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Cinema’s original canons were based on a small number of works most highly esteemed by archivists and historians. But access to the history of film has been dramatically expanded by digital media, as have debates between those arguing from different premises.
There is a seismic shift underway in economics, hastened by the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Communities and countries around the world are beginning to adopt/consider adopting well-being and prosperity as major guiding principles.
The baby boomers have accumulated assets and have generous occupational pensions. Should they pass these assets to their descendants, with the risk of growing inequality, or should they be taxed to benefit society as a whole? Is inheriting morally dangerous? Or are inheritance taxes theft?
Canons of taste and value in other media, such as literature, art and music, have been challenged in recent decades by proponents of sexual and ethnic equality.
For nearly seventy years, what might be called ‘the canon’ of greatest films has been arbitrated by an international poll of critics delivering a ‘ten best’ list every decade, published in the BFI’s Sight & Sound.
China’s media provide a window into the Chinese mind, as the country asserts itself in the world as a great power. What do Chinese people think is the purpose of life? What matters most to them? In what do they believe? How do officials and journalists explain their responsibilities?
How has Covid-19 re-shaped our ideas about what we owe society? The lockdown has had a terrible impact on the economic prospects of young people, and the elderly have suffered from high mortality in care homes.
In 1920, Nellie Melba’s singing was transmitted to Europe and Newfoundland via the wireless. In 1922 the BBC began broadcasting, and from the outset sponsored new music and relayed outside broadcasts to the nation (and from 1932, to the world).