Gresham College Lectures

AI systems are increasingly positioned as supports for anxiety, loneliness, and distress. This lecture examines large language models trained to simulate therapeutic dialogue alongside biofeedback systems that modulate physiological states. We distinguish responsiveness from empathy, asking where AI may scaffold reflection and where automated comfort subtly displaces responsibility. This lecture w...

Where are the stories of great queer love in the Shoah? There are almost none. Anna Hájková explains why the history of same-sex desire in the Shoah, that is, queerness among Jews persecuted by the Nazis for their race, has been excluded and marginalised, and how its return to our understanding of the Holocaust can offer an inclusive and feminist history of this genocide. Based on original and ext...

Carbon used to be something that was only mentioned in school chemistry classes, but now it seems to be everywhere: on the news, in political debate, in discussions on health, and as a framework for thinking about our civilisation’s future. But the carbon that’s the focus of most of that debate is what’s in the atmosphere, and that’s only about 2% of the accessible carbon on Earth. This lecture pu...

Our expanding Universe only makes sense if, early on, it expanded rapidly in a period of cosmic inflation. In this lecture, we consider the evidence for this apparently arbitrary idea, and asks whether we are on the brink of finding inflation’s signature in our observation. As the story moves from theorist's blackboards to desert observatories, and from the cosmos’s first moments to the far f...

This lecture was recorded by Daniel Susskind on the 23nd of September 2026 Dr Daniel Susskind is a writer and economist. He explores the impact of technology, and particularly AI, on work and society. He is the Mercers’ School Memorial Professor of Business at Gresham College. He is also a Digital Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics i...

The Lammy plan to eliminate half of U.K. criminal jury trials has provoked a rebellion among many lawmakers. Recent Palestine Action cases highlight the jury’s moral role, with several “perverse verdicts” acquitting activists despite clear evidence. Yet those charged with the lesser offence of “supporting” PA have been denied a jury trial and the chance of acquittal. Compared with U.S. constitutio...

A stark advert picturing a gravestone chiselled with ‘AIDS: DON’T DIE OF IGNORANCE’ captured the horror of this disease in the 1980s. Now, for HIV-infected people able to access anti-retroviral therapies, life expectancy is normal. How were these amazing medicines developed and how have they transformed lives? Why is it so difficult to eradicate HIV or to develop a vaccine to prevent infection? Wh...

This lecture was recorded by Alain Goriely on the 15th of September 2026 Alain Goriely is a mathematician with broad interests in mathematical methods, mechanics, sciences, and engineering. He is well known for his contributions to dynamical systems, mathematical biology, as well as fundamental and applied mechanics. He is particularly well known for the development of a mathematical theory of bio...

On a remote mountain top in Chile, scanning the sky with the largest astronomical camera ever built, the Vera Rubin Observatory is conducting the deepest and most sensitive survey of the sky yet. This lecture covers whatever it’s found in the previous week, from supernovae to asteroids, giving us a glimpse of science in action. This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on the 14th of September 20...

How do we tell stories of past voices through a cello, the voice of its player? This lecture explores what it means to be separated from your voice, and to find it again. Dr Kate Kennedy traces a journey she took across Europe with her cello, to uncover the stories of instruments and their players. The result was a host of eccentric, sometimes tragic, always extraordinary accounts of silencing and...

This lecture was recorded by Jane Shaw on Monday, 07 Sep 2026. Professor Jane Shaw is Provost of Gresham College and Professor of the History of Religion at the University of Oxford. Professor Shaw was formerly Principal of Harris Manchester College and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Oxford. She has also served as Dean for Religious Life and Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford; as...

This is the Annual Sir Thomas Gresham Lecture. What does modern physics have to say about the meaning of time? Is it a fundamental feature of reality or merely an emergent property from something deeper? Does time flow, and is the present moment special when Einstein tells us that all times coexist. Where does the arrow of time come from if all the fundamental laws of physics are symmetric in time...

This lecture was recorded by Professor Milton Mermikides on the 19th of June 2026 Milton Mermikides is a composer, guitarist, technologist, academic and educator in a wide range of musical styles and has collaborated with artists and scientists as diverse as Evelyn Glennie, Tim Minchin, Pat Martino, Peter Zinovieff, John Williams and Brian Eno. Son of a CERN nuclear physicist, he was raised with a...

This lecture was recorded by Ronald Hutton on the 17th of June 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London Professor Hutton is Professor of History at the University of Bristol. He took degrees at Cambridge and then Oxford Universities, and was a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is now a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries and the Learned Socie...

This is the Annual Gray's Inn Reading 2026. The lecture was delivered within three months of Sir Andrew McFarlane’s retirement after 21 years on the Family Bench. Whilst the phrase ‘un-plugged’ may not be appropriate, it is anticipated that the lecturer will no longer feel restrained by judicial caution when commenting upon the future development of Family Justice. In addition to a focus on t...

This lecture was recorded by Professor Daniel Susskind on the 26th of May 2026 Dr Daniel Susskind is a writer and economist. He explores the impact of technology, and particularly AI, on work and society. He is the Mercers’ School Memorial Professor of Business at Gresham College. He is also a Digital Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethi...

The polar regions are still some of the most inaccessible and least touched by humans, but they are deeply linked to the rest of Earth. We will cover the history of exploring them, the challenges of measuring this environment, and the current state of knowledge about the ice at both poles.  We will also cover the likely future for the polar regions – the incentives driving different actions, what...

This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 11th of June 2026 Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. She studied for her first d...

In this last lecture, I will work to wake us from the AI as Overlord spell. We will explore other possible futures, looking first look at the potential of AI fitting in with us: things we can chat to; humanoid robots; or even devices that draw on understandings of pets to make them more palatable and pleasing. Secondly, I’ll suggest a way to weave AI into everyday life: as a “simple” instrument to...

The Americans are very proud of their written constitution. During the first 3/8 of President Trump’s second term of office, the constitution has been severely tested. Where has the Constitution succeeded in providing legal safeguards, clarity and stability, and where has it failed? How will the remainder of this presidency look? And what is coming after Trump?  This lecture was recorded by Clive...

This lecture was recorded by Dr Di Wang on the 8th of June 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London Dr Di Wang is an art historian and curator. Her work focuses on art and culture of East Asia from the late-nineteenth century to the present. Following her doctorate at the University of Oxford, she has taught as a departmental lecturer and research associate at the Department of History of Art at Ox...

This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on the 3rd of June 2026 Professor Chris Lintott is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow at New College. Having been educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge and University College London, his research now ranges from understanding how galaxies form and evolve, to using machine learning to find the most unusual thi...

This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 28th of May 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Camb...

This lecture will focus on independently produced Chinese documentary cinema as it has entered the Anglophone industry market. Using “Plastic China” by the award-winning director Wang Jiuliang as a case study, I will explore what the implications of cross-border collaborations are for documentary form and content, and how this may encourage a particular set of viewer responses. This will allow me...

This lecture was recorded by Robin May on the 20th of May 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham, and (interim) Chief Scientist at the UK Health Security Agency, Robin May was appointed Gresham Professor of Physic in May 2022. Between July 2020 and September 2025 he served as Chief Scientific Adviser at the Food Standards Agency (FSA...