Gresham College Lectures

Gresham College
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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.

  1. 23H AGO

    Music of the Mind - Milton Mermikides

    This lecture was recorded by Milton Mermikides on the 15th of April 2026 at LSO, 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.       The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/music-mind 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

    45 min

  2. 3D AGO

    "Unsquaring” the Square Mile: Connecting People with Opportunity - Susan Langley

    Moving the conversation on social mobility out of the boardroom and into the mainstream, the Lady Mayor Dame Susan Langley will set out her ambition to connect people with opportunity and “unsquare” the Square Mile: ensuring nobody has to fit in a certain box to thrive in the UK’s financial capital. Joined by an expert panel, she’ll ask how we can change people’s view of the City and break down barriers that might hold people back from fulfilling their potential.   This lecture was recorded by Lady Mayor Alderwoman Dame Susan Langley on the 13th of April 2026 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London Alderwoman Dame Susan Langley became Lady Mayor of London 7th November 2025. She is the 697th Lord Mayor, the third woman to hold the office, and the first to be styled “Lady Mayor”. Dame Susan Langley is Chair of Gallagher UK, and the Senior Independent Director for UKAR (Northern Rock Asset Management and Bradford and Bingley). Previously she was the Lead Non-Executive Director for the Home Office, a Trustee for Macmillan Cancer, CEO Financial & Professional Services at the Department for International Trade (DIT), Executive Director North America and Market Development for Lloyd's of London, Director of Lloyd’s Asia and Chairman of Lloyd’s Japan. Prior to this, Susan held various Insurance Board positions. She joined the Insurance Market from PriceWaterhouseCoopers where she was a Principal Consultant working with a range of FTSE 100 companies. A founding member of the Government Women's Business Council, she is a past recipient of the Insurance Institute of London (IIL) President’s Award, the FS Women in the City Achievement Award, Women to Watch, Leading Women in Reinsurance and top 20 inspirational City Women. Born in the East End, she is passionate about social mobility and involved in a number of charitable and mentoring roles. In 2015 she received an OBE for services to women in business and in 2023, a DBE for public service to the financial services industry. Dame Susan graduated (BSc Hons) from Southampton University and married Gary in 2003. She is a Liveryman of the Insurers and Drapers and a Freeman of the Goldsmiths. Dame Susan is the Alderwoman for the City of London Aldgate Ward and served as Aldermanic Sheriff of the City of London 2023/2024. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/lady-mayor-26 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

    29 min

  3. APR 17

    The Shape of Gravity: Why On Earth Are Planets Spherical? - Alain Goriely

    This lecture was recorded by Alain Goriely on the 3rd of March 2026 at Barnard’s Inna 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 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 and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/shape-gravity 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

    49 min

  4. APR 14

    The Death of Athenian Democracy? - Melissa Lane

    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 University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa. Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy. Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/death-athenian-democracy 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

    44 min

  5. APR 10

    Guantánamo on the Euphrates? Syria in a Time of Opportunity - Clive Stafford Smith

    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 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 85 detainees, and continues to assist the remaining 30.  In all five of the cases he has helped bring to the U.S. Supreme Court the petitioner has prevailed.  The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/guantanamo-syria 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

    42 min

  6. APR 8

    The Universe’s 100th Birthday: Galactic Fireworks and Little Red Dots - Chris Lintott

    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 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 and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/universe-100 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

    49 min

  7. APR 3

    Bridget: Goddess and Saint - Professor Ronald Hutton

    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, 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. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/goddess-bridget 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

    49 min

  8. MAR 31

    Oligarchs and Their Discontents - Melissa Lane

    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 University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa. Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy. Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/oligarchs-discontents 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

    37 min
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About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    Gresham College
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2026
  • Episodes
    1K
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Gresham College
  • Show Website
    Gresham College Lectures

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