Gresham College Lectures

1928 witnessed the BBC's first broadcast of the Christmas Eve carol service from King's College, Cambridge. 1928 also saw the publication of The Oxford Book of Carols.

By paying tribute to conductors Arthur Mann and Boris Ord, and composers and arrangers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw, Jeremy Summerly and the St Luke's Carollers make a case for 1928 as the year in which the Christmas carol went viral.

A lecture by Jeremy Summerly 12 December

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/1928-christmas-carol

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
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A Christmas Carol (1843) is the most filmed and televised of Dickens' works. Many will warmly remember the 1951 Alastair Sim version, but how many are aware of A Carol for Another Christmas (1964), a propaganda film produced in support of the UN, or The Passions of Carol (1975), which attempted to highlight the evil of the pornography industry?

How do the different versions reflect the politics and culture of their own particular times? What makes a good Carol movie? Is it truth to the original or is it something else?

A lecture by Christine L. Corton 10 December

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/a-christmas-carol

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

The myth of Santa Claus has been translated into an extraordinary market on a global scale. We see Santa everywhere in adverts and products, and people also travel quite long distances to meet the 'real Santa' in his faraway home.

The first Concorde flight from Britain to Northern Finland was organised in 1984 with around 100 passengers wanting to experience the magic of Christmas in this authentic setting. But how did this marketing success materialise? How did Finland become the home of Christmas?

A lecture by Teea Palo 11 December

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/santa-claus

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show

A Christmas Carol (1843) is the most filmed and televised of Dickens' works. Many will warmly remember the 1951 Alastair Sim version, but how many are aware of A Carol for Another Christmas (1964), a propaganda film produced in support of the UN, or The Passions of Carol (1975), which attempted to highlight the evil of the pornography industry?

How do the different versions reflect the politics and culture of their own particular times? What makes a good Carol movie? Is it truth to the original or is it something else?

A lecture by Christine L. Corton 10 December

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/a-christmas-carol

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show

Many influential leaders stress the importance of pursuing a purpose rather than choosing a career based on salary. While inspiring, such talks can sometimes seem impractical because many people find it difficult to know what their purpose is, and unrealistic given rapidly rising living costs and the view that lucrative careers are not purposeful.

This talk will introduce a practical framework to help you find what your purpose is, as well as explain how to pursue a career which is rewarding both intrinsically and financially.

A lecture by Alex Edmans, Mercers' School Memorial Professor of Business 4 December

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/finding-purpose

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Many influential leaders stress the importance of pursuing a purpose rather than choosing a career based on salary. While inspiring, such talks can sometimes seem impractical because many people find it difficult to know what their purpose is, and unrealistic given rapidly rising living costs and the view that lucrative careers are not purposeful.

This talk will introduce a practical framework to help you find what your purpose is, as well as explain how to pursue a career which is rewarding both intrinsically and financially.

A lecture by Alex Edmans, Mercers' School Memorial Professor of Business 4 December

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/finding-purpose

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show

Sydney’s botanic garden, founded in the early nineteenth century, was expected to ship new plants 'home' to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, from where they could be transplanted to other colonial gardens, to see if they could become valuable new crops to enrich the British Empire. Such plans had varying degrees of success, leaving botanists to question why specific plants would only grow in particular places.

This lecture looks at how Kew addressed such questions, and the tensions between its role in the advancement of science, and as a public park.

A lecture by Jim Endersby, Visiting Professor of the History of Science 2 December

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/gardens-of-empire

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Sydney's botanic garden, founded in the early nineteenth century, was expected to ship new plants 'home' to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, from where they could be transplanted to other colonial gardens, to see if they could become valuable new crops to enrich the British Empire. Such plans had varying degrees of success, leaving botanists to question why specific plants would only grow in particular places.

This lecture looks at how Kew addressed such questions, and the tensions between its role in the advancement of science, and as a public park.

A lecture by Jim Endersby, Visiting Professor of the History of Science 2 December

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/gardens-of-empire

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show

A Gresham lecture that Delahunty gave in November 2017 was one of the first public identifications of the exodus of experienced women from the self-employed Bar - and gave a call for action. That loss affects the number of women who take Silk and that, in turn, drains the pool from which judges are largely drawn.

In 2018 the Bar Council and Specialist Bar Associations acknowledged the issue and a “Retention of Women at the Bar’ survey was launched. It’s time to look at the results and test how the legal profession has responded to the challenge.

A lecture by Jo Delahunty QC, Gresham Professor of Law 28 November

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/100-years-women-in-law

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

The study of the natural and physical world from a scientific viewpoint began in Greek cities on the western coast of Turkey around Miletus in about 600 BCE. The first scientists were known as physiologoi, or men who discoursed about nature (physis). Each tried to put his various observations together in a way that constituted a coherent, unified model.

This lecture discusses the pioneering physical theories of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras and Democritus.

A lecture by Edith Hall, Visiting Professor of Classics 28 November

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/birth-of-physics

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege