Gresham College Lectures

One of the first executive orders issued by President Trump in January was EO 14164 designed to “restore the death penalty”, though actually aimed at far more (including making the prison conditions of those commuted by Biden reflect the “monstrosity” of their crimes). We will explore what this means for the 2,400 people on America’s death row, at the same time as reviewing the rising levels of innocent people being executed – my own ‘Post Mortem Project’ indicating that as many as 13 percent of those killed since 1976 have strong innocence cases. This lecture was recorded by Clive Stafford-Smith on the 4th of December 2025 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, LondonClive 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. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/trump-deathGresham 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 Website:  https://gresham.ac.ukX: https://x.com/GreshamCollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollegeBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollegeSupport Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-todaySupport the show

During the fifty years since the launch of the Viking spacecraft to Mars, our view of the red planet has changed from hostile desert to a world which was once covered in water, and which may just possibly sustain life. Lavishly illustrated with the latest images from the fleet of spacecraft that have explored our neighbour, this lecture considers how Mars’ fate, like that of Earth, was set in the Solar System’s first billion years, and the chaotic environment the process of planet formation produced.This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on the 3rd of December 2025 at Conway Hall, LondonProfessor 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 of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/mars-loveGresham 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 Website:  https://gresham.ac.ukX: https://x.com/GreshamCollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollegeBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollegeSupport Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-todaySupport the show

This lecture looks at the 'surreal' art of the Early Netherlandish painter Jheronimus Bosch within its historical and cultural context. Although Bosch’s terrifying visions of sin, death, and the hereafter may appear surreal today, especially his highly imaginative depictions of devils, they were tied to the religious attitudes and moralising texts of the period, such as the Ars moriendi, the Dance of Death, and Everyman. It is in this context that one should examine Bosch’s Haywain Triptych, Garden of Earthly Delights, and other works.This lecture was recorded by Dr Sophie Oosterwijk FSA on the 10th of December 2025 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.Sophie is Vice President of The Church Monuments Society and was for many years editor of its journal Church Monuments. Born in Gouda (Netherlands), she is a recognised specialist in Early Netherlandish and Dutch art. After studying English at Leiden and Medieval Studies at York, she obtained two doctorates in Art History (Leicester) and English Literature (Leiden). She previously taught art history at the Universities of Leicester, Manchester and St Andrews.  Since her return to the Netherlands, Sophie has been working as a freelance researcher and guest lecturer for the University of Cambridge, The Arts Society (formerly NADFAS), and other organisations. She has published widely, especially on death, the danse macabre and commemorative art. Her latest book, a co-edited volume entitled Writing, Dancing and Performing Death across Late Medieval Europe, is due to be published by Brill in 2025. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/hieronymusGresham 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/Website:  https://gresham.ac.ukTwitter:  https://twitter.com/greshamcollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show

Hecate started as the ruling goddess of the Asian region of Caria, and got taken over by the Greeks as the only one able to operate in every realm of the cosmos. This then gave her special responsibility for travellers, doorways and restless ghosts. That slowly darkened her image, so that she became associated with the night, the moon, and magicians. By the Roman period, she was the goddess of sorcery par excellence, invoked for all sorts of enchantments, good or bad. In the late ancient worlds this also turned her into a saviour figure, enabling humans directly to contact the divine. This lecture traces that colourful journey.This lecture was recorded by Robin May on the 26th of November 2025 at Bernard’s Inn Hall, LondonProfessor Hutton is Professor of History at the University of Bristol. He took degrees at Cambridge and then Oxford Universities, and was a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is now a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries and the Learned Society of Wales, and has won awards for teaching and research.He has lectured all over the world, authored twenty books and ninety-six essays, appeared in or presented scores of television and radio programmes, and sits on the editorial boards of six journals concerned with the history of religion and magic.He is currently working on the third volume of his biography of Oliver Cromwell. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/goddess-hecateGresham 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 Website:  https://gresham.ac.ukX: https://x.com/GreshamCollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollegeBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcollege.bsky.social TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@greshamcollegeSupport Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-todaySupport the show

In this lecture, Tsang examines the strategic goals and direction of travel China’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping, has set for the country and its people. He highlights what China’s new de facto state ideology Xi Jinping Thought is in order to explain systematically Xi’s domestic and global ambitions. In short, what Xi seeks to do is to forge one country, one people, one ideology, one party and one leader’ to make China great again or to accomplish the China Dream of national rejuvenation.This lecture was recorded by Professor Steve Tsang on the 27th of November 2025 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.Steve Tsang is Professor of China Studies and Director of the China Institute, SOAS, London. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford. He previously served as the Head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies and as Director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham.  Before that he spent 29 years at Oxford University, where he earned his D.Phil. and worked as a Professorial Fellow, Dean, and Director of the Asian Studies Centre at St Antony’s College. He has a broad area of research interest and has published extensively, including five single authored and fourteen collaborative books.  His latest (with Olivia Cheung) is The Political Thought of Xi Jinping (Oxford University Press, 2024).  He is currently completing a new book, ‘China’s Global Strategy under Xi Jinping’, which will be published by OUP in 2026. The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/china-futureGresham 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/Website:  https://gresham.ac.ukTwitter:  https://twitter.com/greshamcollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollegeSupport the show