This year's Battle of Ideas, at the Barbican in London on 22 & 23 October, is our 12th annual festival. Organised by The Institute of Ideas, the Battle has always managed to be wide-ranging, thought-provoking and wonderfully argumentative, but the festival has never seemed more important and urgent as this year's.
From the Brexit vote to the rise of Trump across the pond, politics - and the future direction of society - hasn't felt so open and contested for decades. After years when the outcome of elections has felt like changing the nameplates on the doors rather than changing the course of society, the upsurge in political engagement in recent months has been thoroughly exciting. So this year’s festival will have sessions discussing the American elections, a State of the Nation strand of debates post-Brexit, the prospects for the world economy, plus discussions on the attempted coup in Turkey, the soft coup in Brazil, the collapse of the ANC in South Africa, and the increasing tension and around Eastern Europe.
Of course, we'll be debating so much more than that, from future visions of society, 500 years on from Thomas More's Utopia, to the dismal, censorious state of our universities, from terrorist attacks in France to decolonising the curriculum. We have over 400 speakers from across the world, across the political spectrum and across disciplines from the arts to sciences, from humanities to engineering.
This year’s programme includes exciting debates spanning politics, the arts, science and technology, such as: The new populism · The moral case for abortion · Can America be great again? · Generational Inequality – Who should pay for the future?· Are political parties over? and Cultural appropriation: homage or theft? There are also themed strands of sessions, including: · Gender Wars · Battle for Education · Technology and Ethics · Emotional Intelligence · Utopias · Culture Wars · State of the Nation 2016 · Eye on the World · Moral Dilemmas and more.
Overview of the draft programme:here
SPEAKERS THIS YEAR INCLUDE:
Julian Baggini; Tom Bennett; Dr James D. Boys; Dr Yaron Brook; Jeremy Browne; Nick Cater; Professor Sarah Churchwell; Professor Tim Crane; Dr Theodore Dalrymple; Nick Cater; Professor Frank Furedi; Jonathan Glancey; Timandra Harkness; Professor Julia Hobsbawm; Barb Jungr; James Kirchick; Professor Ivan Krastev; Kwasi Kwarteng MP; Tim Loughton MP; Professor Robin Lovell-Badge; Kenan Malik; Professor Camille Paglia; Vicky Pryce; Professor Sir Simon Wessely; Professor Bruce Whitelaw; Dr Joanna Williams and many more.