Gresham College Lectures

Judges, who are typically drawn from privileged backgrounds, wield vast power over the lives of the most marginalised people in society. This lecture will explore the role of judicial racism in perpetuating injustice and inequality in the legal system. The Lammy Review found gross disparities sentencing for Black and white defendants - while also finding no systematic racial bias in juries' decisions to convict or acquit. What should we do about racism in the judiciary and the legal profession?A lecture by Leslie Thomas QCThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/judicial-racismGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

This lecture explores the destruction of libraries, archives and other knowledge, from Babylonian times until now, and its implications for society today. What are the motivations for destroying knowledge, and how have libraries and archives responded to these threats? What must we do now that knowledge is digital, and controlled by a small number of very powerful companies?A lecture by Richard OvendenThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/ashurbanipal-trumpGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

European Protestant and evangelical Christians did not have to look far to find 'infidels' in the 16th and 17th centuries: as well as the 'pagans' of northern Scandinavia, Jews were scattered across the continent and Muslim powers were all too close. This lecture will consider the repeated, and repeatedly failed, attempts to convert these peoples: some naively well-intentioned, some openly violent. Those bitter experiences would become a crucial lens through which Christians viewed global missionary projects, sometimes with unexpected consequences.A lecture by Alec RyrieThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/protestant-missionsGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

For thousands of years, some men assumed that the original or ideal human type was male, with women being pictured as weaker or imperfect men. This ancient prejudice inspired fictions from E.T.A. Hoffman's The Sandman (1816) to Ira Levin's novel The Stepford Wives (1972). This lecture looks at fantasies of artificial women (usually seen by their male creators as superior to biological women) to examine the complex connections between science and assumptions about the supposed naturalness of gender roles.A lecture by Jim EndersbyThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/scifi-womenGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

Many major diseases are transmitted by food or drink. Cholera (water), brucellosis (milk), BSE/nvCJD, typhoid and many parasites are ingested as part of a normal diet. The more exotic the diet, the greater the range of possible infections. Water technology, sanitation, pasteurisation and animal husbandry can substantially reduce but not eliminate these diseases.A lecture by Chris WhittyThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/food-diseasesGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

When you tune into Netflix you might not be aware that the box in your living room starts a complex set of negotiations with servers on moving 563 Gbytes of information into your residence. That is equivalent to having 15,000 copies of the Encyclopaedia Britannica dumped into your home! So, why is watching a Netflix film not the equivalent of the Amazon-delivery from hell? Compression, which this lecture will show is economically and entropically a hot topic.A lecture by Richard HarveyThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/compressionGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

The law has been used to impose religious and moral conformity and uniformity of thought at many times in history, perhaps most (in)famously in the trial of Socrates and the heresy trials of Giordano Bruno and Galileo. More recently the obscenity laws and equality legislation have challenged the limits of free speech. This lecture will explore how law has been used to respond to and try to delimit the expression of unpopular or challenging ideas.A lecture by Thomas Grant QCThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/free-thinking-lawGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

People have always found symmetry aesthetically pleasing and examples of it are seen in the earliest art. The Platonic solids have been known to humanity for millennia, some possibly even to Neolithic man, as can be seen in the carved stone balls found by archaeologists. This lecture will look at how we can understand symmetry using mathematics, and explore how the rules of symmetry can deepen our appreciation of beautiful works of art and design.A lecture by Sarah HartThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/maths-beautyGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

This lecture will investigate the genesis of the Socialist Realism doctrine, which was imposed in 1934. The 'proletarian music' trend of the 1920s had offered some solutions to the task of creating 'music for the people', but because it had alienated the most accomplished professional musicians it was now abandoned. A new art music was called for, with potential mass appeal through the use of folk materials and the rejection of modernism.A lecture by Marina Frolova-WalkerThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/socialist-realistGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

For the second Annual Alfred Wiener Holocaust Memorial Lecture, Professor Jan Grabowski will discuss how scholars of the Holocaust find themselves confronted with the hostile reactions of various states pursuing the policies of Holocaust distortion. This situation has acquired particular importance and urgency in Poland, where the authorities have introduced a series of measures intended to freeze academic debate, hinder independent research and intimidate scholars whose writings are perceived as opposed to the official, state-approved historical narrative.A lecture by Jan GrabowskiThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/holocaust-historyGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show