Forthcoming speakers:

Daniel Ben-Ami
22 May 2013: Who's Afraid of Inequality?

Daniel Ben-Ami has worked as a journalist and author for over 20 years, specialising in economics and finance. His work has appeared in general and specialist publications including most of the UK's broadsheets. He is the editor of Fund Strategy, a specialist weekly magazine on investment funds and financial markets, and also writes regularly on the issue of economics for the UK broadsheet press, and on his own blog. Daniel is also the author of Cowardly Capitalism (Wiley, 2001), which was recommended by the Baker Library of Harvard Business School. His most recent book is Ferraris For All (Policy Press, 2010), which is a strident defence of economic progress.

 

Danny Dorling
22 May 2013: Who's Afraid of Inequality?

Danny Dorling has been Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield since 2003. He has published with many colleagues more than a dozen books on issues related to social inequalities in Britain and several hundred journal papers. He is an Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies in the Social Sciences, Honorary President of the Society of Cartographers and a patron of Roadpeace, the national charity for road crash victims. Much of Danny’s work is available open access on his blog. Amongst his most recent books include: Injustice: Why Social Inequalities Persist and Fair Play for Policy Press in 2011; The No-nonsense Guide to Equality (New Internationalist, 2012); and The Visualization of Social Spatial Structure (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

 

Martin O'Neill
22 May 2013: Who's Afraid of Inequality?

 

Nick Jones
10 July 2013: The Leeds 'Summer' Salon on Nietzsche

Nick Jones completed his PhD at the University of Leeds in 2005, and now teaches in the university’s School of Philosophy, Religion & History of Science, where he’s Head of First Year for Philosophy. His area of specialisation is the History of Philosophy from the 17^th-19^th centuries, and he teaches courses on Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. He has also published a book on the philosophy of George Berkeley, Starting with Berkeley (Continuum, 2009).

 

Kevin Yuill
1 October 2013: Should We Legalise Assisted Dying?

Kevin Yuill is a historian and author of Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalization (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), which appeared in March. He has published in The Tablet, Spectator, the Canadian National Post, Arts and Letters, Spiked-online and the New York Times on the subject of assisted suicide. He researches intellectual history of the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries at the University of Sunderland. His interests include social movements of the 1970s, including the right-to-die and gun control movements, the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and Franklin Roosevelt, American liberalism, race and immigration, the civil rights movement, and the history of affirmative action. He is also author of Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action: The Pursuit of Racial Equality in an Era of Limits (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006).

 

Raymond Tallis
1 October 2013: Should We Legalise Assisted Dying?

Raymond Tallis is a philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic and was, until recently, a physician and clinical scientist. He has published fiction, three collections of poetry and over 20 books on the philosophy of the mind, philosophical anthropology, literary theory, the nature of art and cultural criticism. In the Economist’s Intelligent Life Magazine (Autumn 2009) he was listed as one of the top living polymaths in the world. His most recent books include: Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity (Acumen 2011), on which he spoke at Leeds Salon in May 2012; In Defence of Wonder and Other Philosophical Reflections (Acumen, 2012); and the forthcoming Reflections of a Metaphysical Flaneur (Acumen, 2013).

 

Lynn Hagger
1 October 2013: Should We Legalise Assisted Dying?

Lynn Hagger is co-author of A Good Death? Law and Ethics in Practice (Ashgate, 2013), and Lecturer in Law, Sheffield University, where she teaches Tort, Principles of Healthcare Law & Ethics, and Contemporary Issues in Healthcare Technology. Lynn currently serves as a Non-executive Director at Leeds Teaching NHS Trust, and is part of a network of multi-disciplinary research collaborators in the national and international context, in particular: the Northern Genetics Knowledge Park; the Institute of Human Genetics, Newcastle; member of EU Neuromics Patient & Ethics Council: and the University of Lubeck, Germany. She is also co-author of Assisted Suicide by Organizations in England (DOI: 2011), and author of The Child as Vulnerable Patient: Protection and Empowerment (Ashgate 2009).

 

Previous speakers:

Tiffany Jenkins
12 March 2013: What is Good Art?

Dr Tiffany Jenkins is an independent sociologist and cultural commentator. She is a regular contributor to the broadsheet press on cultural issues, especially The Scotsman and the Independent. Her research explores contested authority in the cultural sector. Her monograph Human Remains in Museum Collections: The Crisis of Cultural Authority is published by Routledge (2010). Her second book ‘Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of Antiquity Ended Up in Museums – And Why They Should Stay There’ will be published by Oxford University Press in 2013. She is the Culture Editor for the journal Sociology Compass. Previously she was a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, and arts and society director of the Institute of Ideas where she continues in this role in a voluntary capacity. Visit her website here.

 

Nigel Walsh
12 March 2013: What is Good Art?

Nigel is the Curator of Contemporary Art at Leeds Art Gallery. Born and brought up in Bradford, Nigel came to Leeds in 1986, having previously trained as an exhibition organiser with the Scottish Arts Council after completing a degree in English Studies with Fine Art at the University of Stirling. He took up the post as Leeds Art Gallery’s first dedicated ‘exhibitions officer’ before moving on to be Senior Assistant Keeper (Exhibitions) and then Curator of Exhibitions. In 2007 he took a ‘sideways’ move into his current role, with responsibility for the Gallery’s permanent art collection, thought to be “probably the best collection of 20^th century British Art outside London”. Nigel currently lives in Ilkley where he is on the Board of Management for the Ilkley Literature Festival.

 

Kenneth Hay
12 March 2013: What is Good Art?

Kenneth is Chair of Contemporary Art Practice, University of Leeds, and an artist working as one-half of Moorland Productions. As an academic his research interests are in Italian art and philosophical aesthetics, art practice as research, modernism and postmodernism, architecture history and theory, Cubism, Cyberspace, European Art from 1900, and the contemporary world art. He is also called in to advise at several universities and academies throughout the world. As an artist he works in the fields of painting, photography, print, digital imagery, video, sound and multimedia. He exhibits regularly in the UK and abroad with Moorland Productions, including the Venice Biennale (2003), Hope Gallary, London (2006), Taiwan (2007), and 10 international shows in 2012, including in Armenia, Georgia, the Czech Republic, and Korea.  Ken is also Artistic Director of an International Arts and Film Festival in south west France.

 

Antonia Stowe
12 March 2013: What is Good Art?

Antonia Stowe is an experienced visual artist and facilitator of projects within private, public and educational settings, working on a diverse range of developments, regeneration projects, and community and schools engagement programmes. She has a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Fine Art/Sculptural Practice from the University of Leeds, and she has been a significant contributor to the Leeds visual arts infrastructure for fifteen years, as well as contributing to many city civic and arts activities. Her works include sculptures in Holbeck Urban Village and Millennium Square, as well as work for many private companies, individuals and worked on significant public art regeneration schemes around the country. Other large-scale works include 6 Million + Buttons, commissioned and owned by Kirklees Museums and Galleries and first shown in Huddersfield Art Gallery in 2006. Antonia is currently artist in residence with Land Securities for their Trinity Leeds development creating the ‘owl’ sculpture and also commissioning public art in the public realm as part of her role as art facilitator. Visit her website here.

Helen Reece
18 February 2013: Regulating Relationships

Helen Reece joined LSE as a Reader in Law in September 2009. Her main teaching responsibilities and research interests lie in Family Law. She previously held posts in the University of London, at University College London and Birkbeck College. After studying Law at University College London, she qualified as a Barrister and then took an MSc in Logic and Scientific Method at LSE. Her monograph, Divorcing Responsibly, was awarded the Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize in 2004 and her article, Losses of Chances in the Law, won the Wedderburn Prize in 1997.

Helen's current research is concerned with the regulation of intimacy. Her main research project at present, ‘Violence to Feminism’, is a theoretical probing of the contemporary feminist approach to violence against women. Another current research project focuses on changing conceptions of parental responsibility.

 

Katie Russell
18 February 2013: Regulating Relationships

Katie Russell is Trustee, Director and founding Steering Group volunteer of Support After Rape & Sexual Violence Leeds (SARSVL), and a freelance contractor to the Procurement and Performance Management Team for Rape Crisis (England and Wales). She graduated from the University of Leeds in 2003 after studying English Language and Literature, and she was previously a fundraiser for Leeds-based regeneration charity re’new, and worked for Barnsley Sexual Abuse & Rape Crisis Helpline.

 

Nik Peasgood
18 February 2013: Regulating Relationships

Nik Peasgood is the Director of HALT (Help, Advice & the Law Team), a position she has held for 13 years. HALT delivers the IDVA (Independent DV Advocacy) service in Leeds with women and children who are affected by Domestic and Sexual Violence. It was the first advocacy project of its kind in the UK, and many other areas of the country have developed similar projects.

Nik also has a business and policy background and has worked in the private, voluntary and public sectors. She currently works in partnership with various civil and criminal justice agencies along with the voluntary and statutory sectors. She represents violence against women agencies on various strategic bodies, including Domestic Homicide Reviews, DV Court Steering Group and is the Leeds Domestic Violence Service MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conferences) representative.

 

James Heartfield
Unpatriotic History of the Second World War

James Heartfield is a writer, journalist and lecturer living in north London. He writes across a wide range of subjects including history, environmentalism and development. Amongst his most recent books are: The Aborigines' Protection Society: Humanitarian Imperialism in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, South Africa, and the Congo, 1836-1909 (C Hurst & Co, 2011); Green Capitalism: Manufacturing Scarcity in an Age of Abundance (Mute, 2008); and The 'Death of the Subject' Explained (BookSurge, 2006). James is also a director of the development think-tank, Audacity. Visit his blog.

Stuart Murray
Autism and Human Variation

Stuart Murray is Professor of Contemporary Literatures and Film in the School of English, and Director of the interdisciplinary Leeds Medical Humanities Centre Director, at the University of Leeds. He is the author of Autism (Routledge, 2011) and Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination(Liverpool University Press, 2008).

 

Richard Exley
Autism and Human Variation

Richard Exley has worked in the autism field for 30 years, and in his many roles he works as a practitioner providing advice and support to people with autism. He set up and developed the world’s first social firm/enterprise and consultancy service for people affected by autism, and is a founding member of the World Autism Organisation, and an honorary member of Autism Europe. He is a freelance lecturer in autism, both in universities and in public, private and voluntary sector organisations. His research interests include sexuality, anxiety and the day-to-day lives of people with autism. Richard has been involved in several documentaries, including for the BBC QED series The Foolish Wise Ones (1987), looking at the talents of autistic savants, The Boy Who Draws Buildings (1991), and I Am Not Stupid (1995), as well as advising on Channel 4’s Mindblindness (2001). He also advised on the film Rainman (1988) and its 2008 West End stage production.

 

Alison Stansfield
Autism and Human Variation

Alison Stansfield undertook her basic psychiatry and part of her higher training in the psychiatry of learning disability in Cambridge before moving to Leeds in 1999 to complete her specialist training in Yorkshire. She worked as a part-time locum consultant in Barnsley for two years then moved to Leeds as a part-time community learning disability consultant in October 2007. She was appointed to a permanent post in Leeds in April 2008 and was also employed by the Yorkshire and Humber Secure Services Commissioning Team to review those people in the region with learning disabilities who required treatment in conditions of security. She completed her MD with the University of Leeds in 2007 looking at non-consensual sterilisation in England and Wales. She is currently the associate medical director for learning disabilities and the clinical lead for the Leeds autism diagnostic service (LADS). She also provides expert reports regarding issues of capacity for the Court of Protection/Official Solicitor.

 

Dennis Hayes
Putting Exams to the Test

Dennis Hayes is Professor of Education at the University of Derby, and visiting Professor in the Westminster Institute of Education at Oxford Brookes University. Dennis writes regularly for the Times Educational Supplement, as well as the national press, and he is a member of the editorial board of the Times Higher Education magazine. He is the co-author of The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education (Routledge, 2008), and he is founder of the campaign groups Academics for Academic Freedom. He was made a National Teaching Fellow in 2010.

 

Valerie Farnsworth
Putting Exams to the Test

Valerie Farnsworth is a Research Fellow in 14-19 Education and Training, and a member of the Post-14 Education research group at the University of Leeds. Her specific focus is in regards to theoretical and practical issues relating to 14-19 education and, in particular, relations between curriculum and knowledge, identity and practice, and political/cultural/social contexts and structures of relations. Valerie’s work has appeared in a number of academic journals, including: Teachers who teach their practice: the modulation of hybridised professional teacher identities in work-related educational programmes in Canada, Journal of Education and Work (2012), co-authored with JH Higham; and Conceptualizing identity, learning and social justice in community-based learning, Teaching and Teacher Education, No.26 (2010).

 

Ken McLaughlin
Surviving Identity: Vulnerability and the Psychology of Recognition

Ken McLaughlin is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Manchester Metropolitan University. His first book, ‘Social Work Politics and Society: From radicalism to orthodoxy’ (2008, Policy Press), highlighted the authoritarian consequences of the ‘therapeutic turn’ in contemporary political life, with particular focus on social policy development and social work practice. Ken's work has appeared in a number of professional journals including the British Journal of Social Work andCritical Social Policy.

 

Kate Brown
Surviving Identity: Vulnerability and the Psychology of Recognition

Kate Brown is a researcher at the University of Leeds in the School of Sociology and Social Policy. She is currently undertaking her PhD, a project which explores how ideas about ‘vulnerability’ shape welfare and disciplinary services for young people. Before her research she worked in the voluntary sector for around ten years, supporting groups who are often seen as ‘vulnerable’ such as street sexworkers and young drug users. Kate’s work has appeared in academic journals and one of her papers on vulnerability in social policy can be accessed online here.

 

Andrea Hollomotz
Surviving Identity: Vulnerability and the Psychology of Recognition

Andrea Hollomotz is a lecturer in Social Policy at Manchester Metropolitan University, but completed her PhD at the University of Leeds. She has a background in social work, and is the author of Learning Difficulties and Sexual Vulnerability: A Social Approach (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2011). Amongst other things, this explores how use of the label 'vulnerability' leads to differential treatment, which can indeed increase risk. ‘Vulnerability’ has thus become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Andrea's work has appeared in a number of professional journals including the British Journal of Social Work and Sociology (forthcoming). One of her earlier papers can be accessed here.

 

Raymond Tallis
Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misprepresentation of Humanity

Raymond Tallis is a philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic and was until recently a physician and clinical scientist. He has published fiction, three collections of poetry, and 18 books on the philosophy of mind, philosophical anthropology, literary theory, the nature of art and cultural criticism. In the Economist's Intelligent Life Magazine (Autumn 2009) he was listed as one of the top living polymaths in the world.

Previously spoke at The ‘Two Cultures’ Debate.

Catherine O'Connor
What Does Leveson Mean for Press Freedom?

Catherine O’Connor is the Head of the Centre for Journalism and Department of Business at Leeds Trinity University College. She began her journalism career as a trainee reporter for the Halifax Courier and worked on the newsdesk there before becoming Deputy News Editor at the Yorkshire Evening Post. She then spent eight years at the Telegraph & Argus, Bradford, where she was Deputy Editor. Catherine spent 15 years working for the regional press before starting to teach at Leeds Trinity. She is an Examiner for National council for the Training of Journalists.

 

Bill Carmichael
What Does Leveson Mean for Press Freedom?

Bill Carmichael joined the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield in February 2005 as course leader for the MA web journalism course. He studied history at King’s College, Cambridge before working as a reporter, industry correspondent, sub editor and news editor on a number of newspapers, culminating with an 11-year stint as news editor of the Yorkshire Post. After helping establish the websites inthe Yorkshire Post group of newspapers, he joined the Press Association as Digital Production Editor. He writes a column forthe Yorkshire Postand provides editorial services to the Press Association.

 

Nick Frost
Can Cameron Fix 'Troubled Families'?

Nick Frost is Professor of Social Work (Childhood, children and families), at the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, Leeds Metropolitan University. Nick is a registered social worker, and practiced in local authority social work settings for 15 years before commencing his academic career. His research interests include child and family welfare and professional learning and work practices. Nick has published in the fields of child welfare and professional learning: most recently he has written, Understanding Children’s Social Care (with Nigel Parton, Sage, 2009), Re-thinking Children and Families (Continuum, 2011) and co-edited Beyond Reflective Practice(Routledge, 2010). Nick became chair of Bradford Safeguarding Children Board in 2010.

 

Jenny Bristow
Can Cameron Fix 'Troubled Families'?

Jennie Bristow writes about parenting culture and intergenerational relations. She is editor of the BPAS journal Abortion Review, and runs the editing service Punctuate!. Bristow is author of Standing Up To Supernanny(Imprint Academic, 2009) and co-author of Licensed to Hug: How child protection policies are poisoning the relationship between the generations and damaging the voluntary sector(Civitas 2008). Bristow writes the monthly ‘Guide to Subversive Parenting’ on spiked and edits the website www.ParentsWithAttitude.com.

 

Rob Lyons
Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder

Rob Lyons is deputy editor of Spiked-Online, and writes about a wide range of issues, but particularly on science, health and the environment, and is a frequent commentator on many different topics for television and radio. He is the editor of What’s the Future of Food?, based on contributions to a Spiked-Online debate, and author of Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder(Societas, 2011).

 

Ursula Philpot
Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder

Ursula Philpot is senior lecturer in the Department of Health and Social Sciences at Leeds Metropolitan University, and advanced practice dietitian working in the area of eating disorders and obesity. Ursula is the chair of the BDA mental health group. She is active in presenting nationally and internationally on the subject of eating disorders and dietetics. She is also the on-screen dietitian for Channel Four's Supersize vs Superskinny.

 

Jo Barcroft
Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder

Jo Barcroft is a Cambridge grad, trainee solicitor for Leeds firm Ford & Warren, but more importantly an amateur blogger and food obsessive in her spare time. Cooking since an early age, Jo's love of food spiralled into an all consuming daily blog about the food she cooks for her fiance, the places they eat out, and general other food info. Find it at http://foodandbiscuits.blogspot.com/. She's not afraid to enter in to a debate about the importance of provenance, health and moderation. By no means a professional cook or chef, Jo's message is to encourage people to embrace cooking and food and have a little fun.

 

Nick Copland
Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder

Nick Copland is one half of Shelf Life Ltd., the business behind the very successful project in Leeds Kirkgate Market called The Source. The Source is a private enterprise aimed at making the Market famous for food (for all the right reasons - not just the cheap stuff). They believe that food should be the heart of the market, and the market should be the heart of the city. In previous lives Nick has worked as a head chef in the Komedia Theatre restaurant in Brighton, cooked in numerous establishments between Leeds and Canterbury, as well as helping some of the UK's biggest brands say what they need to say as a consultant copywriter and verbal identity specialist within the creative communications industry. He is also the co-instigator of the Homage2Fromage cheese club.

 

Dave Clements
Big Society: A Clean-up for the Charity Sector?

Dave Clements is a writer on social policy and has worked for 12 years in local government, predominantly social care. He is co-editor of The Future of Community: Reports of a Death Greatly Exaggerated (Pluto, 2008), and contributes to a variety of publications, in particular online magazine Spiked, the Guardian’s Joe Public blog, and Culture Wars, the Institute of Ideas’ online review website. He is convenor of the Institute of Ideas’ Social Policy Forum and a member of the Battle of Ideas organising committee.

 

Richard Jackson
Big Society: A Clean-up for the Charity Sector?

Richard Jackson is the Chief Officer of Voluntary Action-Leeds and co-author of the VA-L and Leeds Community Foundation report ‘Big Society – What Does it Mean for the Voluntary and Community Sector in Leeds?’ (4 January 2011).

 

Steve Crocker
Big Society: A Clean-up for the Charity Sector?

Steve Crocker is the Volunteer Co-ordinator for Leeds City Council. He has run campaigns during 2010 (The Leeds Year of Volunteering) and 2011 (The European Year of Volunteering in Leeds) that celebrate and promote volunteering, and have increased the level of volunteering in the city by more than 25%. He has held senior positions in regeneration and area management both in Leeds and a number of local authorities in the UK has had a successful career in academia at Sheffield Hallam University . He has also been a government advisor developing national policy on neighbourhood renewal. Steve has a strong interest in the Arts – he is a musician and is closely involved with the development of the Seven Arts centre in Chapel Allerton, where he lives.

 

Maurice Glasman
Big Society: A Clean-up for the Charity Sector?

 

Andy Miah
The 2012 Olympics and the Meaning of Sport

Prof Andy Miah, Chair of Ethics and Emerging Technologies in the Faculty of Business & Creative Industries at the University of the West of Scotland, Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, USA and Fellow at FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, UK.

Andy’s publications include: Sport, Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty, Liverpool University Press, 2009, The Medicalisation of Cyberspace, 2008, Technology: History, Philosophy and Policy, 2002.

 

Jim Parry
The 2012 Olympics and the Meaning of Sport

Dr Jim Parry, FRSA, Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Faculty of Physical Education and Sport, Charles University in Prague, Assistant Director of the national Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied, and Visiting Professor of Olympic Studies at Gresham College, London, 2012.

Jim’s publications include: Ethics and Sport (Routledge, 1999); The Olympic Games Explained (Routledge, 2005); Spirituality and Sport, Routledge, 2007; 'Doping in the UK: Alain and Dwain, Rio and Greg - not guilty?' (Sport in Society, April 2006); 'Sport and Olympism: Universals and Multiculturalism' (Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 2006)

 

David James
The 2012 Olympics and the Meaning of Sport

Dr David James, senior lecturer in sports engineering at Sheffield Hallam University where he leads the University’s MSc in sports engineering. He has worked in a world leading research centre for ten years and has published extensively in a range of sports engineering areas. His current research is focusing on the historical impact of technology in track and field events and the ethical considerations of an increasingly scientific sporting arena.

David’s publications include: Fair Game, Ingenia, 2011; The physics of winning-engineering the world of sport, Physical Education, 2008; The spin decay of sports balls in flight, The Engineering of Sport 7, 2008; Predicting the playing characteristics of cricket pitches, Sports Engineering, 2006; Using sport to educate and enthuse young people about engineering and the physical sciences, The Engineering of Sport, 2006; A hybrid method for assessing the performance of sports surfaces during ball impacts, Journal of Materials: Design and Applications, 2006.

Ceri Dingle
Sylvia Pankhurst, Everything is Possible

Ceri Dingle is Director of WORLDwrite, an education charity with an uncompromising commitment to global equality whose campaigning slogan is ‘Ferraris for all’. WORLDwrite campaigns for change using film and through an online news channel WORLDbytes.

Ceri established a documentary film training facility for young volunteers and the charity’s campaigning channel WORLDbytes. She has assisted young volunteers in producing over 100 challenging programmes in the past year. She directed a series of 5 documentaries entitled Pricking the Missionary Position shot in Ghana, West Africa as well as the films Flush itand Corruptababble which have been taken up by educational institutions globally.

 

Tiffany Jenkins
Should Art be Judged or Measured?

Dr Tiffany Jenkins is a sociologist and cultural commentator. Her academic research explores challenges to authority in the cultural sector, concepts of cultural value, cultural policy, and cultural property issues such as repatriation and contested objects. She is the author of Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections: The Crisis of Cultural Authority, published by Routledge, and writes and broadcasts for the national media on cultural issues. Tiffany is director of the arts and society programme at the London based think-tank, the Institute of Ideas, a member of the Cultural Property and Heritage Law working group at the LSE, co-convener of the British Sociological Association study group ‘Sociologists Outside Academia’ which aims to raise the status of sociological work undertaken beyond an academic context, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

 

David O'Brien
Should Art be Judged or Measured?

Dr Dave O'Brien’s work currently concentrates on public policy and administration, using the example of cultural policy. His PhD explored the European Capital of Culture 2008 in Liverpool, using the framework of institutionalism to understand decision-making within Liverpool’s governance, and including comparisons with Newcastle and Gateshead. He has published several articles on this topic and written reports on the management and process of hosting European Capital of Culture for the Impacts08 programme. He has recently completed a six month secondment to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) working onMeasuring the Value of Culture. The project, jointly funded by AHRC & ESRC and DCMS, aims to produce valuation methods for cultural policy decision-making. Finally, Dr. O’Brien has two longstanding research interests related to his current work: the culture and politics of Liverpool; and social theory, particularly the structure/agency debate in sociology, politics and the wider social sciences.

 

Javier Stanziola
Should Art be Judged or Measured?

Dr Javier Stanziola is an economist and playwright. He is currently the MA programme director at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds, where he lectures in management and cultural industries. His research focuses on the social and economic impact of the cultural and charity sector. He has also published on funding and business models for cultural organisations in Latin America and the UK. He has led research teams at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, Arts & Business UK, and worked as research and evaluation manager at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, and the New Economics Foundation. He is a playwright and has produced and directed a number of plays in Latin America.

 

Paul Taylor
Should Art be Judged or Measured?

Dr Paul A. Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Communications Theory at the University of Leeds. He is author of several books including the recentŽižek and the Media and co-author of Critical Theories of Mass Media: Then and Now. He regularly contributes as a cultural commentator for various BBC Radio 4 programmes.

 

 

Manjit Kumar
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr & the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality

Manjit Kumar is a writer based in London. He has degrees in physics and philosophy and has written and reviewed for various publications including The Guardian, the Time Literary Supplement and the Irish Times. He is co-author of Science and the Retreat from Reason (1995). QUANTUM was short listed for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2009, and was chosen as one of the Top Ten science and technology books of the year by Booklist, and Amazon’s Best Books of 2010: Top 10 Science Books.

Angus Kennedy
Valuing the Arts in an Age of Austerity

Angus Kennedy is head of external relations for the Institute of Ideas, working principally to programme the annual Battle of Ideas festival in London and its international satellite events. He chairs the Institute’s Economy Forum and helps organise its discussions. He writes for Spiked and Culture Wars, among other publications, with particular interests in the Holocaust, classics, culture and the arts, economics and moral philosophy.

Angus has a degree in Classics from Oxford, in Linguistics from the University of London and an M. Phil. in Artificial Intelligence from Dundee University. He has produced several strands and individual debates at the Battle of Ideas: on themes as various as history, opera, the Holocaust and memory, the ancient Greeks, social justice, the arts and the economy.

 

Adam Ogilvie
Valuing the Arts in an Age of Austerity

Councillor Adam Ogilvie represents Beeston and Holbeck ward in south Leeds where he also lives. Since May 2010, he has been the Executive Board Member for Leisure on Leeds City Council; a portfolio which includes arts, culture and creative industries, museums and galleries, events, parks and countryside, sport and recreation, libraries and cemeteries and crematoria.

He is on the Board of South Leeds Community Radio, Beeston Festival and Holbeck Gala Committees and Chair of Leeds Grand Theatre. His non council background is in urban regeneration, having managed regeneration programmes in Yorkshire and London with a particular focus on employment, training, coaching and mentoring. And in his (fairly limited) spare time enjoys most things to do with the arts, walking and generally keeping fit!

 

Andy Abbott
Valuing the Arts in an Age of Austerity

Andy is an artist, writer, musician and educator. He graduated from the LCAD Foundation course in 2001 and has worked and studied in Leeds since. Currently he is undertaking practice-led research for a PhD in Fine Art at University of Leeds. His practice and research is focused on socially-engaged, political and activist art exploring the boundaries of what we might consider a socially transformative praxis. A critique of capitalism, waged-labour and work more generally permeates his activity. From 2003 Andy has worked as part of the artist collective Black Dogs and has exhibited nationally and internationally from self-organised public interventions in Leeds, to events at Tate Modern and presentations in Italy and Greece. He also teaches part-time in the Fine Art area of Foundation at LCA.

 

Claire Fox
Claire Fox on the Politics of Happiness

Claire Fox is the director of the Institute of Ideas (IoI), which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. She is a panellist on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze and appears on BBC Question Time, BBC Any Questions?, SkyNews Review, and BBC Breakfast. Claire writes regularly for national newspapers and a range of specialist journals. She has a monthly column in the MJ (Municipal Journal). She also convenes the IoI’s annual festival of debate, the Battle of Ideas, each autumn in London. See the IoI website for a fuller biography.

 

Michael Schmidt
Poetry and the Tyranny of Relevance

Michael Schmidt OBE is editorial and managing director of Carcanet Press Limited, general editor of PN Review, and convener of the Creative Writing programme at the University of Glasgow. He is an anthologist, translator, critic and literary historian, and has published 10 collections of poetry and two novels. His Collected Poems was published by Smith/Doorstop Books in 2010.

Michael was born in Mexico in 1947. He studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded an O.B.E. in 2006 for services to poetry.

 

George Szirtes
Poetry and the Tyranny of Relevance

George was born in Hungary in 1948 and came to England with his family in 1956 after the Hungarian Uprising. His first poems began appearing in the early 1970s and his first book The Slant Door (1979) was awarded the Faber Prize.  Since then he has written thirteen other books of poetry that have won various awards, including the T S Eliot Prize for Reel (2004). His New and Collected Poems appeared in 2008. His latest work, The Burning of the Books and Other Poems (2009) was also shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize.

George has also produced a series of prize-winning translations of poetry from the Hungarian. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and of the English Association and has written extensively about poetry for the press. He is a Reader in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

 

David Bowden
Poetry and the Tyranny of Relevance

David works for the Institute of Ideas and is the co-ordinator of the Battle Satellite 2010 programme. He is TV columnist for spiked, poetry editor for Culture Wars and co-founder of the Institute of Ideas’ Current Affairs Forum.

He is an alumnus of the Debating Matters Competition, having competed in its first year 03/04. He has continued to support the competition ever since, and is currently the Topic Guide Editor. Aside from his work on the national competition, David has also had a key role in several DM side-projects including the Global Uncertainties Network (in partnership with Research Councils UK) and co-ordinator for the Northern Ireland Showcase in 2009. He has also worked on numerous other Institute of Ideas projects, including promotions manager for the Battle of Ideas 2009 festival.

Prior to re-joining the IoI in July 2009, David worked in Brussels as assistant press officer for Libertas during their European election campaign.

 

Karl Sharro
The Middle East Uprising: Why now? What next?

Karl Sharro is an architect, writer and commentator on the Middle East. He previously taught at the American University of Beirut.

Karl has written for a number of international publications, such as Springerin (Austria), Mark Magazine (Holland), Novo (Germany), Glass (UK) and Blueprint (UK), and he contributes regularly to the online publications Culture Wars and Muftah.org.  He has spoken on a range of issues such as art, architecture, urbanism and politics. He blogs at Karl reMarks.

 

Irena Bauman
What is the future of Leeds?

Irena Bauman founded Bauman Lyons in 1992, and has been involved in developing a wide range of projects. The practice is especially interested in mixed use, urban regeneration projects which tap into cultural creativity and aim to achieve new standards of sustainable development. She is a frequent speaker and commentator on the shortcomings of economically driven policies and on the fresh thinking required for urban developments to be based on facilitation of community enterprise and long term viability. She contributes on regular basis to her column, Dear Irena, in Building Design that deals with ethical dilemmas in architectural practice.

 

Neil Owen
What is the future of Leeds?

Neil Owen is founder of Test Space; a multidisciplinary arts organisation based in Leeds. Test Space aims to showcase new emerging creative talent and encourage talent retention in Leeds by brokering professional opportunities with businesses, venues, studios and other arts organisations. Events Test Space have run include rapid exhibitions, pop up kitchens, cross-city showdowns and showcase gigs.

Neil has previously worked as online manager for NOISE Festival, an international online arts festival for young creative talent aged 30 and under. Neil has also worked as a lecturer in Digital Media at Leeds ArtCollege and Shipley College, and Interior Design at Park Lane College, Leeds.

 

Martin Dean
What is the future of Leeds?

Martin Dean heads the Leeds Initiative the public private and community partnership and Local Strategic Partnership for Leeds.  He has extensive experience in the promotion of change in the public sector through partnership working. Through the development of appropriate strategies the Leeds Initiative takes forward the priorities identified in Vision for Leeds 2004 to 2020. This work covers a wide ranging policy agenda including regeneration, economy, skills, local government, environment and transport.

He has worked in the past for the Manpower Services Commission, Employment Service and Leeds TEC. For 12 years he was a  board member for Leeds Federated Housing Association. He is currently a trustee of the Community Foundation for Leeds, and board member for Leeds Ahead.

 

Rachael Unsworth
What is the future of Leeds?

Rachael Unsworth is a lecturer in the School of Geography, University of Leeds, specialising in