The Reith Lectures

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, Afri...

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', Profe...

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 compla...

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 pol...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 inter...

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 correspo...

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...

Irish literary critic Denis Donoghue gives the second Reith lecture from his series entitled 'The Mystery of Art'. The current Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University explores society's comprehension of art. In this lecture titled 'The Domestication of Outrage', Denis Donoghue assesses how casual materials are transformed into pieces of art and how society eval...

Irish literary critic Denis Donoghue gives the third Reith lecture in his series entitled 'The Mystery of Art'. The current Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University explores how critics influence perception of art. In this lecture entitled 'The Parade of Ideas', Dennis Donoghue examines the confusing discourse surrounding art by explaining it from a critic's per...

Irish literary critic Denis Donoghue gives the fourth Reith lecture in his series entitled 'The Mystery of Art'. The current Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University explores how critics influence perception of art. In this lecture entitled 'A Cherishing Bureaucracy', Denis Donoghue identifies how the state has created a pluralist and populist approach to art. H...

Irish literary critic Denis Donoghue gives his fifth Reith lecture in his series entitled 'The Mystery of Art'. The current Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University explores the presence and charisma of art. In this lecture entitled 'The Anxious Object', Denis Donoghue argues that once critics are gone and titles are destroyed, art is left in its natural state....

Irish literary critic Denis Donoghue gives the sixth Reith lecture in his series entitled 'The Mystery of Art'. The current Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University explores societies' need to over analyse art. In this lecture entitled 'A Talent for Conviction', Denis Donoghue debates how society can increase subjectivity into art without destroying its mystery....

Former Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury, Sir Douglas Wass explores the concept of authority in his series 'Government and the Governed'. In his first Reith Lecture entitled 'United Thoughts and Counsels', Sir Douglas Wass discusses what we mean by 'government'. Are we referring to the system, to the component parts of the political and administrative machinery? Or do we mean the policies which g...

In his second Reith Lecture entitled 'Cabinet: Directorate or Directory?', Sir Douglas Wass dissects the composition of the British Parliamentary Cabinet to answer the questions; how well does it do its job? And could it be more effective? Sir Wass analyses that the British Cabinet is filled with high ranking parliamentary ministers who very rarely function as a collective group. He claims this is...

Former Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury, Sir Douglas Wass explores the concept of authority in his series 'Government and the Governed'. In his third Reith Lecture entitled 'The Privileged Adviser', Sir Douglas Wass explores the role of British Civil Servants. By tradition they should be neutral in their political philosophy, offer impartial advice to their political chiefs and pursue policies w...

Former Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury, Sir Douglas Wass explores the concept of authority in his series 'Government and the Governed'. In his fourth Reith Lecture entitled 'Critical Opposition - Part of the Policy', Sir Douglas Wass asks how effective Parliament is at exercising today the functions of supervision and control which the 17th-century reformers allotted to it.

Former Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury, Sir Douglas Wass explores the concept of authority in his series 'Government and the Governed'. In his fifth Lecture entitled 'Opening Up Government', Sir Douglas Wass discusses the need for, and the problems contingent on, greater public access to information affecting government decisions. He asks why there is a gap between the public and its representa...

Former Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury, Sir Douglas Wass explores the concept of authority in his series 'Government and the Governed'. In his final lecture entitled 'Participation - the Sole Bond', Sir Douglas Wass concludes his discussion about responsive and effective governments with a suggestion for a single, permanent and more autonomous Royal Commission. He argues that this would be one...