Recordings are available for some of our archived talks and can be found in the University's video and audio collection.
2018 - Oiling the Wheels of Nations? Religion and Politics, Then and Now
Professor George Van Kooten
Ashby Lecture Report
Ashby Lecture 2018 photo gallery
2017 - How much is the free market compatible with a 'decent' society?
Dr Ha-Joon Chang from the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
2016 - Imagining universities: new worlds, old ideas?
Professor Stefan Collini FBA, Professor Emeritus of Intellectual History and English Literature University of Cambridge and Emeritus Fellow of Clare Hall.
The 2016 Ashby report
2015 - Liberty, Equality. What Happened to Fraternity [Human Solidarity]?
Albie Sachs
2014 The Impact of the First World War on Strategy
Sir Hew Strachen
Chichele Professor of the history of war at All Souls College, Oxford.
2013 Energy, water, food and the nine billion
Lord Oxburgh, FRS
Former Chairman of Shell UK and former Rector of Imperial College
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's Red 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 Multinationalism: 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-Communism
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 Disease: Opportunities and Reservation
Dr Paul Berg