Gresham College Lectures

How can the visual arts be used to promote peace? Professor Mitchell investigates how the visual arts can not only incite violence, but also bear witness, reveal dangerous memories, transform violence, contribute to healing trauma and imagine more hopeful futures. Examples are taken from both current conflicts (Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine) and past wars (Paul Nash and Otto Dix in the First World War, local artists in the Iran-Iraq War and the 1984 Rwandan genocide). Professor Mitchell analyses the ambivalent role of the visual arts in building peace.

This lecture was recorded by professor Jolyon Mitchell on 11th February 2026 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London

Professor Jolyon Mitchell is Principal of St John’s College, Durham and a Professor at Durham University who specialises in Religion, Violence and Peacebuilding, with reference to the arts and media. Educated at the Universities of Cambridge, Durham and Edinburgh, Professor Mitchell worked as a Producer and Journalist with BBC World service and Radio 4 before moving to the University of Edinburgh where he served as Director of CTPI (the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at the University of Edinburgh) and Academic Director for IASH (Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities). He is a former President of TRS-UK (2012-2018 - the national association for Theology and Religious Studies in the UK). 

He is author or editor of over a dozen books, as well as many chapters and articles, including Promoting Peace and Inciting Violence: The Role of Religion and Media (Routledge, 2012); Martyrdom: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2012); Religion and War: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2021), Religion and Peace (Wiley Blackwell, 2022), Picturing Peace: Photography, Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding (Bloomsbury, 2025) and Media Violence and Christian Ethics (CUP, 2007). He is currently finishing a book on A Passion for Performance: The mysterious resurgence of religious drama (OUP, 2027). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), an honorary fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and a life member of Clare Hall, at the University of Cambridge. 

Professor Mitchell has also served on international film juries at the Cannes, Berlin and Venice film festivals. He directs several projects on Peacebuilding, including one which led to a widely used co-edited volume on Peacebuilding and the Arts (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020). He has also worked with Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders, as well as Palestinian and Israeli journalists, on a peace building project in Jerusalem and beyond. A keen cricketer and former marathon runner, he has lectured all over the world. 

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/peacebuilding-arts

Gresham 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/

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This lecture was recorded by Alain Goriely on 13th February 2026 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London

Alain Goriely is a mathematician with broad interests in mathematical methods, mechanics, sciences, and engineering. He is well known for his contributions to dynamical systems, mathematical biology, as well as fundamental and applied mechanics. He is particularly well known for the development of a mathematical theory of biological growth, culminating with his seminal monograph The Mathematics on Mechanics of Biological Growth (2017).

He received his PhD from the University of Brussels in 1994 where he became a lecturer. In 1996, he joined the University of Arizona where he established a research group within the renowned Program of Applied Mathematics. In 2010, he joined the University of Oxford as the inaugural Statutory Professor of Mathematical Modelling and fellow of St. Catherine’s College. He is currently the Director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/she-sells

Gresham 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/

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This lecture was recorded by Clive Stafford Smith on the 9th of February 2026 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, London

Clive Stafford Smith JD OBE is a dual UK-US national, the founder and director of the Justice League a non-profit human rights training centre focused on fostering the next generation of advocates. 
He was the Senior Prefect at Radley College, where he studied maths and science; then a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), where he took a degree in Politics; and a Stone Merit Scholar each of his three years at Columbia Law School, graduating in 1984. 
He previously founded and directed the legal action charities Louisiana Capital Assistance Center (1993 in New Orleans) and Reprieve (1999 in London). Since 1984 he has tried many capital cases, and helped to represent over 400 people facing execution in the US and elsewhere. He also brought the first challenge to Guantánamo Bay, where he has secured the release of 85 detainees, and continues to assist the remaining 30.  In all five of the cases he has helped bring to the U.S. Supreme Court the petitioner has prevailed. 
He has recently taken on the case of Aafia Siddiqui, the woman who has most suffered from the US rendition-to-torture program – abducted with her three children. He continues to work on capital cases in the US, including a Post-Mortem Project where he is investigating the claims of innocence of 184 people executed since 1977.
Clive has published a number of books including Bad Men (2008, describing work in Guantánamo) and Injustice (2012, on the capital case of Kris Maharaj), both of which were short-listed for the Orwell Prize; and most recently The Far Side of the Moon (2023), deconstructing the parallel lives of his father and a client Larry Lonchar, both of whom were labelled Bipolar. He has many other publications, including manuals for the defence of capital cases, and law review articles about aspects of capital defence. He has worked on many films and documentaries, starting with Fourteen Days In May (1987), recently ranked as one of the top BBC documentaries of all time. 
While continuing his litigation practice, Clive teaches part time at Bristol Law School and Goldsmiths as well as running a summer programme for 35 students in Dorset, his home. He has received all kinds of awards in recognition of his work, including an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II for “services to humanity” in 2000. He has been a member of the Louisiana State Bar since 1984. 

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/pictures-afghanistan

Gresham 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
 
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Watch the Q&A session here: https://youtu.be/9ozYDQFkfaY

When death occurs, the state has a duty to investigate. Every death must be registered locally with a cause of death. And now, more than any other country, all deaths are double-checked, with coroners having a significant role in over 30% of them, explaining the unexplained and reporting to prevent future deaths.

This lecture explains:
 - Who are coroners and what they do  
 - When an inquest must take place  
 - How coroners arrive at a just conclusion and 
 - The benefit to the health and welfare of the nation in death investigation

This lecture was recorded by Sir Peter Thornton KC on the 5th of Feburary 2026 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.

His Honour Sir Peter Thornton KC was a practising barrister in criminal and human rights law, a QC (now KC), founder member and head of Doughty Street Chambers in London, a Senior Circuit Judge at the Old Bailey (the Central Criminal Court) and judge in the High Court and Court of Appeal (Criminal Division).   

Sir Peter was the first Chief Coroner of England and Wales.   

He is now a Visiting Professor at King’s College London (where he teaches a course, Death investigation: coroners and inquests), a member of the Independent Expert Panel of the House of Commons, and an international trainer of coroners and judges with the Civil Service College, the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association and the Slynn Foundation.  

His latest book is The Later Years: The simple guide to organising the rest of your life (Bedford Square Publishers, 2025). He also conducts workshops on Life and lifestyle in the later years.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/death-coroners

Gresham 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/

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Sometime in 2026, we will discover our 10000th exoplanet, a world around a distant star. This population of worlds has proved remarkably diverse, but hasn’t produced any world like our own. We ask whether this is a coincidence, or whether it could be that our own world is special – and how we might investigate other worlds like our own when we do find them.
This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on 4th February 2026 at Conway Hall, London.
Professor Chris Lintott is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow at New College.
Having been educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge and University College London, his research now ranges from understanding how galaxies form and evolve, to using machine learning to find the most unusual things in the Universe, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He was the founder of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for more than two million online volunteers to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, 'The Crowd and the Cosmos’. His latest book is ‘Our Accidental Universe’. 
Professor Lintott is best known for presenting the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program, and as an accomplished lecturer. Away from work, he cooks, suffers through being a fan of Torquay United and Somerset cricket, and spends time with a rescued lurcher, Mr Max. He can often be found at the helm of Oxford’s science comedy night, ‘Huh, That’s Funny’.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/alien-earths
Gresham 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/

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