Gresham College Lectures

On 17 August 1982, the first commercial CD was released. Digital recording and editing have changed the face of music by making recordings easy to originate and share. But has this affected musical quality, and what are the financial and artistic consequences? Where does BBC Radio stand within this technological revolution? Has the BBC's ability to adapt effectively signed its own death warrant? And does public service broadcasting have a future in the internet age?A lecture by Jeremy Summerly, 15 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/radio-digitalGresham 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

From Horace Walpole to Ann Radcliffe, renegade novelists of the eighteenth century wanted to claim back the supernatural for fiction and so invented the Gothic Novel. This lecture pursues the gift of Gothic to later novelists, seeing how great Victorian novelists like Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens were entranced by the supernatural. Finally, it looks at how the possibility of supernatural explanation energises contemporary novelists like Hilary Mantel and Sarah Waters.A lecture by John Mullan, 14 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/supernatural-fictionGresham 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

In the last ten years of his life Charles Dickens related to his adoring public in a number of different ways; as novelist, as journalist, as public speaker, and in public readings of his own work. This lecture explores the contrast between the public image and the private life, considering what his writings reveal to us about his deepest preoccupations, both as man and as artist, during this period.A lecture by Michael Slater MBE, 14 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/dickens-last-decadeGresham 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

Climate change and the over-exploitation of resources now may mean that unless the current generation modifies its behaviour, generations ahead may either not be born or will inherit a world with severe problems. A village or even a nation state can develop rules to prevent depletion of resources so that it does not cut down forests or over-fish the oceans. But how can that be done globally when the action of one country can have a harmful effect on another?A lecture by Martin Daunton, 13 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/owe-unbornGresham 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

Emeritus Law Professor Jo Delahunty QC and guests will explore what the future holds for the next generation of barristers: will they better reflect the society they serve in terms of background, ethnicity and gender? Is privilege and income as much of a division at The Bar as it is in society? What can institutions such as Universities, The Inns, The City, and Gresham do to reach out to students who may not have professionals in their family to open their eyes to their potential and the legal profession? This lecture will sound the clarion call for action.A lecture by Jo Delahunty QC with Mass Ndow-Njie, Derek Sweeting QC, Brie Stevens-Hoare QC and Toby CoupeThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/legal-profession-diversityGresham 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

Food-related conditions - cancer, heart disease, and strokes - are the leading causes of preventable deaths in the UK. Common wisdom is that health reflects personal choices and will power. The reality is that law and policy determine individual access to healthy food and contribute to the racial disparities that exist in all these conditions. Partnerships between the government and the food and agricultural industries prioritise profit over personal well-being and disproportionately harm marginalised communities. This is food oppression.In partnership with the Fulbright Commission A lecture by Andrea Freeman, 31 MarchThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/food-oppressionGresham 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

Cyberwar is not waged on physical battlefields following rules of engagement. Aggressors worry less about collateral damage, in part because they aren't forced to confront the sight of an enemy bleeding to death before their eyes. Instead, their victim might be someone with a pacemaker 3000 miles away. We have no words yet for this kind of crime, but there is no doubt that the moment someone targets civilians, whether with a cyberweapon or surface to air missiles, they become a war criminal.In partnership with the Fulbright Commission A lecture by Tarah Wheeler 30 MarchThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/cyberwar-crimesGresham 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 London stock market boomed and crashed in 1720. The financial bubble is known to posterity as the South Sea Bubble. In the three hundred years since, the bubble has been much misunderstood - this lecture separates fact from myth and aims to move beyond simplistic ideas of "gambling mania".A lecture by Dr Helen Paul 30 MarchThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/south-sea-bubbleGresham 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

In the wake of the decision in the parliamentary prorogation case Miller (No.2), the question of the politics of the judiciary has been thrust into the public eye. Was it "a constitutional coup" as some have claimed? The Government has promised to "update the Human Rights Act" and review the "relationship between the government, parliament and the courts". Will this limit the power of the judiciary to do justice? Do British judges have too much "power" and are they over-politicised?A lecture by Thomas Grant QC, 29 MarchThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/political-judgesGresham 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

Prokofiev followed in the footsteps of Rachmaninov and Scriabin as a joint graduate in piano and composition, but his final graduation performance made an even greater splash, since he dared to present his own new modernist Piano Concerto (No.1) before his examiners. This distinguished panel of judges had cultivated nationalist and late-romantic styles in their own music, and they were not well pleased by the work of a self-declared "anti-Romantic" who delighted in harsh, provocative dissonances that called for a new manner of playing that was metronomic rather than flexibly expressive, with a drier, more percussive approach. When Prokofiev moved abroad after the Revolution, his brilliant performances of his own works made a deep impression on a wide range of composers, from Rachmaninov to Stravinsky, and French composers from Ravel to Poulenc. It seemed that Prokofiev had invented a way of making music that matched the new era: its dynamism was compared to sport ("football music"), and its grinding repeated patterns to industrial sounds ("machine music"). The prime exhibit in this lecture is Prokofiev's Seventh Sonata, a masterwork in which his youthful provocations meet the perfectionism of the mature and experienced artist. The sonata also reveals the warm lyricism that is a crucial facet of Prokofiev's art, but which is often overlooked, since it seems at odds with his modernism.A lecture by Marina Frolova-Walker and Peter Donohue CBE, 25 MarchThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/prokofiev-pianoGresham 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