Show Notes
00:00 // Introduction: Meet Professor Melissa Lane Uploaded 24-07-2600:15 // Cicero's Dilemma: A Letter on Tyranny 03:07 // Who Was Cicero? Rise of a "New Man" 05:36 // Philosopher and Statesman of Rome 09:44 // Five Crises That Defined Cicero's Life 12:27 // Crisis One: The Gracchi and Land Reform 18:39 // Crisis Two: Sulla's Dictatorship and Civil War 23:16 // Crisis Three: The Catiline Conspiracy 27:13 // Crisis Four: Caesar's Tyranny and Assassination 31:45 // Crisis Five: Cicero's War Against Mark Antony 38:09 // Conclusion: Hero of the Republic, or Its Undoing?Watch the Q and A session here: https://youtu.be/QLC154lRXZ0An enthusiast of the Roman mixed constitution, Cicero was elected consul and in that role dramatically curbed the tyrannical ambitions of Catiline. He would later become fatally embroiled in the shifting politics of later generations of ambitious strongmen, while also writing his own theories of constitutional change. This lecture explores Cicero’s life and death as a way to articulate the crises of the late republic.This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 11th of June 2026Melissa 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, and was published in a paperback edition with modifications in 2025.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 of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/ciceroGresham 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.ukX: https://x.com/GreshamCollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollegeBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollegeSupport Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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It was during these years that British statesmen first came to appreciate that her international and economic position was under threat. The growth of German and American economic power exposed the fragility of Britain's hitherto unquestioned pre-eminence. Imperialism was the first response to decline, social reform the second. It was these years that saw the first stirrings of a new collectivism in the 'New Liberalism'.Uploaded 12-08-11The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/britain-in-the-20th-century-responses-to-decline-1895-1914Gresham 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/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
00:00 // AI as an EnvironmentUploaded 21-07-2600:34 // Coronation Choir Experiment: How Music Shapes Attention02:27 // Reframing Artificial Intelligence: From Tool to Living Environment03:41 // Old AI Fears: Faster, Smarter and Assimilating Us04:17 // Humanoid Robots, AI Coworkers and AI Companion Pets05:28 // Why AI Isn't Human: Mumbai, the Pope and a New Yorker Poem09:16 // Three Kinds of Power: Generative, Instrumental and Environmental10:38 // Michelangelo and the Power of Material Tools11:25 // How Cities, Buffets and Digital Design Shape Behaviour12:52 // AI as Agent vs AI as Instrument13:26 // Learning AI Like a Violin: How to Avoid "AI Slop"14:45 // Extended Cognition: Skateboards, Scalpels and the Crutch Story17:38 // Memory, the Google Effect and Prompting Claude AI Properly22:59 // Co-Creating with AI: Sketch-to-Image Research26:26 // Negroponte vs Weiser: The 1992 AI Debate That Predicted Today30:49 // Two AI Futures: Personal Butler vs Calm Technology33:19 // Cities, Music and the Neuroscience of Anticipation39:52 // Desirable Difficulty and the Risk of AI Knowledge Collapse44:24 // Critical Thinking, Attention and Tristan Harris on Big Tech48:14 // Designing Better AI: Alignment, Nudges and Key TakeawaysWatch the Q and A here: https://youtu.be/FX7ZwIzgz-IIn this last lecture, I will work to wake us from the AI as Overlord spell. We will explore other possible futures, looking first look at the potential of AI fitting in with us: things we can chat to; humanoid robots; or even devices that draw on understandings of pets to make them more palatable and pleasing. Secondly, I’ll suggest a way to weave AI into everyday life: as a “simple” instrument to enable our souls to sing.This lecture was recorded by Professor Matt Jones on the 2nd of June 2026 at Barnard’s Inna Hall, LondonMatt 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-futuresGresham 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 believ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Modernity kept seeping into ballet, a genre that had traditionally looked to a distant, mythical or magical past. First, the tutu gave way to an everyday tennis costume in Jeux by Debussy/Nijinsky, then ragtime rang out in Parade by Satie/Picasso, and in the 1920s Diaghilev decided staged a series of ballets drawn from contemporary life, and in particular, the French high society in which Diaghilev moved. Uploaded 11-06-26Milhaud and Poulenc provided the sparkling scores, while Coco Chanel added her sparkling costumes.A lecture by Marina Frolova-Walker 7 AprilThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/ballets-russes-turning-frenchGresham 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/greshamcollege Support the show (https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/one-donation) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Europe's Wars of Religion were fought against entire populations, and were punctuated by events remembered as atrocities: such as the siege of Leiden in 1573-4 or, most notoriously, the St Bartholomew's Day Massacres in France in 1572. Uploaded 11-06-26This lecture will ask how these events came to be so notorious, how and why they were remembered on each side, and how they shaped the history of civil conflict and ideas of coexistence and nationhood in the societies that endured them.A lecture by Alec Ryrie 5 FebruaryThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/europes-wars-religionGresham 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/greshamcollege Support the show (https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/one-donation) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As the musical half of the great Gilbert and Sullivan operetta-writing partnership, Sir Arthur Sullivan was behind some of the most memorable songs in English, but what were his secrets?Professor David Owen Norris outlines Sullivan's approach to writing his songs.Uploaded 20-10-11The transcript and downloadable versions of this part of the 'Sullivan Song Day' conference are available from the on the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/sullivan-song-day-1Gresham 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.http://www.gresham.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices