical t...

Hippocrates and Ancient Greek Medicine

28 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The birth of rational medicine contributed to the scientific revolution which occurred amongst eastern Greek communities in the 7th-to-5th centuries B...

The Cashless Society

26 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Money may well make world go round but cash is surely an encumbrance we can do without. What does a cashless society look like? What is the technology...

Perceptions, Expectations, and Discoveries

20 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Greeks famously identified many patterns and rhythms in the sky, deducing detailed information about eclipses and orbits that still have relevance...

The Last Mile: Ensuring Access to Affordable Energy to Poor, Rural Communities

19 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How can we deliver clean and affordable energy to even the poor, especially in rural settlements, as set out in UN Sustainable Development Goal 7? Env...

A History of the Foot

14 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The science of feet and footprints has a long, yet often forgotten, history. In this lecture, I look at what people from the late eighteenth century t...

What Medicine Can Learn from Restaurants about Care

13 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Medical care often frames patients as the passive 'recipients' of expert professional knowledge and skill. This lecture explores what comes ...

Diaghilev and Prokofiev: Return to Emotion

12 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Diaghilev would often look at past art and then do the opposite. He playfully abandoned plot, elaborate costumes, emotional expression, and even meani...

Artificial Intelligence and Religion

12 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This lecture addresses the potential links between AI and religious belief, which include the question of whether an artificial "superintelligenc...

War Games at the Field of the Cloth of Gold

07 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

2020 marks the 500th anniversary of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, one of the most extraordinary diplomatic events of the late medieval period. Altho...

Forgotten Victims from the Age of Atrocity

06 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Some of the atrocities of the age of Europe's religious wars immediately became notorious. The execution of tens of thousands of women and men fo...

Is Robocop Now A Reality?

05 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Robocop (1987) embodied a particular vision of an electronic crime fighter but what is the reality of electronic crime fighting? How are the police an...

COVID-19

30 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

At the time of writing, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has killed many thousands worldwide, infected many more - and changed lives around the wor...

The Future of Our Oceans

28 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Recent evidence about the extent of plastics and litter in our oceans has led to grassroots rejection of single-use plastics. This lecture will draw o...

Equations That Have Changed The World

28 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This final lecture will celebrate some of the great mathematical equations, and related algorithms, which have both changed the world as we know it an...

Mysteries of the Dark Cosmos

27 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Dark matter and dark energy together make up 95% of our Universe. Yet, very little is known about them. This lecture will present the endeavours of co...

Critical Thinking

22 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most dangerous phrases is "evidence shows that …", because you can almost always find evidence to support any viewpoint. Expert...

The Ballets Russes: Turning French

07 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Modernity kept seeping into ballet, a genre that had traditionally looked to a distant, mythical or magical past. First, the tutu gave way to an every...

Musical Endings

02 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Should a composer leave the listener wanting more, or must a musical ending be definitive? Is a 'fade out' actually a cop-out, and is a deci...

Choosing Religious Atrocities in Ireland

01 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Nowhere in Europe have the wars of religion lasted longer than in Ireland. At the heart of this are two rival sets of memories of atrocities: above al...

How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit

30 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

BOOK LAUNCHBusiness has lost the public's trust. Concerns that capitalism only serves the elites has led to major unrest throughout the world and...

Good Gardeners of Planet Earth? The Vision of Silent Running (1972)

23 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Are humans fit to be gardeners of this planet? Today's biotechnology companies promote themselves in distinctly utopian ways, but increasing numb...

A History of the Stomach

19 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Vertical banded gastroplasty surgery (or stomach stapling) has drawn attention in recent decades to the hidden, but unruly, stomach. This organ has be...

Charles II: The Court in Exile

18 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For a decade after the execution of Charles I the Stuart courts were based in the Low Countries and France. Always short of money, but determined to m...

Corpse Roads: Digital Landscape Archaeology

12 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This lecture explores how digital landscape modelling can help unlock the secrets of Britain's ancient pathways. Focusing on "corpse roads&q...

The Japanese Martyrs

11 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the age of exploration, Catholic missionaries fanned out across the world, meeting with extraordinary success but also extraordinary opposition: no...

The Art of Maths

10 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Mathematics and art are more similar than is commonly thought. Each is concerned with the process of being highly creative with abstract objects and o...

The Insider's Guide to Becoming a Barrister

05 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This lecture provides an insider's brutally honest guide to what it's like to be a self-employed barrister - the highs and lows of the caree...

Engineering: Archimedes of Syracuse

05 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the 3rd century BCE, the Sicilian polymath Archimedes significantly advanced human understanding of mathematics, geometry and astronomy. By applyin...

Mental and Physical Wellness

04 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Exercise, diet, rest, and sleep are sometimes seen as optional extras that are desirable if you have the time. They are also topics about which many m...

Simple Laws, Spectacular Astrophysics

04 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The laws of physics may be stated in simple and elegant ways that can be made easy to demonstrate and understand on their own. What is immensely hard ...

Can Gender Equality Help Solve Climate Change?

03 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Is gender equality a key factor in tackling climate change? Many think so, and in this lecture Environment Professor Jacqueline McGlade will explain w...

Arise, Sir Isaac! Newton's London career

26 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

During the last thirty years of his life, Isaac Newton lived in London, where as head of the Royal Mint he moved in wealthy aristocratic circles, exer...

Thomas Becket and London

25 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

'St Thomas has adorned…London by his rising and Canterbury by his setting'. This lecture will explore how the influence of Thomas Becket p...

The Cato Street Conspiracy, 1820: A Study in Terrorism

20 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Two hundred years ago a group of conspirators assembled in a Cato Street stable in order to plan the massacre of the whole British cabinet at dinner a...

The Ethics of Surgical Innovation

19 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Scientific knowledge is advancing at dizzying speed and each day brings new breakthroughs in medical understanding. Unprecedented advances are opening...

The Ballets Russes: Playing with the Past

18 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Diaghilev seemed to be the nemesis of traditional ballet, but he was ready to draw on the rigorous classical schooling of his dancers whenever it suit...

A History of the Penis and the Clitoris

13 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Is the clitoris simply a female version of the male penis? Many scientists and biologists in the past thought so. It is only in recent decades that th...

Lung Cancer and Mesothelioma

12 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in both men and women, but kills the most people through a combination of being common and currently havi...

The Digital University and Other Mythical Creatures

11 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013 Sir Michael Barber declared that "An Avalanche is Coming" and that universities would be swept away by new digital technologies. Six...

Great Mathematical Myths

11 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Mathematics is often thought of as being a dry and logical subject, and its conclusions free from the vagaries of fashion and misconception. However t...

Making New Plants: A History

10 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This lecture examines the work of Hugo de Vries, a Dutch botanist who was one of the first to claim that science would allow plants and animals to be ...

Unfinished Music

06 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Bach's Art of Fugue, Mozart's Requiem, Schubert's Symphony No. 8, Alban Berg's opera Lulu, and Elgar's 3rd Symphony are all p...