Archived Events

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Viewing mental distress with a medical model situates problems with the sufferer rather than a reaction to society and its problems. Dr James Davies examines why this view of mental illness has been promoted and why it is so misplaced and dangerous. This talk will be held at Conway Hall AND online.

In person | Virtual event

The urge to censor is as old as the urge to speak. From the first Chinese emperor’s wholesale elimination of books to the Vatican’s suppression of pornography, to the volatile politics surrounding censorship of social media, words and ideas have always been hunted down by those trying to suppress them.

In person | Virtual event

Facing injury and interruption, Sonia Overall takes the path of the lone woman walker, seeking out 'thin places' where past and present collide, and where new ways of living might begin. This talk will be held at Conway Hall AND online.

In person | Virtual event

"Twins are or continue to be gods, beasts, spirits, monsters, animals, signals and signs, instruments, molecular assemblages, fungible communities, textual and filmic devices." William Viney tells us more. This talk will be held at Conway Hall AND online.

In person | Virtual event

Whether we're grieving or afraid, worn down by everyday troubles or relentless bad news, there is always hope. Bernadette Russell has the toolkit that will give you all you need to cultivate hope in yourself.

In person | Virtual event

Poets and Philosophers Tom Whyman and Jack Underwood reflect on parenthood in a time of crisis. How might we cling to that hope as sea levels rise, forests burn and a pandemic sweeps across the world?

In person | Virtual event

The April 2021 riots in Northern Ireland were a reminder that peace there is fragile. Feargal Cochrane considers the region’s troubled history from the struggle for Irish independence in the nineteenth century to the present.

In person | Virtual event

As police racism unsettles Britain's tolerant self-image, Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper details the activism that made movements like Black Lives Matter possible.

In person | Virtual event

A generation after the “Satanic Panic”, the world is confronted with a new era featuring the internet, social media and “fake” news. The same principles that fed the fear factory and insanity 30 years ago rolls on into new territories such as the rise of the White Supremacists.

In person | Virtual event

An impassioned rallying cry for us to start talking frankly and openly about death in this new age of ageing.

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A passionate, poetic manifesto for urgent rebellion is also a paean to the deep and extraordinary beauty of the natural world from Jay Griffiths the author of Wild.

In person | Virtual event

In this talk to mark the launch of Inventing Secularism, the first modern biography of Holyoake, author Ray Argyle will describe how Holyoake's life helped shaped the modern world. He will also explain how Holyoake's vision rings with renewed clarity at a time when secularism is under siege worldwide.

In person | Virtual event

How did a collective of self-taught internet sleuths end up solving some of the biggest crimes of our time? Bellingcat is what the world needs right now – an intelligence agency by the people, for the people.

In person | Virtual event

As borders multiply, so too must campaigns of resistance. From 'Detained Voices' to acts of cross-border solidarity, people are fighting back to break down borders and standing up for everyone's right to belong.

In person | Virtual event

In the future, how many identities will you have? How many do you want? From surveillance and identity hacking to social media and our legacies beyond the grave, Tracey Follows presents a fascinating and urgent exploration of what personal identity will mean for all of us in the coming decades.

In person | Virtual event

Forty years of feminism and still women do the majority of the housework. Why? Sally Howard investi-gates how we got here and what the future could look like for feminism’s final frontier: the domestic la-bour gap.

In person | Virtual event

In 2020 we saw clearer than ever that Black people are still fighting for the right to not the colour of their skin. In the words of Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, “there is no freedom without rights and no rights with-out the freedom to exercise those rights.”

In person | Virtual event

Love-locks is are new custom, demonstrating love and devotion with a padlock attached to a public space, often a bridge or other landmark. They are everywhere: Paris and Taiwan; New York and Seoul; Melbourne and Moscow; London and Westcliff on Sea. Ceri Houlbrook explores the worldwide popu-larity of the love-lock as a ritual token of love and commitment by considering its history, symbolism, and heritage.

In person | Virtual event

We are increasingly putting our lives in the hands of machine learning. From the AI program which cheats at computer games to the sexist algorithm behind Google Translate, Brian Christian explains how, as AI develops, we rapidly approach a collision between artificial intelligence and ethics.

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Professor of Technology Sarah Williams outlines how to use data as a tool for empowerment rather than oppression.

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Video games are primed for change: roughly half of all players identify as female. Games themselves need a creative platform-expanding, metaphysical explosion; feminism can make games better.

In person | Virtual event

Did you learn in school that the Greeks invented civilization? Do you believe that aliens built the pyramids? Stacy Hackner discusses a few ways in which a common conception of the past doesn’t add up, why we’ve come to think of history in this biased way, and how we can continue to question and correct these misunderstandings.

In person | Virtual event

Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Nina Jankowicz reveals all.

In person | Virtual event

Geoffrey Robertson QC, who defended the last blasphemy cases in the UK – against Gay News and The Satanic Verses - recalls the struggle to abolish the blasphemy law and looks forward to the struggle to disestablish the Church of England before the coronation of Charles III.

In person | Virtual event