Antibiotic resistance has emerged as an issue that threatens public health around the world. Even simple operations may no longer be possible due to the risk of lethal infection. What is less well-known is the role of environmental components in amplifying resistance. Heads of State have pledged to tackle the problem but current policies are proving inadequate. A shift in thinking is needed with citizen scientists getting involved and prevention the best cure. A lecture by Professor Jacqueline M...
Sep 25, 2018•45 min
The earliest London-made films showed the Victorian city doing everyday business, before its fictional screen image became increasingly shadowy and sinister. Gothic or 'gaslight' visions of London have remained popular with cinema audiences, providing a fictional and often eerie counterpoint to the growth of the modern city. A lecture by Professor Ian Christie, Visiting Professor in the History of Film and Media 24 September 2018 The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are availa...
Sep 24, 2018•1 hr 1 min
Tudor England was a dangerous place for the wealthy and powerful. The cultural ambitions of the elite open a window into contemporary attitudes. A lecture by Professor Simon Thurley CBE, Visiting Professor of the Built Environment 19 September 2018 The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/painting-patronage-politics-tudors Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. T...
Sep 19, 2018•54 min
"What is 'Romanticism'? Jonathan Bate goes in search of what Isaiah Berlin described as 'the greatest single shift in the consciousness of the West'. A lecture by Sir Jonathan Bate CBE FBA, Gresham Professor of Rhetoric 18 September 2018 The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/origins-of-romanticism Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues...
Sep 18, 2018•49 min
It has become the conventional wisdom that the rule of law is a necessary ingredient of economic progress. Along with an independent judiciary, individual rights, a free media, free association, strong political parties and a rich civil society, government policy asserts that the rule of law is found in all successful countries and sustainable economies, and consequently should be promoted abroad. After examining this assumption, the lecture will explore how the rule of law contributed to Britai...
Jun 21, 2018•36 min
THE PROVOST'S LECTURE Terrorism has become one of the most destructive and worrying aspects of life in 21st-century European cities. Seemingly random and unpredictable attacks have placed us all at risk of injury or death. How new is this phenomenon? Is terrorism more widespread and more dangerous than it has been in the past? This lecture takes the long view and examines the nature and impact of terrorism in Europe since the nineteenth century. The transcript and downloadable versions of the le...
Jun 19, 2018•53 min
THE SIR THOMAS GRESHAM ANNUAL LECTURE 2018 The scientific evidence for climate change will be examined, describing how simulations of the Earth's weather and climate are constructed and how these can be used to make assessments of what our climate and weather might be like in the coming decades. Based on this scientific evidence it will be argued that climate change may well be one of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century, and that how we respond will determine our future prosperit...
Jun 14, 2018•58 min
T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" was the voice of a disillusioned generation and reflected a world in disarray. Then in 1928 Eliot announced to a startled world, and the disapproval of his contemporaries, that his general point of view could be described as 'classicist in literature, royalist in politics and anglo-catholic in religion.' The previous year he had been baptised behind closed doors in Finstock Church, near Oxford. This lecture will consider that conversion with three interlinked questi...
Jun 13, 2018•49 min
The invention of the computer in 1948 has changed our world radically but we are only in the early years of this industrial revolution. What disruptions will quantum computing bring? What else can we foresee and what can we learn from the first seven decades of our cyber enabled world that will help us to design the best future for ourselves and our children? The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures...
Jun 12, 2018•46 min
Bishop Richard Chartres will present a survey in five acts of the history of London's faith communities, with a word about their prospects in the 21st century. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/remembering-london-the-story-of-the-faith-communities-of-london-and-their-prospects Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all o...
Jun 11, 2018•51 min
The challenges faced by the UK are very large. And they have not been convincingly challenged for a generation or more. We may have suffered from short-termism and an inability to develop a balanced economy. In this final lecture we will consider whether we can plot a more successful future than our recent history might suggest and what that implies for our economic and political institutions. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:...
Jun 07, 2018•52 min
To mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, the legacy of Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), first president of democratic South Africa, will be considered - both within his country and in the wider world. Mandela's was famously a world life, that is, he was a determinedly national leader whose vision and influence also had global dimensions. His biography Long Walk to Freedom (1994) traces one of the most resonant political stories of the past century. But in what ways did this passionately nationalis...
Jun 06, 2018•42 min
In the last ten years, the UK has been devastated by floods that have caused enormous physical and economic damage, seriously affecting the mental health of local residents. Media coverage has included allegations about the incompetence of scientists, weather forecasters, planners, builders and water companies. Conspiracy theories, fake news and alternative facts proliferate, and wellington-booted politicians often appear insincere. Can the scientific evidence about causes of recent floods dispe...
May 31, 2018•1 hr
Russia's emergence from Soviet Communism, 'a revolution without shots', did not result in civil war and bloodshed, as in 1917. But the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 still came as a shock and the subsequent chaos (with hyperinflation, political turmoil and a messy war in Chechnya) revealed that the post-Communist transition was by no means cost free. The Putin era brought increased stability and prosperity, but also loss of political freedom, increased power of the state, weakening of the ...
May 30, 2018•53 min
Stuxnet, the attacks on the Ukrainian power grid, and autonomous armed guards are only the beginning. Computers are changing warfare profoundly because military strategy has always been geographically based but there are no borders in cyberspace. We shall investigate the implications for the future of international conflict and of national defence. If preparations for the next war have already started, can we tell who is winning? The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are availa...
May 29, 2018•52 min
Ancient Sparta has been handed down in a tradition radically conflicted and confused by rival political and social ideologies. A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, one might say. This Spartan tradition is still alive and lively today. This lecture seeks to shed light rather than heat, by assessing just how odd (different, exceptional, peculiar) Sparta really might have been. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https:/...
May 29, 2018•57 min
Who does the story belong to: the family or society? Where and how are the lines drawn? Until relatively recently the Family Court door was closed to all save the parties and professionals involved in the case. A 2014 initiative aimed to secure 'an immediate and significant change in practice' to usher in greater understanding of the way in which the courts operate. The aim was to improve public awareness of the court process and to increase confidence in its actions. 'Transparency' was the watc...
May 24, 2018•58 min
The media and medicine have different perspectives. At least in part, this is due to a preference for individual human stories over detailed analysis of results. This lecture will use examples of how the public may be misled and consider the implications of such misunderstanding. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/media-reporting-of-medical-advances-helpful-or-misleading Gresham Col...
May 23, 2018•55 min
Professor Wilson will examine the causes, conduct and consequences of the Thirty Years' War, Europe's most destructive conflict prior to the two 20th-century world wars. The talk takes place on the 400th anniversary of the defenestration of three Habsburg officials by Bohemian malcontents in Prague. This violent act triggered a crisis which expanded into general war despite the best efforts of most of those involved to contain it. Why it took so long to make peace, and what extent the conflict c...
May 23, 2018•45 min
JOINT LONDON MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY/ GRESHAM COLLEGE ANNUAL LECTURE 'Toy' here has a special sense: an object of daily life which you can find or make in minutes, yet which, if played with imaginatively, reveal behaviours that keep seasoned mathematicians and physicists puzzled for a while. The lecture will consist of tabletop demos of such toys, together with simple, robust modelling of what is going on. The theme that emerges is singularity. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lectur...
May 22, 2018•54 min
At first, Samuel Pepys could see no virtue in the guitar at all and regarded it as a toy or 'bauble'. Yet he soon changed his mind as he became more interested in Italian music. He arranged for an English merchant in Italy to send him an instrument, and during some of the most troubled periods of his life began to learn it. As a result, we possess from the hands of his house musician, Cesare Morelli, the largest collection of guitar-accompanied song to survive from 17th-century Europe. The serie...
May 16, 2018•48 min
Between 1951 and 1959, over 95% of voters supported the two major parties. Since 1983, fewer than 80% have voted Conservative or Labour. How is the decline of the two party system to be explained? The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/from-two-party-to-multi-party-politics Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our fi...
May 15, 2018•56 min
The establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 gave Chinese artists a government that had explicit policies for the arts, seeing them as an essential part of the creation of 'new China'. Resources were put into the support of art and artists, opening up new possibilities at the same time as other possibilities that were uncongenial to Communist Party policy were closed down. The consequences of fierce artistic debates could be expulsion from the visible art world and the silencing o...
May 14, 2018•55 min
The image of the speechwriter in televised programmes (such as The Thick of It, The West Wing or Yes Minister) is something of a puppeteer, a sinister figure operating in the shadows, malevolently manipulating our political masters. Simon Lancaster believes that the successful speechwriter is less of a puppeteer and more of an impressionist. In his talk, he will share a number of stories and anecdotes from his time as speechwriter, setting out how he captures someone else's authentic voice and w...
May 09, 2018•39 min
Ever since classical antiquity, poets and playwrights have written about famous heroes and anti-heroes, lovers and politicians. But they have also yearned for posthumous fame themselves. How do they achieve it? This final lecture will show how Shakespeare helped to immortalize the famous figures of ancient Greece and Rome, and how he in turn became famous after his death - as the classics were to Shakespeare, so Shakespeare became a classic. He is our classic. The transcript and downloadable ver...
May 08, 2018•48 min
In our post-truth age, facts often don't seem to meet the deepest human longings. So do we need to go against facts, or beyond them? What does the relatively new discipline of the cognitive science of religion, which suggests that human beings are naturally religious, have to say about our human future? And where does this instinct come from? Recent psychological research has looked at the importance of meaning to human beings, and how this works out in core questions about the relation of scien...
May 08, 2018•56 min
To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx (5 May 1818) and 150 years since Das Kapital was published in 1867, the lecture will explore the possible affinity between Marx's work in human history and Darwin's in natural history. Enthusiasm for Darwin was shared by successive generations of Communists but Marx's conception of a 'natural human being' was different. In the new political and intellectual climate, Marx viewed competition as a product, not of 'the struggle for existence', ...
May 02, 2018•44 min
The rulers of the medieval English kingdom discouraged resistance to authority by the widespread use of execution, outlawry, and exile. Yet medieval English society also applauded such resistance. Encapsulated in the tales of Robin Hood, the good outlaw is loyal, courageous, and clever; while the authorities he outwits are disloyal, cowardly, and stupid, using the cover of the law to behave corruptly. Examination of the outlaw in medieval literature tells us much about the mentality of the medie...
May 01, 2018•50 min
The reception of moving pictures in 1894-96 has been much mythologised. Were spectators really frightened of an approaching train? Did they imagine seeing their departed relatives reanimated on screen? How much attention was actually paid to this new phenomenon among so many contemporary novelties and wonders? Moving pictures may not have been the innovation once claimed, but within a decade few could doubt that they had become a major force in changing the Edwardian world. The transcript and do...
Apr 30, 2018•50 min
What role do children play in the family trial? The case concerns their future: how is their voice heard? What happens if they hold the key to the issues before the court? Should they give evidence, hear evidence? Should they meet the judge deciding their futures? How does the court reduce the risk that the trial experience itself harms the child it is seeking to protect? In this lecture I will explore whether the family court system is fit for purpose when it comes to dealing with the children ...
Apr 26, 2018•55 min
