Gresham College Lectures

Canons of taste and value in other media, such as literature, art and music, have been challenged in recent decades by proponents of sexual and ethnic equality. Film's 'ten bests' are open to similar charges, and their dominance may actively hinder efforts to raise awareness of and achievement by filmmakers outside Hollywood and predominantly European art cinema.

This lecture considers what newly assessed canons might look like.

A lecture by Ian Christie 15 February

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

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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Literary satire has long used mathematical concepts to reinforce its points. Gulliver’s Travels (1724) played with ideas of dimension, size, and shape, and a century later, Edwin Abbot’s novel Flatland (1884) explored the mathematics of higher dimensions, through the experiences of its two-dimensional protagonist, “A Square”. Both novels have spawned a host of sequels, commentaries, and films.

This lecture explores how mathematical ideas have been interpreted in fiction, and discusses the unlikelihood, mathematically, of realms such as Brobdingnag and Lilliput, or the room-sized spiders of Hogwarts.

A lecture by Sarah Hart 9 February

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

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

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

Mata Hari was an erotic dancer who, in 1917, was executed by the French army for treason. She has been portrayed as the ultimate femme fatale, extracting information from hapless men through exploiting her sensual charms.

She was white, beautiful, and heterosexual, yet had to be punished for transgressing the boundaries of femininity.

Similar to many Evil Women, she was believed to be deceitful, rapacious, immoral, and controlling. She was lustful and, like a black widow spider, a threat to men everywhere.

A lecture by Joanna Bourke 11 February

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

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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All of the UK adult population is to be offered a COVID-19 Vaccination by September 2021. Many other countries are aiming for similar roll-outs in one of the largest and fastest vaccination drives in history. In this lecture Professor Chris Whitty will explain how vaccines came to play such a central role in healthcare, and the role they serve today in tackling an increasing range of diseases, including new threats like Covid and old foes like cancer.

And with an eye to the future, he will look at four key questions around vaccination: When is a disease worth vaccinating against? How likely is vaccination to work? What about side effects? And how should they be deployed?

A lecture by Chris Whitty 11 February

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

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

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

Despite the controversy, evolution was widely accepted by many naturalists within a few years of the Origin’s appearance. An important reason for this rapid triumph was Darwin’s botanical works. Seen through evolutionary eyes, plants proved to be mobile, carnivorous, sensitive – even crafty.

As Darwin “exalted” his favourite flowers, the orchids, he also narrowed the once-unimaginably wide gap between plants and animals, thus making it easier for his readers to imaginatively bridge the much smaller distance between humans and apes.

A lecture by Jim Endersby 8 February

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

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

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

All of the UK adult population is to be offered a COVID-19 Vaccination by September 2021. Many other countries are aiming for similar roll-outs in one of the largest and fastest vaccination drives in history. In this lecture Professor Chris Whitty will explain how vaccines came to play such a central role in healthcare, and the role they serve today in tackling an increasing range of diseases, including new threats like Covid and old foes like cancer.

And with an eye to the future, he will look at four key questions around vaccination: When is a disease worth vaccinating against? How likely is vaccination to work? What about side effects? And how should they be deployed?

A lecture by Chris Whitty 11 February

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

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

Is there is a level playing field between participants at inquests? What does ‘equality of arms’ mean? Is such a concept appropriate when looking at inquests? Are inquiries better?

How have they developed since the IRA Death on The Rock case? What are the problems faced by those representing families, is there a case for fundamental change? If so what model should we adopt to replace the present system?

A lecture by Leslie Thomas QC 4 February

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

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

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

Literary satire has long used mathematical concepts to reinforce its points. Gulliver's Travels (1724) played with ideas of dimension, size, and shape, and a century later, Edwin Abbot's novel Flatland (1884) explored the mathematics of higher dimensions, through the experiences of its two-dimensional protagonist, "A Square". Both novels have spawned a host of sequels, commentaries, and films.

This lecture explores how mathematical ideas have been interpreted in fiction, and discusses the unlikelihood, mathematically, of realms such as Brobdingnag and Lilliput, or the room-sized spiders of Hogwarts.

A lecture by Sarah Hart 9 February

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

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

The English Reformation – unlike many of the other Reformations convulsing sixteenth-century Europe – was at heart more about politics and law than about religion. It created the English state as we now know it, and established relationships between the nations of Britain and Ireland which still endure.

This lecture asks how a religious dispute came to rewrite the English constitution and traces that upheaval’s legacies – some plain, some hidden – for England and its neighbours down to the present.

A lecture by Alec Ryrie 3 February

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

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

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

Despite the controversy, evolution was widely accepted by many naturalists within a few years of the Origin's appearance. An important reason for this rapid triumph was Darwin's botanical works. Seen through evolutionary eyes, plants proved to be mobile, carnivorous, sensitive - even crafty.

As Darwin "exalted" his favourite flowers, the orchids, he also narrowed the once-unimaginably wide gap between plants and animals, thus making it easier for his readers to imaginatively bridge the much smaller distance between humans and apes.

A lecture by Jim Endersby 8 February

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

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