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.
Are villains cardboard characters? If so, why do we enjoy them so much? Drawing examples from film and TV drama, as well as from popular fiction, this lecture will try to explain the satisfaction of villainy for the audience. Using the novels of Wilkie Collins and Thomas Hardy, it will look at the development of the villain in nineteenth-century fiction; and at examples of contemporary literary novelists, like Hilary Mantel, who are willing to unleash the energies of villainy.
Florian Mitrea was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1989. He started studying piano with professor Flavia Moldovan at the age of 6. He continued his studies at The George Enescu Music High School, under professor Gabriela Enăşescu. During his studies
As part of the symposium entitled ‘Cultural Heritage and War’, Sir Derek Plumbly, Dr Elisabeth Kendall and Dr Mark Altaweel answer questions from the floor in panel discussion chaired by Professor Tim Connell.
As part of the symposium entitled ‘Cultural Heritage and War’, Dr Elisabeth Kendall shares her experiences of poetry within the Arab world and how it is interpreted and manipulated by different cultural groups across the Middle East.
As part of the symposium entitled ‘Cultural Heritage and War’, Dr Mark Altaweel discusses the situation in Iraq and Syria since the Fall of Mosul in 2011 and the looting of historical objects and artefacts coming into the Western Art Market and being sold illegally.