Gresham College Lectures

In the line, 'The Western wave was all aflame', the 'Western wave' refers to the sea. But is it this simple? What do forms of substitution, synecdoche (a figure of speech in which the name of a part is used to stand for the whole) for example, lend to this magnificent and shadowy poem?

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/samuel-taylor-coleridge-the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-and-poetic-technique

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

One of the most distinctive characteristics of human beings is their capacity to alter their environments through technology. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/respecting-and-transcending-nature

This raises important ethical and religious questions concerning the human engagement with nature, such as whether there are limits to what we can do with science (as in the genetic modification of crops). Yet there are deeper questions, about the way in which science can be used for destructive purposes.

The writing of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) show how his experience of the technology of warfare in the First World War had a lasting impact, causing him to reflect on how science could be used to destroy humanity, as much as to improve conditions. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings contrasts the purity and simplicity of those living close to nature with those who try to alter nature for their own ends. Reflections on scientific and religious frameworks enable us to respect nature on the one hand, while transcending its limits on the other.

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

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

In the year 754 the first pope ever to cross the Alps came to a small chapel in what is now northern France and prostrated himself before the king of the Franks, beseeching him for military aid. The pope came with singers from the Roman song school. When he and the king signed ‘treaties of peace’ together the foundations were laid for what has long been known as Gregorian (or better ‘Frankish-Roman’) Chant. This is the music of a trans-alpine Western Europe beginning o revive, albeit very slowly, after the withdrawal of Roman imperial power. No activity marked this broader horizon more potently, or more often, than the daily celebration of Gregorian chant by priests, deacons and singers.

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

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

This lecture on slavery will present an overview of the challenges and an outline of what is needed to prevail, by one of the world's leading activists and thinkers on the subject, Dr Aidan McQuade, Director of Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest international human rights organisation.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/numberless-diverse-acts-of-courage-and-belief-the-struggle-against-slavery-in-history-and-in-the-present

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

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This lecture will explore and explain the difference in outcomes between cases in Crime and Care, considering the framework of ‘Beyond reasonable doubt’ versus ‘the balance of probabilities’ and the concept of the judge’s role to determine the law and the jury the facts, as against the idea that the judge determines all. Rules on disclosure, hearsay, use of expert witnesses, and time scales in court will be examined to consider why a Not Guilty verdict in Crime may not be enough, in some cases, to resume being a parent.

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

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

Early in 2016, the criminal and civil courts of England and Wales embarked on a modernisation programme aimed at reforming procedures that have survived for centuries. The judges themselves are helping to design the computerised courts of the future. New software will empower litigants to bring and defend cases without the need for lawyers. Judges will be able to decide cases whenever and wherever they choose to open their laptops. But will justice suffer? What if you cannot manage the technology? What if your opponent but not yourself can afford legal advice? Will the courts continue to deliver justice? Might your dispute be decided by a computer? In the first of a series of three annual lectures, the reforms will be monitored as they are planned, tested and launched. Will this project be an IT disaster? Or will it demonstrate that online justice can be just as good as the courts that have served us for hundreds of years.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/justice-online-just-as-good

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

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A celebration of the heart for St Valentine’s Day. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/affairs-of-the-heart-an-exploration-of-the-symbolism-of-the-heart-in-art

How is it that a simple pump has become a symbol of the highest human emotions of love, truth, conscience and moral courage? How have artists represented this over the centuries? And how effective have those representations been? This lecture will be an interdisciplinary presentation by Professor Martin Elliott and Dr Valerie Shrimplin (art historian and registrar of Gresham College).

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/affairs-of-the-heart-an-exploration-of-the-symbolism-of-the-heart-in-art

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

Amidst the increasingly material penury of the early medieval world, Rome and Byzantium (that is to say New Rome, now Istanbul) offered a continuing example of opulence and luxury that was expressed in worship with expensive textiles, precious metals and sonorous titles of office, including now the singer or cantor, that proclaimed supreme honour and eternal victory through liturgy. In the Western kingdoms, to maintain rich services, with a staff of good singers, was one of the ways in which a king came into his inheritance as surely as moving into the old governor’s palace. In this lecture we shall explore what the singing of Rome meant far afield: in northern England, Ireland, Spain and Germany.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/roman-singing-and-its-influence-across-europe

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

In the line, 'The Western wave was all aflame', the 'Western wave' refers to the sea. But is it this simple? What do forms of substitution, synecdoche (a figure of speech in which the name of a part is used to stand for the whole) for example, lend to this magnificent and shadowy poem?

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/samuel-taylor-coleridge-the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-and-poetic-technique

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

One of the most distinctive characteristics of human beings is their capacity to alter their environments through technology. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/respecting-and-transcending-nature

This raises important ethical and religious questions concerning the human engagement with nature, such as whether there are limits to what we can do with science (as in the genetic modification of crops). Yet there are deeper questions, about the way in which science can be used for destructive purposes.

The writing of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) show how his experience of the technology of warfare in the First World War had a lasting impact, causing him to reflect on how science could be used to destroy humanity, as much as to improve conditions. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings contrasts the purity and simplicity of those living close to nature with those who try to alter nature for their own ends. Reflections on scientific and religious frameworks enable us to respect nature on the one hand, while transcending its limits on the other.

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

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