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PODCAST

Gresham College Lectures

Gresham College

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.

education

All Episodes

43:40

The Death of Athenian Democracy? - Melissa Lane

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/04/14

This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 12th of March 2026 at Barnard’s Inna 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, Cambridge. She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard Un...

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42:21

Guantánamo on the Euphrates? Syria in a Time of...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/04/10

This lecture was recorded by Stafford Smith on the 19th of March 2026 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London Clive Stafford Smith JD OBE is a dual UK-US national, the founder and director of the Justice League, a non-profit human rights training centre focused on fostering the next generation of advocates. He was the Senior Prefect at Radley College, where he studied maths and science; then a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), where he took a degree in Po...

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48:33

The Universe’s 100th Birthday: Galactic Fireworks and...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/04/08

100 years ago this year, Edwin Hubble published the first conclusive evidence that there were galaxies beyond the Milky Way. This lecture, using new results from our latest space telescopes and ground-based instruments, surveys the diversity of systems that we’ve found since, from giant and beautiful spirals to mysterious Little Red Dots. This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on 18th March 2026 at Conway Hall, London. Professor Chris Lintott is a Professor of Astrophysics at the Univer...

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49:11

Bridget: Goddess and Saint - Professor Ronald Hutton

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/04/03

This lecture was recorded by Ronald Hutton on the 10th of March 2026 at Barnard’s Inna 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 Society of Wales, and has won awards for teaching and research. He has lectured all over the world, autho...

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36:42

Oligarchs and Their Discontents - Melissa Lane

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/03/31

This lecture was recorded by Professor Melissa Lane on 5th March 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, Cambridge. She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard ...

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45:46

Why Do We Hate? - Robin May

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/03/27

Hatred is one of the most destructive human emotions, responsible for some of the greatest atrocities that humans have committed against each other. But why did it evolve in the first place? What is the evolutionary advantage of hating someone? Why is hate the ‘evil twin’ of love? And will we ever be able to ‘treat’ hatred and open the door to a utopian world of peaceful coexistence? This lecture was recorded by Robin May on the 4th of March 2026 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London Professor ...

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45:28

Born Supremacy – AI as a Pale Shadow of Real Humanity...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/03/24

In this lecture, we glimpse our best selves and compare that to a world where we lose everything of ourselves to AI. We are glorious creations that revel in agency, freedom and creativity. What do innovations such as cars that don’t need us to drive and creative AIs that remove the effort of, say, writing or music making mean in this context? Further, with a future being forged by limited perspectives, how can human diversity inform better AI for all? This lecture was recorded by Prof...

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50:09

That's Not Funny: The Ethics of Satire - Judith Hawley

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/03/20

It used to be taken for granted that satire uses nasty means to good ends: it ridicules its targets in order to bring about reform. However, in recent years, the role of satire has been challenged and satirists themselves have quite literally come under attack. Some shocking incidents have prompted serious debate about the relations between free speech and hate speech. This lecture will consider the rights and wrongs of satire in a historical context and in the light of our present situ...

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49:44

Work, Out of Reach - Daniel Susskind

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/03/17

Right now, the technological challenge we are most likely to face in the labour market is ‘frictional’ technological unemployment – where there is plenty of work available, but not enough people are able to do it. This lecture explores the phenomenon and its main causes – that people might lack the right skills for the work, not live in the place where the work is created, or have an identity that is at odds with the nature of the work. This lecture was recorded by Professor Daniel Susskind ...

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37:40

Gresham College Podcast with Antony Penrose

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/03/14

This episode of the Gresham College Podcast features an interview with Antony Penrose, hosted by Jeoffrey Sarpong. Antony Penrose is a film maker, photographer, author, artist, photo-curator, and co-founder of the Lee Miller Archives and The Penrose Collection. Following on from his Gresham College lecture, ‘Lee Miller’s Indelible Images’, we caught up with him to learn more about his mother Lee Miller’s work as a photographer during the Second World War, the atrocities she bore witness to, ...

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56:24

Lee Miller: Why Her Photography Still Matters Today -...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/03/13

What is it that makes an image stick in our memory against our will? People find many of Lee Miller’s combat photographs have this indelible quality, and of these the most powerful are from her witness of the Holocaust. Her stark and harrowing evidence takes us back to one of the most terrible episodes of persecution in the whole grim history of man’s inhumanity to man. In this lecture Miller’s son Antony Penrose talks about why his mother responded to the Holocaust in the way she did, and t...

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54:08

Music of Earth and Space - Professor Milton Mermikides

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/03/10

Since Pythagoras, we have imagined the universe as a vast, resonant instrument—a cosmic harmony waiting to be heard. From Holst’s orchestral visions of the planets to Tuvan throat singing echoing the murmur of rivers, composers have long sought to capture the music of nature and the heavens. Villa-Lobos shaped melodies from landscapes and architecture, just as scientists now transform earthquake tremors and celestial frequencies into sound. This lecture explores the deep connection between mu...

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52:05

How Women Made the Global Economy - Dr Victoria Bateman

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/03/06

Economic history has been written by men, for men and about men, giving the impression that – until recently – the economy was “just for men”. This lecture rescues from obscurity the many female producers, bankers, and economic revolutionaries who, over the course of human history, have transformed our economic fortunes. It reveals how as women’s economic opportunities have ebbed and flowed, so too have the fortunes of nations, providing a fresh perspective on the “rise and fall” of civilisat...

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59:49

Climate Risk and Insurance - Raghavendra Rau

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/03/03

Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/Hwl0YRRaHgE Why did coastal homeowners lose insurance while UK energy bills spiked after Russia’s invasion? Because risks started moving together. In this lecture, I show how climate extremes and geopolitics create synchronized shocks that overwhelm insurers and energy suppliers, pushing up premiums and bills. I discuss the basics of risk pooling, why it breaks under correlation, and what realistic fixes look like—from parametric policies and ...

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57:44

The Price of Pixels: Unmasking the Environmental...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/02/27

Our digital world's convenience masks a heavy environmental cost. This lecture explores the destructive rare earth mineral mining powering our devices, the vast energy consumption of data centres fuelling climate change, and the toxic e-waste contaminating our environment and harming human health. From resource extraction to digital consumption, we'll uncover the environmental trade-offs of our tech-dependent lives and discuss pathways towards a sustainable digital future that minimizes degra...

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41:10

Peacebuilding through the visual Arts - Jolyon Mitchell

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/02/24

How can the visual arts be used to promote peace? Professor Mitchell investigates how the visual arts can not only incite violence, but also bear witness, reveal dangerous memories, transform violence, contribute to healing trauma and imagine more hopeful futures. Examples are taken from both current conflicts (Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine) and past wars (Paul Nash and Otto Dix in the First World War, local artists in the Iran-Iraq War and the 1984 Rwandan genocide). Professor Mitchell an...

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52:18

The Shape of Shells: She Sells Self-Similar Spiral...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/02/20

This lecture was recorded by Alain Goriely on 13th February 2026 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London 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 biological growth, culminating with his seminal monograph The Mathematics on...

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44:23

Pictures from Afghanistan: Are we making the same...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/02/17

This lecture was recorded by Clive Stafford Smith on the 9th of February 2026 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London Clive Stafford Smith JD OBE is a dual UK-US national, the founder and director of the Justice League a non-profit human rights training centre focused on fostering the next generation of advocates. He was the Senior Prefect at Radley College, where he studied maths and science; then a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), where he took a degree in P...

en

47:01

Death Investigation: What Do Coroners Do? - Peter...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/02/13

Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/9ozYDQFkfaY When death occurs, the state has a duty to investigate. Every death must be registered locally with a cause of death. And now, more than any other country, all deaths are double-checked, with coroners having a significant role in over 30% of them, explaining the unexplained and reporting to prevent future deaths. This lecture explains: - Who are coroners and what they do - When an inquest must take place ...

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45:41

Alien Earths: What Makes Us Special? - Professor...

Gresham College Lectures ·

2026/02/10

Sometime in 2026, we will discover our 10000th exoplanet, a world around a distant star. This population of worlds has proved remarkably diverse, but hasn’t produced any world like our own. We ask whether this is a coincidence, or whether it could be that our own world is special – and how we might investigate other worlds like our own when we do find them. This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on 4th February 2026 at Conway Hall, London. Professor Chris Lintott is a Professor of Astroph...

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205 results

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