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Series of annual radio lectures broadcast by the BBC
The Reith Lectures are named in honour of
John Reith, 1st Baron Reith , the BBC's first director-general
The Reith Lectures is a series of annual
BBC
radio
lectures given by leading figures of the day. They are commissioned by the
BBC and broadcast on
Radio 4 and the
World Service . The lectures were inaugurated in 1948 to mark the historic contribution made to public service broadcasting by
Lord Reith , the corporation's first director-general.
Reith maintained that broadcasting should be a public service that aimed to enrich the intellectual and cultural life of the nation. It is in this spirit that the BBC each year invites a leading figure to deliver the lectures. The aim is to advance public understanding and debate about issues of contemporary interest.
[1]
The first Reith lecturer was the philosopher and later
Nobel laureate ,
Bertrand Russell . The first female lecturer was
Dame Margery Perham in 1961.
[2] The youngest Reith lecturer was
Colin Blakemore , who was 32 in 1976 when he broadcast over six episodes on the brain and consciousness.
[3]
The Reith Lectures archive
In June 2011 BBC Radio 4 published its Reith Lectures archive.
[4] This included two podcasts featuring over 240 lectures from 1948 to the present day as well as streamed online audio, and the complete written transcripts of the entire Reith Lectures archive:
Podcast 1: Archive 1948–1975
[5]
Podcast 2: Archive 1976–2012
[6]
Transcripts 1948–2010
[7]
In pictures
[8]
The BBC found that some of the audio archive of the Reith Lectures was missing from its library and appealed to the public for copies of the missing lectures.
[4]
The Reith Lectures 1948–2020
1940s
1950s
1950
John Zachary Young ,
Doubt and Certainty in Science
1951
Lord Radcliffe ,
Power and the State
1952
Arnold J. Toynbee ,
The World and the West
1953
Robert Oppenheimer ,
Science and the Common Understanding
1954
Oliver Franks ,
Britain and the Tide of World Affairs
1955
Nikolaus Pevsner ,
The Englishness of English Art
1956
Edward Victor Appleton ,
Science and the Nation
1957
George F. Kennan ,
Russia, the Atom and the West
1958
Bernard Lovell ,
The Individual and the Universe
1959
Peter Medawar ,
The Future of Man
1960s
1960
Edgar Wind ,
Art and Anarchy
1961
Margery Perham ,
The Colonial Reckoning
1962
George Carstairs ,
This Island Now
1963
Albert Sloman ,
A University in the Making
1964
Leon Bagrit ,
The Age of Automation
1965
Robert Gardiner ,
World of Peoples
1966
John K. Galbraith ,
The New Industrial State
1967
Edmund Leach ,
A Runaway World
1968
Lester Pearson ,
In the Family of Man
1969
Frank Fraser Darling ,
Wilderness and Plenty
1970s
1970
Donald Schon ,
Change and Industrial Society
1971
Richard Hoggart ,
Only Connect
1972
Andrew Shonfield ,
Europe: Journey to an Unknown Destination
1973
Alastair Buchan ,
Change Without War
1974
Ralf Dahrendorf ,
The New Liberty
1975
Daniel Boorstin ,
America and the World Experience
1976
Colin Blakemore ,
Mechanics of the Mind
1977
A. H. Halsey ,
Change in British Society
1978
Edward Norman ,
Christianity and the World
1979
Ali Mazrui ,
The African Condition
1980s
1980
Professor Sir Ian Kennedy ,
Unmasking Medicine
1981
Laurence Martin ,
The Two Edged Sword
1982
Denis Donoghue ,
The Arts Without Mystery
1983
Douglas Wass ,
Government and the Governed
1984
John Searle ,
Minds, Brains and Science
1985
David Henderson ,
Innocence and Design
1986
Lord McCluskey ,
Law, Justice and Democracy
1987
Alexander Goehr ,
The Survival of the Symphony
1988
Geoffrey Hosking ,
The Rediscovery of Politics
1989
Jacques Darras [
fr ] ,
Beyond the Tunnel of History
1990s
2000s
2000
Chris Patten ,
Sir John Browne ,
Thomas Lovejoy ,
Gro Harlem Brundtland ,
Vandana Shiva ,
Charles, Prince of Wales ,
Respect for the Earth
2001
Tom Kirkwood ,
The End of Age
2002
Onora O'Neill ,
A Question of Trust?
2003
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran ,
The Emerging Mind
2004
Wole Soyinka ,
Climate of Fear
2005
Lord Broers ,
The Triumph of Technology
2006
Daniel Barenboim ,
In the Beginning was Sound
2007
Jeffrey Sachs ,
Bursting at the Seams
2008
Professor Jonathan Spence ,
Chinese Vistas
2009
Michael Sandel ,
A New Citizenship
[10]
2010s
2010
Martin Rees , Scientific Horizons
[11]
2011
Aung San Suu Kyi and
Baroness Manningham-Buller , Securing Freedom
[12]
2012
Niall Ferguson , The Rule of Law and Its Enemies
[13]
2013
Grayson Perry , Playing to the Gallery
[14]
2014
Atul Gawande , The Future of Medicine
[15]
[16]
2015
Stephen Hawking 's lecture was postponed because of illness
[17]
2016 (March) Stephen Hawking, Do Black Holes Have No Hair?
[18]
2016 (October)
Kwame Anthony Appiah , Mistaken Identities
[19]
2017
Hilary Mantel , Resurrection: The Art And Craft
[20]
2018
Margaret MacMillan , The Mark of Cain
[21]
2019
Jonathan Sumption , Law and the Decline of Politics
[22]
2020s
See also
References
^
"Radio 4 - The Reith Lectures - About Reith" . BBC. 1 January 1970. Retrieved 2 November 2013 .
^
"Margery Perham: The Colonial Reckoning: 1961, The Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"Colin Blakemore: Mechanics of the Mind: 1976, The Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
a
b
"BBC Radio 4 unveils 60 years of Reith Lectures archive" . BBC News . 26 June 2011.
^
"Archive 1948-1975 - The Reith Lectures - Downloads - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"Archive 1976-2012 - The Reith Lectures - Downloads - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"BBC - Radio 4 - The Reith Lectures Transcripts 2011" .
^
"In Pictures: The Reith Lectures" . BBC News . 2 December 2014.
^ BBC (2011) “Radio 4 opens The Reith Lectures archive to public”, 26 June.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/06_june/26/reith.shtml
^
"Harvard University Professor Michael Sandel to give Radio 4's Reith Lectures 2009" . BBC. 5 February 2009. Retrieved 25 February 2009 .
^
"Martin Rees: Scientific Horizons: 2010, The Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"Securing Freedom: 2011, The Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"Niall Ferguson: The Rule of Law and Its Enemies: 2012, The Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"Democracy Has Bad Taste, Grayson Perry: Playing to the Gallery: 2013, The Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"Dr Atul Gawande: The Future of Medicine, The Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"Dr Atul Gawande: The Future of Medicine, The Reith Lectures - Dr Atul Gawande - 2014 Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"Stephen Hawking's BBC Reith Lectures postponed through illness" .
TheGuardian.com . 10 November 2015.
^
"Stephen Hawking: Do Black Holes Have No Hair?, The Reith Lectures - BBC World Service" . BBC .
^
"Creed, Kwame Anthony Appiah: Mistaken Identities, The Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"Hilary Mantel: Resurrection: The Art And Craft, The Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"Margaret MacMillan: The Mark of Cain, The Reith Lectures - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"BBC - Law and the Decline of Politics - locations announced for the 2019 Reith Lectures - Media Centre" . www.bbc.co.uk . Retrieved 1 May 2019 .
^
"2020: Mark Carney - How We Get What We Value - From Moral to Market Sentiments - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"2021: Stuart Russell on living with Artificial Intelligence - BBC Radio 4" . BBC .
^
"BBC Reith Lectures 2022 – The Four Freedoms" . BBC . Retrieved 28 December 2022 .
^
"BBC Reith Lectures 2023 – Our Democratic Future" . British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 27 November 2023 .
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