Gresham College Lectures

Simon Thurley looks at the history of the guildhall as a seat of power to rival that of Parliament and Monarchs: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/envy-of-kings-the-guildhall-of-london-and-the-power-of-the-medieval-corporation
The government of the City of London is older than parliament itself and its Guildhall is a rival to the Palace of Westminster. This makes the Lord Mayor a King in his own palace; but how has this been expressed in architecture?
This lecture looks at the architectural patronage of the City's Lord Mayors from earliest time to the present.
London has always been an architectural laboratory. Arguably it has been home to more invention in building types than any other city on earth. These four lectures look at London's built environment through some great buildings and their creators and ask why and how has London sustained a reputation for architectural innovation?
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/envy-of-kings-the-guildhall-of-london-and-the-power-of-the-medieval-corporation

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 1,800 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: https://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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Professor Flood gives a fabulous overvierw of the lives and work of two mathematicians, Hamilton and Boole: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/hamilton-boole-and-their-algebras

William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) revolutionized algebra with his discovery of quaternions, a non-commutative algebraic system, as well as his earlier work on complex numbers. George Boole (1815-1864) contributed to probability and differential equations, but his greatest achievement was to create an algebra of logic 'Boolean algebra'. These new algebras were not only important to the development of algebra but remain of current use.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/hamilton-boole-and-their-algebras

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 1,800 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

Serious flooding and the water security of the nation’s water are Professor Roberts’ topics in this lecture: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-next-big-uk-flood-britain-under-water

What are the odds that events will conspire to put London under water during the next few years? Are the catastrophic Summer 2007 floods in the English Midlands and the recent events of southeast England harbingers of worse to come, particularly as the climate shifts?

Serious flooding poses major challenges to the UK's security, despite changes in the way we try to manage both water and damage.

The lecture will review the UK's recent experiences and explore how management and infrastructural improvements are being attempted. Can science, technology and collaboration reduce our vulnerability to floods?

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-next-big-uk-flood-britain-under-water

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 1,800 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/greshamcollege

Are we correct to examine the work of Sylvia Plath through the lens of her relationship with Ted Hughes? Professor Jack discusses the poetry of Sylvia Plath: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/poetry-and-co-dependency-the-poetry-of-sylvia-plath

Readers and critics have been exploring Plath's work for half a century. Is there anything new to be said? The publication of Plath's complete journals in 2000 and the release of her personal papers in various archives as well as those of her estranged husband, the poet Ted Hughes, and the publication of his Birthday Letters (1998) and correspondence (Letters of Ted Hughes, 2009) provided material for persuasive research about Plath and Hughes's shared creative processes. Plath's despair and suicide influence our reading of her poetry. To what extent should we be influenced by the creative co-dependency of her poetic relationship with Hughes and his poetry?

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/poetry-and-co-dependency-the-poetry-of-sylvia-plath

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 1,800 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

Professor Flood gives a fabulous overvierw of the lives and work of two mathematicians, Hamilton and Boole: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/hamilton-boole-and-their-algebras
William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) revolutionized algebra with his discovery of quaternions, a non-commutative algebraic system, as well as his earlier work on complex numbers. George Boole (1815-1864) contributed to probability and differential equations, but his greatest achievement was to create an algebra of logic 'Boolean algebra'. These new algebras were not only important to the development of algebra but remain of current use.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/hamilton-boole-and-their-algebras
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 1,800 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

Professor Page examines the medieval belief in the healing power of song: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/medieval-music-chant-as-cure-and-miracle

As the monks were singing in a French abbey of the twelfth century, a cripple, who had crawled into the church suddenly, began to cry aloud and to extend his contorted limbs, ‘and thus he that came into the church on four legs departed on two’. It has been generally forgotten that men and women in the Middle Ages believed that the singing of monks and clergy during worship had the ability to produce sudden and dramatic cures: the music entered the ear as a healing spiritual balm that could hasten results beyond the reach of any contemporary physician.

Crooked limbs became straight with a loud, cracking sound; wounds and sores were closed and healed. This lecture will be devoted to this little-known landscape of medieval musical experience.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/medieval-music-chant-as-cure-and-miracle

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 1,800 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: https:///www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Professor Whitty continues to look at the medical innovations that will revolutionize healthcare: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/keeping-the-heart-young-in-an-old-body

The heart was the organ that, until recently, aged fastest in wealthier societies, with death and disability from heart disease common in otherwise healthy older people. Deaths from heart disease have dropped rapidly over the last three decades, and disability from cardiac failure is substantially reduced in many countries. A combination of lifestyle changes such as reduced smoking, public health, medical and surgical interventions mean that it is now possible to keep the heart relatively young in an aging body.

This lecture will consider how keeping the heart relatively young in the elderly has been achieved in incremental steps, and the implications for other health problems.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/keeping-the-heart-young-in-an-old-body

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 1,800 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

Serious flooding and the water security of the nation's water are Professor Roberts' topics in this lecture: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-next-big-uk-flood-britain-under-water
What are the odds that events will conspire to put London under water during the next few years? Are the catastrophic Summer 2007 floods in the English Midlands and the recent events of southeast England harbingers of worse to come, particularly as the climate shifts?
Serious flooding poses major challenges to the UK's security, despite changes in the way we try to manage both water and damage.
The lecture will review the UK's recent experiences and explore how management and infrastructural improvements are being attempted. Can science, technology and collaboration reduce our vulnerability to floods?
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-next-big-uk-flood-britain-under-water
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 1,800 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/greshamcollege

Support the show

Professor Page examines the medieval belief in the healing power of song: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/medieval-music-chant-as-cure-and-miracle
As the monks were singing in a French abbey of the twelfth century, a cripple, who had crawled into the church suddenly, began to cry aloud and to extend his contorted limbs, 'and thus he that came into the church on four legs departed on two'. It has been generally forgotten that men and women in the Middle Ages believed that the singing of monks and clergy during worship had the ability to produce sudden and dramatic cures: the music entered the ear as a healing spiritual balm that could hasten results beyond the reach of any contemporary physician.
Crooked limbs became straight with a loud, cracking sound; wounds and sores were closed and healed. This lecture will be devoted to this little-known landscape of medieval musical experience.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/medieval-music-chant-as-cure-and-miracle

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 1,800 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: https:///www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show

The Suez Crisis marks the end of Britain’s era of global dominance. Professor Bogdanor explains its significance: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-suez-crisis-1956

In 1956, Egypts President Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company. In response, Britain, together with France and Israel, attacked Egypt. The Suez War was the only major military engagement in the 20th century which was opposed by the official opposition. It was opposed also by the United States and the United Nations. Britain and France were compelled to withdraw from Egypt. Suez damaged the reputation of the Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden. He had been the last Prime Minister to act as if Britain was still a world power; and the first Prime Minister to have to face the reality that she was not.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-suez-crisis-1956

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 1,800 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: https://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege