Speakers at Forthcoming Discussions
Anna Percy Completed a Creative Writing and Contemporary Culture Joint Hons BA at Cumbria Institute of the Arts in 2007 and a Creative Writing MA at Manchester University in 2009. Anna has been performing her poetry around the country for six years, her poems usually being concerned with love, loss, losing your mind, the natural world and the surreal. She has been a performer of racy feminist poetry for some years, and has won Manchester's poetry pillow (a cuddly slam) three times, and participated in the Hammer and Tongue Slam at 2010's Edinburgh Festival. Anna has two chapbooks; In Photographs (2007), and Ghosts at the Dinner Table (2010) and has been published in Libertine, Unsung Magazine, How Many Roads and BlankPages. She is a workshop facilitator, has collaborated with visual artists, runs (with her co host Rebecca Audra Smith) Stirred: For Women Who Write - a monthly poetry event, and also with Simon Rennie she helps facilitate Innverse - a poetry event that has just celebrated its third birthday. A fair sample of Anna's work can be seen at http://writeoutloud.net/profiles/annapercy. Nina Powell is a PhD student in social psychology at the University of Birmingham studying moral condemnation. Nina is interested in implicit and explicit moral judgments, and the conservation of moral outrage. She also intends to better understand the dichotomy in moral reasoning literature, suggesting that morality is either reasoned or intuitive, by studying the developmental changes in children's moral judgments. She says that we are living during an interesting period in history with moral dissonance and moral panic playing a major role in decision making; everything has a moral component, from recycling to parenting. Her goal is to understand culturally what has led us to this point as a society, and how and when these moral principles emerge. Emily Pitts graduated from Manchester School of Architecture with a BA Hons in 2008 and now practices as a full time artist from her home in Manchester. She combines busy community-led arts practice with development of personal ideas-based work, running art classes & craft fairs, delivering training and assessing NVQs. Her creative artworks involves creative enquiry around themes including relationships, the role of women and internal dialogues.
Emily is passionate about life and making the most of every moment. Her interests include spending time with her daughter, climbing, running, mountaineering, camping and especially baking gorgeous cakes. Reviews: Buy Art Fair James Woudhuysen's formative years were in the 1960s and early 1970s, before the end of the Vietnam War. Inspired by the Space Race, he wanted to be an astronaut so decided to read physics at university. James went to Sussex, where he followed his degree with an MA at the Science Policy Research Unit. After that he pursued journalism, before going on to coordinate postgraduate studies at what is now London’s University of the Arts. James Woudhuysen is Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University, Leicester. For more than 20 years, he's consulted for major corporations and for government. He's currently advisingon the development plans for the creation of East London's new Science School opening in September 2013. Joanne is academically trained in her passion of environmental management, and currently works in Business Services & HR at Salford PCT. Joanne makes good use of her interest in science by being secretary of the British Science Association's Manchester branch, helping to organise and deliver science activities for the general public, ensuring they comply with the BSA's Environmental Policy, and organising fundraising activities. She is an active member of Equity Housing Group’s Customer Panel (since April 2011) and the Going Green Group (since February 2011). As if that isn't enough, Joanne is also a committee member with Sustainable Living in the Heatons (Heaton Mersey, Heaton Chapel, Heaton Norris and Heaton Moor). As well as being an avid organiser, Joanne enjoys writing about the environment whether it be fiction or fact and am a regular participant of Stockport Writers. Articles: Fracking Speakers at Recent Discussions Kevin is a researcher and lecturer in twentieth century American history and a writer on contemporary issues affecting American society. He is the author of a book on the intellectual history of affirmative action and is now preparing a book on the 1924 Immigration Acts and their impact on American identity and history in the twentieth century. Previously, Kevin has worked on the rise of therapeutic methods of governing during the Nixon administration, the history of post-war liberalism, immigration policy in the early twentieth century, the development of policy, especially of affirmative action, and the development of American culture between the wars. He also maintains an interest in current American political and cultural issues and has published material on assisted suicide, gun control and other current American political issues. Raymond Tallis is honorary visiting professor, department of English, University of Liverpool; former professor, geriatric medicine, University of Manchester. Over the last 25 years, Ray has published extensively outside of medicine. His prose has appeared in Granta, Encounter, PN Review, Philosophy Now, News from the Republic of Letters, Prospect, Times Literary Supplement and elsewhere. His novel Absence: a Metaphysical Comedy (Toby Press) came out in 1999, and was re-issued in paperback in 2006. He has published several volumes of verse, the most recent being Fathers and Sons (Iron Press, 1993). A comprehensive list of his non-medical writings can be found in the Bibliography (non-medical) section of this website, and his latest publication is The Hand: A Philosophical Inquiry into Human Being. Rev. Jane Barraclough is the Minister at the Unitarian chapel on Cross Street, where there has been a Unitarian chapel for over three hundred years; although it is now in its third incarnation as a simple, white chapel at the base of a modern office block. Unitarians are non-credal, and there is a wide diversity of belief at Cross Street. Some believe in God, some don't. Some believe in life after death, some don't. It doesn't matter. They are bound together by love and respect, not a shared creed, and draw on the teachings of Jesus the man, as well as the other major world faiths. For Jane, divine revelation and human learning are a never-ending process, who describe the congregation as a lively, inclusive community and believes it may be the spiritual home you have been looking for. Rev. Bob Pounder is the Minister at the Oldham Unitarian Chapel and One World Centre. The Oldham Unitarian Chapel, is open to all who wish to worship in a spirit of free inquiry with a congregation that is self-governing on democratic principles and is affiliated to the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches and the Manchester District Association. Although founded in 1813, the present chapel was built in 1970 the chapel holds a central place in Oldham not only as a religious meeting house but as a community centre. It also provides regular support for local people from the refugee and asylum seeking community. Oldham Unitarian Chapel is committed to peace and social justice, and provides a meeting place for Buddhist groups as well as other organisations. The centre's 'One World of Music' organise a variety of different events throughout the year. Dr Dominic Standish, a British citizen, has been living in the region of Venice since 1997, now with his wife, Laura, & 2 sons. Dominic lectures for the University of Iowa (USA) at its sites in Asolo and Paderno (Italy) (CUIS/CIMBA). His first book 'Venice in Environmental Peril? Myth and Reality' was published by UPA in the USA in January 2012. Blog posts about problems, challenges and improvements related to Venice are added regularly to his website at http://dstandish.wordpress.com. His writing publications are also added to themed pages. Angela Connelly is a researcher at the School of Environment and Development at the University of Manchester. She is interested in technological and social adaptation in the built environment. Her career began with an architectural history of Methodism's Central Halls. More recently, she has looked at contemporary challenges to the built environment, such as climate change adaptation in Greater Manchester, as well as flood risk and the promise of new flood technologies. You can read about her work on Methodist Central Halls here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19341345 Tom joined the Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios Bath office in 2006 after completing his studies at Bath University. He has worked on a wide range of projects in both the private and public sectors including PPS 7 Country Houses, University Buildings and Zoos. Tom undertook a project for MyPlace to design a new Youth Centre in Torbay in 2009. Tom is currently running a project on site for a major new 23m Arts facility at Manchester School of Art. Alex Solk is an Associate Partner in Sheppard Robson. He leads the Sustainability team for Sheppard Robson in the north. He says that "as buildings emit over 50% of UK carbon emissions, architects have the greatest opportunity to make a real difference to improve the environment". His role sees him carry out research with his team, and applying a sustainability ethos across all their projects, in the commercial, healthcare, residential, education, science, interior and urban regeneration sectors. Alex was 'Highly Commended' in the Construction Future Leaders Awards in 2008. If not an architect, then he'd like to be a racing driver, though at the other end of the speed scale, his hero is the Dali Lama. Jane Leach set up her architecture practice i architect in 2009 and is a Green Register listed Eco Refurbisher. Previously Jane was Chair of the Manchester Women's Design Group, a freelance architect in Barcelona and lead project architect at Aedas Manchester in the education team, where she designed a number of large BSF Secondary Schools incorporating BREEAM accreditation requirements.
Jane's current focus is on temporary art installations and public consultations alongside her main practice of commercial and domestic projects. She is a council member of the Manchester Society of Architects and CPD Coordinator for the RIBA NorthWest Solo Practitioners Group. Professor Kapila has extensive experience in the policy and practice of international development, humanitarian affairs, and diplomacy, including human rights, disaster and conflict management, and in global public health.
He is also Special Representative of the Aegis Trust for the prevention of crimes against humanity. Previously, he was Under Secretary General at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the world's largest humanitarian and development network. Dr Vanessa Pupavac is a lecturer in International Relations at the University of Nottingham. Vanessa has previously worked for the UN Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia and other international organisations. Her research encompasses international human rights and development politics. Vanessa has just completed a book on Language entitled 'Rights: From Free Speech to Linguistic Governance', which will be published by Palgrave in October 2012. In recent years she has been examining the international politics of trauma, that is, the influence of Western therapy culture on the rise of international psychosocial programmes. Vanesa is currently involved in a project LINGOS, which is examining NGOs translation policies, risk management and the growing gap between internationals and locals. Qualified as a medical doctor, Rony Brauman has worked in the field of international medical assistance since 1977. Initially serving as a field physician in developing countries with Médecins San Frontières (France), he became the President of the organisation from 1982 -1994.
Director of HCRI, Rony is also Associate Professor at L'Institut d'Études Politiques (Paris), and Director of Research at the MSF Foundation also in Paris. 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 and popular europen talk radio stations. His day job is to edit Fund Strategy, a specialist weekly magazine on investment funds and financial markets, and also writes a blog on economics. His book on global finance, Cowardly Capitalism (Wiley, 2001), argues that the financial markets are characterised by risk aversion rather than the aggressive risk taking generally assumed. Although it was published almost a decade ago it provides a foundation for developing a critique of the way in which the more recent financial crisis is generally understood, and was recommended by the Baker Library of Harvard Business School. His new book Ferraris For All, defending economic progress, will be published in July 2010. Danny Dorling was educated at The University of Newcastle upon Tyne in Geography, Mathematics and Statistics leading to a PhD in the Visualization of Spatial Social Structure (1991), and since 2003 is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield. Danny has lived all his life in England, but to try and counter his myopic world view, in 2006, he started working with a group of researchers on a project to remap the world (www.worldmapper.org) which shows who has most and least in the world. He has worked in Newcastle, Bristol, Leeds and New Zealand. He has published with many colleagues more than a dozen books on issues related to social inequalities in Britain and several hundred journal papers. Before a career in academia Danny was employed as a play-worker in children’s play-schemes and in pre-school education where the underlying rationale was that playing is learning for living. He tries not to forget this. 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 (see www.dannydorling.org). His work concerns issues of housing, health, employment, education and poverty. His recent books include, co-authored texts "The Atlas of the Real World: Mapping the way we live" and "Bankrupt Britain: an atlas of social change". Recent sole authored books include, "Injustice: why social inequalities persist” in 2010; "So you think you know about Britain" and “Fair Play”, both in 2011; and The No-nonsense guide to equality and The Visualization of Social Spatial Structure in 2012.
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 elsewhere 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. The main research project at present, Violence to Feminism, is a theoretical probing of the contemporary feminist approach to violence against women. The two main research questions are first, why contemporary feminist theory has celebrated ever-widening conceptions of violence and secondly, why the contemporary feminist approach to violence against women has permeated legal development. Another current research project focuses on changing conceptions of parental responsibility.
Ken McLaughlin’s book ‘Social Work, Politics and Society: From radicalism to orthodoxy’ (2008, The 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. His recent work looks at the rise of identity politics, and of how, in contemporary society, concepts such as trauma and vulnerability are increasingly ascribed to, and often embraced by, both individuals and political groups alike, and of the way such forms of personal or political identification entail a corresponding demand for the identity to accorded wider cultural recognition. Reviews: Injustice Dr Joanna Williams joined the Academic Practice Team at the University of Kent in 2007. In 2009 she completed her PhD which explored the educational impact of New Labour’s promotion of social inclusion through post-compulsory education, and is still very interested in the coming together of education and politics and how this plays out in practice. This interest is reflected in both her research and her teaching. Joanna's first book, published by Continuum in October 2012, and entitled Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can’t Be Bought uses the current debates around university tuition fees to explore the marketisation of higher education and the construction of students as consumers of a university product. Dr Paul Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Communications Theory, Institute of Communication Studies, at the University of Leeds. Paul has authored several books including the recent Žižek and the Media, providing a systematic and approachable introduction to the main concepts and themes of Zizek′s work, and their particular implications for the study of the media. As co-author of Critical Theories of Mass Media: Then and Now, he explores the intimate relationship between the mass media and commodity culture. The authors cast a fresh perspective on contemporary mass culture by comparing past and present critiques. Paul regularly contributes as a cultural commentator for various BBC Radio 4 programmes. With over ten years experience in Telecoms innovation, Norman Lewis is recognised worldwide as an expert on future trends and user behaviours with regard to technology adoption. He has spoken on these topics at events all over the world. Norman is currently working on innovation at PwC. He was the Chief Innovation Officer at Open-Knowledge – a global consultancy on the emerging Enterprise 2.0 paradigm. He is a co-author of Big Potatoes: the London manifesto for innovation.
Prior to joining PwC and Open-Knowledge, he was the Chief Strategy Officer of Wireless Grids Corporation, USA and the Director of Technology Research for Orange UK, formerly the Home Division of France Telecom where he was at the forefront of developing an innovation framework for an integrated Telco approach to the emerging Web2.0 ecosphere. He was also previously an Executive Board member of the MIT Communications Futures Programme and a former chairman of the ITU TELECOM Forum Programme Committee.
Mindy Gofton began working in SEO in 2003 as part of a team tasked with building traffic and increasing community engagement at ReviewCentre.com. Having gone on to a series of agency roles, she is currently Head of Search at Manchester online marketing agency I-COM, overseeing the firm’s search engine optimisation (SEO) and social media departments. She regularly blogs on topics relating to online marketing and has delivered guest lectures and talks at MMU’s Search School, SAScon and Social Media Café Manchester on a diverse range of topics within the fields of SEO and social media.
Mindy completed her PhD thesis in History at Manchester University; she looked at the effect the media’s use of language has on popular understanding of a subject, and on building consensus within social groups. Mindy has been actively involved in Manchester's blogging and digital community since founding one of the first Manchester-focused music blogs, The Indie Credential, in 2005. Previously a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire, Maria joined the University of Salford in 2004. She is Director of postgraduate taught courses in International Operations & Information Management. Maria was Chair of the University Research Ethics Panel 2009 – 2011, and has contributed significantly to the academic review and development of both undergraduate and postgraduate provision in Salford Business School.
In 2012 Maria received the Vice-Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award, jointly with Dr Marie Griffiths, in recognition of their innovative teaching using Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) techniques. Martyn Perks has written about design, technology and innovation for a number of publications including spiked, Blueprint, New Media Age, the Guardian‘s arts&entertainment blog and The Big Issue magazine. He has also organised and spoken at numerous events including at the Design Council and the Design Museum. He was a contributor to The Future of Community: reports of a death greatly exaggerated, published in 2008, as well as a co-author of Big Potatoes: The London Manifesto for Innovation.
Rob Lyons is deputy editor of Spiked, the online current affairs magazine that aims to challenge conventional thinking on everything from major world events to the nitty-gritty of everyday life. Since Spiked launched in 2001, Rob has specialised in writing about science and risk, including the regular column 'Don't Panic', which aimed to challenge the endless stream of scare stories in the media. Rob visited Chernobyl in January for a feature article in The Australian entitled 'Chernobyl: when truth went into meltdown'. He is author of shortly to be published Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder.
Louise has worked as a journalist since 1978. She started out as a rock writer on a regional listings magazine and is now a freelance journalist and copy-editor. She has covered topics as diverse as technology, cookery, finance, disability and social issues, TV, consumer/lifestyle, culture and media, business, food and health. She has written for a very wide range of publications including The Guardian, The Observer, Fabulous, Candis, Screenjabber, New Consumer, Sweet, Your Home, How-Do and Skin Two, to mention just a few. In 2010, she co-founded Manchester’s independent news site, Inside the M60.
Louise has also been a talking head on air discussing everything from business networking and epilepsy to regional news provision to being a teenage punk in the 70s, her crying habits, MPs’ expenses and memories of her impossibly glamorous grandmother. She also occasionally reviews the papers and participates as a panel guest on radio chat shows. Her first book, Epilepsy: Epilepsy: The Essential Guide, was published in May 2009. She runs the food blog The Lone Gourmet. Dr Angelica Michelis is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her current research interest and publications focus on the meaning of food and how the process of eating can be understood as a complex exchange between the self and what is considered as its other, with the effect that any concept of identity is directly intertwined with the way we regulate our orifices.
Angelica has published a range of articles discussing, for example, the relationship between food and culture, eating and poetry, cooking and crime. She is currently working on a monograph entitled EatingTheory: The Theory of Eating for Manchester University Press. To find out more about her research, click on this Angelica Michelis link. When she is not writing about food she is cooking it, reading about it and eating it! Carol is a senior lecturer at the University of Reading, where she leads the ‘crops in the food chain’ theme in the Centre for Food Security. Her expertise is in plant sciences and she is based in the department of Food and Nutritional Sciences. Carol’s research team are working on a variety of projects linked to improving nutritional quality, flavour and yield of horticultural and arable crops. The team recognise that simply providing the population with fruit and vegetables isn’t enough; understanding consumer preferences and finding ways to encourage consumption are a key part of what we do. Carol’s research team are multinational, and address issues of global food security and nutritional security. She works closely with the Crops for the Future Research Centre in Malaysia, where she also has researchers based, and where she is a leader of the FoodPlus programme. Through these links the teams are able to explore some of the world’s underutilised crops, for the benefit of the local communities that cultivate them, and to unlock some of the nutritional and agronomic benefits that they contain. Dave Clements is a writer on social policy and a former public servant with 13 years experience working in local government, predominantly social care. He now works as a consultant in the public, voluntary and community sectors. Dave manages Neighbourhoods Connect, a flagship social media and community development project in Haringey.
Dave is co-author of The Future of Community: Reports of a Death Greatly Exagerrated (Pluto, 2008). He is convenor of the Insitute of Ideas’ Social Policy Forum and a member of the Battle of Ideas organising committee. He writes for various publications including The Guardian’s Joe Public blog, the online magazine Spiked, and Culture Wars, the Institute of Ideas’ online review website, the Huffington Post, and of course his own blog reflecting on big society. Dr Katherine Runswick-Cole is Research Fellow in Disability Studies and Psychology in the Research Institute for Health and Social Change at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on the lives of disabled children, young people and their families; she has published extensively in publications for academics, practitioners and parents/carers. She is the mother of a disabled child and advocates for disability rights. Denis Joe is a poet and freelance writer in Liverpool. He teaches poetry for the Liverpool charity North End Writers as well as co-editing their journal The Accent. He is a supporting member of the Spider Project and Edits the client magazine, Serus for Nugent Care. His blog, Talking Verse, was set up early in January (2011) as a forum to discuss issues around poetry. Articles: Assisted Suicide, Suicide is NOT Painless, Opera funding, Madam Butterfly, Lulu, Delia Derbyshire Day, Lecture upon the Shadow, Barb Jungr, Feast for the Senses, Così fan tutte, Treasured, Jephtha, Chatterton and McCright, The Swerve, Kick up the Arts, Plague Lands, Niet Normaal, Adropiean Galactic, Full Blood, Glass is Elastic, Tristan and Isolde, La Boheme, Busking in Liverpool, Halle Pops, Favela, Role of Reviewer, Topophobia, Life is a Dream, You Are Being Watched, Ensemble 10/10, The Marriage of Figaro, Beatrice et Benedict, La Traviata, Donating Human Tissue, My Five New Friends, Liverpool Poetry Cafe, Also Ran, Gina Czarnecki, 50 Words for Snow, No Thyself, Magazine, Ensemble of St. Luke's, Welsh National Opera, Democratic Promenade, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, On Tolerance, Museum of Liverpool, Gorgeous Gershwin, Mersey Ports, The King's English, St Lukes Ensemble, Philharmonic 2011/12, St John Passion, Fusion Wind Quintet, Liverpool Philharmonic, Lunchtime Recital, Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, Capstone, Howl, Liverpool Uni recital, Fauré Piano Quartet, David Jacques, Oedipus, Phantom of the Apple, Nam June Paik Pauline Hadaway has worked in arts administration since 1990 and been director of Belfast Exposed Photography since 2000, overseeing its transformation from a small scale, though politically significant, city based project into an internationally renowned gallery of contemporary photography. Belfast Exposed is unique in Ireland and the UK as it not only develops, supports and commissions new work, but also maintains a substantial photography archive and back catalogue of projects, created by both professional and community photographers.
Pauline’s research and consultancy interests include: the impact of policies, which employ the arts as a tool for social change in the UK, Ireland and in post Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland and shifting relationships between citizens, civil society and the state, including restrictions on photography in public space; photography and protest and impact of policy both on artistic autonomy and management practice. Pauline is undertaking doctoral research at the University of Manchester, examining definitions of the public and private in arts policy and practice. Billy is an award-winning playwright and Artistic Director of Manchester based theatre company, Truant. His first play Smilin’ Through won the 2003 Writing Out award for best new gay play organised by one of London’s foremost new writing companies, The Finborough Theatre. The play went on to be produced by the Birmingham Rep and Contact and was nominated for Best New Play of 2005 by the Manchester Evening News. In 2010, he also won Warehouse Theatre’s International Playwriting competition for his play Transitions.
Billy is also a freelance dramaturg, creative writing and drama facilitator. He has worked for The Library Theatre, Contact, Bolton Octagon, M6 Theatre Company and The Oldham Coliseum where he ran their Writing Lab for three years. Billy has an MPhil(B) in Playwriting from Birmingham University and teaches at Nottingham University where he started, but didn’t finish, a PhD in theatre and madness. Clare Howdon is a freelance theatre director based in Manchester and has directed for the 24 7 Theatre Festival, Not Part of Festival, The Actors Lab, Contact Theatre, Library Replay Festival, The Lowry Studio and Salford City College. She won a prestigious Manchester Evening News Theatre Award in 2010 for her production of Dick Curran’s ‘Islanders’, which went on to secure ACE funding and embarked on a successful regional tour. Clare also works as a Performing Arts Teacher at Pendleton College.
Clare recently established her own theatre company LEGACY. LEGACY adapts performance and non-performance disciplines to create relevant work which questions and challenges our contemporary society’s attitudes and assumptions. She is a keen theatre reviewer and writes regularly for The Public Reviews and Broadway Baby. Professor Inderjeet Parmar is Professor of Government and Head of Politics at the University of Manchester. He has published several monographs and is the co-editor of the 'Studies in US Foreign Policy' series published by Routledge. He studied Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Sociology at the University of London, obtaining his doctorate at the University of Manchester, and joined the Department of Government at Manchester University as a lecturer in 1996. His research interests focus on the history, politics and sociology of Anglo-American foreign policy elites over the past 100 years, specifically embodied in organisations such as philanthropic foundations, think tanks, policy research institutes, university foreign affairs institutes, and state agencies. He has, more recently, become interested in Anti-Americanism, post-9-11 US foreign policy shifts, and the changing character of the US foreign policy Establishment. Finally, he is working on a long-term project on why Britain almost invariably backs the United States in wars, from Korea 1950 to Iraq 2003. To keep up with Inderjeet's latest insights on US foreign policy, click on this Anglo-American relations link. Dr Vanessa Pupavac is a lecturer in International Relations at the University of Nottingham. Vanessa has previously worked for the UN Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia and other international organisations. Her research encompasses international human rights and development politics. Vanessa has just completed a book on Language entitled 'Rights: From Free Speech to Linguistic Governance', which will be published by Palgrave in October 2012. In recent years she has been examining the international politics of trauma, that is, the influence of Western therapy culture on the rise of international psychosocial programmes. Vanesa is currently involved in a project LINGOS, which is examining NGOs translation policies, risk management and the growing gap between internationals and locals. Alastair Donald is associate director of the Future Cities Project,and co-editor of The Lure of the City: From Slums to Suburbs (Pluto Press, 2011). He is an urban designer and researcher, and a writer on urbanism and architecture issues for a range of publications including Urban Design, Blueprint, World Architecture, Culture Wars, The Independent, The and Guardian. He was co-editor of the Future of Community: Reports of a Death Greatly Exaggerated (Pluto Press 2008). Alastair is a founder member of mantownhuman and co-author of the Manifesto: Towards a New Humanism in Architecture. He was convenor of Critical Subjects Architecture and Design Winter School and the architecture debates Challenging the Orthodoxies. Martin Bryant is Managing Editor at The Next Web, a leading online publication covering Internet technology, business and culture. Martin has a particular interest in European startups and spends much time travelling the continent to meet the people behind the technologies that will shape the future. A Broadcasting graduate, he has a passion for media and closely follows traditional media organizations' shifts online and the startups looking to disrupt them.
Based in Manchester, UK, he co-founded the city's Social Media Cafe events, which have become a popular first port of call for anyone looking to explore the city's digital scene. Lisa Raynes is Managing Director of Raynes Architecture and employs 3 young architectural assistants. She established her business in October 2010 out of the firestorm of recession and redundancy - and has not looked back. An architect with 15 years experience in housing and listed building refurbishment, the physical city is her bread and butter, and, finding social media to be a driving force in her own business, has an equal interest in the technological infrastructure that underpins it. Mother of 3, Lisa is Chairman of the RIBA NW Solo-Practitioners Group, Trustee of Outreach, a charity providing residential care to people with learning disabilities and mental health issues. As past Chairman of Women in Property North West she has an understanding of the particular challenges facing women. Lisa seeks to help fellow architects wanting to start up or return to what is a notoriously un-work-life-balanced profession. John Siddique is the bestselling author of Full Blood, Recital – An Almanac, Poems From A Northern Soul, and The Prize. He is the co-author of the story/memoir Four Fathers. He has contributed poems, stories, essays and articles to many publications, including Granta, The Guardian, Poetry Review, and The Rialto.
John is well known for his captivating readings, and his infectious love of literature. This highly influential writer has worked with The British Council, PEN, The Arvon Foundation, The Poetry Society and London 2012. He is the former British Council Writer-in-Residence at California State University, Los Angeles. He has been awarded the title of Honorary Creative Writing Fellow by Leicester University in recognition of his contribution to literature.
Ian Betts is a Teacher of English and Media Studies in a Cheshire comprehensive school. For several years, he worked in international schools in Mexico and then Portgual before returning to Manchester where he studied. Ian is an aspiring writer, currently redrafting his first novel, The Fakers, about gangsters and revenge killings in Mexico, having also worked as a freelance journalist in previous years by contributing to magazines such as The Face and City Life. He is studying towards an MA in Education and also coaches a local rugby team. Articles: The Dark Knight Rises, Killer Joe, Viva!, Rampart, Votes at 16, Haywire, Happy New Year? Patrick Hayes is a political commentator and journalist for current affairs magazine spiked. He blogs regularly for the Independent, Huffington Post and Free Society. He is a producer of the international Battle of Ideas festival, which he helped to establish in 2005. Previously he was head of research and development at TSL Education, publishers of The TES and Times Higher Education. Patrick regularly comments on politics and current affairs for a range of local, national and international media programmes, which have included: Newsnight, Sunday Morning Live, The Big Questions, Radio 5 Live, BBC World Service, Sky News and Russia Today. Helen Nugent is a journalist based in Manchester. After 15 years in London, working mostly for The Times as a reporter, specialist, lobby correspondent, investigative journalist and editor, she returned to her Northern roots in 2010. Now a freelance journalist, she is working for a wide variety of organisations. Current roles include freelancer for The Guardian following a month covering for the paper's Northern Correspondent, producer at BBC Radio 5 live, writer for a Northern business supplement published by The Times and freelancer for The Mail on Sunday.
During her career, Helen has written for the Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday and The Sunday Times. At present, she combines her journalism work with running a media training and consultancy business and providing corporate copywriting, including a contract for the National Theatre. Other interests include writing culture reviews for the Manchester Salon and the British Theatre Guide, editing GQ Central and her new initiative Northern Soul, a webzine celebrating all things Northern. Reviews: Sugar Daddies, The Bubbler, Sailing to Byzantium, The Heretic, Table Table, Ministry of Craft, Ramsbottom Bop Local, Oliver, Can't Take it with You, Antonia Fraser, Ramsbottom Festival, Look Back in Anger Mike Koefman is the outreach worker for Planet Hydrogen, a Manchester-based NGO which advocates the supplanting of all fossil fuels by hydrogen, produced solely by the electrolysis of water using renewable electricity. Mike undertakes education on climate change with the public, and between 2002 and 2008 ran an evening course at the Friends Meeting House in Manchester. He is also involved with citizen groups, secondary schools and university groups, and enjoys meeting people, discussing matters which are important with them, and listening to what they say. Lauren Collins represented the UK's Nuclear Institute Young Generation Network at the MENA nuclear conference held in Dubai 2011. She was instrumental in setting up the first MENA Nuclear Institute branch, which is now based in the UAE. Lauren has presented at the 4th International Symposium on Nuclear Energy held in Jordan in 2011 covering the increased importance of public engagement and communications in the nuclear industry post-Fukushima. She was also invited to represent young science and technology professionals from the UK as part of the Fulbright Academy of Science and Technology delegation at the 2011 World Science Forum in Budapest. David Lewin is currently Lecturer in Philosophy of Education at Liverpool Hope University. After an initial degree in Theological Studies, David Lewin took an MA in the Study of Mysticism and Religious Experience at Kent University where he first developed his interest in Heidegger. He later did an MSc in Computer Science followed by working in various IT roles (Cisco Systems). Returning to Kent to pursue a PhD in Religious Studies entitled 'Technological Thinking and the Withdrawal of Essence', he looked particularly at Heidegger’s philosophy of technology but also drew upon the likes of Herbert Marcuse and Albert Borgmann. David's current research involves developing a theology of technology by a consideration of agency in technology. My recent work hopes to show that Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical hermeneutics provides an important approach to understanding personal and social agency in relation to technological development. Writer and lecturer James Heartfield is a founding Director of the development think-tank, audacity. He lives in north London, and is currently based at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster where he tudied for his Ph. D. in European Union, International Relations. James enjoys public debate and speaks widely in support of industrial development. James co-edited the collection of essays in Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-machine Age, (2001). He is the author of The 'Death of the Subject' Explained, (2002) Let's Build! - Why we need five million new homes in the next 10 years, (2006), The Creativity Gap, (Blueprint, 2005) and Green Capitalism - Manufacturing Scarcity in an age of abundance, (2008). His latest book is The Aborigines' Protection Society: Humanitarian Imperialism in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, South Africa, and the Congo, 1837-1909, (2011). Richard taught subjects ranging from Classics to History, Mathematics to De Bono’s Thinking Skills in independent and maintained schools, finally becoming a deputy head in a secondary school in Kent. Richard has also taught in several universities, working in primary, secondary and post-compulsory teacher education, and as a law lecturer. Rania is the Director of the professional network Muslim Women in Education and is a researcher, commentator and consultant on teacher education and the Islamic philosophy of Education. In 2011 she was profiled as one of the eight ‘Women of the World’ by the German magazine TUSH.
Rania is currently the Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee for the Education and Training of Teachers (SCETT) and will be Chair in 2012. Muslim Women in Education, the group she founded, is for professional Muslim women working and teaching in education. Its aims are to: re-invigorate the Islamic intellectual tradition of rational discourse, defend the professional autonomy of Muslim women educators, and promote open discussion and debate on professional and educational issues. She was, until July 2011, Principal Lecturer and Director of Post-Compulsory Education, University of East London and was previously Head of Department, Health Related Studies at Southwark College from 1999 – 2004. She has uniquely been twice elected council member and non-executive director of the Institute for Learning (IfL). Dennis Hayes is Professor of Education at the University of Derby and a visiting Professor at Oxford Brookes University and was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2010. He is the founder and director of the campaign group Academics For Academic Freedom (AFAF). Since moving to Derby in 2009 he has helped organized the East Midlands Salon which meets monthly, alternating between Derby and Nottingham. Dennis is the author or editor of many books including: The McDonaldization of Higher Education (2002); The RoutledgeFalmer Guide to Key Debates in Education (2004); Teaching and Training in Post-Compulsory Education (4th Edition 2011); A Lecturer’s Guide to Further Education (2007) and The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education (2008), co-authored with Kathryn Ecclestone. He is currently working on a book on Academic Freedom. Charles Brickdale taught English and Religious Studies for thirty years in secondary schools in Leeds and Bradford. He is now a one-to-one intervention tutor in two schools helping students struggling with English or let down by what he sees as an increasingly dysfunctional state system. On Saturday mornings in term time he runs the supplementary school established by Civitas Schools in Keighley to promote traditional, subject-centred approaches to education. Charles wants to work with all those who seek to expand massively the scope of liberty in Britain so that people can take back responsibility for their own lives and communities. In the interests of consistency, therefore, he is involved in the life of his own community but, in the interests of sanity, leaves time for listening to music (very catholic taste), reading, writing and going abroad. He likes talking a lot. Reviews: Technology and the Philosophy of Religion, The Cambridge Quintet Kevin Warwick is Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, where he carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and biomedical engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng.), a Fellow of The Institution of Engineering & Technology (FIET), and is the youngest person ever to become a Fellow of the City & Guilds of London Institute (FCGI). In 2000 Kevin presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled “The Rise of The Robots”.
Kevin instigated a series of pioneering experiments involving the neuro-surgical implantation of a device (Utah Array/BrainGate) into the median nerves of his left arm in order to link his nervous system directly to a computer, leading to the first extra-sensory (ultrasonic) input for a human and with the first purely electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans. The Institute of Physics selected Kevin as one of only 7 eminent scientists to illustrate the ethical impact their scientific work can have: the others being Galileo, Einstein, Curie, Nobel, Oppenheimer and Rotblat.
Kathleen's postdoctoral research is a study of special kinds of robots for the therapeutic assistance for children and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). These robots are termed social and humanoid, robotic machines and persons with ASD are said to lack social capacities – yet Kathleen will follow their interactions in the clinical and lab spaces in the UK and US. Studies have suggested that the mere presence of a humanoid robot can enhance the social capacities of persons with ASD. This presents an interesting issue for anthropological theorizing of the social – what does it mean to be social? Who or what can or cannot be said to have it? Kathleen completed her doctoral studies in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge and conducted fieldwork in robotics labs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her thesis, 'Annihilating Difference? Robots and Building Design at MIT' examined relationalities between humans and nonhumans through a study of robots and buildings on the MIT campus. Dr John Roberts is the Nuclear Fellow at the Dalton Nuclear Institute at The University of Manchester and a visiting academic at Imperial College London. As well as lecturing on nuclear energy to university students he is also engaging with industry, schools and the general public to educate them on nuclear energy and radiation. He has established the Nuclear Education website (http://www.nucleareducation.co.uk/) and is the Director of Science, Technology and Education of Nuclear Liaison TV. He has visited many countries worldwide working as an IAEA Technical Expert on Nuclear Knowledge Management, Education and Outreach. Sue is a Non-Executive Board Member at the government's Health and Safety Laboratory, and was previously Group Director of Technology for British Nuclear Fuels Limited, responsible for the Group's entire technology portfolio and playing a leading role in government and regulatory issues. With a first class honours degree and a PhD from Imperial College, Sue joined BNFL in 1979 where she made her career in materials science and metallurgy. She has an extensive knowledge of the nuclear fuel cycle, especially fuel manufacture, reprocessing and recycling technologies. In 2004, Sue was invited to become a member of the Council of Science and Technology, advising the Prime Minister and First Ministers of Scotland and Wales on strategic, longer-term issues. Sue holds fellowships with a number of learned societies and has maintained strong links with academia and academic research. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was awarded the OBE in 2002 for services to the nuclear industry. Sue was appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire in the Queen's New Year Honours List 2010 for her services to science and engineering. 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.
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Dr Angelica Michelis - 
Billy Cowan - 
Clare Howdon - 
John Siddique
