Gresham College Lectures

This lecture was recorded by Jane Shaw on Monday, 07 Sep 2026.

Professor Jane Shaw is Provost of Gresham College and Professor of the History of Religion at the University of Oxford.

Professor Shaw was formerly Principal of Harris Manchester College and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Oxford. She has also served as Dean for Religious Life and Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford; as Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco; and, prior to her time in California, she taught history and theology at the University of Oxford for 16 years.

Her books include Miracles in Enlightenment England (Yale 2006); Octavia, Daughter of God: The Story of a Female Messiah and her Followers (Jonathan Cape and Yale 2011); and the co-authored Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age (Chicago 2021).

She is currently writing Seeking Infinity: Mystics in the Modern World (forthcoming with Penguin Allen Lane) and has received Fellowships to support the completion of that book from the Leverhulme Trust and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study.  

Professor Shaw was educated at Oxford, Harvard, and U. C. Berkeley. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

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

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 is the Annual Sir Thomas Gresham Lecture. What does modern physics have to say about the meaning of time? Is it a fundamental feature of reality or merely an emergent property from something deeper? Does time flow, and is the present moment special when Einstein tells us that all times coexist. Where does the arrow of time come from if all the fundamental laws of physics are symmetric in time? This lecture will examine many of these issues and give our best guess answers as we understand the universe today.

This lecture was recorded by Jim Al-Khalili on the 23rd of June 2026

Jim Al-Khalili is a quantum physicist, author and broadcaster. As an academic, he is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Surrey. He received his PhD in nuclear physics in 1989 and has published over 150 papers in the field. His current research interests are in the foundations of quantu mechanics and the exciting new field of quantum biology.
As a science communicator Jim hosts BBC Radio 4’s long running show, The Life Scientific, which attracts two million weekly listeners. His many TV science documentaries over the past two decades include Atom, The Story of Electricity and the Bafta nominated Chemistry: a volatile history. His fifteen books on popular science and the history of science have been translated into twenty-six languages. He is currently working on an ambitious new book on the nature of time due out in Autumn 2026.
Jim is a past president of both the British Science Association and Humanists UK and is a recipient of the Royal Society Michael Faraday medal and the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar medal, the Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and the Stephen Hawking medal and has ten honorary doctorates from UK universities. He received an OBE from the Queen in 2007 and later a CBE in 2021, both for ‘services to science and public engagement in STEM’. He is a trustee and commissioner on the board of the 1851 Royal Commission and a Fellow of the Science Museums Group.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/thomas-gresham-26 

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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This lecture was recorded by Professor Milton Mermikides on the 19th of June 2026

Milton Mermikides is a composer, guitarist, technologist, academic and educator in a wide range of musical styles and has collaborated with artists and scientists as diverse as Evelyn Glennie, Tim Minchin, Pat Martino, Peter Zinovieff, John Williams and Brian Eno. Son of a CERN nuclear physicist, he was raised with an enthusiasm for both the arts and sciences, an eclecticism which has been maintained throughout his teaching, research and creative career. 

He is a graduate of the London School of Economics (BSc), Berklee College of Music (BMus) and the University of Surrey (PhD). He has lectured, exhibited and given keynote presentations at organisations like the Royal Academy of Music, TEDx, Royal Musical Association, British Library, Smithsonian Institute and The Science Museum and his work has been featured extensively in the press. His music, research and graphic art are published and featured by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony and more, and he has won awards, scholarships and commendations for writing, teaching, research and his charity work.      

Milton is Professor of Music at the University of Surrey, Professor of Guitar at the Royal College of Music, Deputy Director of the International Guitar Research Centre, an Ableton Certified Trainer, and lives in London with his wife, the guitarist Bridget Mermikides and their daughter Chloe. He is also a Vice-Chair of Governors at Addison Primary School, a state school which foregrounds music education, offering free instrumental lessons for all on Pupil Premium. 

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

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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This lecture was recorded by Ronald Hutton on the 17th of June 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London
Professor 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.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/goddess-morrigan
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/
Website:  https://gresham.ac.uk
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This is the Annual Gray's Inn Reading 2026.
The lecture was delivered within three months of Sir Andrew McFarlane’s retirement after 21 years on the Family Bench. Whilst the phrase ‘un-plugged’ may not be appropriate, it is anticipated that the lecturer will no longer feel restrained by judicial caution when commenting upon the future development of Family Justice. In addition to a focus on the future of adoption law and the need for significant reform in relation to the financial rights of cohabitants, the lecturer will use a perspective gained from 8 years as the judicial Head of Family Justice to offer suggestions for reform of the system itself.

This lecture was recorded by The Rt Hon Sir Andrew McFarlane on the 15th of June 2026

Andrew McFarlane was called to the Bar in 1977 and practiced in chambers in Birmingham until 1993 when he moved to specialist family law chambers in London. He appeared at all levels of court including the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights. He was appointed as a QC in 1998. In April 2005 he was appointed to the High Court, Family Division and was for 5 years the Family Division Liaison Judge for the Midland Circuit. He was the legal member of the Government ‘Family Justice Review’ Panel. In July 2011 he was appointed to be a Lord Justice of Appeal sitting full time in the Court of Appeal. On the 28th July 2018 Sir Andrew succeeded Sir James Munby as President of the Family Division and Head of Family Justice; he is due to retire as President at Easter 2026.
Together with the late David Hershman he is the co-author of a loose-leaf legal text book entitled “Children: Law and Practice”. In addition, he has contributed to other publications and lectured throughout the UK and abroad.
Sir Andrew has been a trustee of YoungMinds (the national young person’s mental health charity) and is Patron of HOPE Family Centre (Bromyard) and of a prisoner support charity ‘Not Beyond Redemption’. In addition to being Chancellor of the Diocese of Exeter, Sir Andrew was Chairman of the Church of England Clergy Discipline Commission and President of Clergy Discipline Tribunals for 5 years until 2019. He has been a native of Herefordshire and Worcestershire for over 35 years and is a lay canon of Hereford Cathedral.

The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/grays-inn-26

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
 
Website:  https://gresham.ac.uk
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Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/donate-today
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