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HowTheLightGetsIn Hay 2024 gathered global thought leaders to answer the most pressing questions of our era in Hay-on-Wye for our most mind-expanding line-up to date!
If you just can't wait to see our era's most pioneering thinkers discuss the pressing questions of our time why not join us this Septemeber for HowTheLightGetsIn London 2024!
General (U.S. Army, Ret.) David H. Petraeus is the Kissinger Fellow at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, the Chair of the Global Institute of a major investment firm, and a former director of the CIA. Petraeus served over 37 years in the U.S. military, culminating his career with six consecutive commands as a general officer, five of which were in combat, including command of the Surge in Iraq, command of U.S. Central Command, and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Following retirement from the military, Petraeus served as Director of the CIA during the global war on terror. He is the author, with Andrew Roberts, of Conflict: A Military History of the Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine. Petraeus graduated with honors from the U.S. Military Academy and earned a Ph.D. at Princeton University.
"Push on, but smile inwardly at the madness."
Martha Fiennes is an award-winning film director, writer, and producer, best known for her films Onegin and Chromophobia. Her directorial debut was lavished with praise, including winning the London Film Critic's Choice Newcomer of the Year and the Tokyo International Film Festival award for Best Director.
She has since pivoted to AI generated art, exploring the boundaries of technology and aesthetics. Her work, Yugen, featured the actor Salma Hayek Pinault and opened at the Venice Film Festival. It was later exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery, Christies' New York and the Science Museum.
"Fiennes'...first feature film claimed a place alongside her famous siblings in this country's cultural pantheon." — Telegraph
“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 Too Late to Awaken: What Lies Ahead When There is No Future? and Freedom: A Disease Without A Cure. 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
“‘Wokery’ is a nonsense term. All ‘virtue’ is seen externally and is therefore ‘signalled’ in some way. Virtues are good."
Paterson Joseph is a cultural icon, best known for his roles in TV and film, from Peep Show to Wonka, and his career in theatre with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Beginning his career as a Shakespearean actor, Joseph later transitioned to TV with appearances in Casualty and Law and Order, alongside a successful film career. He is the author of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, a novel which brilliantly conveys the life and times of the 18th-century composer through fictionalised diaries, letters, and commentary. He is also Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University which has cemented him as both an actor and public intellectual.
“I so admire Joseph's verbal imagination which seems to effortlessly bridge the gap between our time and Sancho's." — Harriet Walter
"Joseph has taken an actual man and, two and a half centuries later, made him as thoroughly himself, and as fully present, as he was the first time round." — Telegraph
“When it comes to the world around us, is there any choice but to explore?”
Lisa Randall was included in the list of Time magazine's '100 Most Influential People' of 2007 and was featured in Newsweek's 'Who's Next in 2006' as 'one of the most promising theoretical physicists of her generation.' Randall is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics and Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science on the physics faculty of Harvard University.
Randall has spent most of her career exploring the nature of the universe and becoming a world-leading expert on particle physics and cosmology. She is the author of Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space and Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe.
“A true trailblazer.” – The Guardian
'"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
“It is a mistake to assume that the law should always enforce morality.”
Peter Singer is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary ethics. He is an Australian moral philosopher and the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He rose to prominence with his seminal book Animal Liberation, which was updated in 2023 and re-published as Animal Liberation Now to address the most pressing concerns of today’s environmental movement.
In addition to animal ethics, Peter’s writing covers topics including the responsibilities of first world citizens in the form of altruism, affluence and morality, as well as ethical question around abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide. Singer is also the founder of the Centre for Human Bioethics, at Monash University. He has been recognised with numerous accolades, including the Berggruen Prize and, most recently, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards.
A “hero among heroes of the world” – Jennifer Skiff
“Truth makes love possible; love makes truth bearable.”
Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, is a highly acclaimed theologian, writer and pastor. In addition to his 10-year post as Archbishop, Williams is an esteemed academic. He has been a lecturer at Cambridge University and the Lady Margaret Chair of Divinity at Oxford University.
He is one of the world’s leading thinkers on issues such as theology, spirituality, philosophy, and religious aesthetics, and is the author of several best-selling books, including Being Human: Bodies, Minds, Persons and Candles in the Dark: Faith, Hope and Love in a Time of Pandemic.
“Rowan Williams’ most striking characteristics are his humanity and his fine intellect.” ― Baroness Helena Kennedy KC
“Do you know what a foreign accent is? It’s a sign of bravery.”
Best-selling author, former law associate and award-winning academic, Amy Chua is the John M. Duff Jr Professor of Law at Yale Law School where she specialises in topics ranging from ethnic conflict, globalisation and international business transactions. Chua has been named one of Atlantic Monthly’s Brave Thinkers, one of Foreign Policy’s Global Thinkers and has been named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people.
Alongside her best-selling parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Chua has written for major publications on the state of American politics, tribalism, identity politics, polarization, and nationalism. Most recently, she was awarded the Lux and Veritas Prize by the Buckley Institute for fostering intellectual diversity in her classroom and beyond.
"Chua’s work strives to traverse "the no-go areas around which others usually tip-toe.” - The New York Times
“A physical system cannot be conscious. Only a simulation can be conscious. Consciousness is a simulated property of the simulated self.”
Dr. Joscha Bach is an exceptional cognitive scientist who is pushing the limits of what we can achieve with Artificial Intelligence (AI). As an AI researcher for MIT Media Lab and the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, he is constantly exploring new frontiers in cognitive architectures, mental representation, emotion, social modelling, and multi-agent systems. Bach's groundbreaking MicroPsi project is creating virtual agents that are revolutionizing our understanding of how emotion, motivation, and cognition interact in situated agents.
With a passionate mission to build a model of the mind that rivals the complexity and capability of the human brain, Bach is at the forefront of the creation of Strong AI. As an avid philosopher of AI, Bach is constantly exploring its potential to unlock new heights of human intelligence and creativity. Bach is an exceptional mind who is changing the world of AI and helping us understand what it truly means to be human.
'Joscha is one of the most fascinating minds in the world.' Lex Fridman
“I do feel like I’m in a position now where I ought to speak on these issues because so many other people can’t,”
Winston Marshall is a British musician, political activist and prominent podcaster. Co-founder of the world-famous folk-rock Mumford and Sons and with a litany of awards and headline performances to their name, Winston left the band to pursue his political interests.Having been on the receiving end of a 'cancelling', Winston pivoted his career to exposing censorship, wokery, and any received wisdom in the culture wars. With his substack and Spectator-hosted podcast, Winston has risen to challenge those who stopped him from speaking out.
"Through long-form podcast conversations with thinkers, writers, and pundits, he’s finally sharing his views and speaking out on the causes he cares about." The European Conservative
"A romantic partner won't complete me because I was born complete."
Yasmin Benoit is a British model, award-winning asexual activist, and writer. Yasmin has won an Attitude Pride Award for her activism, making her the first openly aromantic-asexual activist to win an LGBTQ+ award.
At 18, she began modelling with the goal of diversifying the fashion industry, and has since become one of the UK's most prominent Black alternative models. Her unconventional approach to activism has attracted the attention of international press, including Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, British GQ, Buzzfeed, and Sky News.
"The unlikely face of asexuality"" — Cosmopolitan
"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
'"Around the world, a woman's body is still very much a battlefield and hundreds of thousands of women bear the invisible wounds of war.”
Christina Lamb OBE is the Chief Foreign Correspondent for the Times and Sunday Times, bestselling author and honourary fellow of University College Oxford. Lamb's career is punctuated with awards, conflict, and compassion. Having started her career in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, she has since reported from Pakistan, Iraq, Lybia, Angola, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe to name a few.
Christina's recent work focuses on the impact of war on women. She has several bestelling books on the topic including I Am Malala and The Girl from Alepp. Since then she has won 15 major awards including Europe's top war reporting prize the Prix Bayeux.
"Lamb...does society a service by forcing us to look" - New York Times
"There are surprising connections between astrophysical objects [...] and our future technology."
Marika Taylor is a Professor of Theoretical Physics, Pro-Vice Chancellor, and Head of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Birmingham. She studied Physics at Cambridge, where she was taught by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose. She continued her studies with her doctoral thesis on Problems in M-theory, supervised by Stephen Hawking.
Taylor's research is focused on string theory, quantum field theory, and gravitational physics. In 2008, she won the Minerva Prize, awarded by the Netherlands' Organisation for Scientific Research for a paper on black holes. She has also been a vocal advocate for women in physics
'"People are irrational - and predictably so.”
Dan Ariely is a world-leading behavioral economist and best-selling author. He is a Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. Ariely is the leading scholar of irrationality and decision-making, explaining how we repeatedly and predictably make the wrong decisions in many aspects of our lives.
Ariely's books have appeared numerous times on the New York Times Best Sellers list, these include, Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty. He wrote the advice column, Ask Ariely, for 10 years in the Wall Street Journal. His latest book is Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things.
"There is nobody better placed to solve your problems than Dan Ariely." - Tim Harford
"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 go 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.
“Physics and evolution point to the same conclusion: spacetime and objects are not foundational.”
Donald D. Hoffman is an Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, where he researched perception, evolution, and consciousness. He held joint appointments in the Departments of Philosophy, Logic and Philosophy of Science, and at the School of Computer Science.
Hoffman's book, The Case Against Reality, was shortlisted for the Physics World Book of the Year 2019. He is also known for his viral TED Talk "Do we see reality as it is?". In both, Hoffman argues that we do not perceive reality objectively, and calls for a mathematical model of reality.
"One of the deepest and most original thinkers of his generation." - Steven Pinker
"Most Zionists don't believe that God exists but they do believe that he promised them Palestine."
Ilan Pappé is a leading critic of the Israeli occupation, a professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He has published 15 books on the Middle East and on the Palestine Question including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples and The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge. He has published 15 books on the Middle East and on the Palestine Question.
"Along with Edward Said, Ilan Pappe is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history." - New Statesman
"Being the largest democracy is not good enough, my dream is for India to become the greatest democracy in the world"
S.Y. Quraishi is an Indian civil servant who rose to be the 17th Chief Election Commissioner of India. He is currently the Chancellor of IILM University, Gurgaon, India, and is well known for his role in international election observation missions in nations such as South Africa, Kenya, Russia, and Myanmar. He has served on the International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Stockholm for 9 years.
Through his illustrious career, he was declared one of the top 100 most powerful Indians in 2011 and 2012. He has also published numerous books, including India's Experiment with Democracy: The Life of a Nation Through its Elections, his most recent work."
The most intellectual, courageous and dedicated chief election commissioner India had had in the twenty-first century." Christophe Jaffrelot, Avantha Chair of Indian Politics and Sociology at King's College London
"I want the next generation of humans to feel worthy...without worrying if they're pretty enough to ask for that acknowledgement and acceptance."
Jessica Defino is an award-winning reporter and beauty culture critic. She writes the Guardian's beauty advice column, Ask Ugly, and has emerged as one of the most prominent voices shedding light on the beauty industry and its physical and psychological impacts on consumers.
DeFino writes the weekly newsletter The Unpublishable, which the Huffington Post says “... gives the middle finger to the entire beauty industry,”. The newsletter has been praised by New York Magazine, Forbes, and Adweek’s 2023 Creative 100.
"the woman the beauty industry fears the most" - the Sunday Herald
"I completely agree that a Singularity is possible, but it probably doesn’t crack the top ten of the things that keep me awake at night."
Scott Aaronson is one of the top quantum complexity theorists in the world, renowned for both his research in quantum computing and computational complexity theory. Aaronson is famous for his popular blog Schtetl Optimized, which has kept the scientific community up to date on quantum hype for nearly the past two decades.
His research and popular writing have earned him numerous awards, including the United States Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the Alan T. Waterman Award. Aaronson is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, but took leave of his academic commitments in 2022 to work at OpenAI
"A world class scientist." - Timothy Nguyen
'"Another prediction of relativity is that your head is ever so slightly older than your feet"
Chris Lintott is a renowned astrophysicist, author and broadcaster. He is currently a Professor of Astrophysics in the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford, and since 2023 is the Gresham Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London.
Lintott is involved in a number of popular science projects aimed at bringing astronomy to a wider audience and is also the primary presenter of the BBC television series The Sky at Night, having previously been co-presenter with Patrick Moore until Moore's death in 2012. He co-authored Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe and The Cosmic Tourist with Moore and Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May.
"Chris Lintott is a modest genuis." - Brian Ma
"AI might be able to simulate empathy, but it is human connection that gives meaning to our experiences."
Jenny Kleeman is a distinguished British journalist, broadcaster and author. After two decades at the cutting edge of politics and culture, Kleeman boasts an impressive career spanning foreign correspondence, radio hosting, and presenting for the BBC, Channel 4 and HBO.
Beyond her regular writing for the Guardian, The Sunday Times and The New Statesman, Kleeman's more in-depth writing projects include 'Sex Robots & Vegan Meat' and 'The Price of Life.' Forged at the 'frontiers of birth, food, sex and death', she brings a wealth of experience and a fresh voice to the festival.
"Like Louis Theroux channelling Margaret Atwood" - New Statesman
"In a society consumed by its hatred for Black men, there is no resistance to the negation of the Black male's humanity."
Tommy J. Curry is an American scholar, author and professor of philosophy, holding a Personal Chair in Africana philosophy and Black Male studies at the University of Edinburgh.
In 2018, he won an American Book Award for the The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood. He has been recognised by Diverse as among the Top 15 Emerging Scholars in the United States in 2018, and his work has earned him a Scoiety for the Advancement of American Philosophy Alaine Locke Award.
"Curry has taken a bullet for the borthers" — Ishmael Reed.
"The geometry, the content, and the fate of the universe are all intricately linked"
Priyamvada (Priya) Natarajan is an award-winning theoretical astrophysicist known for her work in mapping dark matter and dark energy and gravitational lensing. She is an an astronomy and physics professor at Yale University, and the author of the book Mapping the Heavens – The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos.
“A strikingly lucid account of the expansion, not just of the universe, but of the way we have tried to understand it" - New York Times
'I think more like a quantum Buddhist in that there is a universal proto-conscious mind wich we can access, and can influence us.'
Stuart Hameroff is an American anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona known for his studies of consciousness and his controversial claim, alongside Sir Roger Penrose, that consciousness originates from quantum states in neural microtubules.
Hameroff is the lead organizer of the Science of Consciousness conference. He has also featured in several award-winning films and documentaries, including What tнe ♯$*! Do ωΣ (k)πow!? and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.
"We need quantum politics to tackle today’s challenges."
Armen Sarkissian is the former President of Armenia, a physicist, investor, businessman and computer scientist. He was the president of Armenia between 2018 and 2022 and he previously held the offices of Prime Minister, ambassador to the UK, Vatican, EU, NATO, Holland and the 'senior ambassador to Europe'.
During his political career, Armen leveraged his diplomatic experience to diffuse tensions during the 'Velvet Revolution' and with Azerbaijan's border skirmishes. His most recent book, Small States Club, builds on the wealth of experience and outlines how smaller nations can find success in an ever more chaotic world.
"[Sarkissian] clarifies the important role small states play in upholding world order." - Henry Kissinger
'“Quite soon, as we move from genes to the proteins that they code for, and then on to the interactions between these proteins, the problems become seriously complicated.”
Denis Noble is Professor Emeritus and co-Director of Computational Physiology at Oxford University where he held the Burdon Sanderson Chair of Cardiovascular Physiology from 1984 to 2004. Noble was one of the pioneers of Systems Biology and developed the first viable mathematical model of the working heart in 1960 with his supervisor Otto Hutter. The work was later developed with Dario DiFrancesco and others to become the canonical models on which more than 100 cardiac cell models are based today.
Noble has published over 350 articles in academic journals, including Nature, Science, PNA and the Journal of Physiology. His books include the first popular science book on the subject, The Music of Life, which has been translated into 12 languages. He was also elected President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences at its Congress in Kyoto in 2009.
"We can never compromise on compromise."
Sophie Scott-Brown is the Director of Gresham College and fellow at the University of St Andrews. An inspiring intellectual historian with research interests in modern European political thought, Anarchism, and the history of education, Sophie is also a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and of the Royal History Society.
She is an author excited by historical biography as a means of understanding ideas. Her work includes The Histories of Raphael Samuel: A Portrait of a People’s Historian and Colin Ward and the Art of Everyday Anarchy.
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“There is evidence from physics itself that consciousness is a fundamental, and not an incidental, feature of the universe.”
Bernard Carr is an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary University of London. His research interests include the early universe, dark matter, general relativity, primordial black holes, and the anthropic principle. He studied under Stephen Hawking at the Institue of Astronomy in Cambridge for his Doctorate. Carr has also held positions at various institutes in America, Canada and Japan.
He is President of the Scientific and Medical Network and a former President of the Soceity for Psychical Research. He is the author of around 300 papers and the critically acclaimed books Universe or Mutliverse? and Quantum Black Holes.
"This book really does lie at the frontier of cosmology, philosophy and possibly even theology." — Martin Redfern, Science, People and Politics
"I wanted to wake people up... Their future is being sold."
Ali Allawi is an Iraqi politician and scholar. Over the last twenty years, Allawi has held some of the most important positions in the Iraqi government, serving as Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Minister of Defence. He has also worked as a Professor at the University of Oxford, and a visiting Fellow at Harvard.
His writings on Iraq and the Middle East, most famously The Occupation of Iraq and The Crisis of Islamic Civilization, are widely celebrated as some of the most important works in this space.
"One of Iraq's most respected Shia politicians of the post-Saddam era." - The Independent
'"We have a world to win"
Aaron Bastani is the co-founder of Novara Media. Described as 'the slickest of the guerrilla news and opinion operations that have sprung up in Britain' by the Guardian. From humble origins in 2011 it is now a prominent power on the new left, with pundits regularly invited onto Newsnight and videos recieving hundreds of thousands of views.
His book, Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A manifesto sets out a future of technological optimism and abundance without work, and his arguments for UBI and reduced working weeks have inspired debate across the political spectrum.
"Overall, I think that Bastani’s fully automated luxury communist manifesto is essential reading for those interested in thinking beyond the contemporary late capitalist impasse" -Theory, Culture and Society
"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 that 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.
"Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.”
Paul Bloom is a trailblazing 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.
"Paul Bloom has a gift for spotting paradoxes in human nature" - Steven Pinker
"Philosophy asks for a reason, not just a scientific fact."
Catherine Rowett is a former member of the European Parliament and a distinguished philosopher. Rowett served as the Green Party MEP for the Eastern Region in 2019 before leaving in January 2020 due to the UK leaving the EU. Rowett is also a Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. She is well known in particular for her work on Greek Philosophy, especially the Pre-Socratic philosophers.
Rowett is cited around the world over for her influential research on Presocratic philosophy, Aristotle, and Plato. She has published seven books, one of which (her popular pocket book called Presocratic Philosophy: a very short introduction) has also been translated into both Modern Greek and Portuguese.
"[Rowett's] approach - the question, 'who loves whom, and for what' - represents an entirely fresh approach to ancient views on eros." — Studies in Christian Ethics
"This is a politics of time that goes way beyond regulations on labour hours, working conditions and campaigns for a four-day labour week."
Guy Standing is a Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London and co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network. He is best known as a long-standing and prominent advocate of Universal Basic Income, but he is also responsible for redefining and revitalizing the term ‘precariat’ which describes a new emerging social class suffering from job insecurity as well as identity insecurity.
Standing's recent work has explored the politics of time and how to reclaim leisure in an age of uncertianty.
"Standing’s daring emancipatory agenda challenges our prevailing “jobs fetish” as anything but progressive" - Irish Times
“Every human being, in a way, is a philosopher. Because that's what it is to be human.” Hilary Lawson
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 which does require reference to an external reality. In doing so it outlines a metaphysics which 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
"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.
"This book is accessible, inspiring and inclusive." - BookTrust
"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 philosopers of physics, Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at NYU and Founder and Director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics.
In his groundbreaking book The Metaphysics Within Physics, Truth and Paradox: Solving the Riddles and Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity, Maudlin challenges Einstein's criticisms of Quantum Mechanics as 'spooky action at a distance'.
“To make his case, he’s had to reinvent geometry.” – Wired
“Political correctness is the means by which we try to control others; decency is the means by which we try to control ourselves.”
Theodore Dalrymple is the pen-name for Anthony Malcolm Daniels, a well-loved English cultural critic, prolific writer, satirist, prison physician and psychiatrist. In his critiques, Dalrymple has often been critical of leftist views popular in Western intellectual circles, arguing that they undermine individual responsibility and traditional mores.
He has written for the Times and The Spectator and has written several notable books including Our Culture: What's Left of It and Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality.
'DALRYMPLE IS A MODERN MASTER' - The Guardian
“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, contra to Einstein's theory of general relativity, that 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.
In addition to her pioneering research, de Rham has found the time to train as a pilot and made it through several stages of the European Space Agency’s astronaut selection process.
"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
"For social media to become truly sociable media, we must design interfaces that reflect how we understand and respond to the social world."
Judith Donath is a fellow at Harvard's Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society, and the founder of the Social Media Group at the MIT Media Lab. She is also a writer, designer and artist whose work focuses on the co-evolution of technology and society.
Donath is well-known as a pioneer of online social media applications. She is the creator of the first postcard service, The Electronic Postcard, and the first interactive art show, Portraits in Cyberspace. She has also published articles on the problems of cognition in online behavioural dynamics, telerobotics, the ethnography of online communities, to the principles of architecture used to design virtual cities.
"Donath succeeds in painting an unusually deep and personal portrait of the continually expanding universe of social media." — John Meade
"I'm not satisfied with the term 'evil'...I don't think it's anything more than another word for doing something bad."
Simon Baron-Cohen is professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge University, is a Fellow of Trinity College and is the Director of Cambridge's Autism Research Centre. His lifelong work on autism has revolutionised the world of experimental psychology. As part of his empathizing-systemizing theory, Simon famously claimed that autism is an extreme of the male brain.
His latest book The Pattern Seekers: How autism drives human invention presents dramatic evidence that autistic people and hyper-systemizers – those who can effortlessly analyse the patterns in systems to invent – share some of the same genes.
'Bold, intriguing, profound.’ - The Spectator
"Above all, [government] needs to make again the case..for its legitimacy – not for “big government” or “small government” but for government’s right and responsibility to address the country’s problems."
Bronwen Maddox is the Director and Chief Executive of Chatham House. Before joining Chatham House, Bronwen was Director of the Institute for Government, an independent think-tank promoting better governance practices. From 2010 to 2016, she was editor and chief executive of Prospect, the monthly current affairs magazine. Before that, she served as chief foreign commentator, foreign editor and US editor at The Times, after a period at the Financial Times where she ran award-winning investigations and wrote economics editorials.
Bronwen is also a Visiting Professor in the Policy Institute at King’s College London, Honorary Governor of Ditchley, an honorary fellow of the British Academy, and a council member of Research England, one of the research councils of UK Research & Innovation. She writes frequent op-ed columns for the Financial Times and broadcasts widely.
"Maddox is a tough critic rather than a blind apologist. In her cool, elegant and knowing way, she chastises when the occasion calls for it." — Daily Mail
"Everything is an influence."
Ruth Padel is an award-winning British poet, novelist and non-fiction writer. Her work spans across a multitude of topics and mediums, from poetic collections on Beethoven to poignant non-fiction pieces on tiger conservation, and the influence of Greek myth on rock music. Her twelve poetry collections have all been shortlisted for major UK prizes.
Padel is a Visiting Professor of Poetry at King's College London, where she teaches on poetry, fiction, Charles Darwin and the connection between arts and science.
“A poet and scholar with a beautifully patient understanding, reminiscent of Ted Hughes, of how the natural word invests itself in our experience.” — Telegraph
"There are no new places to discover on this Earth, but there are many, many new ideas to discover — new things to find out about the way the world works."
Dame Frances Mary Ashcroft is a British geneticist known for her pioneering research on ion channels. She holds the position of Royal Society GlaxoSmithKline Research Professor at the University Laboratory of Physiology at the University of Oxford. She also serves as a director of the Oxford Centre for Gene Function.
Ashcroft has authored several influential books exploring the intricacies of ion channels and their impact on human health and disease. Recognized with prestigeous accolades, Ashcroft is the winner of the L'oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science and the 2023 Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science.
'"Evolutionary psychology, as it is currently understood, is...impossible."
Subrena Smith is an innovative and boundary-pushing philosopher of biology. She is on a mission to challenge our assumptions about human behaviour and what makes us unique as a species. Smith has thrown a wrench into the emerging field of evolutionary psychology, and sought to expose the methodological flaws in its approach to understanding the human mind.
Smith has also taken aim at the very concept of an organism, challenging us to reconsider our assumptions about what it means to be alive. Her famous article Is Evolutionary Psychology Possible? has caused much debate on whether our evolutionary theories translate to society and modern culture today.
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 four books, including two forthcoming in 2024: Philosophers on God: Talking about Existence 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
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 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
"It’s not self-help but group help. If the Stoics are worth reading, it’s because they constantly exhort us to rise to our potential — through reason, cooperation and selflessness.”
Nancy Sherman is a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University who has conducted research in general ethics, moral psychology and the history of philosophy with focus on the Stoic tradition. A New York Times Notable Author and sought-after speaker, her views on military ethics have been influential. From 1997-1999, she served as the inaugural Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the U. S. Naval Academy, helping to design and teach the brigade-wide military ethics course.
In her 2021 book, Stoic Widsom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience, Sherman guides readers in navigating the contemporary world with the wisdom of Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and others.
“In this age of political polarization, impulsive tweeting, and the threat of covid-19, Stoic Wisdom is a refreshing reminder that reasonable behavior is still a possibility.” — Washington Independent Review of Books
"Freedom is an occupied space which must be reoccupied every day."
John Ralston Saul is an award-winning essayist, novelist and President Emeritus of PEN International. His 16 works, including Voltaire’s Bastards and The Collapse of Globalism, have been translated into 29 languages in 38 countries. He is particularly known for his commentaries on citizenship and the public good; individualism; freedom of speech; linguistic rights; immigration; the failures of managerial / technocratic societies; political leadership; contemporary economic arguments; military strategy; and Canadian and global political history.
Saul earned his PhD at King’s College London and holds 21 honorary degrees from universities across the world. He has been recognised internationally with a host of literary awards, including Chile’s Pablo Neruda Medal, South Korea’s Manhae Grand Prize for Literature, Italy’s Premio Letterario Internazionale and Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction. He is a Companion in the Order of Canada, an Officer in Germany’s Order of Merit and a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France.
“The prophet of anti-globalism.” - The Guardian
"Markets, as human institutions, are legitimized only by their promotion of human flourishing"
Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. She is also the Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures in EFI. Her research explores how new technologies, especially AI, robotics, and data science, reshape human moral character, habits, and practices. Her work includes advising policymakers and industry on the ethical design and use of AI.
She is a member of the Oversight Board of the Ada Lovelace Institute and a former Visiting Researcher and AI Ethicist at Google. She is also the author of Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting and The AI Mirror: Reclaiming Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking.
'Knocks it out of the park with her sharp observations, apt metaphor, and surprisingly powerful call to action.'
"In the West, information has a habit of wanting to be free."
Rana Mitter is a Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has been elected to several prestigious positions including president of the Cambridge Union, Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University and Fellow of the British Academy. In 2019, he was appointed an OBE for his services to education.
A prolific writer, Mitter has authored many comprehensive books on Chinese history and politics, and he writes regularly writer for publications such as The Telegraph, the Financial Times and the Guardian.
"Breathtaking and authoritative" - Daily Telegraph
"Metamodernism seeks forever for a truth that it never expects to find."
Robin van den Akker is Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy of Culture, and Head of the Humanities Department of Erasmus University College Rotterdam. He has written extensively on contemporary arts, culture, aesthetics and politics in The Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, Frieze, ArtPulse and many other journals, magazines and collections.
He is founding editor of Notes on Metamodernism and editor of Metamodernism: Historicity, Affect, and Depth after postmodernism. His work has been translated into numerous languages, including Mandarin, Russian, German and Spanish.
"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
"Our society has been so obsessed with sex and romance that we tend to only see attractions with those two lenses."
Aline Laurent-Mayard is a journalist, author, and podcast host. They have written for publications such as Le Monde and Slate, and published two books about gender in pop culture. They are interested in the place of LGBTQ + people in society, the evolution of sexuality, love and family.
Maynard also hosts Free From Desire, a biographical narrative documentary podcast that focuses on aromanticism and asexuality.The podcast was the winner of the Narrative Nonfiction Audio Storytelling Award at the 2023 Tribeca Festival. It has received critical acclaim, and has been lauded as a beacon for the asexuality movement.
Aline's "compelling personal story has lessons and insights for anyone with a body." — Tribeca Audio Storytelling Competition jury
'“It’s not just that women aren’t being listened to enough, it’s that their voices aren’t being heard in the first place.”
Mary Ann Sieghart is a distinguished journalist, radio presenter, former Chair of the Social Market Foundation and a visiting professor at King's College London.
Much of her journalism career was spent working for The Times, The Independent, The Economist and the Financial Times, writing on politics and social affairs. She spent a year as a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where she researched and wrote her best-selling book The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About it.
“Her confidence is legendary” - The Independent
“Transformation through turmoil is the most remarkable phenomenon I have ever come across.”
Steve Taylor is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University and author of several best-selling books in the fields of psychology and spirituality. He regularly appears in the media in the UK, and has been recently featured on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze, BBC Breakfast, Radio FiveLive and TalkRadio. Eckhart Tolle has described his work as ‘an important contribution to the shift in consciousness which is happening on our planet at present.’
Taylor's main interest is in transpersonal psychology, which investigates higher states of consciousness and 'awakening' experiences. His most recent book is Extraordinary Awakenings: When Trauma Leads to Transformation.
“Opens our eyes to a new way of understanding the world, and is also a pleasure.” – Christopher Ryan
"The idea that a tower block isn’t nature is not particularly philosophically or physically respectable. It’s just a weird cultural prejudice."
Des Fitzgerald is a professor of Medical Humanities and Social Sciences at UCC. A sociologist by training, he has particular interests in sociologies and histories of the psychological sciences, in social and cultural theory, and in urban studies. His latest work, The City of Today is a Dying Thing, sits at the intersection of these topics, as Fitzgerald critiques 'green urbanism' and looks for radical alternatives for future living.
Since being named a “New Generation Thinker” by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Fitzgerald has also worked as part of the Radical Humanities Laboratory at UCC, which aims to provide space for post- and anti-disciplinary practices to carve out radical trajectories for the future.
‘Like Jon Ronson on town planners … Endlessly funny and seriously smart.’ - John Grindrod
“One should never learn from one’s mistakes. Making the same mistakes, over and over again, is a source of unremitting pleasure.”
Peter York is an author, broadcaster, journalist, management consultant and cultural commentator. He was Style Editor of Harper’s & Queen for ten years and he co-authored The Sloane Ranger Handbook in 1982. He has written nine other books, most recently The Blue Riband, as well as a flood of articles and several television series. He is the co-founder of the Pimlico Society, which helps the indigenous people of Pimlico in their struggle for recognition and self-esteem.
His upcoming book is Dead Cat, the book explains why he has deserted his quest for style, for the substance of 'outing' the despicable device of the Dead Cat in a series of shocking examples, each brought to life by an intriguing and thought-provoking story and illustrated by Martin Rowson in the spirit of the great British satirical tradition of Hogarth and Gillray.
“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
"In reality, galaxies just sit there, contemplating the spectacle of the universe creating more and more space in between them."
João Magueijo is a Portuguese cosmologist and professor in theoretical physics at Imperial College London. He is a pioneer of the varying speed of light (VSL) theory. In 1998, Magueijo teamed with Andreas Albrecht to work on the varying speed of light theory of cosmology, which proposes that the speed of light was up to 3×1030 km/s in the early universe. This would explain several unsolved problems in contemporary physics, including the issue dark matter and the horizon problem, and is presented as a radical alternative to the more mainstream theory of cosmic inflation.
"Magueijo tells the story...with passion and considerable verve, familiarising his readers with some of the hippiest ideas in modern science." - The Observer
"Quantum mechanics is normal. It is the world it describes that is weird"
Scientist, academic, and author, Johnjoe Mcfadden is a Professor of molecular genetics at the University of Surrey. He has researched microbes and genetics and has invented a test for the diagnosis of meningitis. Macfadden has also written extensively on quantum biology, extending the neo-Darwinian framework in his book ‘Quantum Evolution’.
In his new 2021 book, Life is Simple: How Occam’s Razor Set Science Free and Unlocked the Universe, Mcfadden explores Occam's principle of simplicity through the developement of sceince.
"McFadden’s wonderful and thoroughly-researched account of the history of ideas reveals how simplicity as an overarching principle weaves through all the sciences." — Paul Davies, Regents’ Professor of Physics
"To think about the future in this way is itself a form of liberation that might incubate the necessary radical solutions we need."
Ben Ware is the co-director of the Centre for Philosophy and the Visual Arts at King’s College London. Ben has published widely on modern European philosophy, the philosophy of Wittgenstein, continental critical theory and modernist aesthetics. He has published
In Ware's 2024 book, On Extinction:Beginning Again At The End, he argues we must face our apocalyptic future without hesitation. Indeed, Ware argues that we should examine our current reality through the framework of extinction.
“Ben Ware offers a series of incisive and unforgiving readings that guide and impel us through the wreckage of contemporary capitalism.” — Benjamin Noys, author of The Matter of Language
"Appeals to protect others, especially the old and the sick are far more effective in persuading people to co-operate than the coercive powers of the state."
Sir Simon Wessely is a renowned psychiatrist and epidemiologist. He is currently Professor of Psychological Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London, on the NHS England Board and former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He has co-authored books on chronic fatigue syndrome (which he helped bring into maintstream diagnosis) and writes for the FInancial TImes, the New Statesmen and The Times.
He was recently elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. This is given to individuals who have made a ""substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge."" This was for his work in psychiatry and medical science.
"[Simon is a] distinguished scientist and one of the most recognised media spokespeople on mental health." — RSM President Professor Roger Kirby
"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 Why? Curve podcast with Phil Dobbie.
"An excellent thoughtful broadcaster and a rock solid journalist." - Ian D. Richardson, Ex-editor BBC World Service
“It is my opinion that the isolated mind loses its purchase on reality all too easily and becomes prone to fantasy.”
Frank Tallis is a clinical psychologist who specialises in obsessive compulsive disorder. He is also a multi-award winning author of several books including the Lieberamann papers which was adapted into the BBC show Vienna Blood.
Tallis's most recent bookThe Act of Living: What the Great Psychologists Can Teach Us About Surviving Discontent in an Age of Anxiety was described by the Times Literary Supplement as 'an engaging and expansive tour of our modern-day therapeutic landscape'.
"Few psychotherapists write with the clarity of Tallis." - The Tablet
"For companies in this industry, a humanitarian crisis seemed like an opportunity."
Claire Provost is an investigative journalist and co-founder and co-director of the non-profit Institute for Journalism and Social Change. She was previously Head of Global Investigations at the independent media outlet openDemocracy, a fellow at the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) in London, and a data journalist at the Guardian.
Alongside Matt Kennard, Provost published her first book Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy in 2023, drawing on reports from 30 countries to expose the unstoppable rise of global corporate power.
“Silent Coup is a highly revealing exposé of the hidden real world.” ― Noam Chomsky
“For the first time in the history of science, we could be facing questions that we cannot answer”
Harry Cliff is a particle physicist at the University of Cambridge and carries out research with the LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. He was a curator at the Science Museum, London for seven years and regularly gives public lectures and makes TV and radio appearances.
He is the author of How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch. His latest book, Space Oddities, is a mind-expanding, of-the-moment investigation of physics and cosmology as they transform before us.
"Cliff recounts with vivid clarity the stories of some of the most striking oddnesses that have lit up the landscape of modern physics." – Philip Pullman
"Dehumanization isn't a way of talking. It's a way of thinking...that sadly comes all too easily to us"
David Livingston Smith is a renowned professor of philosophy at the University of New England. Smith is a prolific author, having penned several books including Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanizatio which garnered acclaim for its insights into the roots of dehumanization.
Smith's work has earned him widespread recognition, including prestigious awards such as the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. Smith's impactful analysis is not only cited by other philosophers but also by historians, legal scholars and psychologists.
"...unusually lucid" — The New York Times
"Things have improved over many years[in India]– life expectancy, for example – but there are these deep problems you mention behind these headline numbers. But this isn’t a story that the West wants to hear"
Alpa Shah is a Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics, specialising in Indian and Nepalese minority and indigenous groups. Her fieldwork embedded her in Maoist rebel movements in Eastern India during counterinsurgency operations and involved her disguising herself as a man within a guerrilla platoon.
Her more recent work has centered on her new book The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India. This work has been shortlisted for the FT's 'What to read in 2024' and charts the stories of minority groups' resistance to democratic backsliding in modern India.
"Shah has written a gripping and rigorous crime story about the murder of a once thriving democracy, exposing an arsenal of lethal weapons, some wielded on the streets, others in the courts and press." Naomi Klein
“Water is always working, reorganizing the land."
Tim Palmer is a Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics, and a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Martin Institute. He works on the complex problems of uncertainty in our climate and weather, drawing on his background in fundamental physics to do so.
He has developed the application of weather and climate forecasts systems for malaria prediction, flood forecasting, crop yield estimation, and more. Most recently his research has focused on simulating climate at extremely high resolution. He was appointed as CBE in the 2015 New Year’s Honours list for services to science and has won numerous other awards in recognition of his world-leading work.
"Tim’s work in weather and climate prediction has revolutionised the field" - Professor Ian Shipsey
"We will not achieve equality for women without radical changes to contemporary capitalism."
Vasiliki "Vicky" Pryce is a Greek-born British economist and a former Joint Head of the United Kingdom's Government Economic Service. She is currently the Chief Economic Adviser at the Centre for Economics and Business Research, in London, where she is also a board member.
Vicky brings a wealth of experience to the festival, having written on everything from gender equality under capitalism, prison reforms, and European economies.
"Vicky Pryce is one of Britain's most distinguished economic commentators" - Rachel Reeves
"Everything is an influence."
Ruth Padel is an award-winning British poet, novelist and non-fiction writer. Her work spans across a multitude of topics and mediums, from poetic collections on Beethoven to poignant non-fiction pieces on tiger conservation, and the influence of Greek myth on rock music. Her twelve poetry collections have all been shortlisted for major UK prizes.
Padel is a Visiting Professor of Poetry at King's College London, where she teaches on poetry, fiction, Charles Darwin and the connection between arts and science.
“A poet and scholar with a beautifully patient understanding, reminiscent of Ted Hughes, of how the natural word invests itself in our experience.” — Telegraph
"Science should not be about whether you are good at it or not, it should only be about whether you're interested"
Dominic Walliman is a science writer, physicist, and YouTube sensation. With a PhD in quantum device physics and experience working on quantum computers, Walliman knows how to explain complex scientific concepts in a way that's both accessible and exciting.
His popular YouTube channel, Domain of Science, and award-winning Professor Astro Cat science books for kids have captivated audiences around the world. A lifelong science enthusiast, Walliman is passionate about sharing the wonder and excitement of discovery with others.
"Think of Professor Astro Cat as the feline version of Brian Cox" Look Book Report
" The Conservative government has just reached the period...like the Soviets in the 1960s, that mathematics will open an intellectual escape hatch out of the almighty systemic mess its doctrinaire predecessors have already induced."
Dr Abby Innes weaves political analysis with the scientific method to expose the ironic similarities between our current politics and the Soviet Union. She is an Associate Professor of Political Economy at the European Institute at the LSE. Her work focuses on party-state development, the transition from the Soviet system in Eastern Europe and the modern neoliberal state.
Her most recent book Late Soviet Britain exposes the cruel similarities between the Soviet Union and modern-day Britain that undermine our government and stagnate our society.
"Abby Innes is one of the most original and provocative analysts of politics in Britain. Her inventive, erudite explorations of both right and left… explain so many of the problems which beset the country today." Rory Stewart
"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.
Bjørn's 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 Metaphysical Experiments
“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.”
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. His unique blend of academia and viticulture creates an intriguing persona that's both enlightening and enjoyable.
“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
"Despite significant convergence with the dominant norms of the post-Cold War liberal international order, India’s commitment has nonetheless remained “instrumental and partial”."
Kate Sullivan de Estrada is the Director of the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme and Associate Professor in the International Relations of South Asia. Her research interests centre on the social mobility of states in world politics and status-seeking behaviour.
Sullivan de Estrada previously took up a secondment as Principle Research Analyst for India at the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. She delivered expert testimony to UK parliamentary inquiries. She also writes for The Wire, The Hindu, and the Oxford Academic.
"Love is the pre-political condition of us being together in the world in the first place."
Lyndsey Stonebridge is a writer, critic and Professor of Humanities and Human Rights at the University of Birmingham. Her writing explores themes of justice, exile, and the political and moral life of the mind.
Stonebridge's books have won numerous awards, including the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay Prize and the Modernist Studies Association Prize. Her most recent work is We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience, a bold new take on Hannah Arendt's life and work.
"Stonebridge on Arendt is a rare gem" — Shami Chakrabarti, Member of the House of Lords
"It is in giving that we receive."
Hannah Rich is Senior Researcher at THEOS, a leading think tank tackling the role of religion in society, Rich's extensive works has focused on inequality, economic insecurity and faith-based social action. She is also the director of Christians on the Left, a worldwide network pushing to bring peace and prosperity.
Rich's work leads the way on how to move beyond left and right. She looks to building social action, fix the broken safety net and meet the ethical, economic and social trials we now face. Previously, Rich worked for a social innovation think tank, a learning disability charity and as a care worker.
Angie Hobbs is Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Her chief interests are in ancient philosophy, and ethics and political theory from classical thought to the present, and she has published widely in these areas, including Plato and the Hero (C.U.P). Her most recent publication for the general public is Plato’s Republic: a Ladybird Expert Book, and Why Plato Matters is being published by Bloomsbury in 2025. She contributes regularly to radio and TV programmes and other media around the world, including 26 appearances on In Our Time on BBC Radio 4. She has spoken at the World Economic Forum at Davos, the Athens Democracy Forum, the Houses of Parliament in London, the Scottish Parliament, Westminster Abbey and been the guest on Desert Island Discs, Private Passions and Test Match Special.
She was a judge of the Man Booker International Prize 2019 (now the Booker International Prize) and was on the World Economic Forum Global Future Council 2018-9 for Values, Ethics and Innovation.
"Society will need to shed some of its obsession for causality in exchange for simple correlations: not knowing why but only what."
Kenneth Cukier is deputy executive editor and the host of the hugely popular weekly podcast , Babbage. He is the coauthor of the New York Times Bestselling book “Big Data” with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger. A director of Chatham House, a member of Council on Foreign Relations as well as an associate fellow at the University of Oxford's Said Business School, where he speaks about artificial intellingence and buissness.
An internationally respected journalist, Kenneth was the technology editor of the Wall Street Journal and has written for The New York Times, The Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune and Foreign Affairs.
‘One of the world’s most respected data experts’ - The LSE
Matthew Beaumont is a Professor of English Literture at University College London and an acclaimed author. He is also a Co-Director of UCL's Urban Lab and runs the Cities Imaginaires strand, a series of events that curate cultural representations of cities and urban life.
Matthew Beaumont is most well known for his book Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London and for having co-authored The Task of the Critic: Terry Eagleton in Dialogue. His next work will focus on Frantz Fanon, the politics of walking and the body.
"Beaumont is one of the most brilliant of the younger generation of English critics" — Terry Eagleton
Simon May is a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at King's College London. His interests lie in ethics, the philosophy of emotions, with a particular focus on the philosophy of love, as well as questions of identity and belonging.
May's most recent book is Love: A New Understanding of an Ancient Emotion, which not only proposes a wholly new theory on the nature of love but also builds on his previous work in the field. Beyond his academic interests, May has also written extensively on aphorisms and their forms. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post and the Financial Times. His own book on the subject, Thinking Aloud: A Collection of Aphorisms was named Financial Times Book of the Year.
"Simon May writes with elegant insight, giving us the gift of truth about the human condition." — A.C. Grayling
Wellness, when coupled with the political activism of the 1960s counterculture was a proactive, socially oriented approach to physical and mental well-being.”
James Riley is Muriel Bradbrook Official Fellow in English Literature at Girton College, Cambridge. He is an expert on the countercultures of the modern and contemporary period.
Widely published, James is the author of the cult hit The Bad Trip, an acclaimed cultural history of the late sixties. His latest book, Well Beings (2024) is a dizzying and provocative secret history of modern wellness that uncovers its origins in the alternative health cultures of the 1970s. From the panoramic coastal vistas of the Esalen Institute to the interior darkness of the floatation tank Well Beings offers a bold, new take on the 1970s and reminds us what wellness used to mean.
‘Well Beings is on the money in every sense of the term […] Sensory and information overload’ – Mick Brown, The Spectator.
"As a documentary film-maker, I’d been grappling with the ethics of documentary film-making for a while."
Camilla Hall is an award-winning documentary film Director and Executive Producer, as well as a co-Founder of Lady & Bird Films. She focuses on making films that tackle new ideas, exploer human nature and tell us something about the world.
Hall has directed award-winning independent films as well as documentary films and series with Discovery, HBO Max Europe, Sky, BBC and Arte. Her films have been shown at Sundance, Tribeca, and South by Southwest film festivals. Furthermore, she has produced Emmy-nominated Circus of Books, a Netflix original and is producing Sirens, directed by Rita Baghdadi.
“A documentary dork’s delight. The starting point for a conversation about, depiction, exploitation and documentary ethics." — The Hollywood Reporter
"I’ve spoken frequently in Parliament about the links between our food system and the environment, and I’m pleased that these arguments – for which I was once roundly ridiculed – are now gaining common currency."
Kerry McCarthy is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament since 2005. A Labour MP, she is the Shadow Minister for Climate Change. She belongs to SERA (Labour's Environment Campaign), LAWS (Labour Animal Welfare Society) and the Co-op Party. She supports the work of Greenpeace, the Wildlife Trusts and Compassion in World Farming.
In her current role, she has been responsible for the Kinship Care Bill, Food Waste Bills and the Supported Housing (Regulation) Bill. McCarthy is a political powerhouse for environmental change.
Nadia Idle is a communications lecturer, intellectual and life-long activist from London and Cairo. She runs consciousness-raising workshops to fight atomisation and build collectivity. She co-hosts left-wing politics, music and culture podcast ACFM, which charts in the top 10% of global downloads.
She co-edited Tweets from Tahrir: Egypt's Revolution as it Unfolded, in the Words of the People Who Made it - the first book to tell a narrative of a historic event in tweets
"With the university in ruins, what forms of public and collective institution could prove hospitable to radical pedagogy, research and knowledge-production?"
Jeremy Gilbert is a professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University of East London. He is the author of Hegemony Now which demystifies the concept and explores how people coming together can create their own hegemonic power to change the world. He is a regular writer in the British Press and is the current editor of the journal New Formations.
Alongside his academic work, he is a co-host of the ACFM podcast as well as Love is the Message & Culture, Power, Politics. Beyond theorising, Jeremy has been involved in party politics, public lecturing, and cultural music projects.
"Gilbert and Williams have written a timely contribution in how the left acts strategically - learning from the successes and failures of the last decade." Aaron Bastani
"As Generation Screwed turns into Generation Left, it’s likely that the right will hold ever tighter to the myth of the snowflake despite the mountain of countervailing evidence."
Kier Milburn is a writer, researcher and political activist. His most recent book is Generation Left, a book that charts the social conditions of younger generations and why their is a growing chasm between the political views of the young and old.
He works on municipalism, economic democracy and political economy for the think tank Common Wealth, Co-hosts the ACFM podcast with Novara Media, and is a regular writer in the British press.
‘Keir Milburn demolishes the nonsense usually attached to talk of generations and shows that what looks like a politics of age is rooted in the politics of class.’ - Paul Mason
Avery is a writer and editor with professional experience in social media, news editing, and political reporting at The Conversation. Before this, she completed her MA in Applied Linguistics at UCL, writing her dissertation on the design of political COVID-19 memes in the UK.
Caleb Althorpe is a Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. He researches contemporary political theory and political philosophy. His work has been published or is forthcoming in venues such as Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, and Social Theory and Practice.
His recent work has explored the concept of meaningful jobs and the future of work.
Isabel Berwick is the host of the Financial Times' Working It podcast about the changing workplace and how to optimise productivity. She is the editorial lead for the FT's Women in Business forum, moderator of FT and external events and author. In her 20+ career at the Financial Times, she has edited the FT Weekend and the opinion desk as well as managing their workplace output.
Her most recent book is The Future Proof Career, about how to plan your life during times of uncertainty to ensure your work works for you.
“There is no better guide to the future of work than Isabel Berwick" Viv Grosop
"By creating and marking personal milestones, from the mundane to the marvellous, and celebrating small wins, we can bring enormous joy to our lives."
With over 20 years of experience working in academia, the third sector, and as a freelance researcher and evaluator, Dr Nilufar Ahmed is an award-winning professional psychologist.
Her work specialises in helping minoritised communities achieve meaning in their workplaces. her work has been featured widely in the British print and televised press, as well as many leading academic journals.
"Driven by a passion for equality and inclusion, she works closely with organisations of all sizes from small charities to global multinationals, helping them achieve their visions of cultural change and inclusion." Institute of Customer Service
Antonella Tramacere is an expert in the philosophy of cognition and neuroscience. She is an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performance at Roma Tre in Rome.
Fellipe Do Vale is the Department Chair and Assistant Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology. He primarily focuses on the intersection of gender theory and theology.
He is the author of Gender as Love: A Theological Account of Human Identity, Embodied Desire, and Our Social Worlds, along with articles in the International Journal of Systematic Theology, Pro Ecclesia, and others. He is also the winner of the 2023 “Emerging Public Intellectual” award, given by Redeemer University.
"A breath of fresh air that has the marks of a rush of the Spirit, do Vale’s work clears the confusion, fear, and acrimony that has clouded around the concept of gender." — Amy Peeler, Wheaton College
"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 has served as the Member of Parliament. 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.
"Aboriginal conceptions of political sovereignty must be included in political liberalism's justification of Aboriginal
rights."
Dale Turner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Centre for Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto. His research interests lie in the intersection of Indigenous intellectual culture, contemporary political thought, and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
He is the author of This is not a Peace Pipe. He publishes on Aboriginal rights in Canada and contemporary intellectual culture. He is a citizen of the Temagami First Nation in northern Ontario. He is working on his first hotly-anticipated novel, Vision, which draws from postcolonial and indigenous thought.
“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.
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 macro economics and worked as a conflict advisor for the EU and UN, mostly in Africa.
“A beautifully poetic writer.” - The Telegraph
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