The Erasmus Seminar Series was launched in November 2022, in celebration of the diverse intellectual life of the College. The series fills a gap in scope and scale between the ambition of the Darwin Lecture Series and the intimacy of the Research Seminars. A seminar is held termly, and is open to all College members.
The Master, Dr Mike Rands, said of the new series:
“In an exciting new development for Darwin College, I’m delighted we are launching the Erasmus Seminar series. This draws upon the College’s deep intellectual strengths, interdisciplinary and international outlook and research rich environment to hear and discuss a topic of great significance for society and especially our academic community.”
Upcoming seminars:
14th October 2026
Dr Duncan Needham
From cowrie shells to crypto-assets: a very short history of money
We are delighted to announce that the 13th Erasmus Seminar will be given by Dr Duncan Needham, at 6pm on Wednesday 14th October.
Abstract
What is money? As the Cambridge anthropologist Alison Quiggin wrote, ‘Everyone, except an economist, knows what ‘money’ means, and even an economist can describe it in the course of a chapter or so’. But do we really know what money is? This paper will discuss theories and historical forms of money to draw parallels between how we use money today and the system of social credit developed by the ancient Babylonians. There have been several diversions along the way, notably the gold standard that defined money as the value of the precious metal in the coinage. We shall also look at the monetarist diversion of the 1970s and 1980s when governments across the world tried, and mostly failed, to control their money supplies in their efforts to reduce price inflation. The political and economic consequences of those battles remain with us today. We finish with a brief look at crypto-assets which, despite the claims sometimes made, are manifestly not money.
Biography
Duncan Needham is Dean and Senior Tutor of Darwin College, and Director of the Centre for Financial History. He teaches postgraduate courses in economic history, with a particular focus on the institutions that have supported economic growth since the nineteenth century: the gold standard, the International Monetary Fund, and the Euro. His first book was UK monetary policy from devaluation to Thatcher, 1967-82 and he has since published on the evolution of British banking since the 1970s, the growth of public debt in Western Europe, and the failed attempt to build an airport in the Thames Estuary. Before returning to academia, Duncan was a bond trader at JP Morgan and then a fund manager at Cairn Capital.
Please register here
Previous seminars:
13th May 2026
Professor Fiona Karet
Washing machines and their rare components: lessons from kidney patients (Cambridge only)
4 February 2026
Professor John Nilsson-Wright
Romantic Revolutionaries: Populism in East Asia and its consequences (Cambridge only)
29 October 2025
Lord Rees
The World in 2050 and Beyond (Cambridge only)
21 May 2025
Professor Carol Brayne
Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia – rhetoric and the evidence base from an epidemiological perspective [Cambridge only]
12 February 2025
Dr Mohamed El-Erian
Bridging the Trust Gap: Economics, Economists and Public Policy [Cambridge only]
30 October 2024
Dr Torsten Krude
Where to begin? Replicating the human genome [Cambridge only]
8 May 2024
Professor Flora Samuel
The Cambridge Room: engagement and inclusion in spatial planning [Cambridge only]
7 February 2024
Professor Simon Schaffer
Colonial natures and climate sciences [Cambridge only]
1 November 2023
Professor Chris Bishop
The Dawn of Artificial General Intelligence
10 May 2023
Dr Jennifer Schooling
Smart Infrastructure [Cambridge only]
8 February 2023
Professor Jonathan Heeney
How to prevent the next pandemic
23 November 2022
Professor Catherine Barnard
What happens when enforcement doesn’t happen: Brexit, free movement and … Great Yarmouth
