Gresham College Lectures

Knife violence is one of the biggest challenges facing our society. Simulation offers a way to involve young people in exploring the consequences of carrying a knife and responding when incidents occur. Realistic physical simulation invites participants to co-design scenarios that show the effects of a stab wound.

Building on over ten years of research, the lecture shows how healthcare and criminal justice professionals can work with young people to develop ‘reciprocal illumination’ for everyone who takes part.

A lecture by Roger Kneebone, 12 May

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/tackling-knife-violence

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

It is now easier to breach the security of people's personal and business lives than perhaps at any time in recent human history. Technology has brought unimaginable speed, scale and reach to hackers.

This lecture looks at the consequences of technology on privacy and security, and considers what options there are for the future, including new technologies and regulations such as blockchain and the right to privacy.

A lecture by Richard Harvey, 25 May

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

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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CEOs make mistakes due to their own psychological biases – but they also profit from the biases of others. Some exploit investors by catering to sentiment – adding “.com” to their name during the Internet bubble or entering “hot” industries to inflate their valuations. Other exploit customers – selling cheap printers hoping they’ll ignore the price of expensive toners, or offering mobile phone plans that profit from customers underestimating their usage.

The talk shows how we can guard against such behaviour.

A lecture by Alex Edmans, 11 May

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/profit-mistakes

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

Serial murderer Myra Hindley is often portrayed as an “evil icon”. Her crimes of sadistic murder against children continue to shock. There are few artistic sights so terrifying as the giant portrait of Hindley composed of the handprints of children. Sadistic women are uniquely evil: in the entire history of humanity, there are only a few and, even then, they generally offend alongside a man (in Hindley’s case, Ian Brady).

What do we know about rape-murdering women? Is redemption possible?

A lecture by Joanna Bourke, 13 May

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/myra-hindley

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

At one point in his life, Shostakovich considered the career of a concert pianist. He was talented enough to become a Soviet competitor at the international Chopin Competition of 1927, but he was struck down with acute appendicitis, and he had to leave with only a diploma rather than a major prize. Whether his pain and disappointment soured his relations with the piano we cannot be sure, it is astonishing that his piano music studiously avoids the virtuosity he had assiduously cultivated as a young performer. Almost all his piano writing is in some way experimental, conceptual, challenging the pianist to make sense of piano writing that often seems ungrateful, not unlike Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, which we heard in the first lecture of this series.

Even so, Shostakovich's monumental cycle of Preludes and Fugues stands at the very core of his output. Written "for the desk drawer" in his most difficult years, following a second round of official criticism, it often rejoices in the very "formalism" he was accused of. Following the example of J.S. Bach, Shostakovich offers us twenty-four strictly constructed fugues in all the keys, each preceded by a free-flowing prelude. The set takes us on a fascinating journey, beginning with near-pastiches of Bach, into a world where Russian folk song can meet Jewish cantillation, and where Baroque idioms meet modernism, with extremes of emotion that can rival any of Shostakovich's symphonies.

A lecture by Marina Frolova-Walker and Peter Donohue

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

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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What the NHS has provided and had to treat over its existence has changed much more radically than most people realise. Some of this change is rightly the domain of politics, but much is driven in response to changing health needs, improvements in medical science and priorities of society.

The next two decades of changes in health will be as striking as any seen previously: this lecture will address some of the predictable changes public health and the NHS will need to address.

A lecture by Chris Whitty, 19 May

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/health-trends

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 nature of investment is changing to better reflect the ecosystem of the planet we live on. The days of fossil fuel are numbered by the move to renewable energy. Resources and a healthy environment are finally being seen as core to our future.

In this lecture we explore the response of the finance industry and whether green bonds and/or green public procurement can make a difference in delivering better environmental outcomes.

A lecture by Jacqueline McGlade, 18 May

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

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

What the NHS has provided and had to treat over its existence has changed much more radically than most people realise. Some of this change is rightly the domain of politics, but much is driven in response to changing health needs, improvements in medical science and priorities of society.

The next two decades of changes in health will be as striking as any seen previously: this lecture will address some of the predictable changes public health and the NHS will need to address.

A lecture by Chris Whitty, 19 May

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

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

When black holes merge, the world shakes.

Such quakes in space-time are now detectable and indeed the detection of such gravitational waves from cosmic coalescences comprises an entirely new type of astronomy that is completely independent of light itself.

A lecture by Katherine Blundell OBE, 19 May

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

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

Could AI replace stand-up comedians and scriptwriters? This may not be an impossible dream if you accept that nothing we do is forever beyond the scope of computer modelling.

This lecture explores attempts to create jokes from rules, and programs that create not-quite-relevant responses that hearers can make meaningful and comic. Will computers ever tell good jokes?

A lecture by Yorick Wilks, 11 May

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/ai-humour

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