Gresham College Lectures

How can we deliver clean and affordable energy to even the poor, especially in rural settlements, as set out in UN Sustainable Development Goal 7?

Environment Professor Jacqueline McGlade will examine how renewable energy systems, ranging from large-scale hydroelectric dams, solar arrays and geothermal plants, to small-scale solar micro-grids can offer immense opportunities for climate mitigation and achieving a clean energy future. She will argue that without proper social safeguards these same systems disenfranchise the poorest and those living in rural areas.

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/

A lecture by Jacqueline McGlade 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/renewable-energy

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 Greeks famously identified many patterns and rhythms in the sky, deducing detailed information about eclipses and orbits that still have relevance today. The Chinese, on the other hand, made landmark discoveries of supernovae and comets - events that were unexpected (stochastic) in nature and not forming any part of any rhythm.

This talk will consider how expectation plays a role in discovery and in scientific advance, and considers the challenges involved in assessing changes taking place on our own planet.

A lecture by Katherine Blundell 20 May

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

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

How can we deliver clean and affordable energy to even the poor, especially in rural settlements, as set out in UN Sustainable Development Goal 7?

Environment Professor Jacqueline McGlade will examine how renewable energy systems, ranging from large-scale hydroelectric dams, solar arrays and geothermal plants, to small-scale solar micro-grids can offer immense opportunities for climate mitigation and achieving a clean energy future. She will argue that without proper social safeguards these same systems disenfranchise the poorest and those living in rural areas.

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/

A lecture by Jacqueline McGlade 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/renewable-energy

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 science of feet and footprints has a long, yet often forgotten, history.

In this lecture, I look at what people from the late eighteenth century to the present thought they knew about toes, arches, heels, and ankles. What makes a beautiful foot? How have ideas of foot-beauty changed over time? Size, shape, colour, smell, and even taste have been important markers in the literature, science, and sociology of feet.

A lecture by Joanna Bourke 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/history-of-foot

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

Medical care often frames patients as the passive ‘recipients’ of expert professional knowledge and skill.

This lecture explores what comes into view if we reframe clinical treatment as hospitality, and patients as guests. Drawing on collaborations with leading restaurants and their chefs, this lecture explores parallels between the worlds of fine dining and medical care. In a hospital, as in a restaurant, what happens out of sight (in the operating theatre or the kitchen) must be matched by sensitive care at the bedside, in the clinic or at the table.

A lecture by Roger Kneebone 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/hospitals-hospitality

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 science of feet and footprints has a long, yet often forgotten, history.

In this lecture, I look at what people from the late eighteenth century to the present thought they knew about toes, arches, heels, and ankles. What makes a beautiful foot? How have ideas of foot-beauty changed over time? Size, shape, colour, smell, and even taste have been important markers in the literature, science, and sociology of feet.

A lecture by Joanna Bourke 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/history-of-foot

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

Diaghilev would often look at past art and then do the opposite. He playfully abandoned plot, elaborate costumes, emotional expression, and even meaning, but reinstating them whenever he felt like it – this was his undogmatic approach to modernism.

In this final lecture, we will focus on one of the best-preserved Diaghilev productions, The Prodigal Son, a strikingly beautiful ballet by Prokofiev/Balanchine/Rouault. It could have been a new beginning, but it became Diaghilev’s final word when he died in the summer of 1929.

A lecture by Marina Frolova-Walker 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/diaghilev-prokofiev

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

Medical care often frames patients as the passive 'recipients' of expert professional knowledge and skill.

This lecture explores what comes into view if we reframe clinical treatment as hospitality, and patients as guests. Drawing on collaborations with leading restaurants and their chefs, this lecture explores parallels between the worlds of fine dining and medical care. In a hospital, as in a restaurant, what happens out of sight (in the operating theatre or the kitchen) must be matched by sensitive care at the bedside, in the clinic or at the table.

A lecture by Roger Kneebone 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/hospitals-hospitality

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

Diaghilev would often look at past art and then do the opposite. He playfully abandoned plot, elaborate costumes, emotional expression, and even meaning, but reinstating them whenever he felt like it - this was his undogmatic approach to modernism.

In this final lecture, we will focus on one of the best-preserved Diaghilev productions, The Prodigal Son, a strikingly beautiful ballet by Prokofiev/Balanchine/Rouault. It could have been a new beginning, but it became Diaghilev's final word when he died in the summer of 1929.

A lecture by Marina Frolova-Walker 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/diaghilev-prokofiev

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 addresses the potential links between AI and religious belief, which include the question of whether an artificial "superintelligence", were one to arise, would be well-disposed towards us. Religious traditions historically assume that creations are well disposed to those who made them.

The lecture also looks at the recent US cults claiming to be ready to worship such a "super-intelligence", if and when it emerges, as well as other futurist discourse on "Transhumanism" and its roots in 18th-century rationalism.

A lecture by Yorick Wilks 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/ai-religion

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