Although Mesopotamian civilisations had assembled texts, the ancient Greeks brought the idea of the universal book collection to its near-legendary consummation in the Library of Alexandria, which edited and housed thousands of papyrus rolls on every subject and attracted brilliant scholars from all over the ancient world. But there were many other libraries, serving also as scientific laboratories, public record offices, restaurants, mausoleums and even baths. This illustrated lecture investiga...
Nov 10, 2021•57 min
Most of us would consider Islam to be a religion, while we would generally view secularism as requiring the limiting of religion to the private sphere. But many scholars (and ideologues) beg to differ. Social scientists are divided over the definitions of religion and secularism, while Islam's indigenous portrayal of itself as a 'dīn' is not easily translatable into English. This lecture asks both whether Islam might be viewed as an ideology, and whether secularism could be considered a religion...
Nov 09, 2021•58 min
The Great Depression posed a serious threat to democratic capitalism as economic nationalism flourished and Communism and Fascism offered alternative models. In response, democratic capitalism was remade. Domestically, inequalities of wealth were reduced and social welfare extended to create a social contract between capital and labour. Internationally, new organisations created a rules-based international regime. Together, the result was 'embedded liberalism' that contained economic nationalism...
Nov 09, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Subsequent to the Hot Big Bang, as the Universe expanded and cooled, atoms formed and, later still, decoupled from radiation. This lecture will cover the intellectual revolutions in relatively recent history that paved the way to our modern understanding of the formation, existence and interactions of atoms. A lecture by Katherine Blundell OBE The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/atom...
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Immense curiosity exists about the lives of people who lived in the past. Portraits and biographies play a major role in bringing the dead to life, but they may mislead and distort as much as they illuminate. Using writings about nineteenth-century British figures alongside images of them, Professor Ludmilla Jordanova will explore the intertwined roles of biography and portraiture in public history, suggesting ways in which it is possible to be constructively critical of current practices. A lec...
Nov 02, 2021•57 min
After the ravages of the First World War there was a widespread desire for 'sustainable security'. Contemporaries were preoccupied with hungry children and their impoverished environment, and worked on a wave of institution building intended to promote 'positive security'. The 1920s search for human security and the 1930s road to war pointed to Europe's common challenges, and global problems. This history was transformed after 1945 when European ideas and practices were globalized, and implanted...
Nov 01, 2021•1 hr 2 min
The Malian city of Timbuktu is one of the world's oldest seats of learning and has an intellectual legacy of hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, coming from three great West African desert empires: Ancient Ghana, medieval Mali, and the Songhai Empire. These manuscripts offer a unique window into their history. Many remain unread. This lecture will look at how their study can be used to advance our knowledge of the intellectual history of the premodern world. A lecture by Robin Walker The trans...
Oct 28, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Elaborate plotting is the novelistic skill least often valued by critics, even if relished by readers. This lecture will look at novelists who raise plot to a literary art. We begin with Henry Fielding, the first great novelist to delight in cunning narrative design. Then Dickens's complex plot making, including the half-finished and tantalizing The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Finally, the lecture will celebrate the plotting artistry of modern writers like Ian McEwan and John le Carré. A lecture by ...
Oct 27, 2021•1 hr 2 min
This lecture will explore our financial system. Why do banks exist, and what do they do with the money that savers lend to them? We'll explore what risks they face and how they can go bust - even if they make completely safe investments. How does the stock market work - what happens when you trade shares, and why do some companies raise money on the stock market and others don't? Can ordinary citizens influence how the money they save is used? A lecture by Alex Edmans The transcript and download...
Oct 26, 2021•59 min
How does the law consider children in cases involving medical consent? This lecture will look at how doctors (and parents) should talk their children about illness. It will also consider what should happen when parents and doctors disagree about what a child should be told. The overall law on consent has changed markedly in England and Wales since Montgomery (2015), and requires doctors to share and explain risks, but it is not clear how far this applies to children, particularly older children....
Oct 25, 2021•58 min
The skeleton of King Richard III was discovered beneath a Leicester car park in 2012. Modern forensic techniques were used to analyse the injuries to the skull, rib and pelvis. The talk will discuss what computed and micro-computed tomography reveal about the injuries that were inflicted on him, and his probable cause of death; and how well the findings align with the historical record. A lecture by Sarah Hainsworth The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the G...
Oct 21, 2021•55 min
This event will focus upon mathematics as expressed in different languages and cultures. A lecture by Karine Chemla The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/numbers-cultures 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 curr...
Oct 20, 2021•59 min
This event will focus upon mathematics as expressed in different languages and cultures. A lecture by Manuel Medrano The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/knot-just-numbers 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 cu...
Oct 20, 2021•46 min
This event will focus upon mathematics as expressed in different languages and cultures. A lecture by Karine Chelma The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/numbers-cultures 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 curr...
Oct 20, 2021•59 min
Dr Anuj Misra will discuss Sanskrit Mathematics in the Language of Poetry (4pm). A lecture by Dr Anuj Misra The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/sanskrit-mathematics 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 currentl...
Oct 20, 2021•27 min
How do Shakespeare's familiar plays Othello and Romeo and Juliet reflect the early modern preoccupation with race and emerging concepts of colour-based racism? How do these ideas play out in early modern as well as in contemporary performance? A lecture by Farah Karim-Cooper The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/shakespeare-race Gresham College has been giving free public lectures sinc...
Oct 19, 2021•52 min
The Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi, designer of the dome of Florence cathedral, is also known for developing the rules of linear perspective. In a famous experiment, viewers looked alternately from a vantage point at his perspective painting of the Florence Baptistery, and then the real building, to appreciate the realism made possible by the technique. This lecture explores the maths of perspective, including modern examples like televised sports where sponsors paint their logos so they...
Oct 18, 2021•1 hr 1 min
What do we mean when we refer to the State of Israel as 'the Jewish State'? What does it mean for the politics of the state to be identified as 'Jewish'? And what does it mean for an academic and intellectual field to study Israel as a Jewish state? The lecture will trace the contours of a wide-ranging debate on these issues, that shapes both Israeli and Middle Eastern politics. A lecture by Yaacov Yadgar The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham Coll...
Oct 14, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Many of the major diseases of humans are transmitted by insect vectors. Malaria, sleeping sickness, typhus, dengue, Zika and plague are examples where mosquitoes, flies, fleas or ticks transmit. The advantage to the infection is that you can be infected by someone you have never met, often over wide distances. The advantage to humans is that we can act on the insect vector and break the cycle of transmission. A lecture by Chris Whitty The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are a...
Oct 13, 2021•59 min
In 1977 or thereabouts a collection of scientists huddled around a secret radio receiver in the US desert. This was the start of GPS, Glonass, Gallileo and the whole navigation industry. A GPS chipset now costs, in bulk, a few dollars so your watch, your phone, your computer all have GPS receivers and everyone knows where they are all the time. But how does this technology work? And are there situations when it does not work? A lecture by Richard Harvey The transcript and downloadable versions o...
Oct 12, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Sex manuals can incite revolution. In the early 1970s a feminist collective released Our Bodies, Ourselves (1970) while 'free love' proponent Dr. Alex Comfort published The Joy of Sex (1972). Both manuals have been read and updated and republished many times. What do changes in the advice given in these and other manuals tell us about the way sexual mores and practices have shifted between the 1970s and the present? What factors contribute to changes in ideas about sexual pleasure? A lecture by ...
Oct 07, 2021•52 min
Africans have been present in England for more than two thousand years, but we rarely see them or hear about them. And often their existence is dismissed as a figment of 'political correctness' or 'wokism.' This lecture will critically assess the myth of England's story as a 'sacred white space' and examine the evidence for diversity in medieval and early modern history. Africans are integral to English history and forgetting this diminishes Englishness, by preventing us from understanding ourse...
Oct 06, 2021•55 min
How can we help human society flourish without destroying nature? The Wellbeing Economy and Natural Capital are linked strategies that can help achieve this. The Wellbeing Economy provides design principles to ensure that our planet serves both humanity and the planet's ecosystems. Natural capital provides design parameters to track the quality and quantity of ecosystems and resources, including the invisible value of nature. A lecture by Jacqueline McGlade The transcript and downloadable versio...
Oct 05, 2021•1 hr
Commonwealth citizens once enjoyed the right to live, work and settle in the UK without any restrictions. But a racist backlash against Black and Asian immigration led to legislators introducing immigration controls in the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, which were broadened by the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 to deprive East African Asians of the right to settle in the UK. Its shameful successor, the Immigration Act 1971 continues to form the basis of our xenophobic immigration laws today...
Sep 30, 2021•1 hr 4 min
This lecture will examine the evidence for and the significance of events that unfolded in the early Universe. "Early" here refers to within the first few seconds after the Hot Big Bang. These very early developments give rise to fundamental characteristics of the nature of the Universe. A lecture by Katherine Blundell OBE The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/early-universe Gresham Co...
Sep 29, 2021•59 min
Because apes seem most like humans, science fiction has used them as a mirror in which to view ourselves. The philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau saw in orangutans the original, natural man, uncorrupted by society. Meanwhile most of his contemporaries used apes to embody racially charged fantasies of bestial brutality. These conflicting views shaped the numerous versions of King Kong and the Planet of the Apes films, which the lecture will use to look at evolving images of humanity. A lecture by J...
Sep 27, 2021•1 hr
The most outrageous Russian modernist composers of the 1920s were Dmitry Shostakovich in Leningrad, and Alexander Mosolov in Moscow. They were not merely following European avant-garde trends, and their work was genuinely pioneering. Russian culture was undergoing a vigorous renewal at the time, and these composers worked across several arts: Shostakovich's absurdist opera The Nose extends the theatrical innovations of the celebrated theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold, while Mosolov's 'machine ...
Sep 23, 2021•1 hr 10 min
It's usually said that Protestant and evangelical Christians made very little missionary effort in the 16th-18th centuries. In fact, there was much more than we remember. But they used strategies that look very alien to modern eyes: whether trying to spread 'civilisation' as a prerequisite for conversion, or seeing these efforts as part of a global apocalyptic conflict. This lecture will introduce this series about these early missionary projects; why they mostly failed; and why they still matte...
Sep 22, 2021•59 min
This lecture will explore the essentials of financial planning. What are the different ways to save and invest, such as bank accounts, bonds, shares, and mutual funds, and how do they differ in returns and risk? What does owning bonds and shares give you, both in normal times and in bankruptcy? We'll explore how both inflation and taxes erode investment returns - and how to invest in a tax-efficient manner. A lecture by Alex Edmans The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are avai...
Sep 21, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Three new missions arrived at Mars in February 2021, to look at weather, water and life. This lecture looks at new results from the UAE's Hope mission, China's Tianwen-1 and NASA's Perseverance. It will also look at the prospects for the ESA-Russia Rosalind Franklin rover to be launched next year arriving on 10 June 2023. At this exciting time, will we soon be able to answer the greatest scientific question: are we alone in the Universe? A lecture by Andrew Coates The transcript and downloadable...
Sep 20, 2021•58 min
