Search | Gresham College

Offensive Shakespeare

From The Merchant of Venice to The Taming of the Shrew, it’s easy to see how Shakespeare’s plays can cause offence to contemporary audiences. Is it harder to teach Shakespeare today than in the past? Have ideas about what is offensive in Shakespeare changed over time?

Exporting Russia: Diaghilev’s Beginnings

In this lecture we follow his early years, when he published The World of Art, a provocative Russian journal, exhibited Russian visual art in Paris, and then brought Russian music there, culminating in his production of Musorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov.

Prokofiev's War and Peace

Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace (1953) was an adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel begun during WWII. He saw it as a personal interpretation of the novel.

How to be a Shakespearean Atheist

This lecture will explore how the sixteenth century found ways of distancing itself from religion.

The Theatre of Dionysus

This lecture outlines the origins of Greek drama in this historic setting, its architectural development and some of the greatest masterpieces.

What is Greek Theatre?

Prof. Edith Hall breaks down the tragedy from the comedy...

Shakespeare's Stages

Leading actor and Shakespeare scholar Michael Pennington discusses the direct effect on the dramatist's writing of the theatres he wrote for, so different from ours.

Russia After Communism

What is Russia’s place in the world now? And what does the turbulence of the last 25 years tell us about where it is heading?

Shakespeare's Fame

This final lecture will show how Shakespeare helped to immortalize the famous figures of ancient Greece and Rome, and how he in turn became famous after his death.

The USSR in the Cold War Years

After Stalin’s death in 1953, successive leaders tried to find ways to revitalise the Soviet regime and rethink its promises to the Soviet people. Life within a system no longer based on terror and intense industrial transformation offered citizens strange alternatives.

Suggested searches:

For the Love of Learning since 1597

Popular topics:

Search results