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From Britain's most influential politicians to distinguished neuroscientists, Nobel Prize-winners to acclaimed novelists, our lineup is brimming with the game-changers and thought-leaders across philosophy, science, politics and the arts - and there's much, much more to come!
“See you, either in Hell, or in Communism.”
Slavoj Žižek infamously said “Humanity is OK, but 99% of people are boring idiots” — Žižek himself is certainly neither boring nor an idiot. Žižek is arguably the most provocative philosopher of our times. Foreign Policy named Žižek a Top 100 Global Thinker "for giving voice to an era of absurdity”. With never a dull moment, Žižek breathes new life into Marxism, Hegel, psychoanalysis, philosophy, politics, film and culture.
Žižek is the author of more than 50 books, including most recently Against Progress. He is a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana's Department of Philosophy.
“There is something inexplicably touching about all Žižek's mischievous bombast” — The Guardian
"The world has far too much morality.”
Steven Pinker, joining us from America via Zoom, is a cognitive psychologist, linguist, best-selling author, and one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals. He is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is well known for his defense of the Enlightenment and moral progress.
Pinker has been named as one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” He is the author of Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.
“Pinker is right. Not just a bit right, but completely, utterly, incontrovertibly right.” — The Daily Mail
“Writers should be entitled to write from any perspective, race, gender, or background they choose.”
Lionel Shriver is an award winning author and provocative voice in contemporary literature, unafraid to tackle contentious subjects with unflinching honesty. Her acclaimed novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, delves into the complexities of motherhood and moral responsibility, which earned her the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005.
Shriver's fearless exploration of societal norms and the individual psyche makes her one of the most compelling figures in modern literature.
"Unafraid to confront uncomfortable truths." — The New York Times
"Democracy is not just about voting every few years; it’s about people having real control over their lives."
Jeremy Corbyn is a British politician and current independent MP who served as the Labour party's leader from 2015 to 2020. Representing the constituency of Islington North since 1983, he was a vocal backbencher with a reputation of voting against his party until he was elected leader with the largest party membership for a generation. He contested the 2017 general election and won 40% of the vote, the largest Labour share since 2001.
Since he has been expelled from the Labour party, Jeremy has gone on to win his Islington seat as an independent. His views place him firmly on the progressive left where he is staunchly anti-war, anti-austerity, pro nationalisation and pro-Palestine.
"His time in the Labour Party may be over, but Corbynmania lives on." — Irish Times
“That’s what science does. At the end there’s a result based on maths and logic. If one is equal to one, we can all agree on that. Maths don’t lie.”
Claudia de Rham is a Swiss theoretical physicist working at the interface of gravity, cosmology and particle physics. She is based at Imperial College London. Professor de Rham is well known for her groundbreaking research into the theory of massive gravity, a radical theory that contends the graviton has a nonzero mass, thereby explaining the expansion of the universe without the need for dark energy.
She was one of the UK finalists in the Physical Sciences and Engineering category of the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists in 2018 for revitalizing the theory of massive gravity, and won the award in 2020.
"De Rham has pioneered a radical theory that could hold the key to why the universe is expanding faster and faster and explain the nature of dark energy." — Hannah Devlin
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"Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense."
Roger Penrose is a world-renowned mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is best known for his work on general relativity and black holes. He also shared the Wolf Prize for Physics with Stephen Hawking for his work on black holes. Additionally, he is the author of The Road to Reality, Cycles of Time and Shadows of the Mind.
Penrose is also a physics and philosophy populariser making appearances on the BBC, Closer to Truth and the Joe Rogan Experience.
"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
“The British are the only people in history crass enough to have made revolutionaries out of Americans.”
A career diplomat with nearly three decades of experience at the highest levels of the UN, Dr Shashi Tharoor is a politician, writer and former diplomat described as “one of India's top public intellectuals.” He has served as Congress Party MP in India since 2009 and placed second in the 2006 campaign for UN Secretary-General. The then Ambassador John Bolton vetoed Dr Tharoor's candidacy in a secret vote, later revealing his instructions from Condoleezza Rice: "We don't want a strong Secretary-General."
He is the author of dozens of books that span politics, history, fiction, literary criticism, and more. His bestselling book Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India won critical acclaim for exposing the devastating effects of British rule in India and challenging the myth that British imperialism was driven by anything other than naked self-interest.
"Shashi Tharoor is the most charming and persuasive writer in India." — William Dalrymple
"All this chaos. It's part of who I am."
Jordan Stephens is a British artist, actor, and mental health advocate, best known as one-half of the chart-topping hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks. The group succeeded with hits like “Down with the Trumpets” and performed at major festivals, including Glastonbury.
Beyond music, Stephens is an advocate for men’s mental health, speaking openly about emotional well-being and challenging traditional notions of masculinity. He has also acted in TV series such as Glue, Catastrophe, and Feel Good, and films like Rogue One and Teen Spirit. His latest book, Avoidance, Drugs, Heartbreak explores the struggles of a young man rising to fame.
"An energetic and unguarded memoir" — The Guardian on Avoidance, Drugs and Heartbreak."
"Thatcher was the motivation for my entire political career. I hated everything she stood for."
Nicola Sturgeon is the former First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP). She remains a prominent political figure, despite stepping down from her leadership roles in 2023. She has been at the forefront of Scottish politics since 2004 when she first ran to be leader of the SNP.
Sturgeon's tenure as First Minister was marked by her strong advocacy for Scottish independence and her focus on social policies, including healthcare and education reforms. Her leadership saw the SNP achieve significant electoral successes, making inroads into areas previously dominated by the Labour party.
"Nicola Sturgeon has been at the forefront of not just Scottish but UK politics for over two decades. She’s served with dedication and passion." — Keir Starmer
"My reason for writing... was the conviction that the economy is too important to leave to the economists.”
Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist, academic, and politician who rose to international prominence in 2015 as Greece's Minister of Finance. His outspoken criticism of the European Union's economics and confrontational style nearly caused Greece to leave the Euro. He has since become leader of the DiEM25 party, which seeks to reform the EU from within.
Yanis has a storied career as an academic and public intellectual. He has held academic positions at the Universities of Cambridge, East Anglia, Sydney, Glasgow, Athens, Austin and Stockholm. He has since written several bestselling books around popular economics, with hist most recent book Technofeudalism outlining how capitalism has been replaced with a modern version of feudalism.
"Varoufakis is a remarkable combination of analyst and dreamer." — Financial Times
"You cannot tax your way out of a crisis."
Richard Tice is a British businessman and politician, best known for his leadership of Reform UK, formerly the Brexit Party prior to Nigel Farage. A prominent advocate for Brexit, Tice played a key role in the campaign for the UK's departure from the European Union and was elected to Parliament in 2024. Since founding the Brexit party in 2018, Tice has been at the heart of a political movement that has upended politics going from 2% vote share in 2019 to 14.3% in 2024.
Prior to politics, he was the CEO of a housing development company in London. He later went on to author reports for think tanks into education policy and donate to the eurosceptic wing of the Conservative party. Using his considerable influence, he has helped to propel Euroscepticism to the forefront of UK politics.
"Justice must always be based on the truth, not on narratives that seek to exploit tragedy for political ends."
Inaya Folarin Iman is a British political commentator, writer, and the founder of the Equiano Project, an initiative promoting free speech, open dialogue, and a more inclusive approach to discussions about race and identity. Recently, she has focused on challenging the dominance of identity politics in public discourse and advocating for policies rooted in shared humanity rather than divisive rhetoric.
Her work at the Equiano Project emphasizes the need for critical reflection on how society addresses complex issues like racial inequality and multiculturalism. She argues for open debate on topics often constrained by political correctness, such as integration and cultural identity. She was a regular presenter on GB news and is also a regular writer for Spiked Online, The Telegraph, and Daily Mail.
"Here, on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and beauty of the world. And it's breathtaking."
Carlo Rovelli, joining us via zoom from America, is an Italian theoretical physicist who works mainly in the field of Quantum Gravity. Carlo studied at the Universities of Bologna, Padova, Rome, Trieste and Yale, and is currently Emeritus Professor at the Centre de Physique Theorique of Marseille in France. His popular science book Seven Briefs Lessons on Physics has been translated into 41 languages and sold over one million copies. He was named one of the 100 most influential thinkers in 2019 by Foreign Policy magazine.
Rovelli's interests extend to philosophy, religion and politics. His experience as an activist also formed his belief that science should be an act of learned rebellion that puts into question received knowledge.
"Rovelli is wonderfully human, gentle and witty ... he is as much philosopher and poet as he is a scientist." — Irish Times
“There is something wrong if an instance of free will exists only until there is a decrease in our ignorance.”
Robert Sapolsky is a distinguished American neuroscientist, primatologist, and author, serving as a Professor of Biology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery at Stanford University. His pioneering research includes gene therapy, neuron death and, from his time living among baboons in East Africa, effects of stress on health. Sapolsky's ability to inspire and engage has led him to be one of the most popular science communicators of our time, reaching millions worldwide.
Sapolsky is the author of numerous books including Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst and more recently Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will where he challenges conventional notions of free will, arguing that human behavior is entirely determined by biology and environment.
"Robert Sapolsky is one of the best scientist-writers of our time." — Oliver Sacks
"Creating a sense of co-existence and community is about forging a shared identity which...I think this will necessarily begin with quite a profound reform of education."
Dr Myriam François is a trailblazing journalist, filmmaker and writer. A former columnist at the New Statesman and a familiar face on the BBC, Channel 4, and Al Jazeera, Myriam has since founded mpwr productions, an independent documentary production company which seeks to platform minority voices.
François recently released her documentary directorial debut, ‘Finding Alaa’, to critical acclaim. The film was selected for the BAFTA longlist and shortlisted for the 2021 Whickers Awards and the Cannes MIPDOC 2022. Myriam was nominated as one of only 14 “filmmakers to watch” in 2021 by One World Media.
"When thought overwhelms the mind, the mind uses the world."
Barbara Tversky is an active Emerita Professor of Psychology at Stanford and Professor of Psychology at Columbia Teachers College. Her research has spanned memory, categorization, language, spatial cognition, event perception and cognition, diagrammatic reasoning, sketching, creativity, design, and gesture. The overall goals have been to uncover how people think about the spaces they inhabit and the actions they perform and see and then how people use the world and the things in it.
Her 2019 book, Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought, provides an overview of some of that work. She has collaborated widely, with linguists, philosophers, neuroscientists, computer scientists, chemists, biologists, architects, designers, and artists.
"One of the world's leading researchers on these topics." — Steven Pinker
'"Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.”
Paul Bloom is a Canadian-American psychologist, bestselling author and celebrated speaker. He is the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University and Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto.
Bloom has written widely on human nature, including morality, pleasure, and religion. He won the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize for his investigations into how children develop a sense of morality. In his widely-read book Against Empathy, he argues for rational thinking rather than empathy for making moral decisions.
"One of the leading figures in the study of how the mind works." — Steven Pinker
“Tories must not forget there is more to life than money.”
Jesse Norman is a distinguished British politician, author, and academic, recognized for his profound contributions to political thought and public service. Serving as the Member of Parliament for Hereford and South Herefordshire since 2010, he has held various ministerial roles, including Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Minister of State for Transport. Currently, he serves as Shadow Leader of the House of Commons.
An esteemed scholar, Norman is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He has authored influential works such as Edmund Burke: The Visionary Who Invented Modern Politics and Adam Smith: What He Thought, and Why It Matters.
“Mr Norman is David Cameron’s philosopher-in-chief.” - The Times
'"The focus on all forms of trauma except economic exploitation has helped to disguise the problem at the heart of neoliberalism."
Catherine Liu is a professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine, renowned for her incisive critiques of contemporary cultural and political dynamics. Her scholarly work delves into the intersections of critical theory, political economy, and cultural criticism.
Liu's publications include Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class (2021), a polemical examination of the class's role in perpetuating economic and social inequalities, and The American Idyll: Academic Anti-Elitism as Cultural Critique (2011), which explores the complexities of anti-elitism in American cultural politics.
"This presumption of American decline has been a serious mistake of Putin’s."
Malcolm Rifkind is a renowned British politician who served in the cabinets of both Margaret Thatcher and John Major, most famously in the roles of Foreign and Defense Secretary. Most recently he chaired the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, working closely with the CIA and MI6. A minister for eighteen years, he has seen longer uninterrupted service than anyone since the early nineteenth century.
He is currently banned from Russia by President Putin, due to the robustness of his response against the Kremlin’s aggression in Ukraine. In recent years he has been appointed a visiting professor of war at King's College London and a Distinguished Fellow at the RSUI.
"Malcolm Rifkind was in the top rank of twentieth-century politicians. Few saw events at closer quarters." — John Major
'"Journalism is about following the facts…whatever allegation is made, there must be concrete evidence."
Aaron Maté is an independent journalist, author, and commentator known for his analysis of international relations, U.S. foreign policy, and media coverage of geopolitics. He has contributed to various outlets, including The Nation, RealClearPolitics, and Grayzone News, where he serves as a senior writer.
Maté is recognised for his scepticism of mainstream narratives in geopolitics, particularly concerning U.S. military interventions and allegations of foreign interference. He is vocal about the importance of evidence-based journalism and has been a leading critic of the Russiagate narrative. Aaron Maté advocates for journalism that prioritises accountability, challenges state and corporate propaganda, and gives voice to marginalised perspectives.
"I could do Shakespeare forever."
Michelle Terry is an Olivier Award-winning actress working extensively in theatre, TV, and radio. She is currently the Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe, where she has gained critical acclaim for her modern interpretations of Shakespeare's plays.
Notable productions of Terry's include a 2018 gender-fluid production of Hamlet and a 2024 production of Richard III in which she was cast as the lead. In television, she is known for writing and starring in the Sky One series The Café, as well as for her appearances in Extras, Law & Order: UK, and Reunited.
"I'm not sure it's possible to see Michelle Terry on a stage without falling a little in love with her." — Financial Times
"We don’t actually have definitive proof that [inflation] is truly what happened... It is by no means a done and dusted theory."
Jo Dunkley is a distinguished British astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at Princeton University, working on major international projects including the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and Simons Observatory, which focus on measuring the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—the earliest observable light in the universe. Her contributions have been recognised with numerous accolades, such as the Maxwell Medal, the Rosalind Franklin Award, and the New Horizons Prize and has recently been elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
Dunkley's recent research works on uncovering evidence of "inflation" in our early universe. This research works to also help us understand the big 'tensions' in cosmology and improve our understanding of dark matter.
“If a love encounter is like a good joke, then what is love in its duration and temporality-what is, as we say, a love that lasts?”
Alenka Zupančič is a Lacanian philosopher and social theorist. She is a professor at The European Graduate School and at the University of Nova Gorica. Zupančič is one of the most prominent members of the “Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis.” She is also a renowned Nietzsche scholar.
Key elements of Zupančič’s work focus on the relations between sexuality, ontology and the unconscious and the idea of the self and the Real.
“If Zupancic’s book does not become a classic work of reference, the only conclusion will be that our academia is caught in an obscure desire to self-destruct.”—Slavoj Žižek
'“Every human being, in a way, is a philosopher. Because that's what it is to be human.”
Hilary Lawson is a philosopher, renowned critic of philosophical realism and editorial director of the Institute of Art and Ideas. His main work, Closure: A Story of Everything, has been described as ‘the first non-realist metaphysics’.
His early work made the case that twentieth-century philosophy was centrally concerned with the paradoxes of self-reference. Closure can be seen as an attempt to resolve these paradoxes and at the same time to provide an account of language that does require reference to an external reality. In doing so it outlines a metaphysics that abandons the traditional relationship between language and the world in favour of a vocabulary of closure and openness. The theory has dramatic consequences for how we understand ourselves and the world, and the role of both science and religion.
“Lawson shows himself to be a latter-day 'metaphysician' on the grand scale ... a quite astonishing achievement.” — Alan Montefiore, University of Oxford
"Imagining humans can control superintelligent AI is a little like imagining that an ant can control the outcome of an NFL football game being played around it."
Roman Yampolskiy is a professor and computer scientist at the University of Louisville who specialises in artificial intelligence, AI safety, digital forensics and behavioural biometrics. Yampolskiy has published two decades worth of journal articles and books and his work has been recognised worldwide by science magazines, news and popular podcasts, inlcuding the BBC and New Scientist.
Yampolskiy is the author of multiple books and his most recent works AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable and Artificial Superintelligence: a Futuristic Approach are deep dives into the world of AI safety. In 2023, Yampolskiy was one of many AI experts to sign an open letter titled Pause Giant AI Experiments alongside tech CEOs Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak.
"[AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable] is a captivating and thought-provoking book about the most pressing issue of our time" — Prof. Max Tegmark, MIT
"Every aspect of our brain and body can be predicted from our environment."
Karl Friston is a Professor of Imaging Neuroscience at University College London and Principle Research Fellow for the Wellcome Trust. Friston is a former President of the International Organization for Human Brain Mapping, an elected fellow of the Royal Society and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Minerva Golden Brain Award, the Collège de France Medal, and the Glass Brain Award from the Organization for Human Brain Mapping.
Friston is a key architect of the 'free energy principle', a theoretical framework suggesting the brain reduces surprise by making predictions based on internal models and updating them using sensory input. Friston's work has been invaluable to the scientific community, making him one of the most highly cited living scientists in the world.
"One of the world's leading neuroscientists [who] has developed a theory of how the brain works that also has implications for the origin and nature of life" — Sean Carroll
“If we only stick to our own echo chambers, wherever they are on the political spectrum, we change nothing and increase polarisation and mistrust.”
Thangam Debbonaire was Labour Member of Parliament for Bristol West 2015 – 2024 and a member of Keir’s Shadow Cabinet, serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Shadow Leader of the House of Commons. She was previously Shadow Brexit Minister and Labour whip.
A former professional cellist, she is now a happy amateur in a string quartet. Thangam’s current strategic advisory work includes arts and cultural diplomacy, tech and AI and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She likes to take on controversial topics such as corporate donations, cultural reparations, migration, identity, and the future of democracy.
"Thangam has a refreshing, independent outlook." — Elaine Robinson
Alyssa Ney is a trailblazing philosopher whose work boldly tackles the profound questions at the intersection of metaphysics, physics, and the mind. A pioneer in exploring the metaphysical foundations of quantum mechanics, she challenges the very nature of reality with her groundbreaking approach to the interpretation of quantum theories. As a professor at LMU Munich, her research continues to reshape how we think about the fundamental structure of the universe, offering a fresh perspective on the unity of science.
Ney is the author of the influential The World in the Wave Function, and her passion for pushing the boundaries of philosophy is matched only by her commitment to bridging the gap between abstract thought and scientific discovery.
"Ney's book is a remarkably clear piece, which anyone interested in the metaphysics of quantum mechanics would be well advised to read." — James Read, Mind
"Thatcherism and Reaganomics have been demolished... History has come full circle, with neoliberalism, like the mythical monster Ouroboros, devouring its own tail"
Sherelle Jacobs is a British journalist and columnist known for her work at The Daily Telegraph, where she serves as the Assistant Comment Editor. In her weekly column she covers social issues and the changing face of conservatism around the world. She is regarded as a rising star among the Conservative movement.
Before working at the Telegraph, she was a journalist for the Guardian and a reporter in Tunisia where she reported on the Arab Spring. Alongside her reporting she has regularly appeared on Question Time, Any Questions and contributes to The Spectator and The Independent.
"Optimism research teaches us that we should expect the best and have a contingency plan for the worst."
Paul Dolan is Professor of Behavioural Science at the LSE. His main research interests are human behaviour and happiness, and the relationships between them, particularly as they apply to policy.
Dolan is author of the Sunday Times bestselling books Happiness by Design and Happy Ever After. His most recent work is Beliefism: How to Stop Hating the People We Disagree With. He is also the host and creator of the hit Duck / Rabbit podcast about the problems of polarisation in our society, and is the founder of the Lifetime Wellbeing Cooperative.
"Brilliant, wise, humane, scientific, and kind" — Cass R. Sunstein
"If there isn’t any such thing as a collapse of the wave function...then there are stories about what’s physically possible that have interesting surprises in them."
David Z. Albert is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of the MA Program in The Philosophical Foundations of Physics at Columbia University in New York, renowned for his work in the foundations of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of time. Albert has contributed to The New York Review and Scientific American in addition to his many published academic papers. His rigorous but accessible analyses have made him a prominent voice in the philosophy of science.
His books include Quantum Mechanics and Experience and A Guess at the Riddle where Albert writes on the forefront of our philosophical and physical understandings of the strangeness of quantum mechanics.
"Albert, in his inimitable conversational style, digs deeply into the argument that our intuitive notion of the structure of physical space lies at the root of the problem" — Tim Maudlin
''Merit is a sham."
Daniel Markovits is the Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School and the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Private Law. His writings have appeared in Science, The American Economic Review, The Yale Law Journal, PNAS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and The Atlantic. In 2021, Prospect Magazine named him to its list of the world’s top 50 thinkers.
His best-selling book, "The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite", has sparked a significant discussion about the problems inherent in meritocratic societies.
"This book flips your world upside down" — The Times, Book of the Year
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”
Elizabeth Anderson is the Max Mendel Shaye Professor of Public Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Michigan. She specialises in moral, social and political philosophy, as well as feminist theory and the philosophy of economics and the social sciences.
Anderson is also a MacArthur Fellow, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the British Academy. She designed and was the first Director of the Program in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Value in Ethics and Economics, The Imperative of Integration and, most recently, Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned the Work Ethic against Workers and How Workers Can Take It Back.
"Anderson may be the philosopher best suited to this awkward moment in American life." — The New Yorker
“Intellectuals are not defined according to the jobs they do, but [by] the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the values that they uphold.”
Frank Furedi is a trailblazing sociologist and social commentator. He currently serves as emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, where his work on fear, education and therapy culture has made him one of the most widely cited sociologists of the 21st Century. His book Invitation to Terror: Expanding the Empire of the Unknown explores the way in which the threat of terrorism has become amplified through the ascendancy of precautionary thinking.
His upcoming book explores the origins of the culture wars, and why we desperately need to resolve the tensions which divide our society.
"On Therapy Culture ’Professor Furedi has written an important book ... which is essential to the understanding of our times." — Theodore Dalrymple
"The West has often been more multicultural than it realised."
Jessica Frazier is a philosopher based at the University of Oxford who works on Indian Philosophy and the European tradition of phenomenology. She is the Founder and Managing Editor of the Journal of Hindu Studies. Dr. Frazier is also a frequent consultant for the BBC and speaker on In Our Time.
Her research explores key philosophical themes across cultures, from Indian classical theories of Being to twentieth-century phenomenology. Her work on Hindu ideas translates them into global terms, so that we can all think in new ways about issues that shape our society: the nature of a good life, justice and human rights, metaphysics, and the goals of community.
"Frazier has done a great job of offering us new ways of considering the relationship between ultimate reality and human desire." — David Haberman
"It is a good principle to assume that everyone you meet knows something important that you don't."
David Goodhart is a journalist, author, and policy analyst renowned for his incisive explorations of politics and society. He founded Prospect magazine in 1995, serving as its editor until 2010, and later directed the think tank Demos.
His notable works include The Road to Somewhere, which examines societal divisions, and Head, Hand, Heart, analysing the valuation of different forms of work. Goodhart's insights have significantly influenced contemporary debates on immigration, identity, and social cohesion.
"Goodhart offers the best and most complete explanation I've seen for why things seem to be coming apart in so many countries at the same time." — Jonathan Haidt
"I may continue lurching and lapsing in my beliefs, but I will never cease wondering, striving, searching...passionate uncertainty is closer to truth."
Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the co-creator, executive producer, writer, and host of Closer To Truth, the PBS/public television series on Cosmos, Life, Mind, and Meaning that presents leading scientists, philosophers, and creative thinkers discussing the fundamental questions of existence.
Kuhn has published over 30 books, including The Mystery of Existence, Closer To Truth: Challenging Current Belief and Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future. Kuhn is also a commentator on the BBC, CNN, CCTV, Bloomberg as a trusted expert on China.
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"If there is a macroeconomic lesson the pandemic has taught us, it is that central banks can do a lot."
Daniela Gabor is a Professor of Economics and Macro-Finance at the University of the West of England. She has been published in The Guardian, Financial Times and Jacobin and has been heavily critical of the way central banks and finance operate in our economies. Her work gets to the fundamentals of central banks and exposes how activities we usually assume are apolitical are in fact choices we don't have to make.
She was invited as an expert witness to the European Parliament's hearing on the Capital Markets Union and is working on an upcoming book on the Wall Street Consensus.
“The British are the only people in history crass enough to have made revolutionaries out of Americans.”
A career diplomat with nearly three decades of experience at the highest levels of the UN, Dr Shashi Tharoor is a politician, writer and former diplomat described as “one of India's top public intellectuals.” He has served as Congress Party MP in India since 2009 and placed second in the 2006 campaign for UN Secretary-General. The then Ambassador John Bolton vetoed Dr Tharoor's candidacy in a secret vote, later revealing his instructions from Condoleezza Rice: "We don't want a strong Secretary-General."
He is the author of dozens of books that span politics, history, fiction, literary criticism, and more. His bestselling book Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India won critical acclaim for exposing the devastating effects of British rule in India and challenging the myth that British imperialism was driven by anything other than naked self-interest.
"Shashi Tharoor is the most charming and persuasive writer in India." — William Dalrymple
"Unlike the theological hell, the hell of Physics, Quantum Mechanics, is willing to offer us some precious gifts for those things we abandon."
Avshalom Elitzur is deemed by many to be an intellectual force in Physics and Philosophy. Having left school at 16 to work as a Lab technician he presented an unpublished paper on Quantum Mechanics at Temple University where he was invited to Tel Aviv University to complete a doctoral thesis on the subject.
He is a senior lecturer in the Israeli Institute for Advanced Research working on Physics and Philosophy, where his work on the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb-testing problem in quantum mechanics inspired Roger Penrose in his book Shadows of Mind.
"When Galileo invented the telescope, people didn't want to look through it...people [now] refuse to look at certain theories [too]."
Ivette Fuentes is a Professor of Quantum Physics at the University of Southampton and Emmy Fellow at Keble College, University of Oxford. Her work considers fundamental quantum mechanics, quantum optics and their interplay with general relativity. Fuentes' work has appeared in New Scientist, she has spoken at New Scientist Live and she participated in a BBC series Magic Numbers with Hannah Fry. Fuentes is a close collaborator of Roger Penrose.
Fuentes' work tests theories of quantum gravity by developing much of the under-researched experimental input and quantum technology at scales where quantum and relativistic effects coexist.
"I lost count of how many pioneering ideas [Ivette has given] with actual practical consequences in the near term"— Curt Jaimungal
"No one looking at the vast extent of the universe and the completely random location of homo sapiens within it could seriously maintain it was intentionally created for us.”
One of the world's foremost philosophers of physics, Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at NYU and Founder and Director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics. He is a member of the "Foundational Questions Institute" of the Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.
The influence of Maudlin's research in the foundations of physics, metaphysics, and logic cannot be overstated. He has reinvigorated our understanding of quantum mechanics as pointing to the counterintuitive idea of non-locality, what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance." Maudlin warns that we should be wary of physical theories that contradict our direct impression of reality, especially when it comes to the nature of time.
“To make his case, he’s had to reinvent geometry.” — Wired
"No one should have more than €10m."
Ingrid Robeyns is a social and economic philosopher specialising in inequality and how it relates to justice. She is the Chair of Ethics in Institutions at Utrecht University and directs a project titled Visions For The Future. She is also an affiliate visiting professor at the Center for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the LSE in London, England.
Her recent work centres around Limitarianism, the idea that there should be an upper limit to the amount anyone can own. Her work has been published in many outlets including The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and The Atlantic.
"Effortlessly navigating between ethics, political theory, economics and public policy, Ingrid Robeyns' nuanced and persuasive defence of limitarianism is also a much-needed manifesto for reimagining political institutions." — Lea Ypi
'"The notion that you can ‘sex’ a brain... has inaccurately driven brain science for several centuries, underpins many damaging stereotypes and, I believe, stands in the way of social progress and equality of opportunity."
Gina Rippon is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Centre, Birmingham. Her research involves state-of-the-art brain imaging techniques to investigate how the brain interacts with its world, and what happens when this process goes wrong. She is an outspoken critic of "neurotrash," the populist misuse of neuroscience research to misrepresent our understanding of the brain, particularly to prop up outdated gender stereotypes.
In her new book The Gendered Brain, she challenges the idea that there are two sorts of "hardwired" brains, male and female, and instead offers a 21st-century model for a better understanding of how brains get to be different.
"Rippon takes a scalpel to the research surrounding sex differences in the brain with precision and humour." — Sue Nelson
“Gravity is much smarter than anybody would have thought.”
Raphael Bousso is Professor and The Chancellor's Chair in Physics at UC Berkeley, where he studies quantum information, gravity, black holes, and cosmology. Bousso’s work has been featured in the New York Times and Scientific American. He has been interviewed by Alan Alda and Morgan Freeman, and he has appeared on television in the NOVA series and Through The Wormhole.
Bousso is committed to working on some of physics' greatest challenges. He is celebrated for discoveries such as the Bousso Bound on the information content of the universe, and the landscape of string theory. In 2012, Bousso was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society "for fundamental discoveries in the field of quantum cosmology."
"Brave enough, bold enough, and with clear enough vision, to have a chance of seeing the bigger picture." — Leonard Susskind
Lucy Allais is a philosopher at Johns Hopkins University and the University of the Witwatersrand, renowned for her work on Immanuel Kant. Her writing spans ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy, and in recent years, she has drawn on her Kant scholarship to mount a defence of libertarian free will.
Allais is the author of Manifest Reality: Kant's Idealism and His Realism.
"Manifest Reality should be a focal point for the discussion of Kant's idealism for years to come." ― Colin Marshall, Critique
"We’re living in a culture governed by a permanent compulsion towards frenetic activity or fevered distraction."
Josh Cohen established himself as an academic in American literature and critical theory, before deciding to train as a psychoanalyst. His books combine these influences, exploring major contemporary issues like privacy, work, meritocracy and anger through the lenses of psychoanalysis, culture and personal experience.
He is the author of several books, including How to Read Freud, Not Working: Why We Have to Stop, and All the Rage: Why Anger Drives the World. He has also written pieces for The Guardian, The New Statesman, and Times Literary Supplement, among other publications.
"Cohen tells stories empathically and forensically." ― TLS
'“Every woman lives with the constant tinnitus hum of low-level sexism.”
Catherine Mayer is a writer, activist and the co-founder and President of the Women's Equality Party. She started her career in journalism at The Economist. She then went on to be FOCUS's London-based correspondent. She later joined TIME as a senior editor, becoming the London Bureau Chief, the Europe Editor and, finally, Editor at Large.
She was the founding Executive Director of the think tank Datum Future and has also co-founded the Primadonna Festival, which debuted in 2019. She is the author of Attack of the 50ft Women, Amortality: The Pleasures and Perils of Living Agelessly and Charles: The Heart of A King, a political biography of the King Charles that made headlines across the world in 2015. Her upcoming works include TIME/LIFE, her first novel, and Send Them Victorious: Royal women, their battles and why we should care.
"Smart, upbeat and brimming with fortitude." — The Observer
"Whenever there is some necessity for change in physics it has to be accompanied with philosophical reflection"
Dean Rickles is Professor of History and Philosophy of Modern Physics at the University of Sydney. Rickles' primary research is cutting-edge, focusing on studying the foundations of quantum gravity research. Beyond quantum gravity, Rickles also has strong interests in musicology, econophysics, climate science, neuroscience, computing and, the philosophy of religion.
Rickles is the author of several books, including Dual-Aspect Monism and the Deep Structure of Meaning, What is Philosophy of Science? and Covered with Deep Mist: The Development of Quantum Gravity. Rickles has also written for The Conversation and Psychology Today.
"Rickles manages to put philosophy of science itself under the magnifying glass." — Stathis Psillos
"To see a modern capitalist, perhaps you should look in a mirror in the home you own. Or take a selfie."
John Kay is an economist whose career has spanned the academic world, business and finance, and public affairs. He has held chairs at the London Business School, the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and is a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, where he began his academic career in 1970. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Kay is a contributing editor of the Financial Times. He is the author of several books, including Other People's Money, Radical Uncertainty, and The Corporation in the Twenty-First Century.
An unparalleled communicator of economics to a non-specialist audience ― The New Statesman
"Philosophers are the ultimate experts in a post-truth world."
Steve Fuller is a professor of sociology at the University of Warwick. He is the founder of the research program of social epistemology. It is the name of a quarterly journal he founded with Taylor & Francis in 1987, as well as the first of his twenty-five books.
Fuller is renowned for his work on the 'post-truth' condition, which inspired his 2018 book Post-Truth: Knowledge as a Power Game. His other books include Humanity 2.0, Kuhn vs Popper, and Back to the University's Future.
"Fuller is a tall and invariably animated figure." ― The Guardian
"Engineering really has the power to change our futures."
Dr Shini Somara is an award-winning media broadcaster and a highly accomplaished British mechanical engineer specialising in Computational Fluid Dyanmics.
In her mission to bring complex science, technology and engineering to everyone, Dr Somara has published 6 childrens STEM books and runs a podcast for Women in STEM. Her passion, knowledge and fascination for innovation has led to multiple TV appearances as an engineering expert on Sky, Discovery, The Science Channel, UKTV, Yesterday Channels. She is a TEDX Speaker and hosted Crash Course's hit YouTube series on Physics and Engineering, collectively garnering over 60 million views.
"Inspiring and inclusive." - BookTrust
"We don't have a single interpretation of quantum mechanics that doesn't have serious problems."
Jacob Barandes is a theoretical physicist and philosopher of science at Harvard University. Barandes researches and lectures on topics at the intersection between physics and philosophy, including the foundations of quantum mechanics, the philosophy of (space)time, the metaphysics of laws, and the logical structure of our best physical theories.
Barandes is also a Faculty Affiliate with the Harvard Black Hole Initiative and organises an international workshop series on physics and philosophy. Barandes has published many academic papers on his research and frequently participates in academic talks and popular science podcasts. Barandes' most recent research focuses on developing a stochastic interpretation of quantum mechanics.
"Harvard's Jacob Barandes is an expert at making abstruse topics digestible." — Curt Jaimungal, Theories of Everything Podcast
Norman Ohler is a fearless storyteller who unearths the hidden forces shaping history. Blurring the lines between investigative journalism and narrative nonfiction, his work exposes the unexpected undercurrents behind world-changing events.
His groundbreaking book Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich rewrote our understanding of Nazi Germany, revealing the regime’s dependence on methamphetamines. With a sharp eye for the untold and a knack for gripping storytelling, Ohler continues to challenge conventional narratives, proving that history is often stranger and darker than we imagined.
'"We have known for a long time that antidepressants are not very different from a placebo."
Joanna Moncrieff is Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at University College London, and a consultant psychiatrist for the NHS. In 2022 she was the lead author of a landmark scientific study into the theory of serotonin and depression. She is also a founding member and co-chairperson of the Critical Psychiatry Network.
In addition to having authored numerous papers on the overuse of drug treatment for mental health problems, she is also the author of The Myth of the Chemical Cure, The Bitterest Pill. Her most recent book is Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth.
"[Moncrieff] explains both the scientific flaws and the deliberate manipulations underlying much of today's psychiatric ideology and treatment." — Gabor Maté
There are no deeper explanations than those that science provides.'
Alex Rosenberg is a novelist and philosopher, renowned for his work in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of economics. He is one of the most prominent defenders of physical reductionism, and his radical stances have earned him the moniker "The Mad Dog Naturalist."
His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times and Salon. His novels include The Girl From Krakow and Autumn in Oxford, and his books of philosophy include The Atheist's Guide to Reality and How History Gets Things Wrong.
"...The Atheist’s Guide is the work of a well-informed and imaginative philosopher." — New York Times Book Review
"Anger is temporary madness: the Stoics knew how to curb it."
Massimo Pigliucci is an Italian-American philosopher and biologist specializing in evolutionary biology and the philosophy of science. He holds doctorates in genetics from the University of Ferrara, evolutionary biology from the University of Connecticut, and philosophy from the University of Tennessee.
Currently, Pigliucci is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York, where his work focuses on the interface between science and philosophy, the nature of pseudoscience, and practical philosophy. An advocate of Stoicism, he authored "How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life," offering guidance on applying Stoic principles today. Pigliucci contributes to public discourse through his blog, podcast, and columns in publications like Philosophy Now.
'Pigliucci makes a good case for Stoicism and living stoically' — Daily Telegraph
"Dating is not an A-level English literature exam; you don’t need to analyse anyone’s text messages as if they are metaphor-laden, sparkling prose."
Rachel Thompson is an author and journalist specialising in sex, dating, and relationships. Rachel is the Features Editor at Mashable. She has also written for GQ, The Guardian, British Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The Telegraph, and many more publications.
Her second nonfiction book, The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World, investigates the challenges at the heart of modern dating culture. Her first book was Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It. Stylist named it "2021's most important book about sex."
"The best sex and dating writer since Candace Bushnell." — Gigi Engle
"We are at the beginning of history. We have a responsibility not to mess things up."
Anders Sandberg is a Swedish researcher, futurist, and transhumanist renowned for his work on human enhancement and future technologies. Holding a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, he served as a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute and the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford.
Sandberg's research encompasses societal and ethical implications of emerging technologies, cognitive enhancement, and existential risks. He co-authored the influential paper "Dissolving the Fermi Paradox," suggesting a high likelihood that humanity is alone in the observable universe. A prominent voice in public debates on neuroscience and ethics, Sandberg advocates for responsible technological advancement to secure a prosperous future.
"He might just be the most interesting academic at Oxford"" — Robert Wiblin and Keiran Harris."
"We can never compromise on compromise."
Sophie Scott-Brown is an intellectual historian with research interests in modern European political thought, Anarchism and the history of education. She is a Research Fellow with the Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews, a Research Associate with the Trans-Atlantic Platform Global Governance and Democratic Engagement Project, and a Lecturer at the Centre for Social Innovation, Cambridge Judge Business School.
She is the author of The Histories of Raphael Samuel (ANU, 2017); Colin Ward and the Art of Everyday Anarchy (Routledge, 2022), and the forthcoming The Radical Fifties: Activist Politics in Cold War Britain (OUP, 2025).
Claudia Canavan is Health and Wellness Director at Women’s Health UK and Men’s Health UK, where she specialises in mind, drugs, hormones and feelings. Previously, she was Health Editor at Women’s Health and founded HuffPost UK’s sustainable living vertical, before that she has also held staff roles at Red and Esquire magazines.
Her writing has explored the complexities of the ‘psychedelic renaissance’, how the wellness bubble burst, the potential for lucid dreaming to serve as a PTSD therapy and what the rise of platonic life partnerships says about modern culture.
'“The line between imagination and reality is just not so solid.”
Nadine Dijkstra is a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Neurology at UCL. Her research in Imaging Neuroscience explores how the brain generates mental images and differentiates them from actual perception. Utilizing neuroimaging, psychophysics, machine learning, and computational modeling, Dijkstra addresses fundamental questions about the overlap between perception and imagery.
Recently, Dijkstra has been leading the Imagine Reality Lab at UCL's Department of Imaging Neuroscience, focusing on the intersection of imagination and reality. Dijkstra's 2023 paper in Nature Communications showed the brain evaluates images against a 'reality threshold' to distinguish between images and perception. Her work also investigates how changes in these neural processes could impact mental health.
“They’ve done a great job...of taking an issue that philosophers have been debating about for centuries and defining models with predictable outcomes.” — Thomas Naselaris
"The existence of things is conditional on the existence of processes."
John Dupre is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Egenis, The Centre for the Study of Life Sciences, at the University of Exeter. He has formerly held posts at Oxford, Birkbeck College, London, and Stanford. He has wide-ranging interests in the philosophy of biology and naturalistic, empirically grounded metaphysics. In 2023, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Dupre advocates a pluralistic model of science as opposed to the common notion of reductionism. While reductionism of this sort is a common position among scientists and philosophers, Dupré suggests that such reduction is not possible as the world has an inherently pluralistic structure.
"Original, lucid and confident, without being eccentric, polemical or arrogant" - John Ziman
"My idea of hell would be to live somewhere comfortable where no one ever talked about anything serious."
Isabel Hilton is a trailblazing journalist, broadcaster and expert on all things international relations. Hilton boasts a highly accomplished career in national and international media, having reported from China, South Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East for the BBC, The Sunday Times, the Independent and the Guardian.
Hilton is a particularly formidable authority on China, with her extensive expertise beguiling enough to draw misfounded accusations of espionage. In 2006, she founded Chinadialogue, a fully bilingual not-for-profit newsroom dedicated to sparking intelligent discourse and fostering a global understanding of China's environmental challenges.
"Lively and vastly entertaining..." — Boston Sunday Globe
'"I care about good people who live virtuous lives, who engage in the world — who are rational."
Yaron Brook is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, writer, activist, and political scientist. He is currently chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute where he can be heard weekly on The Yaron Brook Show, which airs live on the BlogTalkRadio podcast. He is also a frequent guest on national radio and television programs including C-SPAN and CNBC.
Brook is coauthor, with Don Watkins, of the national best-seller Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government and Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality.
"At LAST the voice of reason breaks through the prejudices and presumptions and outright misrepresentations." — Mark Pellegrino
'"The future is made by the things we imagine today."
Güneş Taylor is an award-winning geneticist and pioneer of public engagement in her field. She is a training fellow at the Francis Crick Institute where her research predominantly focuses on the genetic formation of ovaries and testes. Both "an incredible science communicator" and a scientist herself, she has become a distinguished HowtheLightGetsIn host, sharing the stage with Slavoj Zizek, Richard Dawkins, Yuval Noah Harari, and more.
Güneş has debated the implications of genome editing on the Guardian's podcast Science Weekly, the UK's longest-running science podcast with the episode doing "exceptionally well" according to Guardian producer Max Sanderson. In 2018, Güneş was awarded the Crick Public Engagement Prize for her efforts in the public communication of science.
"Güneş has performed a significant service to disseminating the work within her field." — Anastasia de Waal
Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at The University of Buckingham and Director of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science. He directs Buckingham’s new MA in the Politics of Cultural Conflict and PhD in Cultural Politics as well as its open online course on Woke: the Origins, Dynamics and Implications of an Elite Ideology.
He is the author of Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution, Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism and the Future of White Majorities. In addition to 45 peer-reviewed articles, he has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Times of London, Newsweek, National Review, New Statesman, Financial Times, Unherd and other outlets.
“I love philosophy but it shouldn’t be just for the elite. We should all be asking these questions.”
Joanna Kavenna is an award-winning writer. A seasoned traveller, she was born in the UK, but has lived in the US, France, Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic states. Her travels led to her first book, The Ice Museum, which details her experience travelling in the remote North. In 2013, she was named as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists.
Her latest book, Zed, is a blistering, satirical novel about life under a global media and tech corporation that knows exactly what we think, what we want, and what we do - before we do.
"Wonderful, impossible, dynamic." — Observer
“Everything begins only to end. The moment you were born you began to die. That's how it is with everything.”
Janne Teller is a critically acclaimed writer of novels, essays, and short stories. Teller’s work explores existential themes and ethical questions of life and civilization. Her novel Nothing has been adapted for film.
Teller has received many literary awards including the Drassow’s Prize for literary works towards peace and human understanding and her work has been translated into over 25 languages. Before she began writing full-time, Janne studied macroeconomics and worked as a conflict advisor for the EU and UN, mostly in Africa.
“A beautifully poetic writer.” —The Telegraph
"The UK may not be as poor as Mississippi, but without London it is."
John Burn Murdoch is a columnist and the chief data reporter for the Financial Times. He is an internet celebrity for his use of data to cut through stories and help people understand the world around them.
His work visualising the coronavirus was widely credited with helping people understand the early stages of the pandemic.He writes the weekly Data Points column, where he uses statistics and graphics to dig into the most pressing issues of the day, covering everything from the economy to climate change, social issues and healthcare.
Winsome Pinnock is a distinguished British playwright and dramaturge, celebrated for her contributions to contemporary theatre. Pinnock's groundbreaking work has appeared on stages across the UK and internationally since 1985. She was the first black British female writer to have a play produced by the Royal National Theatre.
Her plays include Leave Taking, Talking in Tongues, and Rockets and Blue Lights, the last of which won the prestigious Alfred Fagon Award. In 2022, her outstanding contributions to drama were further recognised with the Windham-Campbell Prize.
"The godmother of Black British playwrights"
"For all the promise and dangers of AI, computers plainly can’t think. To think is to resist – something no machine does"
Alva Noë is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and writer whose work centres on the nature of perception and consciousness. His current work focuses on the philosophy of love, AI, and pictoriality.
Noë is the author of books such as The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are, Action in Perception and Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain. Noë's notable works argue that perception is not a process in the brain, but an activity.
"While [Noë's] views are sure to be controversial, most of what he says is true, and all of it original and important to think about." — Hilary Putnam
"We need to look deeper into our evolutionary past."
Regarded as one of the founders of the cognitive science of religion, Harvey Whitehouse is a statutory Chair in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Whitehouse's research deals primarily with religion in rituals. He is especially well known for his theory of "modes of religiosity" which proposes that the frequency and emotionality of rituals determine the scale and structure of religious organisations.
He is the author of several books, including Inheritance and The Ritual Animal. His popular writing has appeared in the BBC, New Scientist, and many more publications.
"Insightful and breathtaking." — Yuval Noah Harari
“Don’t argue about how much salt there is in food — this can save relationships — you live in different taste worlds; you’ve got different taste buds.”
Multi-talented Barry Smith is director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London's School of Advanced Study and co-director of the Centre for the Study of the Senses. In 2010, he made waves with his insightful BBC World Service series 'The Mysteries of the Brain.'
Barry also harbours a deep passion for wine, often hosting engaging wine-tasting events at festivals. He ingeniously incorporates his studies on the multisensory nature of experience into these sessions, creating a unique, fascinating blend. Barry also lends his wine expertise to 'The World of Fine Wine' and 'Prospect Magazine' as a regular contributor and wine columnist.
“Well up to the task of situating wine-centered questions within a larger framework of questions about taste and perception, subjectivity and objectivity.” — The TLS
"Philosophy needs to be aware of the non-philosophical investigations going on in its very many neighbouring disciplines."
Edward Harcourt is a philosopher at the University of Oxford, where he researches ethics, the philosophy of mind, and Wittgenstein. He has been a Mind Association Research Fellow, Visiting Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and Wittgenstein Professor at the University of Innsbruck.
Harcourt has written dozens of articles on psychoanalysis and is the author of two edited collections, Morality, Reflection, and Ideology and Attachment and Character: Attachment Theory, Ethics and the Developmental Psychology of Vice and Virtue.re.
"If it is there, if it is a story, we put it out there."
Roger Hearing is a veteran journalist and broadcaster. Over a 35-year career with the BBC and Bloomberg, he has covered wars, elections, coups and revolutions across the globe – including the UN intervention in Somalia and the Rwandan genocide.
From 1999 to 2010, he presented The World Today and News Hour for the BBC World Service, along with the World Tonight on BBC Radio 4. He now co-hosts the podcast The Why? Curve with Phil Dobbie.
"An excellent thoughtful broadcaster and a rock solid journalist." ― Ian D. Richardson, Ex-editor BBC World Service.
Timothy Nguyen is a leading AI researcher at Google DeepMind. A mathematician whose work moved from high-energy physics to the mathematical problems at the foundation of quantum field theory. Noting how often these problems have been overlooked.
He has now moved into machine learning where his groundbreaking work on both fundemental research and real world problem solving is changing the way we interact with the world. He is also the host of The Cartesian Cafe a must listen podcast on science and mathematics.
"Europe needs more nukes."
Juliet Samuel writes a weekly column for The Times, where she covers politics, economics, foreign policy or technology.
Before taking up her column at The Times, she was a columnist at The Daily Telegraph and before that was a business correspondent on various publications including The Wall Street Journal and City AM covering finance, banking, mining and energy.
Avantika Chilkoti is global business writer at The Economist. Previously, she served as international correspondent, writing about development and aid, in particular.
She is the author of a special report on philanthropy and host of “The Modi Raj”, an eight-part podcast series about Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Before joining the newspaper she covered finance for The Wall Street Journal, and was a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times based in Mumbai and Jakarta.
"A savvy and amiable host" ― The New Yorker
"It looks rather like cosmology... has become path-dependent: overdetermined by the implications of its past inventions."
Bjørn Ekeberg is a philosopher of science. With extensive education and outstanding international scholarship in the fields of journalism, media & communication theory, cybernetics, science and technology studies, political science, economics, philosophy, and history of thought, Bjørn Ekeberg is an unorthodox thinker who likes to challenge the unquestioned.
Ekeberg has focused on the limits of scientific knowledge and his published work is on cosmology and our understanding of the universe.
"...a lucid exploration of modern scientific history... a unique synthesis" — Graham Harman on Ekeberg's Metaphysical Experiments
"Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth."
Tim Jackson is an ecological economist and writer. Since 2016 he has been Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). Jackson has been at the forefront of international debates on sustainability for three decades and has worked closely with the UK Government, the UN, the European Commission, and numerous NGOs. In 2016, Jackson was named a Hillary Laureate for exceptional international leadership in sustainability.
His controversial and groundbreaking book Prosperity without Growth was named a Financial Times book of the year and an UnHerd’s economics book of the decade in 2019. His most recent book The Care Economy offers a bold and accessible manifesto for a healthier and more humane society.
"Bold and provocative..." — The New York Times.
"Politics isn’t won by playing it safe; it’s won by shaping the narrative."
Matthew Taylor is a British political strategist, writer, and commentator, best known for his work on public policy and political reform. His early career was in government, serving as Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to Prime Minister Tony Blair before moving on to lead the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), where he championed innovation in democracy and social change.
He is known for his sharp analysis of British politics, where his ideas have placed him at the heart of debates on governance, public trust, and institutional reform. He is also the author of influential works on policy and leadership, including The Power of Persuasion and Rethinking the State.
"Where exactly does general relativity break down? It’s not really answerable, since we’re talking about the breakdown of space-time itself."
Karen Crowther is a Professor at the University of Oslo, specialising in the philosophy of science and physics. Much of Crowther's research has focused on effective field theory, spacetime, and quantum gravity.
Crowther is interested in the nature of fundamental physical theories, as well as the idea of emergent physics, and the relationship between these different levels of description. Crowther is the author of Effective Spacetime: Understanding Emergence in Effective Field Theory and Quantum Gravity and, most recently, Why Do We Want a Theory of Quantum Gravity
"As all individuals have equal worth, everybody everywhere should be entitled to free access to effective healthcare."
Karsten Juhl Jørgensen is a medical researcher and professor at the University of Southern Denmark. Jørgensen's research with Cochrane Denmark and the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Odense focuses on mammography, overdiagnosis, and evidence synthesis and screening.
Jørgensen is outspoken on the "overdiagnosis" crisis in Western healthcare: unnecessary treatment and patient anxiety caused by early screening and an overemphasis on preventative care.
Bill Hayton is a distinguished journalist and author renowned for his incisive analyses of Southeast Asian geopolitics. Serving as an Associate Fellow with the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House, he brings a wealth of experience from his tenure as a BBC journalist, including assignments in Vietnam and Myanmar.
Hayton's much celebrated books include The Invention of China and The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia. He delves into the constructed narratives of national identity and the intricate geopolitical dynamics of the region. His work not only challenges prevailing perceptions but also invites us to reconsider the historical and political forces shaping Asia today.
“… enlightening and persuasive…” — New York Review of Books
"The future will be enormous for AI... And that is going to really require us to really open up our idea of the human in profound ways."
Dr. Suzanne Livingston has spent her career researching and questioning the entwined relationship between humans, culture and technology and the philosophical consequences emerging from that. Taking a multidisciplinary approach Suzanne has worked across sectors in technology, arts, museums, education and business markets.
Suzanne received her PhD in Philosophy from Warwick University and is a founding member of the influential Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU). As Global Principal at Wolff Olins, Suzanne develops strategy and exhibitions internationally with museum organisations such as The V&A, Whitney, ICA Boston, Qatar Museums and the Southbank Centre.
“Suzanne helps businesses see the future. Her deep knowledge of AI and technology sets her perspective and everything she does apart." — Katie Farrell, Strategy Director of Wolff Olins
Claire Blencowe is an associate professor of Sociology and co-chair of the Just Eco-Geo-Political Futures research group at Warwick University. She is a leading scholar of Foucault and applies his ideas to modern political problems of the climate crisis, ramifications of colonialism and, politics of the body.
Her most recent work focuses on religious biopolitics and how Christian Evangelicals work alongside fossil fuel industries. It asks how religion on the frontiers of resource extraction can both be a force of destruction and unity among indigenous peoples. She is the author of several books including Spirits of Extraction and Biopolitical Experience.
"Blencowe opens up many questions about ethics and politics in a biopolitical configuration that should challenge conventional thinking on such matters." — Cary Federman Professor of Justice at Montclair State University
"There’s the final boundary condition, which philosophically tells us that we needn’t forget about what’s coming next...we have some 'destiny,' in the language of quantum mechanics, waiting for us."
Dr. Eliahu (Eli) Cohen is an associate professor at the Alexander Kofkin Faculty of Engineering at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He also serves as a member of the Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials and the Center for Quantum Entanglement Science & Technology at the same institution.
His research interests encompass a wide range of topics, including quantum foundations, quantum information, quantum optics, and quantum field theory. A central theme in his work is quantum entanglement, and he has collaborated extensively with experimental groups worldwide.
Maria Balaet is a neuroscientist exploring the ways cognition shifts in health, disease, and altered states of mind. She is a Research Associate in the Department of Neuroimaging at King’s College London and formerly a member of the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London.
Balaet’s work spans machine learning, neuroimaging, and large-scale cognitive testing to uncover how drugs, trauma, and social factors shape mental performance. A researcher in the Great British Intelligence Test, she has led studies on cognitive decline, drug use, and pandemic-era scepticism. She has delivered over 50 public talks on the neuroscience of psychedelics, making complex science both accessible and urgent.
"Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party gave hope to millions that change was possible and, better still, they could bring it about."
James Schneider is a journalist and political organiser currently serving as Communications Director for Progressive International. He previously served as Spokesperson and Head of Strategic Communications for Jeremy Corbyn.
His writing has appeared in The New Statesman, Middle East Eye, and many other publications. He is the author of Our Bloc: How We Win, in which he lays out an action plan for the British left.
"Our Bloc offers a powerful case for action. When movements come together, we change the world." — Jeremy Corbyn
Jack Symes is a public philosopher, writer, and researcher at Durham University. He is best known as the producer of The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast, one of the world’s most popular higher education podcasts. He is also the editor of the Talking about Philosophy book series, which features contributions from some of the world’s most influential thinkers.
Jack also hosts live shows, including An Evening With theatre events and panels at The Royal Institution. He is the author of 4 books, inlcuding two forthcoming in 2024: Philosophers on How to Live: Talking about Morality and Defeating the Evil-God Challenge: In Defence of God’s Goodness.
"Jack Symes guides us charmingly and authoritatively, with a wit and freshness that enlivens without trivializing" – Stephen Fry
"We are now medicalising people who in previous generations would have been considered normal"
Alastair Santhouse is a consultant psychiatrist with over 20 years of experience at Guy's Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital in London. From 2013 to 2017, he served as Vice Chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Faculty of Liaison Psychiatry. Santhouse also served as the President of the Psychiatry Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. His clinical work focuses on the often overlooked intersection of physical and mental health.
Santhouse is also the author of No More Normal: Mental Health in an Age of Over-Diagnosis, which explores how the concept of "normal" has evolved as mental health discussions have moved from consulting rooms to the public sphere. He advocates for reducing the medicalization of everyday human experiences and reevaluating the expansion of diagnostic criteria.
"Santhouse is an intensely sympathetic physician." ― Times Literary Supplement
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