Rachel Holmes is the author of The Secret Life of Dr James Barry (2007), The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman (2008), and Eleanor Marx: A Life (2015). She is co-editor, with Lisa Appignanensi and Susie Orbach, of Fifty Shades of Feminism and co-commissioning editor, with Josie Rourke and Chris Haydon, of Sixty-Six Books: Twenty-First Century Writers Speak to the King James Bible. She lives in Gloucestershire. […]
Speakers and Panellists
previous speakers
Ian Cram
Ian Cram is Professor of Comparative Law, University of Leeds. His main research interests are in the fields of public law and comparative constitutional Law, with special reference to freedom of expression.He is author of Terror and the War on Dissent – Freedom of Expression in the Age of Al-Qaeda (Springer, 2009). Ian also acted as General Editor for the new edition of Borrie & […]
Kate Wicker
Kate Wicker is a PHD researcher in Sociology & Social Policy, University of Leeds. Her research interests lie in the role of experts and evidence in public policymaking, particularly in contexts where knowledge is uncertain and contested. Kate’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded PhD research traces and analyses how expertise is expressed, conferred and denied among ‘radicalisation’ experts in the United Kingdom. She is a member of […]
Bill Durodié
Bill Durodié is Professor and Chair of International Relations at the University of Bath. He previously held posts in British Columbia and in Singapore, as well as at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. Bill was educated at Imperial College, the London School of Economics and New College Oxford. He received his PhD through the Centre for decision analysis and risk management of Middlesex […]
Geoff Dibb
Geoff Dibb is a retired civil engineer and the author of Oscar Wilde – a Vagabond with a Mission: The Story of Oscar Wilde’s Lecture Tours of Britain and Ireland (The Oscar Wilde Society, 2013). […]
Graeme Tiffany
Graeme Tiffany is an independent education consultant. As a part-time PhD student in the philosophy of education, he is researching the role of data systems and their effect on the practice of educators and implications for democracy. Graham is also a Community Philosopher pioneer. […]
Mark Birkin
Mark Birkin is Professor of Spatial Analysis and Policy and Director of the Consumer Data Research Centre, University of Leeds. He is currently leading the university’s ESRC research project into Big Data. He edits the journal Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy. His major interests are in simulating social and demographic change within cities and regions, and in understanding the impact of these changes on the […]
Katy Wright
Katy Wright is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Bauman Institute, University of Leeds, exploring theories of community resilience through qualitative empirical work in South Wales, involving the development of an alternative approach to understanding resilience. She previously worked as a researcher at the University of Sheffield and at the UNESCO Centre, University of Ulster (Coleraine) and for several years outside of academia in public, […]
David Chandler
David Chandler is Professor of International Relations and Research Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster. He is author numerous books, including Resilience: The Governance of Complexity (Routledge, 2014), Freedom vs Necessity in International Relations (Zed Books, 2013), and Hollow Hegemony: Rethinking Global politics, Power and Resistance (Pluto 2009), and From Kosovo […]
Richard Bridge
After working in the private sector as Finance Director of a medium-sized company in South Leeds for 17 years, Richard switched career. He has since worked as an outreach adviser for a number of Citizens Advice Bureaux (including Chapeltown, Leeds) since 2006 and currently supervises the Children’s Centre advice project in Leeds for Better Leeds Communities. Richard recently graduated in Social Policy from the University […]