The Sidney Greats lecture series aims to provide the College community with introductions to great texts, ideas, figures and events.

Sidney Greats has quickly grown into one of the most popular events in the academic life of the College.

The series invites speakers from within and beyond the College to explore important works or ideas in an approachable format and interdisciplinary environment. These have ranged widely across the arts and sciences, from human rights law to Shakespeare, Newton, to the Qur'an. As Clive Wilmer explains, 'The series aims to give breadth to the education our College offers by familiarising students and others with texts, ideas and artefacts that are widely judged to be "great".'

With generous support from the College's Annual Fund, the debate continues after the lecture over dinner in Hall, affirming the idea of the College as intellectual community. Current members of the College can book into the lectures and dinners by clicking on the link to current lectures; alumni members can write to development@sid.cam.ac.uk to book in.

You can listen to many of the early lectures by following the links from the titles to externally hosted podcasts.

Previous Sidney Greats

The Sidney Greats have been running since 2012. Many of the early lectures were  recorded and you can listen to those by following the links from the term titles to externally hosted podcast sites.

Michaelmas 2025
Lent 2025
  • Panel, chaired by Prof. Lindsay Greer (Sidney) - Can We Trust Science?
  • Prof. Lucy Cheke (Sidney) - Learning
Michaelmas 2024
  • Prof. Ali Meghji (Sidney) - W. E. B. Du Bois
  • Prof. Christopher Page (Sidney) - Gawain and the Grene Knight
  • Dr Rohan Ranasinghe (Sidney) - DNA Sequencing
Lent 2024
  • Dr Philippa Carter (Sidney) - Neurology before Neuroscience
  • Dr Chris Doran - Complex Geometry
  • Panel (Chaired by Prof. Martin Burton, Sidney) - The Future of the NHS
Lent 2022
  • Dr Kanta Dihal (Sidney) - Science Fiction
  • Greats Panel, featuring Max Beber, Prof. Ozge Oner, Prof. Michael Pollitt and Dr Charles Roddie (Sidney) - Markets
  • Dr Noga Ganany (Sidney) - The Journey to the West
Michaelmas 2021
  • Clive Wilmer (Sidney) - Dante's Divine Comedy
  • Prof. Christopher Hill and Dr Bernhard Fulda (Sidney) - Dictatorship
  • Prof. Ornit Shani, Prof. Eugenio Biagini (Sidney) and Prof. Gary Gerstle - Democracy
Lent 2020
  • Prof. Dame Gillian Beer (Clare Hall) - George Eliot's Middlemarch
  • Dr John Hopkins - Stravinsky
  • Dr Stanley Bill (Sidney) - Polish Postwar Poetry
  • Prof. Sir Tim Gowers (Trinity) - Interesting Mathematics
Michaelmas 2019
  • Prof. Eugenio Biagini (Sidney) - The United Kingdom
  • Dr Liljana Fruk (Sidney) - The Periodic Table
  • Prof. Charles Martindale (York) - Classical Literature and its Reception
Lent 2019
  • Dr Corinna Russell (Emma) - Byron's Don Juan
  • Clive Wilmer (Sidney) - John Ruskin
  • Prof. Simon Schaffer (Darwin) - The Laboratory
Michaelmas 2018
  • Prof. Rodolphe Sepulchre (Sidney) - Cybernetics
  • Dr Janice Stargardt (Sidney) - Buddhism
  • Dr Ruth Jackson (Sidney) - Augustine's Confessions
Lent 2018
  • Prof. Simon Franklin (Clare) - Pushkin's Eugene Onegin
  • Colin Roberts (Sidney) - The Horse in Human History
  • Dr Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe (Peterhouse) - Satan
  • Dr Ceri Owen (Sidney) - Barbara Hepworth
Michaelmas 2017
Lent 2017
  • Dame Fiona Reynolds (Emmanuel) - Octavia Hill
  • Ceri Owen (Sidney) - Barbara Hepworth
  • Prof. Rebecca Kilner (Sidney) - Behaviour and Evolution
  • Anna Whitelock - Elizabeth I
Michaelmas 2016
  • Prof. Dame Ann Dowling (Sidney) - Silent aircraft
  • Dr Clare Chambers (Philosophy) - Feminist Political Philosophy
  • Prof. Janet Todd (Newham) - Jane Austen's "Emma"
Lent 2016
  • Prof. Dame Sandra Dawson (Sidney) - Leadership
  • Prof. Gary Gerstle (Sidney) - Frankin Delano Roosevelt
  • Richard Humphreys (Sidney) - J.M.W. Turner
​​Michaelmas 2015
  • Dr Paulina Sliwa (Sidney) - Aristotle's "Nichomachean Ethics"
  • Dr Douglas Hedley (Divinity) - Plato's "Timaeus"
  • Lachlann Mackinnon - WH Auden
Lent 2014
  • Prof. Raymond Geuss (Philosophy) - Rabelais
  • Dr Helen Castor (Sidney) - Joan of Arc
  • Dr Kirsten Dickers (Sidney) - Marie Curie
Michaelmas 2014
Lent 2014
Michaelmas 2013
  • Prof. Rosamond McKitterick (Sidney) - Charlemagne
  • Prof. Richard Staley (Gonville and Caius College) - Einstein
  • Dr Emma Gilby (Sidney) - Descartes
  • Prof. Sir Geoffrey Lloyd (Needham Research Institute) - Chinese Science
Lent 2013
Michaelmas 2012
Lent 2012

For more information about Sidney Greats please contact Dr Edward Wilson-Lee.