We are pleased to share this year's Roger Scruton Memorial Lectures. Now on its third year, this annual series of free public lectures honours Scruton's legacy by inviting eminent public intellectuals to speak on four topics of civilisational importance. Each lecture and conversation will take place in the Sheldonian Theatre at the University of Oxford during October 2023 from 5 pm - 6:30 pm (British Summer Time). These events are free, but require advance registration to attend. For those unable to attend in-person, lectures will be recorded and made available online at a later date.
25 October 2023
'The Diversity Myth'
Peter Thiel In Conversation with John Gray
Peter Thiel is a world-renowned entrepreneur, philanthropist and author. He co-founded PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund. He was the first outside investor in Facebook and an early investor in SpaceX and Airbnb. Through the Thiel Foundation, he supports research and innovation across a wide range of fields including technology, entrepreneurship and the philosophy of René Girard. He teaches at Stanford University and is the bestselling author of Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (Crown, 2014).
John Gray is a globally-esteemed philosopher, political theorist and intellectual historian. He has an asteroid named after him and until 2008 he was School Professor of European Thought at the LSE. He now writes principally for the New Statesman and has authored over twenty books including the bestselling Seven Types of Atheism, Straw Dogs, Black Mass, The Soul of the Marionette, The Silence of Animals and Feline Philosophy. His latest book, recently published by Penguin in September 2023, is The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism.