Lectures & Events

Lectures and discussions from the LRB, including our yearly Winter Lecture series.

The Genesis of Blame

Anne Enright, 13 November 2024

6 March 2018 · 35mins

Anne Enright delivers her lecture on how corruptions of the Adam and Eve story have poisoned relations between men and women.

Women in Power

Mary Beard, 13 November 2024

8 March 2017 · 1hr 13mins

From Medusa to Merkel, Mary Beard considers the extent to which the exclusion of women from power is culturally embedded.

Let Them Drown

Naomi Klein, 13 November 2024

4 May 2016 · 1hr 28mins

In her 2016 Edward W. Said lecture, Naomi Klein examines how Said's ideas of racial hierarchy, including Orientalism, have been the silent partners to climate change since the earliest days of the steam engine.

Easter 1916

Colm Tóibín, 13 November 2024

5 April 2016 · 1hr 06mins

Colm Tóibín tells the story of Easter 1916, following the main personalities involved, including Thomas Clarke and Patrick Pearse.

Where on earth are you?

Frances Stonor Saunders, 13 November 2024

29 February 2016 · 56mins

Frances Stonor Saunders inspects the complex apparatus of today’s border regimes and their obsession with the verified self.

Robbing the Poor

James Meek, 13 November 2024

15 February 2016 · 1hr 22mins

James Meek argues that the Robin Hood myth has been turned on its head by the wealthiest and most powerful, so that those who were previously considered 'poor' are now accused of wallowing in luxury.

Translating Kafka

Will Self, 13 November 2024

24 September 2015 · 1hr 42mins

Will Self talks to leading translators Dr Anthea Bell, Dr Joyce Crick, Dr Karen Seago and Professor Amanda Hopkinson about the complexities of Franz Kafka’s German.

The Edward W. Said London Lecture 2015

Daniel Barenboim, 13 November 2024

29 May 2015 · 1hr 10mins

Daniel Barenboim calls for ‘music once more to be taught in schools on a par with literature, mathematics or biology’. 

Learning My Lesson

Marina Warner, 13 November 2024

19 March 2015 · 1hr

Marina Warner shows how higher education in the UK has been betrayed, in her 2015 LRB Winter Lecture.

Against Self-Criticism

Adam Phillips, 13 November 2024

5 March 2015 · 1hr 11mins

Adam Philips reflects on the ways we hate ourselves, in his 2015 LRB Winter Lecture.

Germany’s Sense of Itself and the World’s Sense of Germany

Franziska Augstein, Neal Ascherson, Christopher Clark and Nicholas Spice, 13 November 2024

6 February 2015 · 1hr 19mins

Franziska Augstein, Norbert Röttgen, Neal Ascherson and Christopher Clark discuss how Germany sees itself and how the world sees it, with Nicholas Spice.

From James Bulger to Jimmy Savile

Andrew O’Hagan, 13 November 2024

3 September 2013 · 58mins

Andrew O’Hagan talks about his work for the LRB, from his first piece on the murder of James Bulger to his more recent essay on paedophile culture.

Where now for the Catholic Church?

Colm Tóibín, 13 November 2024

2 September 2013 · 58mins

Colm Tóibín talks to Barney Zwartz, Morag Fraser and Peter Horsfield about the new pope and whether reform is possible within the Catholic Church.

Picasso’s Guernica Revisited

T.J. Clark, 13 November 2024

14 February 2011 · 1hr 14mins

T.J. Clark shows how Picasso’s first history painting, Guernica, changed the way he thought about space.