Gresham College Lectures

How has Covid-19 re-shaped our ideas about what we owe society? The lockdown has had a terrible impact on the economic prospects of young people - and the elderly have suffered from high mortality in care homes. Choices have to be made between the generations. Should people save and pay for their own pensions, care in ill-health and old age as an individual responsibility? Or is it a societal duty that should be funded by compulsory payment of taxes?

The role of collective versus individual responsibility has shifted across time and between societies around the world according to different cultural understanding, political calculation, and pragmatic necessity. Might Covid-19 mark a further shift in the balance?

A lecture by Martin Daunton 10 November

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

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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Well-trained eyes can be remarkably useful for capturing light curves of evolving objects in the cosmos, even contributing to modern research programmes.

This lecture will consider how stargazing with imperfect, non-linear human eyes can accomplish such a feat, and the important contributions that this makes to elucidating the phenomena of nova detonations in our galaxy.

A lecture by Katherine Blundell 28 October

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

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

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 is meant by 'love' between human and nonhuman animals? Why is sex with animals such a taboo? It is only in very recent years that some people have begun to undermine the absolute prohibition on zoosexuality.

Are their arguments dangerous, perverted, or simply wrongheaded? What does it mean to love nonhuman animals? More pertinently: what does it mean to love?

This book launch will look at the history of debates about human sexual encounters with other species.

A lecture by Joanna Bourke 9 November

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

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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Psychological studies show that humans overweight tangible factors and underweight intangible ones when making decisions.

This talk shows how these biases affect the stock market – it focuses excessively on short-term profit, but ignores environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. As a result, all investors – not just ESG investors – can profit by using intangible factors that are not fully valued by the market.

It also explains how investors can uncover tell-tale signals of CEOs’ confidence in their firm and invest accordingly.

A lecture by Alex Edmans 27 October

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

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

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 relative role of the State and the individual is a recurring theme of political theory. It is also a practical question in public health – what are the respective responsibilities of government, individuals and healthcare professionals to protect health?

This lecture will explore the areas government is widely perceived to be responsible for, ones where government should have no role, and the areas where medical professionals provide a third dimension to a triangle of responsibility.

A lecture by Chris Whitty 16 October

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

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

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

Father and son, William and Robert Cecil, not only dominated politics for much of Elizabeth I and James I reign but dominated architectural fashion. Building a series of spectacular houses, they, and not the monarchy, were the great palace builders of their age.

Burghley and Hatfield remain, but those that are lost were even more extraordinary in both their form and in how they were used.

A lecture by Simon Thurley CBE 4 November

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

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

Caribbean migrants not only came to work in the buses and hospitals. Many – such as the novelists George Lamming and Sam Selvon – came to Britain in search of opportunities to be paid to think and write. Others such as Stuart Hall, Vidia Naipaul and Walter Rodney came as students.

London also received a stream of de facto political refugees from the Caribbean and the United States, such C.L.R. James, the poet and publisher John LaRose, and Claudia Jones, the first theorist of 'intersectionality' and founder of the Notting Hill Carnival. Visual artists such as Horace Ove, Frank Bowling, and Donald Locke made painting, sculpture and film at the frontier of the avant-garde.

From London, they reassessed the past and imagined new futures for the Caribbean, Britain and the World. We are only now beginning to see as a whole this hidden current in Twentieth-century British intellectual life.

A lecture by Richard Drayton 26 October

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

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

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 story of the deep, biogeophysical planetary connections and how these are intensifying the effects of climate change and economic development, is told through personal research and expeditions to remote locations across the world (including some that were previously unexplored).

This will take us on a journey to uncover connections at all levels, including at a molecular clock level, in the biochemistry of plant toxins and medicines, and in the diurnal and migratory behaviours of plants and animals.

A lecture by Jacqueline McGlade 3 November

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

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

The story of the deep, biogeophysical planetary connections and how these are intensifying the effects of climate change and economic development, is told through personal research and expeditions to remote locations across the world (including some that were previously unexplored).

This will take us on a journey to uncover connections at all levels, including at a molecular clock level, in the biochemistry of plant toxins and medicines, and in the diurnal and migratory behaviours of plants and animals.

A lecture by Jacqueline McGlade 3 November

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

This lecture examines the centuries long presence of the African diaspora as an integral part of Britain’s history since Roman times. Unfortunately, this history is still too often ignored, its promotion limited only to October.

Attempts to restrict it only to the period following the arrival of the Windrush in 1948, lead to a distortion of the past which has serious consequences for all of us.

A lecture by Hakim Adi 22 October

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

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

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