The Sir Douglas Robb Lectures are a lecture series that have existed at the University of Auckland in New Zealand since 1968. The series is named in honor of Sir Douglas Robb, and is noted for producing physicist Richard Feynman's QED lectures.
A partial list of lectures is as follows: Lecturer Year Topic John Kenneth Galbraith 1968 - Steven Runciman 1970 The eastern churches and the secular state Wilfred David Borrie 1972 Population, environment and society Macfarlane Burnet 1973 The biology of aging William Henry Pickering 1974 Exploring our solar system W. J. M. Mackenzie 1975 Political adaptivity John Russell Brown 1976 Theatre for today Ivan Illich 1978 The art of suffering Richard Feynman 1979 The behaviour of light and electrons Harry Hinsley 1980 The rise and fall of the modern international system Richard Leakey 1981 Human Origins Bernard Lewis 1982 Historical roots of the Islamic revolution Carleton Gajdusek 1983 Man in isolation Ngugi Wa Thiong’o 1984 The politics of language in African literature Hermann Bondi 1985 The world of physics Stephen Jay Gould 1986 Charles Darwin and the science of history Laura Nader 1987 Controlling processes E. P. Thompson 1988 Customs in common William John Francis Jenner 1989 The power of China's pasts Ian Brownlie 1990 Treaties and indigenous peoples Colin Blakemore 1991 Images in the brain Marshall Sahlins 1992 The anthropology of history in Polynesia Carole Pateman 1993 Women and democracy Lewis Wolpert 1994 The unnatural nature of science Bernice Johnson Reagon 1996 The place of song in African American history Immanuel Wallerstein 1997 Utopistics, or historical choices of the 21st century Paul Krugman 1998 What happened to Asia? Judy Chicago 1999 Women and art Steven Weinberg 2000 [cancelled for illness] Steven Pinker 2001 Language, mind, and evolution David_Barker 2002 Mothers, babies and health in later life Bryan Sykes 2003 The interpretation of genes Marina Warner 2004 Magic and transformation in contemporary literature and culture Carl Wieman 2005 Two breakthroughs in physics research Jared Diamond 2006 Science, history and human societies Yash Ghai 2007 Organisation of the state in multi-ethnic societies Sheldon Rothblatt 2008 "The uses of the university" revisited Frans de Waal 2009 Our inner ape Nicholas Stern 2010 The challenges for global collaboration and rationality Tariq Ali 2011 Empire and its futures Alison Gopnik 2012 The philosophical baby: What children’s minds can teach us about the big questions Kwame Anthony Appiah 2013 Identity, Honour, Politics Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson 2014 The Human Cost of Inequality Stuart Firestein 2016 Science and uncertainty
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