Since 1985, Clare Hall has hosted the Ashby Lectures, a widely acclaimed summer event in Cambridge. Named after one of the founders of Clare Hall, the lectures focus on the presentation and discussion of ideas that inspire human values in a wider sense: values that relate, in compelling and contemporary ways, to philosophical questioning about the nature of life and society.

Click on the year to access a report of the lecture.

2012  In the Eye of the Storm: Journalists under Fire

John Fisher Burns

London Bureau Chief for The New York Times and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

2011  Lessons from America: The Impact of Universities on their Region and the World

Professor Andrew Hamilton, PhD FRS

Vice-Chancellor, University of Oxford

2010  How and Why Did Hitler's Germany Fight On to the Bitter End?

Professor Sir Ian Kershaw

2009  Perverting Trust

Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve  CBE  PBA  Hon FRS  F Med Sci

President of the British Academy, Chair of the Nuffield Foundation and Professor of Philosophy

2008  The Business of Climate Change

Sir David King
Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford

2007  Happiness and Values

Richard Layard
Emeritus Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics

2006  The Case for an Emergency Constitution

Bruce Ackerman
Sterling Professor of Law at Yale University

2005  From Alola to Helena: A Tribute to the Women and children of East Timor 1999-2005

Kirsty Sword-Gusmao
First Lady to the President of the independent nation of East Timor

2004  Trans-civilisational Perspective on Global Issues

Professor Yasuaki Onuma
University of Tokyo

2003  Muslims and Modernity

Guy Sorman

2002  Dancing Beneath the Red Banners: Chairman Mao'sRed Guard Movement During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

Dr Aiping Mu 

2001  Storytelling

Isabel Allende

2000  In Search of a Common Language – What does Chinese Traditional Medicine Have in Common with Modern Physics?

Kenneth Hsu

1999  Universities and the Magic Fountain: African Literature into the 21st Century

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

1997  From Penitentiary to Palace of Art: Uncovering the History of the Tate Gallery

Frances Spalding

1996  The State of Our Prisons 

Sir Stephen Tumim

1995  Some Reflections on Multinationality: the Example of Former Empires in East Asia

Professor Herbert Franke

1994  Understanding and Justification of Other Cultures

Professor Eero Loone

1993  The Education of a 'British' Protected Child

Chinua Achebe

1992  When was Modernism in Indian Art?

Geeta Kapur

1991  After Marx – the Prospects for Post-Communisim

Svetozar Stojanović

1990  Into Inequality Born – a Tale of the Health of Women in South Asia

Professor Vulimiri Ramalingaswami

1989  The Fusion of the Great and Little Traditions of Indian in Salman Rushdie's Work

Anita Desai

1988  Models of the Mind

Professor Christopher Longuet-Higgins

1987  The Nature of (Literary) Naturalism

Professor David Baguley

1986  Narrative Verse and Read Examples of his Own Work

Mr Alec Hope

1985  Genes and Desease: Opportunities and Reservation 

Dr Paul Berg