Lectures and Talks

This lecture by Professor Simon Goldhill, Director of CRASSH, describes how Victorian painters used the classical body to express a complex and often conflicted notion of male desire, and how such images still inform the imagination today.

Today's world is faced with a multiplicity of challenges including energy, food, water and economic well-being. Each of these will ultimately culminate in an impact on the agenda for the development of health services. Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz discusses the challenges and priorities for world health.

Politics have played a more significant part in the regulation of reproductive medicine than is commonly recognised. Baroness Deech discusses her work as chair of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and argues that rearranging the regulatory body will not in fact save money but risks the accountability and security of the field.

While the years of New Labour have been sometimes characterised as a golden age for culture, the first decade of the 21st century was a difficult time for heritage. Simon Thurley, who was at the helm of English Heritage through the period, looks back at what went wrong and assesses the future of the nation’s heritage.

In this lecture, Professor David Spiegelhalter looks at examples of communication of sensitive topics, from statins to swine flu, climate change to volcanic ash.

In this lecture, Dr Hugh Hunt describes the challenges he and his team encountered when recreating the bouncing bomb, including scale model testing, design of a drop rig, targeting the dam and designing the explosive. The experience really put into perspective the wartime achievements of Barnes Wallis and his engineers and airmen.

Francis Warner was born in Yorkshire in 1937 but spent the years of the Second World War in Epsom, Surrey, where his father was a parish priest. In this very personal reminiscence, he describes the terrors of life in 'Bomb Alley', the sustenance provided by his family and his faith, and the effect the Blitz had on the lives of those who survived it.

Astronomer Royal Lord Rees explains how the first atoms, stars and planets emerged -- and how, on at least one planet around at least one star, life began and a complex biosphere evolved. What were the key stages in this process? How did the laws of nature allow such complexity to emerge, and what can we infer about the overall scale and structure of the cosmos? And what lies in the far future?