Glossop Guild for enquiring minds
Zooming Through the Spring
On-line Courses
January 2026 ~ March 2026
Your Zoom "Season Pass"
In order to make "Zooming Through the Spring" on-line term as flexible as possible, we are again offering a single payment "season pass" which will entitle you to join any or all of the spring sessions below. The Spring Zoom Season Pass costs just £25 per member or £35 per non-member*.
* To pay for the lectures as a non-member select the arrow in the white box opposite to this text, then on the drop-down menu select the non-member price of £35, next select "Buy Lectures" and follow the prompts.
Note:- The non-member price of £35 means you get the Spring Zoom Season Pass and Guild Membership, entitling you to member discounted prices for all our other spring term courses including venue courses until the end of April 2026.
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Please book your pass a few days before the first session in order for your name to be added to the list of invitees.
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NB: If two persons are viewing in a household two session passes are required.
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After receipt of payment you will receive a joining invite to each individual session which contains a session ID, password and internet link.
Note: These invites are usually sent out on the preceding day of each course.
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What the Greeks did for us - A look at Greek (and Roman) discoveries and inventions that we still use today
Tutor: Birgitta Hoffman
3 Wednesday afternoons 7th, 14th & 21st January, 2026
2.00 pm - 4.00 pm
The Greeks 'invented' mathematics or at least geometry, every school kid learns about Euclid and Pythagoras. But there is so much more to discover:
pressurised water pipes, hydraulics and steam power, cartography, both on earth and in the sky, architectural discoveries (although it will take the Romans and Persians to add vaulting and concrete). They invented the encyclopedia and philosophy based on discussion and discovery. They even developed libraries and a filing system that allowed them to find those books again.
They used a decimal number system and developed an efficient form of Morse code. And they discovered disinfectants and systematic pharmacologies and medical treatments and developed a good understanding of basic anatomy.
So much of what we use today came from or through Greece, and in the end they and their neighbours the Arabs developed the concept of universities to preserve and distribute this knowledge back to us in the late Middle Ages.
Euklid-von Alexandrea
Pythagoras
Fear and False Accusations in Times of Crisis
Tutor: Creina Mansfield
3 Monday mornings 26th January & 2nd & 9th February 2026
10 am - 12.00 pm
The Dreyfus affair gripped France between 1894 and 1906, and exposed the deep-seated anti-semitism that led to significant social and political changes in the country. In the first session, Creina will examine Emile Zola’s J’accuse, which argued that Dreyfus was framed on the basis of false accusations of espionage. In the second session, Creina will examine a more modern novel covering the same ground: Robert Harris’s An Officer and a Spy. In the third session, Creina will explore Graham Greene’s Ministry of Fear, which although based on a similar theme is set in London during World War Two. Overall this course is a commentary on the human condition of fear and moral complexities faced during times of conflict.
The Archaeology of Jordan
Tutor: Michael Tunnicliffe
2 Wednesday afternoons 25th February & 4th March 2026, 2.00 pm - 4.00 pm
Jordan is a land full of archaeological wonders, and this course takes us through the periods of history represented there.
The first session is Jordan BC and covers the earliest times from the Neolithic Age through the Bronze and Iron Ages down to the Hellenistic Age
The second session looks at Jordan AD and concentrates on the spectacular ruins of Nabatean Petra and Roman Jerash before continuing through Byzantine times down to the Crusader and modern periods.
A chance for those who have been to Jordan to reminisce, and for those who have not been an opportunity to be introduced to this fascinating land
Limestone menhir with Greek inscription at the Jordan Archaeological Museum
Allan Gluck, CC BY-SA 4.0
Wagner, Women and the Nazis
Tutor: Steve Millward
2 Thursday mornings 12th & 19th March 2027
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
Session 1 Wagner- the Man and his music
Although his fame rests on a comparatively small number of works, Richard Wagner is counted among the greatest of all composers. Not only was he a musical innovator but his vision of combining all the arts into one presentation was well ahead of its time. But there was a darker side to Wagner. His giant ego meant that he deceived friends, and the women in his life, without compunction and, worse, his antisemitism and Teutonic triumphalism seemed to prefigure the Nazis, who much admired him. Steve Millward’s talk will try to uncover the truth about this complex and controversial man, as well as including extracts from some of his most significant compositions.
Session 2 Nazi Princesses – the Wagner Women
Wagner's second wife, Cosima Liszt, was arguably more antisemitic than Wagner and certainly enacted it when she became director of the Bayreuth Festival after Wagner died. Their daughters followed suit: Eva married the notorious English antisemite Houston Stewart Chamberlain whose works were hugely influential on Nazism. When Hitler first met him, he kissed Chamberlain's hand. The son - Siegfried - was another in the same vein, but the interesting element was his English wife, Winifred, with whom it was strongly rumoured that Hitler had an affair. Siegfried and Winifred's daughter Verena married a senior member of the SS, Bodo Lafferentz, who worked for the Race and Resettlement Agency. Much of the action of the talk takes place with the Bayreuth Festival as a backdrop, which from Cosima's time onwards excluded Jews - though one or two outstanding Jewish musicians continued to perform there. In the late 1930s it became virtually a Nazi event.
Richard Wagner