New speakers announced!
HowTheLightGetsIn London 2024 welcomes philosophical revolutionaries, scientific trailblazers, political rebels and creative icons to navigate our era of uncertainty this September. From party leaders and Putin adversaries to Nobel Laureates and Turing Award winners explore the leading minds set to join us so far!
Check out the speakers announced or keep exploring the Big Ideas coming to Hampstead Heath with our debates programme...
"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
"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 sharing 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 a significant physics and philosophy populariser 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
"Voters are distraught by the direction the Conservatives have been taking this country."
Carla is co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, elected along with Adrian Ramsay in October 2021. Carla is the Green Party’s candidate for Bristol Central in the upcoming General Election.
Before this, Carla was a Bristol City Councillor from 2015 to 2024, forming a critical part of the largest Green
councillor group in the UK which saw unprecedented success at the May local elections in 2021. Carla stepped back from her Councillor role in 2024 to focus on her General Election campaign. Carla is an engineer, previously working in the renewable energy industry with a specialism in offshore and onshore wind energy.
"Who should hold the next prime minister to account? Our best hope lies with the Green Party." — George Monbiot, The Guardian
“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 Christian Atheism: How to Be a Real Materialist. 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
"It’s very challenging psychologically to realize that what you’ve been working for...may actually be catastrophic."
Yoshua Bengio is recognized worldwide as one of the leading experts in artificial intelligence. He is most known for his pioneering work in deep learning, earning him the 2018 A.M. Turing Award, “the Nobel Prize of Computing,” with Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun.
He is Full Professor at Université de Montréal, and the Founder and Scientific Director of Mila – Quebec AI Institute. In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Killam Prize and in 2022, became the computer scientist with the highest impact in the world as measured by h-index.
"One of the most important AI researchers of the past three decades." — Will Henshall, Time 100 2023
"Science is a noble endeavour, but it’s also a low-yield endeavour."
John Ioannidis is a Greek-American physician, scientist and writer. He is a Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Population Health, and Biomedical Data Science at Stanford University. His research focuses on evidence-based medicine, clinical research and the study of scientific research itself.
Not only has Ioannidis served on the editorial board of over twenty scientific journals, but his 2005 essay "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" was the most-viewed article in the history of the Public Library of Science, with over 3 million views.
"may be one of the most influential scientists alive." — The Atlantic
'"Orderrr!"
John Bercow is one of the most recognisable and iconoclastic figures in British politics. As Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, his distinctive bellow for order spanned the tenure of four Prime Ministers and a decade of political turmoil.
Having left his mark on the collective unconscious, he has since moved on from his parliamentary career of over two decades to become Chancellor of first Bedfordshire University and later the University of Essex.
"He will be remembered for championing parliament in the face of an arrogant and incompetent executive" - Prospect
'"I'm an educational radical...The child who comes to us from a chaotic home is able to find order here at the school."
Katharine Birbalsingh is a British teacher and education reform advocate who is the founder and head teacher of Michaela Community School, a free school established in 2014 in Wembley Park, London.
Birbalsingh is the author of two books, Singleholic (2009) and To Miss with Love (2011), She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours. In October 2021, Birbalsingh was appointed chair of the Social Mobility Commission.
"Katharine Birbalsingh’s Michaela school has a formidable reputation" — The Guardian
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"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 Sunday Times best-selling author, comedian, satirist, social commentator and host of the wildly successful YouTube show, TRIGGERnometry. Born in the late Soviet Union and raised in Britain, Kisin has appeared on flagship TV 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 a powerful speaker, known for his engaging, entertaining and thought-provoking talks on a wide range of topics, including the importance of upholding Western values of liberalism, freedom of expression and viewpoint diversity. He has also spoken and written extensively about the war in Ukraine.
His speech at an Oxford Union debate generated over 100 million views around the world and has made him one of the most sought-after cultural commentators in the world.
'We are lucky to have him." — Douglas Murray, Telegraph
"I think that’s where the political discourse has got to in Scotland: aggression, violence and anger are coupled on to the debate about nationalism.”
Lisa Cameron is a Scottish Conservative politician who served as a Member of Parliament until 2024. Lisa is also a former clinical psychologist. After university, Lisa qualified in forensic and clinical psychology, and subsequently worked as a clinical pscologist at the NHS.
Previously a member of the SNP, Lisa has since changed her position on Scottish Independence, arguing that independence is an overly divisive position.
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“Russian stories never have happy endings.”
Bill Browder is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, firebrand financier and anti-Putin activist. Following the death of his lawyer in Russian prison and his forced deportation to the UK, Browder successfully lobbied for the passing of the Magnitsky Act, which revolutionised sanctions worldwide.
Despite having many of his assets seized, Browder has tirelessly pressured Western governments into taking Putin's threat seriously. Bestselling author, outspoken Russian critic and recipient of eight Interpol arrest warrants for extradition to Moscow, Browder is a key thorn in Putin's side.
"[Bill] is such a thorn in Mr. Putin’s side that the Russian president singled him out by name during his first official summit with President Donald J. Trump." — New York Times
"The budget doesn't F*cking matter"
"We're on the Titanic, I'm the guy that's seen the iceberg. You know what I mean? I'm trying to let people know"
Gary Stevenson is a YouTuber, former financial trader, and firebrand activist against inequality. From humble origins in Ilford, Stevenson has made a name for himself by challenging the old boys' club of finance and beating them at their own game. In 2011 he was Citibank's most profitable trader by banking on increased inequality and growing poverty.
Since leaving the city, Gary has founded the GarysEconomics YouTube channel devoted to explaining economics in plain English. His recent memoir, 'The Trading Game' exposes the rotten core at the heart of the financial industry.
“Stevenson is a sharp observer, with a gift for colourful if merciless description.”—Financial Times
"For a long time being female was treated by science and medicine as being akin to having a serious psychological disorder."
Dr Sarah Hill is a leading researcher of evolutionary psychology, and a professor at Texas Christian University. With more than fifty scientific publications, Hill has become an authority on evolutionary approaches to psychology and health.
Hill is the author of the acclaimed book This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: How the Pill Changes Everything. She has appeared on The Today Show as well as in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American, and The Economist.
Hill has provided sound evidence that is eye-opening, riveting, and a must read for all women and the people who care about them." — Dr. Jolene Brighten, NMD, author of Beyond the Pill
'"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, for 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
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'“If all narratives are relative, then we are lost."
David Aaronovitch is an award-winning journalist, presenter of BBC Radio 4's Briefing Room, and former long-standing columnist for The Times. He was also previously president of the NUS and a communist but now identifies as a radical moderate.
David is the author of Paddling to Jerusalem: An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Country and most recently a memoir about his family and early life, Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists. His memoir details his parent’s love for the Communist Party of Great Britain, providing an intimate insight into his early life.
“An effervescent and essential writer.” — The Observer
"It's the definition of madness to do another interview again. I hope for his sake, and for the country's sake, that he doesn't do it."
Sam McAlister is an English former TV producer and author, best known for securing an interview with Prince Andrew for BBC Newsnight's programme, Prince Andrew and the Epstein Scandal. Sam is also a trained criminal barrister and has been a Visiting Senior Fellow in the law school of the London School of Economics.
Since this interview, McAlister has written an autobiographical book, Scoops. This was later adapted into a Netflix film, Scoop, where McAlister was played by Billie Piper.
"Even though we know what happened, McAlister’s eye-witness description of the royal car crash retains the power to shock… riveting." — Sunday Telegraph
"Human rights are not worthy of the name if they do not protect the people we don't like as well as those we do."
Trevor Phillips OBE is an award-winning broadcaster, writer, and former politician. He is best known for having served as the Chair of the London Assembly, as well as for heading the Commission for Racial Equality and as the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission under Tony Blair.
More recently, he has presented Trevor Phillips on Sunday and Sunday Morning, two talk shows on Sky News. For his work in television and broadcasting, Phillips has won three Royal Television Society awards.
"We need Trevor Phillips’s fierce candour more than ever." — Allison Pearson, The Telegraph
"If Gen Z girls really want change, then, it’s time we confront not only how social media is making us feel, but who it’s encouraging us to become."
Freya India is a freelance writer and the author of the popular weekly newsletter GIRLS, where she writes about the challenges girls face in the modern world. Her work has appeared in the New Statesman, the Spectator, The Independent, Quillette,and UnHerd.
Freya India has also recently joined Jonathan Haidt's new movement, called Free the Anxious Generation. It aims to promote free play in younger generations, away from screens.
"Freya India is one of the most sensitive and perceptive Gen Z writers." — Jonathan Haidt
"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
"Oppressors, as a rule, deny oppressed people their own 'native' standards of beauty"
Clare Chambers is a Professor of Political Philosophy at Jesus College Cambridge. Her work spans feminist theory, liberal philosophy, and the intersection between body and politics. She has unveiled the political power at play when we choose to modify our bodies. From full-blown plastic surgery and bodybuilding to the innocuous application of make-up and styling hair, there is a world of politics within self-modification.
Clare's books include Intact: A Defence of the Unmodified Body and Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State. Her work has also been quoted in the Observer, Guardian, and The Times.
"Unlike most philosophers, Chambers ventures out of the arm chair and into the fray." — Boston Review
'"My number one priority has and always will be this great country"
Former Head of the U.K's leading political party, Nadhim Zahawi is a U.K. Conservative Politician who has held several ministerial positions under Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Born in Baghdad, Nadhim has risen to prominece in bussiness and in politics as co-founder of the leading market research firm YouGov.
He was first appointed as the Under-Secretary of State for Families and was later responsible for the UK's lauded vaccine rollout for covid 19. He was chancellor of the U.K. and was appointed head of Conservative party under Rishi Sunak before his resignantion last year.
"Nadhim Zahawi: from refugee to multimillionaire chancellor" Times
"Globalization is what we in the Third World have for several centuries called colonization."
Matt Kennard is the co-founder and head of investigations at Declassified UK, a news outlet investigating British foreign policy. He was a fellow and then director at the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) in London, UK.
Kennard is famous, among other things, for breaking the story in the UCLA student paper, the Daily Bruin, of attempts by Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz to suppress the publication of Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah by the University of California Press. He is the author of The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empirre.
"perceptive direct reporting "- Noam Chomsky
'“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
"The West has often been more multicultural than it realised."
Jessica Frazier is a trailblazing 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
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"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
"It would be arrogant to think we're alone in the universe"
Avi Loeb is a theoretical astrophysicist and the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University. A New York Times bestselling author, he consistently makes headlines for advocating that the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life should be mainstream science.
Loeb has been the longest-serving Chair of Harvard's Department of Astronomy (2011-2020), the Founding Director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative (2016-2021) and the Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (2007-present) within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics .
"Avi Loeb is no stranger to controversy." — Scientific American
"We dream ourselves into existence every day, making ourselves the heroes of our own mythologies"
Rose Cartwright is a trainblaizing screenwriter, author and mental health advocate. She is the writer of the Netflix hit show 3 Body Problem, and is also widely known for her 2016 memoir Pure, which detailed her experiences living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Beyond her writing, Cartwright is an outspoken voice raising awareness about OCD and challenging the stigma surrounding it. She is also the co-founder of the mental health non-profit Made of Millions.
"raw honesty and vulnerability" - The Guardian
" I want us to feel engaged, productive, creative"
Julia Hobsbawm OBE is a British social entrepreneur, writer, and commentator. She is regarded as an influential voice on the intersection of business and technology. She is the founder of Editorial Intelligence, a media and communications consultancy firm, and the author of several books including The Simplicity Principle, The Nowhere Office and more recently Working Assumptions.
Hobsbawm is known for her work exploring the changing nature of work and communications in the digital age. She has written extensively on topics like networking, social media, and the future of the workplace. She has contributed frequently to The Guardian, The Times, and Harvard Business Review.
"Our foremost futurist of the workplace" - Barbara Kellerman, Harvard Kennedy School
"[It's possible to] have a phenomenological experience of nothing. All you have to do is think about it."
Graham Priest is the Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He has published in nearly every leading logic and philosophy journal. At the last count, he had published about 240 papers. He has also published six monographs (mostly with Oxford University Press), as well as a number of edited collections.
Much of his work has been in logic, especially non-classical logic, and related areas. He is perhaps best know for his work on dialetheism, the view that some contradictions are true. However, he has also published widely in many other areas, such as metaphysics, Buddhist philosophy, and the history of philosophy, both East and West.
"Delightful and engaging" — Adrian Moore
Ankhi Mukherjee is an academic specialising in Victorian and Modern English literature, critical theory and postcolonial and world literature. In 2015, she was appointed a Professor of English and World Literatures by the University of Oxford.
Mukherjee has five books including, Aesthetic Hysteria (2007), What is a Classic? (2014) which won the British Academy's Mary Crawshay Prize for English Literature in 2015, and Unseen City (2021) which has been shortlisted for the ESSE (European Society for the Study of English) Prize in Literatures in English, 2024.
'To ask 'what is a classic?', Mukherjee points out in conclusion, is to work with the finest fibres that make up the literary 'whose nature is to repeat'.' —Elleke Boehmer, University of Oxford
“I was never totally what we would now call 'politically correct,' even in my most militant phase. I always liked good food, good wines. I suppose it was because I had total confidence in myself."
Tariq is a writer, political activist and filmmaker, and is considered to be a leading figure of the international left. He has written numerous books on world history and politics as well as novels and scripts for the stage and screen.
Tariq Ali’s screenplay The Leopard and The Fox which was about the last days of the Pakistani politician Zulfiqar Ali Butto, wasn’t previously produced because of controversy over censorship. However, in 2007 it premiered in New York, the day before former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Button returned home after eight years in exile. Tariq is currently an editor of New Left Review, which analyses politics, the global economy, protests, and the arts.
“A man of crystal-clear intellect, and no one, it seems, can escape his critical gaze.” - Vienna Review
"The question of technology is one of the most important questions in all of philosophy because we, as human beings, live with technology and live on its terms."
Babette Babich is a trailblazing philosopher of technology and science. Renowned for her exploration of the philosophy, history, and sociology of science as well as studies of ecology and animal philosophy. Babich is a Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, New York City.
Her work crosses the analytic-continental divide but she draws heavily on Nietzsche, Heidegger, Adorno, and Illich. She is the director of The Nietzsche Society. Her latest book Günther Anders’ Philosophy of Technology explores the philosophy of isolation. Written amid Covid-19, the study of 'home-working' became more important than ever.
"[Babich] succeeds in penetrating the cloud of suspicion, incomprehension, and distrust that for contemporary readers surrounds Nietzsche's writing" — New Nietzsche Studies
"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself."
Matthew Syed is a columnist for The Times, an acclaimed author and a former Olympian. He competed and was the English number one table tennis player for many years. Syed is a three-time men's singles champion at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, and also competed for Great Britain in two Olympic Games.
During his sporting career, Syed entered journalism, and later became a writer. He has worked for The Times newspaper since 1999, and has published seven books: Bounce in 2010, Black Box Thinking in 2015, The Greatest in 2017, You Are Awesome in 2018, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking in 2019, Dare to be You in 2020, and What Do YOU Think? in 2022.
"Will change the way you think about success and even about life" — Judy Murray
"Within every form of oppression lies the seeds of liberation."
Dr Susie Orbach is a psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, and social critic. Her debut book, Fat is a Feminist Issue, took the world by storm. She was Princess Diana's therapist in the 1990s and was honoured in BBC's 100 Women twice, in 2013 and 2014.
Throughout her career, she has founded the Women's Therapy Centre Institute, and been a consultant for the World Bank, the NHS, and Unilever. Most recently, she has been a visiting scholar at the New School for Social Research, in New York whilst also working as a therapist at her well-known practice, in London.
"Virtually all feminist debate on body image and beauty imagery owes its existence to Susie Orbach." ― Naomi Wolf
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'Now the thing about seeming is that seeming is never quite as it seems. Appearance is always strange'
Timothy Morton is a professor and Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English at Rice University. A member of the object-oriented philosophy movement, Morton's work explores the intersection of object-oriented thought and ecological studies.
Morton has published numerous books including 'Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence', 'The Ecological Thought' and 'Hyposubjects: On Becoming Humane'. They have collaborated with several artists and produced TIME TIME TIME, an opera commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery, which explored the multiplicity of temporalities at the heart of being human.
'[A] radical vision of what ecological thought can be.' — Los Angeles Review of Books
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