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Mary Beard, Homi Bhabha and Se\xe1n 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\u2019re 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 Se\xe1n Williams is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker who lectures in German intellectual and cultural history at the University of Sheffield.\nMary 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.\nHomi 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:\nWhat is Speech : Matthew Sweet's guests include Trevor Cox and Rebecca Roache https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1q2f3\nThe Impact of Being Multi-Lingual: John Gallagher talks to Katrin Kohl, Rajinder Dudrah and Wen-chin Ouyang https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mq6k\nLanguage and Belonging: Preti Taneja's guests include Michael Rosen, Guy Gunaratne and Momtaza Mehri https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07fvbhn\nThe Free Thinking Festival Lecture on Feelings from Professor Thomas Dixon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003rsw\nThe Free Thinking Festival Lecture on Knowledge from Karen Armstrong https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tw41j

Producer: Eliane Glaser