Academy of Ideas
Episodes
Friday Dec 16, 2016
#BattleFest2016: What’s the truth about ’post-truth’ politics?
Friday Dec 16, 2016
Friday Dec 16, 2016
Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas 2016.
In November, Oxford Dictionaries declared ‘post-truth’ its Word of the Year. For some commentators, both the US presidential campaign and the EU referendum in the UK have revealed the emergence of ‘post-truth’ politics. Donald Trump has dismissed fact-checking as an ‘out-of-touch, elitist media-type thing’. Former Tory minister and Brexit leader Michael Gove notoriously claimed that ‘people in this country have had enough of experts’.
Have experts been over-reaching themselves and intruding into matters that require political judgement rather than statistics? On the other hand, if people scorn evidence, will society sink into the mire of prejudice and superstition? Have the majority of voters really given up on assessing the evidence?
SPEAKERS
Professor Frank Furedisociologist and social commentator; author, What’s Happened to the University?, Power of Reading: from Socrates to Twitter, and Authority: a sociological history
Josh LoweEuropean politics reporter, Newsweek
Neena Modiprofessor of neonatal medicine, Imperial College London; consultant in neonatal medicine, Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust; president, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
Dr Adam Rutherfordgeneticist, science writer and broadcaster, BBC; author, Creation and A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived.
Friday Dec 09, 2016
#PodcastOfIdeas: Josie Appleton on The rise of the Busybody State
Friday Dec 09, 2016
Friday Dec 09, 2016
From parking wardens generating record profits for councils through to bans on smoking and busking, the authorities are making more and more previously normal activities illegal or subject to onerous regulation. Yet it is not clear who benefits from this micromanagement of our lives.
Here, Josie Appleton talks about her new book, 'Officious: The rise of the Busybody State', which examines the causes and consequences of this trend.
Thursday Dec 08, 2016
#BattleFest2016: Zaha Hadid - her life and legacy
Thursday Dec 08, 2016
Thursday Dec 08, 2016
A recording of the discussion at the Battle of Ideas 2016.
The architect Zaha Hadid, who died in March, was described in a CNN interview in 2013 as ‘one of the most celebrated – and divisive – designers on the planet’. In life, she was respected or reviled, but seldom ignored. She was a powerful woman in a man’s world, and an Arab at the top of the Western design industry. She was a designer of curves in a world of boxes and a leader in an age of consensus. What will be Zaha Hadid’s legacy? Is there still a place for risk-taking and experimentation? Is there anyone out there who can fill her shoes?
CHAIR: AUSTIN WILLIAMS associate professor in architecture, XJTLU University, Suzhou, China; director, Future Cities Project; convenor, Bookshop Barnies; founding member of New Narratives
IN CONVERSATION WITH:
DR PATRIK SCHUMACHER principal, Zaha Hadid Architects; author, The Autopoiesis of Architecture
Friday Dec 02, 2016
#BattleFest2016: Are political parties over?
Friday Dec 02, 2016
Friday Dec 02, 2016
In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, it seemed that all four of Britain’s major political parties were falling apart. Similar tendencies towards crisis and disintegration are evident in the old parties in the USA and in Europe. Are we seeing a refreshing departure from the old-style politics of left and right, or simply a process of fragmentation? Are we exaggerating the scale of the crisis facing mainstream parties, and forgetting the often deep and bitter conflicts of the past? Are we really moving towards a new sort of politics? What sort of divisions and alignments are likely to emerge and will we need parties to represent them?
SPEAKERS
Emily Barleychairman, Conservatives for Liberty
James Delingpolejournalist; columnist, Breitbart UK
Dr Michael Fitzpatrickwriter on medicine and politics; author, The Tyranny of Health
Miranda Greenjournalist and former Liberal Democrat advisor, specialising in politics and education
Jhanelle Whitestudent & political activist; former member of Dudley Youth Council; founder and chair of Political Sweep