Mary Beard, Homi Bhabha and Seán Williams join Shahidha Bari to look at the etiquette of talks on zoom and the history of lectures. Lecturing someone can be a negative: you’re patronising or boring or telling them what to think. And yet, today we have TED talks, university staff are routinely recording lectures using video conferencing technology, and the history of thought is a history of persuasive speakers setting out their ideas before audiences.

Dr Seán Williams is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker who lectures in German intellectual and cultural history at the University of Sheffield. Mary Beard is a Dame and Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and has given various lectures at universities, the British Museum and the London Review of Books, the Society for Classical Studies, the Gifford Lecture Series. She also presents on TV and has authored many books. Homi Bhabha is a Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and is the author of many books. He considers Memory and Migration in this Free Thinking Lecture recorded in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005gt9

Readings: Ewan Bailey

Other programmes exploring aspects of language: What is Speech : Matthew Sweet's guests include Trevor Cox and Rebecca Roache https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q2f3 The Impact of Being Multi-Lingual: John Gallagher talks to Katrin Kohl, Rajinder Dudrah and Wen-chin Ouyang https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mq6k Language and Belonging: Preti Taneja's guests include Michael Rosen, Guy Gunaratne and Momtaza Mehri https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07fvbhn The Free Thinking Festival Lecture on Feelings from Professor Thomas Dixon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003rsw The Free Thinking Festival Lecture on Knowledge from Karen Armstrong https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tw41j

Producer: Eliane Glaser