The Mystery of Art is the title of the 1982 Reith lectures given by Irish literary critic Denis Donoghue. The current Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University explores how societies understand art in his first lecture entitled 'The Zealots of Explanation'. In this lecture entitled 'The Zealots of Explanation', Denis Donoghue investigates the arts in relation to the mystery that surrounds them. He claims that the mystery is to be acknowledged but not resolved o...
Nov 10, 1982•29 min
Professor Laurence Martin, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, considers the future of strategic policy in his series of Reith Lectures 'The Two-Edged Sword' In his sixth and final lecture entitled 'Who's Moving the Goal Post?', Professor Laurence Martin explores the future development of strategic defence policies. Following the evolving political relationships that correspond to security, he questions how Europe and Britain will develop their defences in the future....
Dec 16, 1981•29 min
Professor Laurence Martin, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, considers the strategic policy of the nuclear age in his series of Reith Lectures 'The Two-Edged Sword' In his fifth lecture entitled 'Not for the Sake of their Blue Eyes', Professor Martin debates the role that arms control and disarmament can play for a country. He questions how countries can reconcile the internal complexity of the modern military scene by asking whether diplomatic negotiation and an armament...
Dec 09, 1981•30 min
Professor Laurence Martin, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, considers the strategic policy of the nuclear age in his series of Reith Lectures 'The Two-Edged Sword'. In his fourth lecture entitled 'Conflicts of the Third World', Professor Martin explores the East and West scrabble for the Middle East. The grab, which was instigated by the US and the Soviet Union in order to secure their ideologies and resources, places Europe and other nations in a tough strategic positio...
Dec 02, 1981•30 min
Professor Laurence Martin, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, considers the strategic policy of the nuclear age in his series of Reith Lectures 'The Two-Edged Sword' In his third lecture entitled 'Shadow over Europe', Professor Martin explores the strategic and political implications of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union for Europe. Can Europe survive in the fault-line between American and European interests? Professor Martin explains that nuclear d...
Nov 25, 1981•30 min
Professor Laurence Martin, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, considers the strategic policy of the nuclear age in his series of Reith lectures 'The Two-Edged Sword'. In his second lecture entitled 'Plausibility and Horror', Professor Martin questions how to avoid a nuclear war. Is the horror of mutually assured destruction enough to deter countries from using their nuclear weapons? Professor Martin debates how countries protect their own security at the same time as avert...
Nov 18, 1981•29 min
Professor Laurence Martin, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, evaluates the subject of war and peace in a nuclear age in his series of Reith Lectures entitled 'The Two-Edged Sword'. Looking at the question of nuclear armament, Professor Martin surveys the landscape of the strategic policies relating to nuclear weapons. In his first lecture entitled 'If you knows of a better 'ole…', he asks how we can avert all out nuclear war. He brings in to question how nations govern an...
Nov 11, 1981•29 min
British academic lawyer Professor Sir Ian Kennedy explores the concepts of modern medicine in his sixth Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Unmasking Medicine'. In this lecture entitled 'Let's Kill All the Lawyers', Sir Ian Kennedy explores how consumerism can regulate the medical industry. He explains how consumerism sets standards, measures performances and provides sanctions for the medical profession. He compares Britain's free National Health Service with the privatised American Health ...
Dec 10, 1980•29 min
British academic lawyer Professor Sir Ian Kennedy explores the concepts of modern medicine in the fifth Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Unmasking Medicine'. In this lecture entitled 'The Doors of Mental Illness', Professor Kennedy explores the concepts of mental illness. Professor Kennedy questions the responsibility and power placed in the hands of medical experts and evaluates how mental differences are treated in society. He considers what mental health really is and demonstrates the ...
Dec 03, 1980•29 min
British academic lawyer Professor Sir Ian Kennedy explores the concepts of modern medicine in the fourth Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Unmasking Medicine'. In this lecture entitled 'If I Were You, Mrs B', Professor Kennedy contemplates the ethical medical issues that doctors have to make and debates whether they are trained enough to decide such complex issues. He argues that doctors are making principled and moral decisions rather than just technically medical ones and with this blurr...
Nov 26, 1980•30 min
British academic lawyer Professor Sir Ian Kennedy explores the concepts of modern medicine in the third Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Unmasking Medicine'. In this lecture entitled 'Suffer the Little Children', Professor Kennedy considers how the National Health Service needs reforming and gives a conceptual blue print of how he believes improvements should be completed. Exploring the political, economic and social decisions which influence the way the NHS is run, he questions whether m...
Nov 19, 1980•30 min
British academic lawyer Professor Sir Ian Kennedy explores the concepts of modern medicine in the second Reith lecture in his series entitled 'Unmasking Medicine'. In this lecture entitled 'The New Magicians', Sir Ian Kennedy compiles a list of the inappropriate directions that modern medicine has taken, revealing how he believes that it can be pinpointed to the medical education system. He complains medical practitioners have become driven by solving problems of science to the detriment of huma...
Nov 12, 1980•29 min
This year's lecturer is the British academic lawyer Professor Sir Ian Kennedy. He founded of the Centre of Law, Medicine and Ethics in 1978 and has lectured at prestigious universities in London, California and Mexico. Professor Kennedy explores the concepts of modern medicine in his Reith lecture series entitled 'Unmasking Medicine'. In his first lecture entitled 'The Rhetoric of Medicine', Professor Kennedy reviews how we define illnesses. Examining the role of the doctor in the modern world, ...
Nov 05, 1980•29 min
In his sixth Reith Lecture, Professor Ali Mazrui examines Africa's physical location on the globe in relation to its economic, political and military destiny. The Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan gives his last lecture in the series entitled 'The African Condition'. In this lecture entitled 'In Search of Pax Africana', Professor Mazrui explains that geographically, Africa is the most central of all continents, but politically and militarily it is probably the most mar...
Dec 12, 1979•30 min
Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ali Mazrui, explores Africa's lack of cohesion in his fifth Reith lecture from his series entitled 'The African Condition'. In this lecture entitled 'Patterns of Identity', Professor Ali Mazrui argues that an understanding of the size and fragmentation of Africa is essential in diagnosing the nature of its aches and pains.
Dec 05, 1979•30 min
Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ali Mazrui, considers Africa's lack of economic development in his fourth Reith lecture from his series entitled 'The African Condition'. In this lecture entitled 'The Burden of Underdevelopment', Professor Ali Mazrui questions how such a resource rich region of the world accommodates some of the poorest countries in the world.
Nov 28, 1979•30 min
Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ali Mazru, explores the conflict between African and Western cultures in his third Reith Lecture. Delivering his third lecture from his series entitled 'The African Condition' In this lecture entitled 'A Clash of Cultures', Professor Mazrui argues that African societies are not the closest culturally to the Western world, yet they have been undergoing what is perhaps the most rapid pace of Westernisation of the 20th century. He explai...
Nov 21, 1979•30 min
Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ali Mazrui considers the injustices that have been inflicted on the African people over time in his second Reith lecture. Delivering his lecture from the series entitled 'The African Condition' he explores the sufferances of the African people. In this lecture entitled 'The Cross of Humiliation', Professor Ali Mazrui argues that Africans and people of African ancestry have suffered more humiliation in modern history than any other rac...
Nov 14, 1979•30 min
Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ali Mazrui gives the first Reith lecture from his series entitled 'The African Condition'. The Kenyan-born university lecturer questions why Africa is the last continent to be made truly habitable. In this lecture entitled 'The Garden of Eden in Decay', Professor Mazuri analyses the problems Africa faces in his lecture and compares it to the Garden of Eden in decay. He argues that the long-term solutions to Africa's crisis of habitabi...
Nov 07, 1979•30 min
Reverend Dr Edward Norman, Dean of Peterhouse, Cambridge, considers the Christian situation in Africa in his fifth Reith lecture. Speaking from his series entitled 'Christianity and the World Order' he considers the persistence of religion in a secular society. In this lecture entitled 'The Indwelling Christ', Reverend Norman explores the contemporary understanding of Christianity. He evaluates its change from spiritual devotion to a sanctification of political morals. However, Reverend Norman e...
Dec 06, 1978•27 min
Reverend Dr Edward Norman, Dean of Peterhouse, Cambridge, considers the Christian situation in Africa in his fifth Reith lecture. Speaking from his series entitled 'Christianity and the World Order' Norman explores the politicisation of Christianity in specific areas of Africa. He investigates how political alignment of religion with politics is causing blurred boundaries between the two and asks how can acts of war be sanctified by religion?
Nov 29, 1978•28 min
Reverend Dr Edward Norman, Dean of Peterhouse, Cambridge, explores the imperialist perspective of Christianity in his fourth Reith lecture. Speaking from his series entitled 'Christianity and the World Order' Norman explores Christianity around the globe. He evaluates the way in which Western Christians view the Latin-American radical churches and believe that they are listening to the Christian word of the Third World. But are they really hearing from the oppressed and exploited majority of its...
Nov 22, 1978•27 min
Reverend Dr Edward Norman, Dean of Peterhouse, Cambridge, reflects on the close relationship between Christianity and Western liberal ideals in his third Reith lecture. Speaking from his series entitled 'Christianity and the World Order' Norman reviews how civil rights have followed the paths of religious doctrines. There is no great dissimilarity between secular and religious outlooks on the moral question of human rights, but Reverend Norman asks, what happens when human rights violations happ...
Nov 15, 1978•27 min
Reverend Dr Edward Norman, Dean of Peterhouse, Cambridge, explores who the 'Ministers of Change' are in society in his second Reith lecture. Speaking from the series entitled 'Christianity and the World Order' Norman investigates the effect of the secular states' political values on Christianity. Christianity preaches love thy neighbour but do Christian countries follow their own doctrine? Reverend Norman considers the link between religion and politics by investigating the increased influence o...
Nov 08, 1978•27 min
Reverend Dr Edward Norman, Dean of Peterhouse, Cambridge, discusses how and why faith has been transformed by political values in his first Reith lecture. Speaking from his series entitled 'Christianity and the World Order' Norman examines the authenticity of religion and considers its potential decay as it becomes progressively aligned with a secularised state. He explains that with the politicisation of Christianity, it is now essentially concerned with social morality rather than with the eth...
Nov 01, 1978•27 min
Sociologist A H Halsey is Professor of Social and Administrative studies at the University of Oxford. In his final lecture from his series 'Change in British Society', Halsey investigates the problem of fraternity in society. He argues that there are native traditions in social and political values which join people together. Yet, can social order in the shape of class, status and party affect these feelings of belonging? In this lecture entitled 'The Social Order', Professor Halsey explains how...
Feb 15, 1978•29 min
Sociologist A H Halsey is Professor of Social and Administrative studies at the University of Oxford. In his fifth lecture from his series entitled 'Change in British Society', Halsey investigates the relation between the generations of the nuclear family and focuses in on the primordial link between parents and dependent children. In this lecture entitled 'Between the Generations', Professor Halsey explains how the family is the basic unit of our society. He analyses how it is a miniature repro...
Feb 08, 1978•29 min
Sociologist A H Halsey is Professor of Social and Administrative studies at the University of Oxford. He evaluates how the expansion of Britain's industrial and economic sectors changed the need for class and status for the fourth Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Change in British Society'. In this lecture entitled 'The Rise of Party', Professor Halsey follows the growth of organisation in relation to the changing structure of class and status in Britain and explains that the growth of co...
Feb 01, 1978•29 min
Sociologist A H Halsey is Professor of Social and Administrative studies at the University of Oxford. He explores the concept of Status in Society for his third Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Change in British Society'. In this lecture entitled 'The Reconstitution of Status', Professor Halsey looks at the theory of class and status in order to argue the importance of position and power in influencing social mobility. He investigates how class and status can either support or oppose each...
Jan 25, 1978•28 min
Sociologist A H Halsey is Professor of Social and Administrative studies at the University of Oxford. He explores the structures of class in Britain for his second Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Change in British Society'. In this lecture entitled 'Class-Ridden Prosperity', Professor A H Halsey explores how far inequality can be explained by status. He evaluates the ways in which power and advantage form the stratified system of 'Class' and asks the question, why is there still social i...
Jan 18, 1978•30 min
