Gresham College Lectures

Two hundred years ago a group of conspirators assembled in a Cato Street stable in order to plan the massacre of the whole British cabinet at dinner and bring about revolution. Had they succeeded they would have achieved modern Britain's first terrorist atrocity. They were, however, moved by hunger and by democratic and secular principles, so are comparisons with today's terrorists appropriate?

The lecture discusses their identities, motives and impact, and the forgotten fact that their failure ended British revolutionary fantasies for a century.

A lecture by Vic Gatrell 20 February

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/cato-street-conspiracy

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

Two hundred years ago a group of conspirators assembled in a Cato Street stable in order to plan the massacre of the whole British cabinet at dinner and bring about revolution. Had they succeeded they would have achieved modern Britain's first terrorist atrocity. They were, however, moved by hunger and by democratic and secular principles, so are comparisons with today's terrorists appropriate?

The lecture discusses their identities, motives and impact, and the forgotten fact that their failure ended British revolutionary fantasies for a century.

A lecture by Vic Gatrell 20 February

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

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

Scientific knowledge is advancing at dizzying speed and each day brings new breakthroughs in medical understanding. Unprecedented advances are opening possibilities that only a decade ago would have seemed like science fiction. Yet a deep anxiety pervades our society, raising questions about the wisdom and motives of experts and the implications of new technology.

This lecture uses examples from cutting-edge science and medicine to explore the ethical questions which advances in robotics, personalised medicine, transplantation and artificial intelligence pose for doctors, patients and society.

A lecture by Roger Kneebone 19 February

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/trust-surgical-innovation

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

Scientific knowledge is advancing at dizzying speed and each day brings new breakthroughs in medical understanding. Unprecedented advances are opening possibilities that only a decade ago would have seemed like science fiction. Yet a deep anxiety pervades our society, raising questions about the wisdom and motives of experts and the implications of new technology.

This lecture uses examples from cutting-edge science and medicine to explore the ethical questions which advances in robotics, personalised medicine, transplantation and artificial intelligence pose for doctors, patients and society.

A lecture by Roger Kneebone 19 February

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

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 seemed to be the nemesis of traditional ballet, but he was ready to draw on the rigorous classical schooling of his dancers whenever it suited him. Once ugliness had been established as a legitimate option, he was happy to bring back beauty on many occasions alongside the new neoclassical music that he had begun to promote. Stravinsky and Balanchine’s Apollo was one such ballet, which also managed to give Greek antiquity the new solemnity, stripped of the exoticism of earlier “Greek” ballets.

A lecture by Marina Frolova-Walker 18 February

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

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

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

Diaghilev seemed to be the nemesis of traditional ballet, but he was ready to draw on the rigorous classical schooling of his dancers whenever it suited him. Once ugliness had been established as a legitimate option, he was happy to bring back beauty on many occasions alongside the new neoclassical music that he had begun to promote. Stravinsky and Balanchine's Apollo was one such ballet, which also managed to give Greek antiquity the new solemnity, stripped of the exoticism of earlier "Greek" ballets.

A lecture by Marina Frolova-Walker 18 February

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

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 will explore Gresham’s service to the crown during the turbulent politics of mid-Tudor England.

Gresham served three Tudor monarchs, and his career exemplifies the reliance of the Tudors on the intellectual gifts and financial capital of ‘new men’ in an age of religious transformations and expanding government and warfare. But his public career was dependent on the court itself, and the personal relationships he forged both with the preeminent statesmen of the age and with Queen Elizabeth herself

A lecture by Alexandra Gajda 14 November

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

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

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

Is the clitoris simply a female version of the male penis? Many scientists and biologists in the past thought so. It is only in recent decades that the physiology of the clitoris has become understood.

What can debates about these two organs tell us about scientific knowledge and gender identities? How have ideas about the “ideal penis” changed since the eighteenth century? What effect have these shifts had on the way men and women know their bodies?

A lecture by Joanna Bourke 13 February

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

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/history-penis-clitoris

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

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in both men and women, but kills the most people through a combination of being common and currently having much less effective treatment. Both treatment and prevention are currently improving, slowly.

Mesothelioma, a lung-associated cancer caused by exposure to asbestos, is now the commonest occupational cancer. While treatment for these cancers is still at an early stage, they are largely preventable through public health measures.

A lecture by Chris Whitty 12 February

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

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

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

In 2013 Sir Michael Barber declared that “An Avalanche is Coming” and that universities would be swept away by new digital technologies. Six years later nothing seems to have happened, yet there has been change.

In this lecture we will review what is commonly called e-learning, including MOOCs, SPOOCs, flipping and DIYU, and see if there are any themes which emerge from the buzzword bingo that is digital learning. Some of it is fascinating, some of it has deep implications for privacy and some of it is downright weird and wacky!

A lecture by Richard Harvey 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/digital-university

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