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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.

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Yesterday · 36 min
Santa, Elon, and the Interplanetary Internet - Victoria Baines
Unless it’s Christmas Eve, that chain of lights moving across the sky is probably not Santa’s sleigh but Starlink’s low earth orbit satellites (LEOs). To meet demand for ubiquitous, instantaneous, and uninterrupted communication, our internet infrastructure now extends into outer space. This talk explores who owns it, who has to clean up after it, and its impact on terrestrial politics. We’ll also take a look at how a new interplanetary internet might help shape the future of space exploration, to Mars and beyond. This lecture was recorded by Professor Victoria Baines on 25th of September 2026 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London. Professor Victoria Baines FBCS is a leading authority in the field of online trust, safety and cybersecurity. She frequently contributes to major broadcast media outlets on digital ethics, cybercrime and the misuse of emerging technologies, including Extended Reality and Artificial Intelligence. Her areas of research include electronic surveillance, cybercrime futures, and the politics of security. Victoria has published on cyberspace governance, online surveillance, the future of cybercrime, and the politics of security. Drawing on her Classical education, her book Rhetoric of Insecurity (Routledge, 2021) sheds light on 2000 years of security speak and is a toolkit for understanding why security issues always seem to be so novel, urgent and divisive. She also provides research expertise to a number of international organisations, including Interpol, UNICEF and the Council of Europe. 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 things in the Universe, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He was the founder of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for more than two million online volunteers to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, 'The Crowd and the Cosmos’. His latest book is ‘Our Accidental Universe’. Professor Lintott is best known for presenting the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program, and as an accomplished lecturer. Away from work, he cooks, suffers through being a fan of Torquay United and Somerset cricket, and spends time with a rescued lurcher, Mr Max. He can often be found at the helm of Oxford’s science comedy night, ‘Huh, That’s Funny’. Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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Yesterday · 34 min
What searching for life tells us about Earth - Helen Czerski
Professors Czerski and Lintott investigate how ocean Earth compares and differs from the other planets we’ve found, and how water worlds in many forms may be more common than expected. Using Lovelock’s framing of a biosphere, we consider life on these worlds, and explain what this thinking about the Universe can tell us about our own planet. This lecture was recorded by Professor Helen Czerski and Chris Lintotton 14th of October 2026 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London. Helen Czerski is a physicist and oceanographer with a passion for science, sport, books, creativity, hot chocolate and investigating the interesting things in life. She is a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London and her research focus is the physics of breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface. These bubbles change underwater sound and light, help transfer gases from ocean to atmosphere (helping the ocean breathe) and also eject ocean material into the air. She has spent months working on research ships in the Antarctic, the Pacific, the North Atlantic and the Arctic, and is an experienced field scientist. Helen has been a regular science presenter on the BBC for 15 years, covering the physics of the natural world in BBC2 landmark documentaries (including ‘Orbit’, ‘Operation iceberg’ and ‘Supersenses’), and the physics of everyday life in a range of BBC4 documentaries (including ‘From ice to fire: The incredible science of temperature’, ‘Sound waves: The symphony of physics’, and ‘Colour: The spectrum of science’, along with many others). She currently co-hosts BBC Radio 4’s flagship climate and environment programme Rare Earth. Helen's first book Storm in a Teacup won the Italian Asimov Prize and the Louis J. Battan Author prize from the American Meteorological Society. Blue Machine won the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing. She was awarded the Institute of Physics Gold Medal in 2018 for her work on physics communication, and an Honorary Fellowship of the British Science Association in 2020. She was a Trustee of Royal Museums Greenwich from 2018-2026, and was one of the 2020 Royal Institution Christmas Lecturers, giving her Lecture on the topic of the ocean. 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 things in the Universe, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He was the founder of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for more than two million online volunteers to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, 'The Crowd and the Cosmos’. His latest book is ‘Our Accidental Universe’. Professor Lintott is best known for presenting the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program, and as an accomplished lecturer. Away from work, he cooks, suffers through being a fan of Torquay United and Somerset cricket, and spends time with a rescued lurcher, Mr Max. He can often be found at the helm of Oxford’s science comedy night, ‘Huh, That’s Funny’. Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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Yesterday · 38 min
How to Play a Planet Space and Music II - Milton Mermikides:
Following on from last year’s lecture at the Festival of Musical Ideas, Professors Lintott and Mermikides will present, demonstrate and critique the idea of ‘astro sonification’, using sound and music to represent the astronomical patterns seen in the sky. A particular focus will be on representations of the diverse exoplanet systems now found around other stars, and on musical representations (historical and contemporary) of the worlds of our Solar System. This lecture was recorded by Ronald Hutton and Chris Lintott on 25th Sept 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London 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 an enthusiasm for both the arts and sciences, an eclecticism which has been maintained throughout his teaching, research and creative career. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics (BSc), Berklee College of Music (BMus) and the University of Surrey (PhD). He has lectured, exhibited and given keynote presentations at organisations like the Royal Academy of Music, TEDx, Royal Musical Association, British Library, Smithsonian Institute and The Science Museum and his work has been featured extensively in the press. His music, research and graphic art are published and featured by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony and more, and he has won awards, scholarships and commendations for writing, teaching, research and his charity work. Milton is Professor of Music at the University of Surrey, Professor of Guitar at the Royal College of Music, Deputy Director of the International Guitar Research Centre, an Ableton Certified Trainer, and lives in London with his wife, the guitarist Bridget Mermikides and their daughter Chloe. He is also a Vice-Chair of Governors at Addison Primary School, a state school which foregrounds music education, offering free instrumental lessons for all on Pupil Premium. 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 things in the Universe, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He was the founder of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for more than two million online volunteers to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, 'The Crowd and the Cosmos’. His latest book is ‘Our Accidental Universe’. Professor Lintott is best known for presenting the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program, and as an accomplished lecturer. Away from work, he cooks, suffers through being a fan of Torquay United and Somerset cricket, and spends time with a rescued lurcher, Mr Max. He can often be found at the helm of Oxford’s science comedy night, ‘Huh, That’s Funny’. Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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Yesterday · 41 min
The Strange Story of Astroarcheology - Ronald Hutton
Of all the components of the environment around British prehistoric monuments, the sky is the one that has changed least across the millennia. This, and the fact that some of the most famous of these monuments were clearly aligned on heavenly bodies, should make the study of the relationship between those structures and celestial features a central concern to the archaeologists investigating them. Indeed, scholars have emerged for well over a century who have addressed that concern, but they have tended to come from outside the community of professional archaeology and to have had a fraught interaction with, or even an estrangement from, it. This lecture is designed to show why this is so, and why is it really a British phenomenon, and to ask whether things are likely to be different in the future. This lecture was recorded by Professor Kate Hill on 25th of September 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 Society of Wales, and has won awards for teaching and research. He has lectured all over the world, authored twenty books and ninety-six essays, appeared in or presented scores of television and radio programmes, and sits on the editorial boards of six journals concerned with the history of religion and magic. He is currently working on the third volume of his biography of Oliver Cromwell. Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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Yesterday · 11 min
Lift Off - Chris Lintott
Professor Lintott explains how we connect the many different ways of observing the sky with attempts to understand the nature of what is seen. This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on September 25th 2026 at Barnards Inn, London. 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 things in the Universe, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He was the founder of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for more than two million online volunteers to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, 'The Crowd and the Cosmos’. His latest book is ‘Our Accidental Universe’. Professor Lintott is best known for presenting the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program, and as an accomplished lecturer. Away from work, he cooks, suffers through being a fan of Torquay United and Somerset cricket, and spends time with a rescued lurcher, Mr Max. He can often be found at the helm of Oxford’s science comedy night, ‘Huh, That’s Funny’. Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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Tuesday · 44 min
Rather Trivial Things? Finding the Precious in an Alternative Museum History - Kate Hill
This lecture was recorded by Professor Kate Hill on 14th of October 2026 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London. Kate is Professor of History at the University of Lincoln, UK, where she teaches modern British history and heritage. She researches the history of museums and heritage in the UK and beyond; among her books are Women and Museums 1850-1914: Modernity and the Gendering of Knowledge (Manchester University Press 2016), and Museums, Modernity and Conflict: Museums and Collections in and of War (Routledge 2020). She recently led the project Making Museum Professionals 1850-the present, investigating the history, present and future of curating and allied professions. She is Co-Editor of the Museum History Journal, and chaired the Museums and Galleries History Group for over a decade. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/trivial-precious Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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November 6 · 50 min
What Do You Need a Mathematician For? Perspectives from the 17th Century - Volker Remmert
In the early modern period, it was common practice to praise the mathematical sciences, a typical example being Martinus Hortensius’ Inauguration Speech on the Dignity and the Usefulness of the Mathematical Sciences (Amsterdam 1634). This lecture explains how "mathematical sciences" were understood in the 17th century, before exploring the arguments which were used to advocate for the use of the mathematical sciences, using visual materials such as title engravings of 17th century publications. Can previous answers to the question “What do you need a mathematician for?” help us understand our need for mathematicians today? This lecture was recorded by Volker Remmert on the 7th of October 2026 Volker Remmert has been trained as mathematician and historian. He teaches history of science and technology at the University of Wuppertal, Germany. His research interests are in the history of early modern science, with a focus on the mathematical sciences (Picturing the Scientific Revolution: Title Engravings in Early Modern Scientific Publications, Philadelphia 2011), and in the history of mathematics in Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries (with Ute Schneider: Eine Disziplin und ihre Verleger – Disziplinenkultur und Publikationswesen der Mathematik in Deutschland, 1871-1949, Bielefeld 2010). He has recently co-edited volumes on the history early modern science (with Julia Ellinghaus: Manipulating the Sun: Picturing Astronomical Miracles from the Bible in the Early Modern Era, Leiden 2024, with Jeanne Peiffer: A Cultural History of Mathematics in the Early Modern Age, vol. 3 of the Bloomsbury Cultural History of Mathematics, London 2024) and, together with Maria Remenyi, on the early workshops at the Mathematical Research Institute Oberwolfach (https://doi.org/10.14760/978-3-00-082798-3). The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/what-mathematician Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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November 3 · 53 min
What is the Purpose of Yoga: Transcendence or Transformation? - Jim Mallinson
This lecture was recorded by Professor Sir Jim Mallinson on 5th of October 2026 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London. Jim Mallinson is the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at Balliol College. His research focuses on the history and current traditional practice of yoga and his primary methods are philology, ethnography and art history. Prof. Mallinson led the Haṭha Yoga Project (2015–2021), a six-person research project on the history of physical yoga funded by the European Research Council. The project’s core outputs are ten critical editions of Sanskrit texts on physical yoga and four monographs on its history and current practice. Together with Professor Jürgen Hanneder (University of Marburg), Prof. Mallinson led the Light on Hatha Yoga Project (2021–2024) which will result in a critical edition of the Haṭhapradīpikā. Prof. Mallinson’s publications include the following: The Khecarīvidyā of Ādinātha, a Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of an Early Text on Haṭhayoga (Routledge, 2007), a revision of his doctoral thesis, which was supervised by Professor Alexis Sanderson at the University of Oxford, where Prof. Mallinson also read Sanskrit as an undergraduate; Roots of Yoga (Penguin Classics, 2017, co-authored with Mark Singleton), The Amṛtasiddhi and Amṛtasiddhimūla: The Earliest Texts of the Haṭhayoga Tradition (École française d’Extreme- orient, Pondicherry, 2021) and The Dattātreyayogaśāstra (École française d’Extreme-orient, Pondicherry, 2024). Prof. Mallinson has spent many years living in India with traditional ascetics and practitioners of yoga, and at the 2013 Kumbh Mela was awarded the title of Mahant by the Rāmānandī Saṃpradāya. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/yoga-purpose Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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October 30 · 44 min
Rethinking Deterrence for a Disrupted World - Martin Connell
The unipolar world of American military dominance, which characterised the relatively stable 35-year post-Cold War period, is now well and truly over. This lecture reveals how nation states face a series of geostrategic shifts and challenges, combined with rapid technological change. The world has now entered a highly disruptive and volatile period which will be defined by complexity, competition and conflict. How nations credibly deter will not be straightforward, but failure to do so could prove to be catastrophic. This lecture was recorded by Martin Connell on the 27th of October 2026 Sir Martin Connell joined the Royal Navy straight from school and went on to command at every rank from lieutenant through to vice admiral. Initially flying helicopters, he went on to be a captain of warships ranging from patrol vessels and frigates through to aircraft carriers, commanding military operations all around the world. Later in his career he worked in various shore-based roles including as a diplomat in Washington D.C. and numerous senior command and staff roles in the Ministry of Defence in London which included a period in 2025 as the Interim First Sea Lord and Chief of the Royal Navy. He has advised the highest levels of UK and allied governments and industry leadership on all aspects of deterrence, national security, major procurement programmes and the defence nuclear enterprise. Martin is now a strategic advisor specialising in defence and international security. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/rethinking-deterrence Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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October 27 · 45 min
Shakespearean England and Views of the Irish Language - Mícheál Ó Mainnín
The Irish language has been associated with politicisation and conflict, particularly in the context of contemporary Northern Ireland identity politics. However, debates around the language extend much further back in time and some key elements of the discourse may be traced to the sixteenth century in particular. This lecture looks at the portrayal of the Irish language by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and the motivations for some negative stereotypes which were to prove resilient and enduring in later centuries. This lecture was recorded by Mícheál Ó Mainnín on the 1st of October 2026 Professor Mícheál Ó Mainnín works within the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen's University Belfast. His principal research interests lie in the areas of linguistics (particularly onomastics and historical linguistics); Irish and Scottish Gaelic literary texts; language politics; Irish and Scottish identity and relations in the medieval and modern periods. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/shakespeare-irish Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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October 23 · 48 min
The Gods of Ancient Greece | Gresham College Podcast with Prof Melissa Lane and Prof Ronald Hutton
This episode of the Gresham College Podcast features a conversation between two Gresham Professors: Melissa Lane, Gresham Professor of Rhetoric and Ronald Hutton, Gresham Professor of Divinity. Together they explore the gods of ancient Greece: where deities come from, why the same god could have several different parents, stories and personalities, and why the Greeks never expected their gods to be good. Ronald explains why Greeks addressed their deities as "sir and madam" rather than "Lord God", how blood sacrifice worked more like a community barbecue, and how ordinary people struck deals with the gods for help with toothache, childbirth or a safe voyage. Melissa traces how philosophers from Xenophanes to Plato began to question the poets' badly behaved gods, and how religion collided with Athenian democracy, from the law courts to the trial of Socrates. The conversation then turns to the mystery religions, from the Eleusinian Mysteries to the women-only rites of Dionysus, the role of blindfolds and ordeal in initiation, and the gold leaves buried with initiates as calling cards for the underworld. It closes with the Greek view of the afterlife, and the story of the goddess Athena, evicted from the Parthenon, knocking at the philosopher Proclus's door. Further Viewing: Watch Ronald Hutton's Gresham College lecture, Mithras: Master of Mystery: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/god-mithras Watch Melissa Lane's Gresham College lecture, Cicero In and On Political Crises: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/cicero Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Website: https://gresham.ac.uk Twitter: https://twitter.com/greshamcollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Support the show
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October 22 · 44 min
Women of Bath and Willesden: Ordinary Women in English Literature - Marion Turner
In this lecture, Professor Marion Turner explores ‘ordinary women’ in English literature, arguing that Chaucer’s 14th-century Wife of Bath was the first such woman: a middle-aged, sexually active working woman who tells the outrageous story of her own life. Zadie Smith’s 21st century translation of her story demonstrates the ongoing relevance of thinking about the space we have for women’s voices in theatre, poetry and public life. This lecture discusses the historical context for the emergence of the voices of ‘ordinary women’ in literature and considers what has and hasn’t changed across time. This lecture was recorded by Marion Turner on the 30th of September 2026 Marion Turner has published several award-winning books including Chaucer: A European Life (Princeton, 2019) and The Wife of Bath: A Biography (Princeton, 2023). She curated a major exhibition at the Bodleian Library, Chaucer Here and Now, in 2024. She is deeply committed to public engagement, working regularly with schools and with adult education as well as talking at literary festivals such as Hay on Wye, the Edinburgh festival, the Cheltenham festival, and the Oxford literary festival, and on the radio, e.g. Start the Week, the Today programme, Women’s Hour, You’re Dead to Me, Ian Hislop’s Oldest Jokes. She holds the senior chair in medieval literature at the University of Oxford – the J.R.R. Tolkien Professorship of English Literature and Language. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/women-bath Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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October 16 · 50 min
AI as Therapist? Intimacy Without Understanding - Matt Jones
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 was recorded by Professor Matt Jones on the 29th of September 2026 at Barnard’s Inna Hall, London Matt Jones is a computer scientist at Swansea University - and a Fellow of the British Computer Society - who works alongside colleagues from many other disciplines and directly with everyday folk across the world to explore the future of digital technologies. Over the last 30-plus years, this human-centred approach has led to novel approaches for, amongst other things, mobile phone-based information searching and browsing, pedestrian navigation, voice assistants and deformable displays. Much of his work has been driven by intense and sustained engagements with “low resource” communities from informal settlements in India, South Africa, and Kenya. Through their generous and gracious participation, these extra-ordinary users with the fresh and diverse perspectives have stimulated insights into the future of digital technologies for everyone, globally. In all this work, Matt works as part of a long-standing collaborative team with Jen Pearson, Simon Robinson and Thomas Reitmaier (from Swansea) and colleagues in India (including Dani Raju) and South Africa (including Minah Radebe). His work has been supported by the UK’s science funders (EPSRC and UKRI). Currently, this funding includes a Fellowship to explore the future of interactive AI and leadership roles in responsible AI and inclusive digital technologies. This funding has led to a series of impactful publications, talks and influences on people, policies, and practices. Matt has collaborated with private, public and third sector organisations, including Microsoft, the NHS, Google, IIT-B, the BBC and IBM. He is a member of the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office’s Research Advisory Group and Welsh Government’s AI reviews. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/ai-therapist Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Website: https://gresham.ac.uk Twitter: https://twitter.com/greshamcollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Support the show
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October 13 · 37 min
Where is Queer Love in the Shoah History? - Anna Hájková
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 extensive archival research, this lecture offers a concise insight into the queer history of the Holocaust. This lecture was recorded by Dr Anna Hájková on 28th of September 2026 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London. Dr Anna Hájková is Reader for modern European continental history at the University of Warwick, where she co-directs the Centre for Global Jewish Studies. Her first book, The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt, came out in 2020 with Oxford University Press. Her second book People Without History are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust (University of Toronto Press, 2025) was awarded the National Jewish Book Award 2026. She is a pioneer of queer Holocaust history and her work has been awarded the 2020 Orfeo Iris Prize. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/queer-shoah Support the show
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October 9 · 1 hr
Carbon: Our Flexible Friend that Built the Natural World - Helen Czerski
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 puts that 2% in context, showing how the whole carbon cycle works, how we’re affecting it, and looks at the proposed strategies for deliberately manipulating carbon reservoirs in the future. This lecture was recorded by Helen Czerski on the 24th of September 2026 Helen Czerski is a physicist and oceanographer with a passion for science, sport, books, creativity, hot chocolate and investigating the interesting things in life. She is a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London and her research focus is the physics of breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface. These bubbles change underwater sound and light, help transfer gases from ocean to atmosphere (helping the ocean breathe) and also eject ocean material into the air. She has spent months working on research ships in the Antarctic, the Pacific, the North Atlantic and the Arctic, and is an experienced field scientist. Helen has been a regular science presenter on the BBC for 15 years, covering the physics of the natural world in BBC2 landmark documentaries (including ‘Orbit’, ‘Operation iceberg’ and ‘Supersenses’), and the physics of everyday life in a range of BBC4 documentaries (including ‘From ice to fire: The incredible science of temperature’, ‘Sound waves: The symphony of physics’, and ‘Colour: The spectrum of science’, along with many others). She currently co-hosts BBC Radio 4’s flagship climate and environment programme Rare Earth. Helen's first book Storm in a Teacup won the Italian Asimov Prize and the Louis J. Battan Author prize from the American Meteorological Society. Blue Machine won the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing. She was awarded the Institute of Physics Gold Medal in 2018 for her work on physics communication, and an Honorary Fellowship of the British Science Association in 2020. She was a Trustee of Royal Museums Greenwich from 2018-2026, and was one of the 2020 Royal Institution Christmas Lecturers, giving her Lecture on the topic of the ocean. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/carbon Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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October 6 · 50 min
Cosmology’s Mad Idea: Inflation & the Creation of Our Universe - Chris Lintott
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 future, we question the nature of the Universe, its eventual fate and even the form of scientific enquiry itself. This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on the 23rd of September 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 things in the Universe, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He was the founder of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for more than two million online volunteers to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, 'The Crowd and the Cosmos’. His latest book is ‘Our Accidental Universe’. Professor Lintott is best known for presenting the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program, and as an accomplished lecturer. Away from work, he cooks, suffers through being a fan of Torquay United and Somerset cricket, and spends time with a rescued lurcher, Mr Max. He can often be found at the helm of Oxford’s science comedy night, ‘Huh, That’s Funny’. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/cosmology-mad Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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October 2 · 45 min
The Future of Creativity - Daniel Susskind
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 in AI at Oxford University, an Associate Member of the Economics Department at Oxford University, and a Research Professor at King’s College London. He is a member of the UK Government’s Expert Panel on AI and the Future of Work. His new book, Growth: A Reckoning (2024), was chosen by President Obama as one of his ‘Favourite Books of 2024’ and was a runner-up for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year 2024. He is also the author of A World Without Work (2020), described by The New York Times as "required reading for any potential presidential candidate thinking about the economy of the future” and a runner-up for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year 2020, and co-author of the best-selling book, The Future of the Professions (2015). His TED Talk, on the future of work, has been viewed more than 1.7 million times. His next book, What Should My Children Do? How to Flourish in the Age of AI, will be published in 2026. And his first novel, The Basilisk Stare, will be published in 2027. Previously he worked in various roles in the British Government – in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, in the Policy Unit in 10 Downing Street, and in the Cabinet Office. He was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/future-creativity Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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September 29 · 46 min
The Myth and Promise of the U.K. Jury Trial - Clive Stafford Smith
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. constitutional protections, including impartial juries, vicinage rules, challenges to biased pools, and post‑trial juror inquiry—the U.K. system appears increasingly problematic. In this lecture, Professor Clive Stafford Smith makes the case for stronger jury protections. This lecture was recorded by Clive Stafford Smith on the 17th of September 2026 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 Politics; and a Stone Merit Scholar each of his three years at Columbia Law School, graduating in 1984. He previously founded and directed the legal action charities Louisiana Capital Assistance Center (1993 in New Orleans) and Reprieve (1999 in London). Since 1984 he has tried many capital cases, and helped to represent over 400 people facing execution in the US and elsewhere. He also brought the first challenge to Guantánamo Bay, where he has secured the release of 87 detainees, and continues to assist the remaining 15. In all five of the cases he has helped bring to the U.S. Supreme Court the petitioner has prevailed. He has recently taken on the case of Aafia Siddiqui, the woman who has most suffered from the US rendition-to-torture program – abducted with her three children. He continues to work on capital cases in the US, including a Post-Mortem Project where he is investigating the claims of innocence of 184 people executed since 1977. Clive has published a number of books including Bad Men (2008, describing work in Guantánamo) and Injustice (2012, on the capital case of Kris Maharaj), both of which were short-listed for the Orwell Prize; and most recently The Far Side of the Moon (2023), deconstructing the parallel lives of his father and a client Larry Lonchar, both of whom were labelled Bipolar. He has many other publications, including manuals for the defence of capital cases, and law review articles about aspects of capital defence. He has worked on many films and documentaries, starting with Fourteen Days In May (1987), recently ranked as one of the top BBC documentaries of all time. While continuing his litigation practice, Clive teaches part time at Bristol Law School as well as running a summer programme for 35 students in Dorset, his home. He has received all kinds of awards in recognition of his work, including an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II for “services to humanity” in 2000. He has been a member of the Louisiana State Bar since 1984. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/myth-jury Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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September 25 · 45 min
Is the HIV pandemic over? - Matt Higgins
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? What does the future hold in the quest to stop the global scourge of AIDS? This lecture was recorded by Matt Higgins on the 16th of September 2026 Matt studied natural sciences at Christ’s College in the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in structural biology at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He started his research group with a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 2005 and moved to the University of Oxford in 2010. He is currently the E. P. Abraham Professor of Structural Biology and a Professorial Fellow at Merton College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/hiv-pandemic Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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September 22 · 52 min
Cracking the Whip: Strings, Chains and Dinosaurs - Alain Goriely
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 biological growth, culminating with his seminal monograph The Mathematics on Mechanics of Biological Growth (2017). He received his PhD from the University of Brussels in 1994 where he became a lecturer. In 1996, he joined the University of Arizona where he established a research group within the renowned Program of Applied Mathematics. In 2010, he joined the University of Oxford as the inaugural Statutory Professor of Mathematical Modelling and fellow of St. Catherine’s College. He is currently the Director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. In addition, Alain has enjoyed scientific outreach based on problems connected to his research, including tendril perversion in plants, twining plants, umbilical cord knotting, whip cracking, the shape of seashells, brain modelling, and he is the author of a Very Short Introduction to Applied Mathematics (2017). His work has been recognized by a Sloan Fellowship, a Royal Society Wolfson Research Award, the Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences and the Engineering Medal from the Society of Engineering Sciences. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2022. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/cracking-whip Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollege Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Support the show
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