Previous Speakers
Get a taste of what's to come with the first names revealed for the HowTheLightGetsIn Hay 2025 speaker lineup very soon.
First speakers and debates released!
Get a taste of what's to come with the first names revealed for the HowTheLightGetsIn Hay 2025 speaker lineup very soon.
Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli public intellectual, historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Published in 2014, Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind has become an international hit, with over 23 million copies sold. In 2016 Prof. Harari returned with Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, a critically acclaimed book that examines the big future projects facing humanity in the 21st century. Since its publication, over 10 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide.
After venturing deep into the past and then the future, Yuval Noah Harari published 21 Lessons for the 21st Century in 2018. Here he stopped to take the pulse of our current global climate, focusing on the biggest questions of the present moment: What is really happening right now? What are today’s greatest challenges and choices? What should we pay attention to? 6 Million copies of 21 Lessons have been sold worldwide.
Harari appeared at HowTheLightGetsIn Hay 2022, debating firebrand philosopher Slavoj Žižek in the debate Nature: Friend or Foe? - you can watch the debate here.
Kimberlé Crenshaw is a pioneering scholar and writer on civil rights, critical race theory, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law. In addition to her position at Columbia Law School, she is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Crenshaw’s work has been foundational in critical race theory and in “intersectionality,” a term she coined to describe the double bind of simultaneous racial and gender prejudice. Her studies, writing, and activism have identified key issues in the perpetuation of inequality, including the “school to prison pipeline” for African American children and the criminalization of behavior among Black teenage girls. Through the Columbia Law School African American Policy Forum (AAPF), which she co-founded, Crenshaw co-authored (with Andrea Ritchie) Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women, which documented and drew attention to the killing of Black women and girls by police. Crenshaw and AAPF subsequently launched the #SayHerName campaign to call attention to police violence against Black women and girls.
You can watch her participating in a HowTheLightGetsIn debate with Labour MP Dianne Abbott and former Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch - entitled Who We Are: Beyond Black and White - here.
"The world's most influential living philosopher." The New Yorker
Peter Singer is the most prominent figure in contemporary ethics. He has made groundbreaking contributions to animal welfare, bioethics, effective altruism and practical ethics more broadly.
He is a founder of both Animals Australia and The Life You Can Save, and has been a key figure in the Effective Altruism movement - an initiative that uses evidence and careful analysis to find the very best way for individuals to do good. Singer has received multiple accolades for his work, including a nomination as one of Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals and the $1 million Berggruen Prize in 2021.
Singer appeared at the most recent HowTheLightGetsIn London 2024 via zoom, where he debated his theory of ethics in the debate 'A Rule To Live By' soon to be released on IAI.tv.
(Photo: Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek)
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is a globally renowned philosopher and cultural critic. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana's Department of Philosophy. He is the author of several books, including The Sublime Object of Ideology, The Parallax View, Living in the End Times and Heaven in Disorder.
Žižek has appeared at many HowTheLightGetsIn festivals. You can watch his debate with renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari from our Hay 2022 festival, entitled Nature: Friend or Foe?, here.
Deborah Levy
Deborah Levy is a British novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet, whose proficiency across multiple literary forms marks her out as one of the great contemporary literary figures. Levy’s literary career began in the 1980s, writing plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the MANACT theatre company in Cardiff. Her collected scripts were republished in 2000. Levy’s first novel, Beautiful Mutants, appeared to great acclaim in 1989 and a volume of short stories followed later in the same year, but mainstream success came in 2012 when Swimming Home was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, a feat she repeated four years later with Hot Milk. In between came the lauded short story collection Black Vodka and the first part of her ‘living autobiography’ Things I Don’t Want to Know, the second volume of which, The Cost of Living, followed in 2018.
You can watch her participating in a HowTheLightGetsIn debate, entitled Stranger Than We Think, here.
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky is an American theoretical linguist whose work from the 1950s revolutionized the field of linguistics by treating language as a uniquely human, biologically based cognitive capacity. Through his contributions to linguistics and related fields, including cognitive psychology and the philosophies of mind and language, Chomsky helped to initiate and sustain what came to be known as the “cognitive revolution.” Chomsky also gained a worldwide following as a political dissident for his analyses of the pernicious influence of economic elites on U.S. domestic politics, foreign policy, and intellectual culture.
You can watch his HowTheLightGetsIn debate on Darkness, Authority and Dreams here.
Brian Eno
Brian Eno is a producer, musical pioneer and public intellectual who has had a profound impact on contemporary music and creativity. He began his career as the keyboardist in Roxy Music, before forging his own path and creating a new type of music - 'ambient' music, which he labelled 'as ignorable as it is interesting'. He has collaborated with David Bowie, Talking Heads and U2 among others, and has had a successful career as a visual artist alongside his music.
Eno has appeared at many HowTheLightGetsIn festivals, most recently at our London 2019 festival. You can watch the debate he participated in, entitled The Tyranny of the New, here.
Kehinde Andrews
"We need to reclaim the politics of Black radicalism"
Kehinde Andrews is an academic, activist and author. He is Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, and has developed Europe's first Black Studies undergraduate degree.
He has made regular broadcast appearances including being on BBC Newsnight and Russell Brand's Under the Skin podcast. He writes for the Independent among other outlets, and has made videos for Guardian Online and TED Talks. His Guardian Online piece 'The West Was Built on Racism' has been viewed over 10m times on Facebook, to date.
"Kehinde Andrews is a crucial voice walking in a proud tradition of Black radical criticism and action" - Akala
You can watch him participating in a HowTheLightGetsIn debate entitled Language and Power here.
Rory Stewart
Esther Duflo
Esther Duflo is an economist and profesor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT. She is the co-director of J-PAL and shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for 'an experimental approach in ending poverty'. Her research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing countries, including household behavior, education, access to finance, health, and policy evaluation.
You can watch her participating in a HowTheLightGetsIn conversation with MP Jesse Norman on ending inequality here.
Richard Dawkins
‘Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.’
Biologist and best-selling author, Richard Dawkins is one of the most famous scientists in the world. And with good reason: his 1976 work, The Selfish Gene was the first real blockbuster popular science book, shaping how we have all understood evolution and where we come from. Since then, he has written numerous other bestsellers, including The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion and Climbing Mount Improbable. His most recent book, Flights of Fancy, is a beautiful exploration of the different ways humans and other animals have learned to defy gravity.
Diane Abbott
In 1987 Diane Abbott made history by becoming the first black woman ever elected to the British Parliament. She has since built a distinguished career as a parliamentarian, broadcaster and commentator.
From the outset of her career, Diane has championed global justice, human rights, peace and security issues at home and abroad. She has been a vocal campaigner around race-relations, transparency and justice around policing, surveillance, Stop and Search, and detainment without trial.
She was elected on to the National Executive of the Labour Party and, for most of the 1990s, served on the Treasury Select Committee. As a member of this committee she helped author a series of official reports around issues including Britain’s entry into the Euro. She went on to serve on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee as Shadow Public Health Minister.
In 2015, Diane was re-elected to her Hackney North and Stoke Newington constituency with a landslide majority and, in September 2015, was appointed Shadow Secretary for International Development. Diane became Shadow Secretary for Health in June 2016 before serving as the first black female Shadow Home Secretary until earlier this year. Diane also Chairs the British-Caribbean All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) and the APPG for Sickle Cell and Thalassemia.
You can watch her debating intersectionality theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw and former Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch in the HowTheLightGetsIn debate Who We Are: Beyond Black and White here.
Roger Penrose
'Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense'
Roger Penrose is a world-renowned mathmetician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is best known for his work on general relativity and sharing the Wolf Prize for Physics with Stephen Hawking for his work on black holes. Additionally, he is author of The Road to Reality, Cycles of Time and Shadows of the Mind.
Additionally, Penrose is a significant physics and philosophy popoulariser making appearances on the BBC, Closer to Truth and even the Joe Rogan Experience - the largest podcast in the world.
'Sir Roger Penrose’s research has had a profound impact on human understanding of the universe and of the fundamental laws of physics that govern the universe'. Stephen Hawking Foundation
You can watch him debating The Mystery of the Multiverse at HowTheLightGetsIn Hay 2022 festival here.
Shami Chakrabarti
Shami Chakrabarti is a British Labour Party politician and member of the House of Lords. She is a barrister, and was the director of Liberty, an advocacy group which promotes civil liberties and human rights, from 2003 to 2016.
Chakrabarti was born in the London Borough of Harrow, and studied Law at the London School of Economics. After graduating, she was called to the Bar and then worked as an in-house legal counsel for the Home Office.
When she was the director of Liberty, she campaigned against "excessive" anti-terror legislation. In this role she frequently contributed to BBC Radio 4 and various newspapers, and was described in The Times as "probably the most effective public affairs lobbyist of the past 20 years". Between 2014 and 2017 she served as Chancellor of the University of Essex.
Chakrabarti was one of the panel members of the Leveson Inquiry into press standards throughout 2011 and 2012. In April 2016, she was invited by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to chair an inquiry into alleged anti-semitism in the Labour Party, and she presented its findings in June. In August 2016, she was made a life peer in the Prime Minister's Resignation Honours.
She is a governor of the British Film Institute.
You can watch her participating in the HowTheLightGetsIn debate The Necessity and Danger of Belief here.
Sally Phillips
Sally Phillips is a multi-award-winning British actress, comedian, and producer. She is known for her work in the comedy television series I’m Alan Partridge, Jam and Jerusalem, Miranda, Taskmaster and Veep. She started her comedy career in the Oxford Revue and completed 9 Edinburgh Fringe runs in shows like Ra-Ra-Rasputin, a comedy biography of Rasputin the monk set to the words and lyrics of Boney M, Simon Munnery’s Cluub Zarathustra, with Stewart Lee, Richard Thomas and Julian Barratt and as Ophelia in Arthur Smith’s Hamlet alongside writing and performing comedy for BBC Radio.
In 1997 she was cast in ‘Smack the Pony’ which aired on Channel 4 from 1998-2001. Smack the Pony was a ground-breaking female-led sketch show that she developed and co-wrote which also starred Doon Mackichan, Fiona Allen, Sarah Alexander and Darren Boyd. It won many awards, among them two international Emmys.
In 2016 she fronted the documentary 'A World Without Down's Syndrome?' (BBC2), exploring our national screening policy's ethical implications. It won the Radio Times Readers Awards and Sanford St Martin awards for the Best single documentary and was shown worldwide. This success has led to contributions to The Nuffield Council Report, invitations to speak to midwives, gynaecologists, politicians, and philosophers globally, and she continues to be a vocal disability advocate.
You can watch a debate she participated in at HowTheLightGetsIn Online festival, entitled Sexuality, Power and Pornography, here.
Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. He grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won numerous prizes for his research, his teaching, and his books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now.
He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, and one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” He was Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for the New York Times, the Guardian, and other publications. His twelfth book, published in 2021, is called Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.
You can watch him debating The Fires of Progress at HowTheLightGetsIn with Tariq Ali and Elif Sarican here.
Grace Blakeley
Grace Blakeley is an English economics and politics commentator, columnist, journalist and author. She is a staff writer for Tribune and panelist on TalkTV. She was previously the economics commentator of the New Statesman and has contributed to Novara Media.
You can watch her HowTheLightGetsIn talk on The Corona Crash here.
Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali is a Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books. He read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Exeter College, Oxford.
He is the author of many books, including Pakistan: Military Rule or People's Power (1970), Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State (1983), Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002), Bush in Babylon (2003), Conversations with Edward Said (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis Of Hope (2006), A Banker for All Seasons (2007), The Duel (2008), The Obama Syndrome (2010), and The Extreme Centre: A Warning (2015).
You can watch him participating in the HowTheLightGetsIn debate on Ukraine: The Deceit of the West here, and watch his solo talk on War and Peace in Afghanistan here.
Jess Phillips
Since entering Parliament at the 2015 election, Jess Philips has earned a reputation as one of Westminster’s most outspoken MPs. Now established as a prominent figure in the Labour Party, Philips made her name as a fierce critic of then Leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
Philips has also won praise for her campaigning on issues such as anti-Semitism, sexual harassment and austerity. Briefly appearing in the 2020 Labour leadership election, Philips stood on a platform of taking the Labour Party back to the centre-left.
Having dropped out of this race early, Philips is now a member of Keir Starmer’s frontbench, with a brief focusing on domestic violence and safeguarding.
You can watch her participating in a HowTheLightGetsIn debate entitled Presidents, Policies and Power here.
Emma Sulkowicz
Emma Sulkowicz is a performance artist living and working in New York City. She is most famous for her year-long performance art project Mattress Performance: Carry That Weight where she dragged a mattress around Columbia University in protest at the school’s mishandling of her sexual assault complaint, and becoming one of the faces of the movement against rape culture on college campuses.
You can watch her discuss Kafka vs Camus at HowTheLightGetsIn Hay 2022 festival here.
Michio Kaku
“Physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an attempt by an atom to understand itself.”
Michio Kaku is an American theoretical physicist, futurist. He is co-founder of string field theory and continues Einstein’s search to unite the four fundamental forces of nature into one unified theory. He is a professor of theoretical physics in the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center.
Kaku is the author of several books about physics and related topics and has made frequent appearances on radio, television, and film. His books Physics of the Impossible, Physics of the Future , The Future of the Mind, and The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything became New York Times best sellers. Kaku has hosted several television specials for the BBC, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Science Channel.
“Michio Kaku is one of recent history’s greatest minds.” – Futurism
You can watch him debating The Mystery of the Multiverse at HowTheLightGetsIn with Roger Penrose and Sabine Hossenfelder here.
Tommy Curry
Tommy J. Curry is an American scholar, author and professor of philosophy, holding a Personal Chair in Africana philosophy and Black male studies at the University of Edinburgh. In 2018, he won an American Book Award for The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood.
Curry has appeared at many HowTheLightGetsIn festivals. You can watch his discussion on black manhood from the Hay 2022 festival here and his debate with Aaron Bastani and Kathleen Stock on Truth, Prejudice and the University here.
Andrea Elliott
Andrea Elliott is an American Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, who writes for the New York Times as an investigative reporter. Her work documents the struggles faced by immigrants and those on the margins of society.
Elliot has written a series of articles entitled ‘An Imam In America’ which was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. She is also the author of a bestselling book, ‘An Invisible Child’, which mapped the struggles encountered by a young homeless girl, Dasani Coates, in New York. The book received critical acclaim, and was named by Barack Obama as one of his ‘books of the year.’
'A classic to rank with Orwell... [Elliott is] a first-class storyteller and will have you reading with your heart in your mouth. Her characters are so vivid they leap off the pages’ - Christina Patterson, The Sunday Times
You can watch her debating Kafka vs Camus at HowTheLightGetsIn Hay 2022 here.
Anna Soubry
Anna Soubry is a British barrister, journalist and former politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Broxtowe from 2010 to 2019.
Having been a strong supporter of the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union during the 2016 referendum campaign, Soubry was a vocal critic of Brexit and the Conservative Party's facilitation of the policy. She resigned from the Conservatives in February 2019, citing her party's shift to the right and support of Brexit. She and others joined The Independent Group, later Change UK, and she was appointed its leader in June 2019.
You can watch her in the HowTheLightGetsIn debate entitled The Will of the People here.
Peter Tatchell
“Don’t accept the world as it is. Dream of what the world could be – and then help make it happen.”
Peter Tatchell is a human rights campaigner best known for his work with LGBT movements, a member of the gay rights group Outrage! and director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation, a human rights organization. Peter began campaigning in London, organizing sit-ins at pubs that refused to serve gay people and protests against the classification of homosexuality as an illness. Peter also identifies as a humanist, believing that reason, science and ethics are the best way to promote human rights and welfare.
“A national hero” - Sunday Times
You can watch him participating in the HowTheLightGetsIn debate entitled The Eclipse of the West here.
A.C. Grayling
“Humanism is the philosophy that you should be a good guest at the dinner table of life.”
A.C. Grayling is one of the most well-known British philosophers alive today. A prolific writer, he is the author of almost 30 books spanning philosophy, biography, history of ideas, human rights, and ethics. Grayling is a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has served as a judge for prestigious literary awards like the Man Booker Prize.
Core to Grayling’s beliefs is that "philosophy should take an active role in society". Recently, Grayling has become an outspoken critic of British Politics, including Brexit and its facilitating actors.
“He's more historically-minded than Russell, less dogmatic than Dawkins and less in thrall to the charms of his own fluency than Hitchens .” — Prospect
Sabine Hossenfelder
"Theoretical physicists used to explain what was observed. Now they try to explain why they can't explain what was not observed."
Fearlessly critical of the scientific mainstream, Sabine Hossenfelder is a groundbreaking theoretical physicist who specialises in the foundations of science. She is a leading science communicator, best-selling author and researcher. Her recent books include Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, and the New York Times's Best Selling Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions.
Hossenfelder is the creator behind the popular YouTube channel, "Science without the gobbledygook" which has amassed over one million subscribers. Her writing has featured in some of the world's top publications including Scientific American, New Scientist, and Nautilus.
“A physicist who is utterly fearless, completely honest, and quite funny.” — Peter Woit, mathematical physicist
Philippa Gregory
"In almost any circumstances I always ask ‘but how did it get like this? How did it start?"
Philippa Gregory CBE is a renowned writer and author of historical fiction. She is best known for The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), which was adapted into two films and in 2002 won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award from the Romantic Novelists' Association.
A member of the Society of Authors, Gregory was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction Award in 2016 and an Honorary Platinum Award by Nielsen in 2018. Gregory was the founder of Gardens for the Gambia, a charity that funded almost 200 wells in Gambian primary schools.
"Gregory has made an impressive career out of breathing passionate, independent life into the historical noblewomen." — The Telegraph
Konstantin Kisin
"Freedom, human rights, tolerance, peace and prosperity are like the eternal flame that must be guarded, nurtured and never, ever taken for granted."
Konstantin Kisin is a comedian, best-selling author, social commentator and co-host of the TRIGGERnometry podcast. Kisin has appeared on shows like BBC Question Time, Real Time with Bill Maher and Tucker Carlson, as well as the Joe Rogan Experience and other popular podcasts.
Kisin is known for his engaging and thought-provoking talks on a wide range of topics, including upholding Western values, classical liberalism, freedom of expression and truth. His articles have been published in The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph and Spiked. His best-selling book is An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West.
'We are lucky to have him." — Douglas Murray, Telegraph
Ruby Wax
"The most cognitively brilliant people usually have had to sacrifice their emotional selves."
Ruby Wax OBE is a seminal British-American talent, excelling as an actress, writer, TV personality, and mental health advocate. Her impressive career includes captivating performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company and a memorable role in the ITV sitcom Girls on Top.
Wax has been a longstanding advocate and campaigner for mental health, sharing her own experiences of bipolar disorder and depression. Recognized for her contributions, she received the Officer of the Order of the British Empire title. Recently, she released a poignant book and audiobook, I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was, documenting her ongoing journey and relentless battle against depression.
"Nobody can make the serious funny and the funny serious quite like Ruby." — Alastair Campbell
Rupert Sheldrake
“The belief system that governs conventional scientific thinking is an act of faith.”
Rupert Sheldrake is a scientist, author, and parapsychology researcher. Best known for his theory of morphic resonance, a radical hypothesis that nature itself has memory. Sheldrake is also known for his viral TED talk which was banned by the organisation. He has taken issue with the New Atheism of many and has also challenged the idea that the laws of nature are fixed and unchanging.
At Cambridge University, he worked in developmental biology as a Fellow of Clare College. He was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad, India.
"Sheldrake is an excellent scientist; the proper, imaginative kind." — New Scientist
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