The portrayal of the modern female body is a perennial subject of academic and public debate, so it was refreshing to attend a lecture last Thursday where the male body was given similar critical attention.

Professor Maria Wyke, UCL Chair of Latin, gave a witty Lunch Hour Lecture at the British Museum entitled ‘Desirability and domination: Greek sculpture and the modern male body’ in which she managed to tease out the connections between classical sculpture, Italian film and the birth of bodybuilding.

She began by explaining how much of our understanding of classical sculpture has been shaped by 18^th century German art historian Johan Joachim Winckelmann through his book, The History of the Art of Antiquity.

Watch Professor Wyke’s lecture at the British Museum (45 minutes)

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This Lunch Hour Lecture by Professor Anne Johnson (UCL Infectious Disease and Epidemiology) took place at the British Museum on Thursday 16 June, poignantly almost thirty years to the day from when AIDS was first described writes Sarah Longair, Schools and Young Audiences Education Manager, British Museum.

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Dr Joe Flatman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, opened a series of lunchtime lectures by staff from UCL at the British Museum on 9 June with ‘A climate of fear: What the past tells us about human responses to climate change’ writes Jill Cook, Deputy Keeper, Palaeolithic and Mesolithic material, British Museum.

As a reflection on how human adaptability might help us achieve sustainable solutions to global warming, Joe selected 10 objects presented in the museum’s ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects’ series to demonstrate how peoples around the world and through time have responded to climatic change. Through these he showed the relevance of archaeology to the understanding of the modern challenges, a point well received and discussed in lively questions from the audience.

Watch Dr Flatman’s lecture at the British Museum (45 minutes)

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