Gresham College Lectures

The fourth lecture in this series considers Britain's unique cultural development and how the changing balance of power and wealth between the aristocracy and the monarchy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century has fundamentally influenced today's national cultural landscape of art and architecture. A lecture by Simon Thurley, Visiting Professor of the Built Environment 3 April 201...

FULBRIGHT LECTURE Government officials in the UK and the USA have struggled to find effective ways to regulate political spending on the internet. The question of appropriate regulation is challenging - both in practice and principle. Professor Ringhand discusses how officials in the United Kingdom and the United States have approached the problem, and how they have faced surprisingly similar chal...

Our gut is permanently full of large numbers of bacteria and other organisms but serious infections relatively rarely occur due to its extraordinary immune system. Infections of these organs can, however, occur in specific situations. Specialised bacteria and parasites can damage the gut or its functions including direct invasion or toxins. The liver can be damaged by hepatitis viruses, parasites...

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1932) was more a personal than a political drama. All was well for the first two years after the opera's première in 1934, but shortly after Stalin went to a performance, it was vigorously condemned in the state press. The pretext was the opera's music, but it is more likely that the plot and especially the staging offended against the conservative turn in the so...

As music gets quiet, so too must listening. But what do the contexts and ideologies of quiet music and quieter listening mean? From different eras, and radically opposed musical traditions, Richard Wagner's innovations in his theatre at Bayreuth (forcing his audience to sit in near-total darkness and silence) have striking similarities to theories and practices of listening developed by moder...

Understanding changing relationships between human and non-human animals is central to our world today. This lecture starts by looking at early-modern understandings of the nature of 'animal' and 'human' life, before turning to the rise of 'rights of animals'. It concludes by investigating late twentieth and early twenty-first century thought about evolution, the Grea...

The English Aristocracy is often seen as a rural elite concentrating its patronage of art and architecture in the countryside. This lecture questions this view and shows how, from the sixteenth century, aristocratic families deployed their collections and commissioned their buildings in both town and country in order to further their political and dynastic ambitions. A lecture by Simon Thurley, Vi...

Machine Learning has had several excitements over the years with machines that are modelled on the human brain. The invention of the perceptron and artificial neural networks were followed by intense scientific activity and excitement, then by disappointment at a number of unappreciated deficiencies. The latest craze are deep neural networks. In this lecture, we will explore how deep learning work...

Early 'atheism' did not always mean angry rejection of religion. The most earnest believers were often ones who wrestled most seriously with doubts. This lecture will look at how and why Christians in the seventeenth century first began seriously to wrestle with unbelief, whether troubled by feelings that God was absent, worries about religious variety or fear of damnation. What made the...

At the time of writing, it appears that Britain will leave the European Union on 29th March at 11 pm British time, 12 midnight Continental time. How will Britain fare outside the European Union? And how will Brexit affect British politics? Will the Britain of 2020 become like the Britain of 1972, the year before we joined the European Community, precursor of the European Union - or has our 46 year...

Mathematics education is changing rapidly and a big driver for this is the use of new technology. In particular the widespread use of computers has transformed the way that we do mathematics, with computers not only able to mark exam papers, but also to do the algebra required to answer the questions. In this talk, we will look at the modern developments of computer based teaching and learning. At...

The valuable bequest of Sir Thomas Gresham to the development of scientific interest in seventeenth-century England can be traced through the testimony of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn - not only great diarists but also 'particular friends'. A lecture by Margaret Willes, Independent Writer and Scholar 11 March 2019 The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from...

Cuts to legal aid, the concept of online justice, diversity within the legal profession and the judiciary, the independence of the Judiciary from the State, the impact the press can have on perceptions of fairness of justice: this lecture explores the controversial issue of how the politics of the day or decade can affect the way in which the Justice system functions in private and is perceived by...

In 431 BCE the Athenian statesman Pericles delivered one of the most influential speeches of all time, his Epitaphios or Funeral Oration. The occasion was at the funeral of the first Athenian soldiers to lose their lives in the Peloponnesian War. This lecture examines the history of this beautiful site, the momentous occasion on which Pericles spoke, and the ways in which his speech, recorded by t...

Poor stewardship by investors has been argued to be a cause of poor corporate governance. Moreover, when investors do engage with companies, they do so to increase short-term profit at the expense of long-run value. This talk will critically analyse the evidence on whether shareholder activism is beneficial for long-term value and suggest policies to promote the 'good' type of shareholde...

Thomas Gresham lived from 1519 to 1579. The first telescope was designed in 1608 in the Netherlands, and first pointed at the heavens by Galileo a year later. The greatest discoveries since the pre-telescope era have been that of the existence of many other planets around distant stars, and the vastness of the universe. So much has happened since Gresham's era, yet many of the questions about...

Worldwide, over 80 plant species are known to cause poisoning from nitrate accumulation. But droughts are exacerbating this for many staple crops. Even after a drought, the growth in water-stressed crops can result in the build-up of other toxins. Global warming is also helping to spread mycotoxins, with 25 per cent of cereals worldwide estimated to be contaminated and 4.5 billion people exposed t...

Is 'morality' principally about sex, or 'naughty vicars'? Despite Henry VIII, the Church has found divorce difficult, especially for clergy and bishops, let alone 'equal marriage' for same-sex couples, the role of women in ordained ministry or transgender issues. This lecture examines the relevant references in the New Testament (which are surprisingly fewer than refe...

People often think that surgery is about the skill of a single surgeon. In fact operations depend on teamwork, with nurses, surgeons, anaesthetists and technicians all playing vital roles as they work together. Experts outside medicine need similar skills and have much to teach clinicians. This lecture introduces Rachel Warr, a leading puppeteer and dramaturg. After Rachel demonstrates how she and...

Parasites can dramatically change the behaviour of their hosts. A parasitic worm turns a tropical ant berry-red and causes it to climb high, attractive prey for birds, the worm's next host. A mouse infected by toxoplasma gondii no longer fears cats - making it easier for the parasite to be eaten by its next host, a cat. A jewel wasp precisely injects neurotoxins into its cockroach prey's...

Britain's pioneer filmmaker, born 150 years ago in North London, vividly portrayed the variety of life in 'the imperial metropolis' at the end of the 19th century, conscious of its historic appeal but also emphasising the modernity of which he was a part. A lecture by Ian Christie, Visiting Professor in the History of Film and Media 25 February 2019 The transcript and downloadable v...

There are an estimated 800 million people living close enough to active volcanoes to be affected when they erupt. As well as casualties from volcanic eruptions there can be major economic losses and societal disruption, especially when communities have to be evacuated. The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland in April-May 2010 did not kill anyone but disrupted the travel of millions of...

One of the most mysterious experiences that we come across in psychiatry is 'Psychosis', which refers to a loss of contact with reality. It has many causes and manifestations and it poses major challenges to our understanding. Professor Fletcher proposes that it can be understood in terms of the normal functioning of the mind, which seeks to construct a working model of reality even thou...

The lung has a large surface area, is open to the outside world and is the site for some of the most common serious infections, in particular pneumonia. Several bacteria, viruses and some less common lung infections including tuberculosis and fungal disease can damage the lung, and some occupations and pastimes increase this risk. The heart is less susceptible to infection but infections of the he...

Human vision seems so effortless: from a young age we see the world in high- definition colour. We can tell the difference between a cat and a hat, and 'The man who mistook his wife for a hat' is an anomaly. But despite recent progress, machines still confuse wives for hats. In this lecture, we will examine the phenomenon of computer vision, show how to build a computer vision system and...