Forthcoming speakers:
Nick Frost
15 February 2012: Can Cameron Fix 'Troubled Families'?
Nick Frost is Professor of Social Work (Childhood, children and families), at the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, Leeds Metropolitan University. Nick is a registered social worker, and practiced in local authority social work settings for 15 years before commencing his academic career. His research interests include child and family welfare and professional learning and work practices. Nick has published in the fields of child welfare and professional learning: most recently he has written, Understanding Children’s Social Care (with Nigel Parton, Sage, 2009), Re-thinking Children and Families (Continuum, 2011) and co-edited Beyond Reflective Practice (Routledge, 2010). Nick became chair of Bradford Safeguarding Children Board in 2010.
Jenny Bristow
15 February 2012: Can Cameron Fix 'Troubled Families'?
Jennie Bristow writes about parenting culture and intergenerational relations. She is editor of the BPAS journal Abortion Review, and runs the editing service Punctuate!. Bristow is author of Standing Up To Supernanny (Imprint Academic, 2009) and co-author of Licensed to Hug: How child protection policies are poisoning the relationship between the generations and damaging the voluntary sector (Civitas 2008). Bristow writes the monthly ‘Guide to Subversive Parenting’ on spiked and edits the website www.ParentsWithAttitude.com.
Kris Hopkins MP
15 February 2012: Can Cameron Fix 'Troubled Families'?
Kris Hopkins is the MP for Keighley & Ilkley. A former member of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, on leaving the army he completed a degree in communications and cultural studies at the University of Leeds before going on to lecture in media theory, communications and digital media. In 1998, Kris was elected to serve his local ward of Worth Valley, where he became portfolio holder for social services and council housing, before taking on the corporate folio.
His achievements over this period included overseeing the delivery of housing stock transfer in Bradford and the building of five new children's homes, as well as a commissioning process for the Council's community development provision. Kris was chosen as Deputy Leader of Bradford Council in 2004 and, two years later, became Leader of the Council and Leader of the Conservative Group, a position he held until his election to Parliament in May 2010.
Since then, he has become one of 25 Parliamentarians appointed to represent the United Kingdom as full members of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Alongside high profile local campaigns to defend the NHS and protect local Post Offices, Kris has been a vocal advocate of the need for parents to take more responsibility for the education of their children, including ensuring that English is spoken in the home.
Previous speakers:
Rob Lyons
Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder
Rob Lyons is deputy editor of Spiked-Online, and writes about a wide range of issues, but particularly on science, health and the environment, and is a frequent commentator on many different topics for television and radio. He is the editor of What’s the Future of Food?, based on contributions to a Spiked-Online debate, and author of Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder(Societas, 2011).
Ursula Philpot
Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder
Ursula Philpot is senior lecturer in the Department of Health and Social Sciences at Leeds Metropolitan University, and advanced practice dietitian working in the area of eating disorders and obesity. Ursula is the chair of the BDA mental health group. She is active in presenting nationally and internationally on the subject of eating disorders and dietetics. She is also the on-screen dietitian for Channel Four's Supersize vs Superskinny.
Jo Barcroft
Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder
Jo Barcroft is a Cambridge grad, trainee solicitor for Leeds firm Ford & Warren, but more importantly an amateur blogger and food obsessive in her spare time. Cooking since an early age, Jo's love of food spiralled into an all consuming daily blog about the food she cooks for her fiance, the places they eat out, and general other food info. Find it at http://foodandbiscuits.blogspot.com/. She's not afraid to enter in to a debate about the importance of provenance, health and moderation. By no means a professional cook or chef, Jo's message is to encourage people to embrace cooking and food and have a little fun.
Nick Copland
Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder
Nick Copland is one half of Shelf Life Ltd., the business behind the very successful project in Leeds Kirkgate Market called The Source. The Source is a private enterprise aimed at making the Market famous for food (for all the right reasons - not just the cheap stuff). They believe that food should be the heart of the market, and the market should be the heart of the city. In previous lives Nick has worked as a head chef in the Komedia Theatre restaurant in Brighton, cooked in numerous establishments between Leeds and Canterbury, as well as helping some of the UK's biggest brands say what they need to say as a consultant copywriter and verbal identity specialist within the creative communications industry. He is also the co-instigator of the Homage2Fromage cheese club.
Dave Clements
Big Society: A Clean-up for the Charity Sector?
Dave Clements is a writer on social policy and has worked for 12 years in local government, predominantly social care. He is co-editor of The Future of Community: Reports of a Death Greatly Exaggerated (Pluto, 2008), and contributes to a variety of publications, in particular online magazine Spiked, the Guardian’s Joe Public blog, and Culture Wars, the Institute of Ideas’ online review website. He is convenor of the Institute of Ideas’ Social Policy Forum and a member of the Battle of Ideas organising committee.
Richard Jackson
Big Society: A Clean-up for the Charity Sector?
Richard Jackson is the Chief Officer of Voluntary Action-Leeds and co-author of the VA-L and Leeds Community Foundation report ‘Big Society – What Does it Mean for the Voluntary and Community Sector in Leeds?’ (4 January 2011).
Steve Crocker
Big Society: A Clean-up for the Charity Sector?
Steve Crocker is the Volunteer Co-ordinator for Leeds City Council. He has run campaigns during 2010 (The Leeds Year of Volunteering) and 2011 (The European Year of Volunteering in Leeds) that celebrate and promote volunteering, and have increased the level of volunteering in the city by more than 25%. He has held senior positions in regeneration and area management both in Leeds and a number of local authorities in the UK has had a successful career in academia at Sheffield Hallam University . He has also been a government advisor developing national policy on neighbourhood renewal. Steve has a strong interest in the Arts – he is a musician and is closely involved with the development of the Seven Arts centre in Chapel Allerton, where he lives.
Maurice Glasman
Big Society: A Clean-up for the Charity Sector?
Dr Maurice Glasman is Director of the Faith and Citizenship Programme and senior lecturer in political theory at London Metropolitan University. In February 2011, he was created Baron Glasman, of Stoke Newington and of Stamford Hill in the London Borough of Hackney. His ground-breaking work with London Citizens – an alliance of faith institutions, universities, schools and trade unions that he brought together to run community projects – has seen his political philosophy of local activism touted by some as Labour’s answer to David Cameron’s 'Big Society'. Maurice is also the inventor of the term ‘Blue Labour’ which he defines as a small-C conservative form of socialism that attempts to return to the roots of the pre-1945 Labour Party through encouraging the political involvement of voluntary groups from trade unions through churches to football clubs.
Andy Miah
The 2012 Olympics and the Meaning of Sport
Prof Andy Miah, Chair of Ethics and Emerging Technologies in the Faculty of Business & Creative Industries at the University of the West of Scotland, Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, USA and Fellow at FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, UK.
Andy’s publications include: Sport, Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty, Liverpool University Press, 2009, The Medicalisation of Cyberspace, 2008, Technology: History, Philosophy and Policy, 2002.
Jim Parry
The 2012 Olympics and the Meaning of Sport
Dr Jim Parry, FRSA, Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Faculty of Physical Education and Sport, Charles University in Prague, Assistant Director of the national Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied, and Visiting Professor of Olympic Studies at Gresham College, London, 2012.
Jim’s publications include: Ethics and Sport (Routledge, 1999); The Olympic Games Explained (Routledge, 2005); Spirituality and Sport, Routledge, 2007; 'Doping in the UK: Alain and Dwain, Rio and Greg - not guilty?' (Sport in Society, April 2006); 'Sport and Olympism: Universals and Multiculturalism' (Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 2006)
David James
The 2012 Olympics and the Meaning of Sport
Dr David James, senior lecturer in sports engineering at Sheffield Hallam University where he leads the University’s MSc in sports engineering. He has worked in a world leading research centre for ten years and has published extensively in a range of sports engineering areas. His current research is focusing on the historical impact of technology in track and field events and the ethical considerations of an increasingly scientific sporting arena.
David is a leading science communicator and was recently awarded a prestigious fellowship in public engagement from the Royal Academy of Engineering. He regularly delivers high profile lectures on the role that technology plays in sport and has appeared on countless stages including the Cheltenham Science Festival; the BA Festival of Science and the Royal Institute’s Faraday lecture theatre.
David’s publications include: Fair Game, Ingenia, 2011; The physics of winning-engineering the world of sport, Physical Education, 2008; The spin decay of sports balls in flight, The Engineering of Sport 7, 2008; Predicting the playing characteristics of cricket pitches, Sports Engineering, 2006; Using sport to educate and enthuse young people about engineering and the physical sciences, The Engineering of Sport, 2006; A hybrid method for assessing the performance of sports surfaces during ball impacts, Journal of Materials: Design and Applications, 2006.
Ceri Dingle
Sylvia Pankhurst, Everything is Possible
Ceri Dingle is Director of WORLDwrite, an education charity with an uncompromising commitment to global equality whose campaigning slogan is ‘Ferraris for all’. WORLDwrite campaigns for change using film and through an online news channel WORLDbytes.
Ceri established a documentary film training facility for young volunteers and the charity’s campaigning channel WORLDbytes. She has assisted young volunteers in producing over 100 challenging programmes in the past year. She directed a series of 5 documentaries entitled Pricking the Missionary Position shot in Ghana, West Africa as well as the films Flush itand Corruptababble which have been taken up by educational institutions globally.
Before venturing into film and digital media Ceri toured young people across the globe, from the heart of the Amazon rain forest to life with the families of Hiroshima bomb victims in Japan. She is a regular contributor to radio debates, was author of the paper ‘Time to Ditch the Sustainababble’, and speaks regularly on development issues, arguing that the best for all must be the end goal of all those concerned for humanity’s wellbeing and advancement.
Tiffany Jenkins
Should Art be Judged or Measured?
Dr Tiffany Jenkins is a sociologist and cultural commentator. Her academic research explores challenges to authority in the cultural sector, concepts of cultural value, cultural policy, and cultural property issues such as repatriation and contested objects. She is the author ofContesting Human Remains in Museum Collections: The Crisis of Cultural Authority, published by Routledge, and writes and broadcasts for the national media on cultural issues. Tiffany is director of the arts and society programme at the London based think-tank, the Institute of Ideas, a member of the Cultural Property and Heritage Law working group at the LSE, co-convener of the British Sociological Association study group ‘Sociologists Outside Academia’ which aims to raise the status of sociological work undertaken beyond an academic context, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
David O'Brien
Should Art be Judged or Measured?
Dr Dave O'Brien’s work currently concentrates on public policy and administration, using the example of cultural policy. His PhD explored the European Capital of Culture 2008 in Liverpool, using the framework of institutionalism to understand decision-making within Liverpool’s governance, and including comparisons with Newcastle and Gateshead. He has published several articles on this topic and written reports on the management and process of hosting European Capital of Culture for the Impacts08 programme. He has recently completed a six month secondment to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) working onMeasuring the Value of Culture. The project, jointly funded by AHRC & ESRC and DCMS, aims to produce valuation methods for cultural policy decision-making. Finally, Dr. O’Brien has two longstanding research interests related to his current work: the culture and politics of Liverpool; and social theory, particularly the structure/agency debate in sociology, politics and the wider social sciences.
Javier Stanziola
Should Art be Judged or Measured?
Dr Javier Stanziola is an economist and playwright. He is currently the MA programme director at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds, where he lectures in management and cultural industries. His research focuses on the social and economic impact of the cultural and charity sector. He has also published on funding and business models for cultural organisations in Latin America and the UK. He has led research teams at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, Arts & Business UK, and worked as research and evaluation manager at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, and the New Economics Foundation. He is a playwright and has produced and directed a number of plays in Latin America.
Paul Taylor
Should Art be Judged or Measured?
Dr Paul A. Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Communications Theory at the University of Leeds. He is author of several books including the recentŽižek and the Media and co-author of Critical Theories of Mass Media: Then and Now. He regularly contributes as a cultural commentator for various BBC Radio 4 programmes.
Manjit Kumar
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr & the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality
Manjit Kumar is a writer based in London. He has degrees in physics and philosophy and has written and reviewed for various publications including The Guardian, the Time Literary Supplement and the Irish Times. He is co-author of Science and the Retreat from Reason (1995). QUANTUM was short listed for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2009, and was chosen as one of the Top Ten science and technology books of the year by Booklist, and Amazon’s Best Books of 2010: Top 10 Science Books.
Angus Kennedy
Valuing the Arts in an Age of Austerity
Angus Kennedy is head of external relations for the Institute of Ideas, working principally to programme the annual Battle of Ideas festival in London and its international satellite events. He chairs the Institute’s Economy Forum and helps organise its discussions. He writes for Spiked and Culture Wars, among other publications, with particular interests in the Holocaust, classics, culture and the arts, economics and moral philosophy.
Angus has a degree in Classics from Oxford, in Linguistics from the University of London and an M. Phil. in Artificial Intelligence from Dundee University. He has produced several strands and individual debates at the Battle of Ideas: on themes as various as history, opera, the Holocaust and memory, the ancient Greeks, social justice, the arts and the economy.
Adam Ogilvie
Valuing the Arts in an Age of Austerity
Councillor Adam Ogilvie represents Beeston and Holbeck ward in south Leeds where he also lives. Since May 2010, he has been the Executive Board Member for Leisure on Leeds City Council; a portfolio which includes arts, culture and creative industries, museums and galleries, events, parks and countryside, sport and recreation, libraries and cemeteries and crematoria.
He is on the Board of South Leeds Community Radio, Beeston Festival and Holbeck Gala Committees and Chair of Leeds Grand Theatre. His non council background is in urban regeneration, having managed regeneration programmes in Yorkshire and London with a particular focus on employment, training, coaching and mentoring. And in his (fairly limited) spare time enjoys most things to do with the arts, walking and generally keeping fit!
Andy Abbott
Valuing the Arts in an Age of Austerity
Andy is an artist, writer, musician and educator. He graduated from the LCAD Foundation course in 2001 and has worked and studied in Leeds since. Currently he is undertaking practice-led research for a PhD in Fine Art at University of Leeds. His practice and research is focused on socially-engaged, political and activist art exploring the boundaries of what we might consider a socially transformative praxis. A critique of capitalism, waged-labour and work more generally permeates his activity. From 2003 Andy has worked as part of the artist collective Black Dogs and has exhibited nationally and internationally from self-organised public interventions in Leeds, to events at Tate Modern and presentations in Italy and Greece. He also teaches part-time in the Fine Art area of Foundation at LCA.
Claire Fox
Claire Fox on the Politics of Happiness
Claire Fox is the director of the Institute of Ideas (IoI), which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. She is a panellist on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze and appears on BBC Question Time, BBC Any Questions?, SkyNews Review, and BBC Breakfast. Claire writes regularly for national newspapers and a range of specialist journals. She has a monthly column in the MJ (Municipal Journal). She also convenes the IoI’s annual festival of debate, the Battle of Ideas, each autumn in London. See the IoI website for a fuller biography.
Michael Schmidt
Poetry and the Tyranny of Relevance
Michael Schmidt OBE is editorial and managing director of Carcanet Press Limited, general editor of PN Review, and convener of the Creative Writing programme at the University of Glasgow. He is an anthologist, translator, critic and literary historian, and has published 10 collections of poetry and two novels. His Collected Poems was published by Smith/Doorstop Books in 2010.
Michael was born in Mexico in 1947. He studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded an O.B.E. in 2006 for services to poetry.
George Szirtes
Poetry and the Tyranny of Relevance
George was born in Hungary in 1948 and came to England with his family in 1956 after the Hungarian Uprising. His first poems began appearing in the early 1970s and his first book The Slant Door (1979) was awarded the Faber Prize. Since then he has written thirteen other books of poetry that have won various awards, including the T S Eliot Prize for Reel (2004). His New and Collected Poems appeared in 2008. His latest work, The Burning of the Books and Other Poems (2009) was also shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize.
George has also produced a series of prize-winning translations of poetry from the Hungarian. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and of the English Association and has written extensively about poetry for the press. He is a Reader in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
David Bowden
Poetry and the Tyranny of Relevance
David works for the Institute of Ideas and is the co-ordinator of the Battle Satellite 2010 programme. He is TV columnist for spiked, poetry editor for Culture Wars and co-founder of the Institute of Ideas’ Current Affairs Forum.
He is an alumnus of the Debating Matters Competition, having competed in its first year 03/04. He has continued to support the competition ever since, and is currently the Topic Guide Editor. Aside from his work on the national competition, David has also had a key role in several DM side-projects including the Global Uncertainties Network (in partnership with Research Councils UK) and co-ordinator for the Northern Ireland Showcase in 2009. He has also worked on numerous other Institute of Ideas projects, including promotions manager for the Battle of Ideas 2009 festival.
Prior to re-joining the IoI in July 2009, David worked in Brussels as assistant press officer for Libertas during their European election campaign.
Karl Sharro
The Middle East Uprising: Why now? What next?
Karl has written for a number of international publications, such as Springerin (Austria), Mark Magazine (Holland), Novo (Germany), Glass (UK) and Blueprint (UK), and he contributes regularly to the online publications Culture Wars and Muftah.org. He has spoken on a range of issues such as art, architecture, urbanism and politics. He blogs at Karl reMarks.
Irena Bauman
What is the future of Leeds?
Irena Bauman founded Bauman Lyons in 1992, and has been involved in developing a wide range of projects. The practice is especially interested in mixed use, urban regeneration projects which tap into cultural creativity and aim to achieve new standards of sustainable development. She is a frequent speaker and commentator on the shortcomings of economically driven policies and on the fresh thinking required for urban developments to be based on facilitation of community enterprise and long term viability. She contributes on regular basis to her column, Dear Irena, in Building Design that deals with ethical dilemmas in architectural practice.
Neil Owen
What is the future of Leeds?
Neil Owen is founder of Test Space; a multidisciplinary arts organisation based in Leeds. Test Space aims to showcase new emerging creative talent and encourage talent retention in Leeds by brokering professional opportunities with businesses, venues, studios and other arts organisations. Events Test Space have run include rapid exhibitions, pop up kitchens, cross-city showdowns and showcase gigs.
Neil has previously worked as online manager for NOISE Festival, an international online arts festival for young creative talent aged 30 and under. Neil has also worked as a lecturer in Digital Media at Leeds ArtCollege and Shipley College, and Interior Design at Park Lane College, Leeds.
Martin Dean
What is the future of Leeds?
Martin Dean heads the Leeds Initiative the public private and community partnership and Local Strategic Partnership for Leeds. He has extensive experience in the promotion of change in the public sector through partnership working. Through the development of appropriate strategies the Leeds Initiative takes forward the priorities identified in Vision for Leeds 2004 to 2020. This work covers a wide ranging policy agenda including regeneration, economy, skills, local government, environment and transport.
He has worked in the past for the Manpower Services Commission, Employment Service and Leeds TEC. For 12 years he was a board member for Leeds Federated Housing Association. He is currently a trustee of the Community Foundation for Leeds, and board member for Leeds Ahead.
Rachael Unsworth
What is the future of Leeds?
Rachael Unsworth is a lecturer in the School of Geography, University of Leeds, specialising in urban geography with a particular interest in the future of cities. She spends much of her time trying to inject sustainability thinking into policy and practice in Leeds. She was co-editor of 21st century Leeds: geographies of a regional city, a sixteen-chapter book about the contemporary city.
Raymond Tallis
The ‘Two Cultures’ Debate
Raymond Tallis is a philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic and was until recently a physician and clinical scientist. He has published fiction, three collections of poetry, and 18 books on the philosophy of mind, philosophical anthropology, literary theory, the nature of art and cultural criticism. In the Economist's Intelligent Life Magazine (Autumn 2009) he was listed as one of the top living polymaths in the world.
Daniel Ben-Ami
Is unfettered growth possible or desirable?
Daniel Ben-Ami is a London-based journalist and author specialising in economics and finance. He is a regular contributor to Spiked, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Sunday Telegraph and The Sunday Times. His publications include Cowardly Capitalism (2001) and Ferraris for All (2010).
Clive Lord
Is unfettered growth possible or desirable?
Clive Lord was a founder member of PEOPLE, later the Ecology Party and, since 1973, the UK Green Party. Clive is a retired probation officer, and he has stood for the Green Party in elections at all levels, including every General Election since 1974, every local election since 1980, and European elections in 1984, 1989 and 1994. He's an occasional writer for the Green Party website and is also author of A Citizens' Income: A Foundation for a Sustainable World (Jon Carpenter, 2003) which, amongst other things, looks at the dynamics driving globalisation and explains why the major players can never recognise when to stop, or know how to.
Adrian Hart
The Myth of Racist Kids
Adrian Hart is an award winning community film-maker and founder of Coyote Films. He is a lecturer to special needs students, an author and an anti-racism campaigner. His film work includes: 'Safe' (winner LWTs Whose London? 2002), 'Moving Here' (awarded beacon status 2006) and 'Only Human' (2006 broadcast on Teachers TV in 2009); and his latest publication is 'The Myth of Racist Kids'. Visit his website here.
Phillip Dickinson
Freedom of Expression and the University
Phillip is a former English student at Leeds University. He has written many times for the Leeds Student and for Freedom in a Puritan Age, and is a former committee member of the Leeds University Debating Society. He has been heavily involved in campaigns concerning free speech on campus, particularly for Liberty.
Hanif Leylabi
Freedom of Expression and the University
National Union of Students, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Committee; Leeds University Union Welfare Assembly Chair and member of United Against Fascism. Hanif has been an active member of the student movement for the past 5 years.
Marco Schneebalg
Freedom of Expression and the University
James Wood
Freedom of Expression and the University
Brendan O’Neill
Immigration: A tool for social engineering?
Brendan O’Neill is the editor of the 'independent online phenomenon' Spiked-Online, and author of the green satire Can I Recycle My Granny and 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas (Hodder & Stoughton in 2008). He writes widely for publications on both sides of the Atlantic including the New Statesman, the Spectator, the Guardian, The Sunday Times, the British Journalism Review, the Press Gazette and the Catholic Herald, Salon, Slate, the Chicago Sun-Times, the American Prospect, the American Conservative and Reason magazine. He is also a feature-writer for the Christian Science Monitor in America and for the BBC in Britain.
Ronan McDonald
In Defence of Poetry
Ronan is the author of The Death of the Critic (2008). Born in Dublin and educated there and at the University of Oxford he is now Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Reading and the director of the Samuel Beckett International Foundation. From April 2010, he will take up a post as Professor of Modern Literature at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.
His other works include Tragedy and Irish Literature (2002) and The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Beckett (2007), together with numerous essays and articles. He has written for national newspapers including The Observer, The Guardian and The Irish Times and is a regular reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement. He is currently working on a book on Darwinism and Degeneration in Irish Modernism. He has an ongoing interest in the 'values' of literary criticism and organised the conference The Good of Criticism: The Value of Literary Studies, at Reading University, in March 2010.
Andrew McMillan
In Defence of Poetry
Andrew is a young poet who splits his time between Barnsley, where he was born and raised, and Lancaster, where he currently studies. His work has appeared widely in print and online magazines, including The London Magazine, The North, The Reader and Cadaverine magazine.
The publication of his first poetry pamphlet Every Salt Advance (Red Squirrell Press, 2009) saw him dubbed 'a poet of ingenious and rare power' — a claim Andrew disputes but has accepted under sufferance.
Andrew is currently editing Cake magazine alongside Martha Sprackland at Lancaster University and is collaborating on a new opera to be performed at the Glasgow Plug Festival in March. His poetic heroes include Thom Gunn, Allen Ginsberg, Adrian Mitchell and Geoff Hattersley. He is currently working on his first collection.
George Szirtes
In Defence of Poetry
George was born in Hungary in 1948 and came to England with his family in 1956 after the Hungarian Uprising. His first poems began appearing in the early 1970s and his first book The Slant Door (1979) was awarded the Faber Prize. Since then he has written thirteen other books of poetry that have won various awards, including the T S Eliot Prize for Reel (2004). His New and Collected Poems appeared in 2008. His latest work, The Burning of the Books and Other Poems (2009) was also shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize.
George has also produced a series of prize-winning translations of poetry form the Hungarian. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and of the English Association and has written extensively about poetry for the press. He is a Reader in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
Jeremy Taylor
Human Genes and Animal Rights
Jeremy Taylor is a freelance television producer/director, specialising in popular science programs, who has recently turned to book writing with NOT A CHIMP. In a previous career he was a stalwart producer of the BBC's flagship science series HORIZON. His love is evolutionary biology and he has made a number of films with an evolutionary theme including PLAYING WITH MADNESS for the BBC, and MINDREADERS for C4.
Dolan Cummings
What is the morality behind drugs policy?
Dolan Cummings is the editorial and research director of the Institute of Ideas, editor of Culture Wars, and co-founder of the civil liberties campaiging organisation the Manifesto Club.
Darryl Bickler
What is the morality behind drugs policy?
Darryl Bickler is a non-practising solicitor who formerly worked as a practiioner in human rights and criminal law, and is a founding member of Drugs Equality Alliance.
Graham Aitken
What is the morality behind drugs policy?
Graham Aitken is co-founder and current member of the Board of Directors of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, UK.
Josie Appleton
The Case Against Vetting
Josie Appleton is convenor of the Manifesto Club, a civil liberties group that campaigns against vetting, booze bans, photo bans, and other forms of state hyperregulation of everyday life.
David Chandler
Rethinking Global Politics
David Chandler is Professor of International Relations, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster. He is the Editor of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, and author of numerous books on human rights, democracy and international relations, including: Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton (2000); Constructing Global Civil Society (2004); From Kosovo to Kabul and Beyond (2005); and Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building (2006). Visit his website here.
Cath Follin
Rethinking Freedom in the Age of Health and Safety
City Centre Manager, Leeds City Council
Yvonne Crowther
Rethinking Freedom in the Age of Health and Safety
Youth Manager, Cardinal Youth and Community Centre, South Leeds
Dr Phil Hadfield
Rethinking Freedom in the Age of Health and Safety
Senior Research Fellow at the School of Law, University of Leeds, author of Nightlife and Crime: Social Order and Governance in International Perspective, Oxford University Press, 2009 and Bar Wars: Contesting the Night in Contemporary British Cities, Oxford University Press, winner of the Hart Early Career Book Prize 2007.
Stuart Waiton
Rethinking Freedom in the Age of Health and Safety
Sociology Lecturer at the University of Abertay Dundee, author of The Politics of Antisocial Behaviour: Amoral Panics (Routledge Advances in Criminology)
James Woudhuysen
Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation
James Woudhuysen, Visiting Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Monfort University, writer and journalist, co-author of Energise!: A Future for Energy Innovation
Kenan Malik
From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy
Kenan Malik, author of From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy
Dr Vanessa Pupavac
Global Citizenship and the School Curriculum
Dr Vanessa Pupavac, Lecturer in International Relations, School of Politics and International Relation, University of Nottingham, author of Children's Rights and the New Culture of Paternalism
Alex Standish
Global Citizenship and the School Curriculum
Alex Standish, Assistant Professor of Geography, Western Connecticut State University, author of Global Perspectives in the Geography Curriculum: Reviewing the Moral Case for Geography, (Routledge, 2009).
