Gresham College
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Donald Trump and the Death Penalty | Gresham College
Donald Trump and the Death Penalty | Gresham College
One of the first executive orders issued by President Trump in January was EO 14164 designed to “restore the death penalty”, though actually aimed at far more (including making the prison conditions of those commuted by Biden reflect the “monstrosity” of their crimes). We will explore what this means for the 2,400 people on America’s death row, at the same time as reviewing the rising levels of innocent people being executed – my own ‘Post Mortem Project’ indicating that as many as 13 percent of those killed since 1976 have strong innocence cases.
Music of Animals | Gresham College
Music of Animals | Gresham College
Do animals make music? Are the languages of whales and birds truly songs? To answer this, we must first understand what we mean by music as human animals—and how it might emerge across the animal kingdom. From Messiaen’s transcriptions of bird calls to the rhythmic gaits of horses echoing in the blues, we’ll hear how animal behaviours form an unwitting orchestra and explore whether music is uniquely human or a shared language with our animal cousins.
Hitler, Jesus & How to Win a Culture War
Hitler, Jesus & How to Win a Culture War
Since 1945, Hitler and the Nazis have been the Western world’s one fixed moral reference point: the way we know what evil is. But that consensus has always been more fragile than it felt, and now it is unravelling. This lecture will trace how we came to build our values around the memory of the Second World War, why that consensus isn’t enough to deal with our current predicaments – and why the resolution to all this might be more hopeful than you think.
The Great God Pan: Lord of the Wild
The Great God Pan: Lord of the Wild
Pan started as a shepherds’ god in a wild and backward area of Greece, but became one of the best-known in the Greek and Roman world. This was partly because the leading city of Athens imported him as a saviour, and partly because he came to represent the freedom, peace and simplicity of the countryside to urban people. He was the most earthy of Greek deities, summing up wild nature in its beauty but also its danger. He was a god of both liberation and menace, and this lecture faces up to him as both.
Evoking Empathy through Animal Portraiture
Evoking Empathy through Animal Portraiture
The natural world faces unprecedented threats, challenging historical perceptions of nature as inexhaustible. Photographer Tim Flach draws on his acclaimed works, including Endangered, More Than Human, and Birds, to reveal how photography transcends traditional wildlife representation. By employing critical anthropomorphism and human portraiture techniques, Flach’s images foster empathy and kinship with animals.
Why Do We Laugh?
Why Do We Laugh?
Laughter is an incredibly powerful and yet mysterious emotion. We laugh with delight, but also surprise. We laugh at jokes, but also at embarrassment. Why? What subconscious signal is laughter intended to display? Why do we laugh when someone tickles us and what should we make of the fact that rodents do it too? And why is it that people’s sense of humour differs wildly and yet some drugs can send us all into fits of the giggles, even if there is nothing to laugh at?
From Mars with Love: Postcards from 50 Years of Exploring The Red Planet
From Mars with Love: Postcards from 50 Years of Exploring The Red Planet
During the fifty years since the launch of the Viking spacecraft to Mars, our view of the red planet has changed from hostile desert to a world which was once covered in water, and which may just possibly sustain life. Lavishly illustrated with the latest images from the fleet of spacecraft that have explored our neighbour, this lecture considers how Mars’ fate, like that of Earth, was set in the Solar System’s first billion years, and the chaotic environment the process of planet formation produced.
Ocean: The Liquid Engine That Dominates Our Planet
Ocean: The Liquid Engine That Dominates Our Planet
We often talk about living on a blue planet, but when we think we’re talking about the ocean we’re generally only discussing what’s in it: fish, whales, pollution and ships. But that is to miss the biggest story on Earth, because it’s the water itself that sets the scene for everything else. This lecture will outline how the ocean engine works – its internal anatomy, how the components move, and how this engine has directly influenced our history and culture.
Christmas Lies and Legends
Christmas Lies and Legends
Is Santa really Dutch? Were Christmas Trees introduced by Prince Albert? Was Christmas once a time of faith, rather than riotous feasting?
The Man Who Invented Christmas: Film Adaptations of Dickens' A Christmas Carol
The Man Who Invented Christmas: Film Adaptations of Dickens' A Christmas Carol
How do the different versions reflect the politics and culture of their own particular times? What makes a good Carol movie? Is it truth to the original or is it something else?
Christmas Carols and Nostalgia
Christmas Carols and Nostalgia
This lecture takes a trip down Christmas’s unique and emotionally complex memory lane via the Christmas Carol. Carols paint a colourful picture of the Christmas story itself, frequently by adapting pre-existing material. The crowded stable at Bethlehem appears simultaneously ancient and modern, as do the carols that commemorate the Nativity. Christmas is indelibly associated with our own childhood experiences at home, in church, or out in the cold.
China’s Economic Prospects on the Cusp
China’s Economic Prospects on the Cusp
China has important islands of technological excellence, even dominance, but these islands exist in a sea of macroeconomic imbalances and headwinds. Xi Jinping is adamant that by focusing on technology, and other aspects of national security, China can hold sway in the global system and determine global governance. Many western economists and even some in China are not so sure, choosing to wonder if the government has the political capacity to address deep-seated economic problems.
Professor Jane Shaw to become Gresham College’s new Provost
Professor Jane Shaw to become Gresham College’s new Provost
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