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Shostakovich on Trial: from Lady Macbeth to the Fifth Symphony
This lecture focuses on one of the watershed moments of Soviet music history: the censure of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and the co…
4 years, 3 months ago
Your Body Parts and the Law
Do we own our own body parts? What can we do with them? Can we sell them and control what others do with them? People often say, "it’s my body&q…
4 years, 3 months ago
The Universal Value of Nature
Does nature have a universal value? Can we consider natural capital as equivalent to financial capital?
This lecture gives a brief history of value, …
4 years, 3 months ago
Sexually Transmitted and Intravenous Infections
Some diseases are specialised in using sexual behaviour for transmission. Major pandemics including HIV and syphilis have been transmitted via this r…
4 years, 3 months ago
Pornography
Pornography reflects as well as creates sexual norms and practices. The period from the 1960s to the mid-1980s has been called the 'Golden Age o…
4 years, 3 months ago
Seeing God in Art: The Christian Faith in 30 Images
Lord Richard Harries has selected 30 images to convey the essential truths of the Christian faith, some ancient and some modern. Drawn from both the …
4 years, 4 months ago
Fiction and the Supernatural
From Horace Walpole to Ann Radcliffe, renegade novelists of the eighteenth century wanted to claim back the supernatural for fiction and so invented …
4 years, 4 months ago
Christmas Carols and Nostalgia
This lecture takes a trip down Christmas’s unique and emotionally complex memory lane via the Christmas Carol.
Carols paint a colourful picture of th…
4 years, 4 months ago
Judicial Racism and the Lammy Review
Judges, who are typically drawn from privileged backgrounds, wield vast power over the lives of the most marginalised people in society. This lecture…
4 years, 5 months ago
Attacks on Knowledge from Ashurbanipal to Trump
This lecture explores the destruction of libraries, archives and other knowledge, from Babylonian times until now, and its implications for society t…
4 years, 5 months ago