Gresham College Lectures
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Gresham College Lectures
Gresham College has been providing free public lectures since 1597, making us London's oldest higher education institution. This podcast offers our recorded lectures that are free to access from the Gresham College website, or our YouTube channel.
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Hitler, Jesus & How to Win a Culture War - Alec Ryrie
Since 1945 Hitler and the Nazis have been the Western world’s one fixed moral reference point: the way we know what evil is. But that consensus has al...
How It Ends: What We Know about the Fate of the Universe - Chris Lintott
How will it all end? Predicting the far future of our Universe depends on understanding its present. This lecture starts with what seems to be a parad...
AI Will Be Your Overlord: Faster, Brighter, Better Than You?
“Scary”, “Worried”, “Dangerous” were some of the most frequent words to describe AI in a recent UK Government public survey. Do you fear, as many do,...
Shakespeare’s Musical Fairies - Dominic Broomfield-McHugh
Written in the era of the founding of Gresham College, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream portrays the hypnotic dreaminess of a fairy world in wh...
Lessons from Guantánamo Bay - Clive Stafford Smith
This lecture looks at the evolution of Guantánamo Bay, first as a focal point of Haitian immigration in 1991 (Gitmo 1.0), to the more famous detention...
The Shape of Hands: Symmetry, Chirality and Handedness - Alain Goriely
The reflection of my right hand in a mirror is a left hand that looks similar yet is very different from the right. Many natural structures such as pr...
Earth – Our Planetary Life Support System - Professor Helen Czerski
Planet Earth is an intricate and interconnected system, with some fundamental rules that we usually ignore. But we are part of our planet, not separat...
Automation Anxiety - Daniel Susskind
Ever since modern economic growth began three centuries ago, people have suffered from periodic bursts of anxiety about the technologies of the time t...
Galileo’s Journey to the Underworld: The Case for Interdisciplinary Thinking - Sarah Hart
ttps://x.com/GreshamCollege Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/tv554JY9TPU
In 1588, the young Galileo delivered some lectures t...
A World Remade by Decolonization? - Martin Thomas
The lecture shares perspectives from global history, comparative politics, and international relations to revaluate whether the twentieth-century coll...
Oil, Decolonisation, and the Future of the Climate Emergency - Adam Hanieh
Decolonisation movements sought to win sovereignty and control over national resources, especially oil. This lecture explores oil’s influence on natio...
Shanawdithit: A Woman at the End of the World - Julia Laite
Shanawdithit was a woman who bore witness to the death of her world in the early nineteenth century, creating the only first-hand account we have of t...
Outsmart the System: How Psychology Hacks Your Money Decisions - Raghavendra Rau
Ever feel like the financial world works against you? This lecture discusses "behavioral finance" – how our brains get tricked by money matters. We wi...
Democracy and International Criminal Justice in the Fragile World of the Rule of Law - Howard Morrison
The lecture will examine the pros and cons of democracy in today's world, focusing on the importance of domestic and international rule of law to main...
The Future of Health - Chris Whitty
Health over the last 150 years in the UK and internationally has been transformed and this rapid rate of change will continue. Improvements in public...
Sum Stories: Equations and their Origins - Robin Wilson
How long is the coastline of Britain? What is a rhombicuboctahedron? Which US president proved Pythagoras’s theorem? These and many other intriguing q...
The Deceived Brain: Coding and Illusion - Alain Goriely
We perceive the world through the processing of information given by our senses. Sometimes, this processing is faulty leading to illusions: shapes or...
The Future of Immunity - Robin May
Our understanding of the human immune system today is vastly different from that of 50 years ago. This knowledge has led to immune-based therapies tha...
The Maths of Music (and the Music of Maths) - Milton Mermikides and Sarah Hart
This is the fourth lecture from the Gresham Festival of Musical Ideas.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/musical-ideas-2025
The Evolution of Music - Milton Mermikides and Robin May
This is the first lecture from the Gresham Festival of Musical Ideas.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/musical-ideas-2025
...
Climbing Mount Groove: Music and Dance in the Brain - Milton Mermikides and Morten Kringelbach
This is the second lecture from the Gresham Festival of Musical Ideas.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/musical-ideas-2025
The Virtues of Music - Milton Mermikides and Melissa Lane
This is the third lecture from the Gresham Festival of Musical Ideas.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/musical-ideas-2025
...
Remixing the Music of the Spheres - Milton Mermikides and Chris Lintott
This is the fifth and final lecture from the Gresham Festival of Musical Ideas.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/musical-ideas-2025
Architecture of Enslavement, Colonialism and Independence: The Story of James Fort in Accra - Elsie Owusu
Accra’s James Fort is an iconic monument for Ghana and modern Africa. This lecture explores the fort's evolution -from its role as a trading post in t...
The Operatic Showstopper: ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ - Dominic Broomfield-McHugh
This lecture considers ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ from Carousel (1945). Perhaps Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most operatic song, it was originally written...
Carbon Takeback: How We Will Stop Fossil Fuels from Causing Global Warming - Myles Allen
We have to stop fossil fuels from causing global warming – before the world stops using fossil fuels. There’s only one solution: safe and permanent di...
Do Computers Get Sick? How Humans and Computers Fight Viruses - Robin May & Victoria Baines
Whether you are human or computer, viruses can ruin your day, so taking steps to avoid them is important. This lecture will ask whether there are simi...
Illuminating the Dark Side of the Moon - Milton Mermikides
Now over 50 years old, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon remains the perfect example of a concept album. Blending cyclical forms, jazz and modal harm...
Lawgivers in Modern Revolutions - Melissa Lane
How have lawgivers featured in modern revolutions? This lecture considers key moments in revolutions, including seventeenth-century Britain, eighteent...
Taking the Constitution into the Classroom - Clive Stafford Smith
The U.S. Constitution had to be formed through debate before it could be ratified. Mirroring this, a British constitution must emerge through debates...
A New Sky - Chris Lintott
The JWST is the most expensive and powerful telescope astronomers have ever constructed. Its launch in 2021 started a new phase in our exploration of...
Blind Spots & Bad Decisions: Why We Fall for Financial Traps - Raghavendra Rau
Why do smart people make dumb financial choices? This lecture explores the surprising link between our psychology and money mistakes. We will see how...
The Moral Case for Stealing Data - Victoria Baines
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/hLBfAVyeMBs
Throughout history, authorities have struggled to manage individuals’ urges to s...
From Thin Air: Minimalist and process music from Africa to Arvo Pärt - Milton Mermikides
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/3ntebbsM4Hw
This lecture delves into musical forms which rely on the most economical of mate...
Modern Pagan Witchcraft - Ronald Hutton
This lecture was recorded by Ronald Hutton on 14th May 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London.
Ronald is the Gresham Professor of Divinity.
From Machiavelli to Nietzsche: How Modern Thinkers Saw Ancient Lawgivers - Melissa Lane
Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/VOGzTymAYno
For many modern thinkers, the lawgiver has been important as a founder or re-fou...
The Troubled Brain: Ageing and Dementia - Alain Goriely
Diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s are devastating neurological conditions that typically occur at old age and lead to systematic dementia an...
Divine Law, Human Prophet: Moses in Hebrew and Greek - Melissa Lane
This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on 6th March 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London.
Melissa Lane is Gresham Professor of Rhetoric....
Does Net Zero Mean the End of Livestock Agriculture? - Myles Allen
This lecture was recorded by Myles Allen on 29th April 2025 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London.
Myles is the Frank Jackson Foundation Profess...
The 2025 Annual Lord Mayor's Event - Alastair King
This lecture was recorded by Alderman Alastair King on 14th April 2025 at Guildhall, London.
Alastair King is the 696th Lord Mayor of the...