Free lecture by Professor Linda Woodhead on how liberal institutions cope with offence and the future of courtesy, part of Gresham College's Autumn 2026 series.
Professor Linda Woodhead will be at Barnard's Inn Hall on Monday 7 December, from 6:00pm to 7:00pm, with a lecture titled Offence and the Future of Courtesy. It's part of Gresham College's Autumn 2026 series, which the college offers free of charge in person and as a live stream.
Woodhead holds the F.D. Maurice Chair in Moral and Social Theology in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London. Her lecture takes on the persistent problem of offence, asking how it might be managed and how harm can be minimised, and weighs contemporary struggles against past remedies to see what they reveal about the commitments and agonies of modern liberal societies. It's a look at how liberal institutions cope with offence and what that says about the future of courtesy.
There's a fair bit of history to the room it's in. Barnard's Inn Hall is a former Inn of Chancery dating from the 15th century, and it still has 16th-century linen-fold panelling and roof timbers that include the only surviving crown posts in Greater London. The lecture itself comes from Gresham College, London's first institute of higher education, founded in 1597 under the terms of Sir Thomas Gresham's Will. Unusually for the time, its lectures were free and given in both English and Latin, a tradition the college has maintained for over 400 years.
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It runs from 6:00pm to 7:00pm at Barnard's Inn Hall, Holborn, London EC1N 2HH, and entry is free.
