Gresham College provides outstanding educational talks and videos for the public free of charge. There are over 2,500 videos available on our website. Your support will help us to encourage people's love of learning for many years to come.
There are large disparities in economic performance at the regional level in the UK. We need to consider what kinds of policies might raise regional performance and the extent which directed industrial policies and infrastructure spending might be employed to iron out differences.
In this lecture, Jonathan Bate will summon up the ghosts of Old Hamlet, the victims of Richard III and Julius Caesar, revealing their origins in the bloody plays of Seneca.
There are green marketing scams, and dubious data being deployed to benefit shareholders. Are global businesses now leading politicians in moving towards more sustainable practice or is this an example of a ‘post-truth’ society?
It is well known that Shakespeare lived in an age of monarchy and wrote powerfully in his English history plays about the duties of the sovereign. In this lecture, Jonathan Bate will tell another, forgotten story: of how Shakespeare was also fascinated by Roman political models.
Housing represents the main asset class held by UK households and we shall try to understand why it is held as such a large share of assets. We shall then outline whether this choice has other knock on effects in the economy such as labour and social mobility.
The Rape of Lucrece set the mould for Shakespeare’s exploration of the tragic consequences of sexual desire turning to violence. Jonathan Bate will show how Shakespeare developed these themes from his reading of the great Roman poet Ovid.
What do we mean by a hero and where does our understanding of the ‘heroic’ idiom come from? In this lecture, Jonathan Bate will show how Shakespeare’s idea of the hero was shaped by the classical tradition, going back to the ancient tale of Troy and Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid.
Jonathan Bate tells the story of how and why Shakespeare was steeped in the classics, from his earliest plays such as Titus Andronicus and The Comedy of Errors to his dramatisations of the stories of Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra.
'When well-appareled April on the heel / Of limping winter treads'. A calendar month cannot dress, nor can a season walk. This lecture will explore the magic of personification in Shakespeare's poetry.