Nathalie Olah discusses how this bright generation came to be, and what effective means are still at their disposal to challenge the establishment and ultimately win. By rejecting the established routines of achieving prosperity, and by stealing what you can from them on the way, this book offers hope to anyone who feels increasingly frustrated by our increasingly unequal society. Drawing on her fascinating new polemical work, Steal As Much As You Can: How to Win the Culture Wars in an Age of Austerity, Olah will explore the impact of a decade’s worth of austerity on the development of new cultural output, whilst questioning the artistic sensibility of mainstream media’s contemporary gatekeepers.

Why flawed logic puts us all at Risk, and How Critical Thinking can save the World. David Robert Grimes shows how we can be lured into making critical mistakes or drawing false conclusions, and how to avoid such errors. Given the power of modern science and the way that movements can unite to protest a cause via social media, we are in dangerous times. But fortunately, we can learn from our mistakes, and by critical thinking and scientific method we can discover how to apply these techniques to everything from deciding what insurance to buy to averting global disaster.

One thing we know for certain is that sex is personal: perhaps the most intimate thing of all. But sex is also shaped by a complicated web of cultural, social and political forces outside of ourselves. Fear-mongering, moral panic and outdated attitudes prevail, but if #MeToo has taught us anything, it’s how dangerous it is to keep conversations about sex hidden from view. In her book Behind Closed Doors Natalie Fiennes invests in a radical, inclusive and honest sex education, taking us beyond learning about the ‘birds and the bees’, to identifying inequality that stands in the way of sexual freedom. From contraceptives to virginity, consent to pornography, transphobia to sexual abuse, the book shows how our desires are influenced by powerful political processes that can be transformed.

The New Science of how we Walk and why it’s Good for us. Walking enabled us to walk out of Africa and to spread as far as Alaska and Australia. It freed our hands and freed our minds. We put one foot in front of the other without thinking – yet how many of us know how we do that, or appreciate the advantages it gives us? In this tribute to walking, neuroscientist Shane O’Mara invites us to marvel at the benefits it confers on our bodies and minds and to start a walking revolution.

Mudlark (/’mAdla;k/) noun A person who scavenges for usable debris in the mud of a river or harbour Lara Maiklem has scoured the banks of the Thames for over fifteen years, in pursuit of the objects that the river unearths: from Neolithic flints to Roman hair pins, medieval buckles to Tudor buttons, Georgian clay pipes to Victorian toys. These objects tell her about London and its lost ways of life. Moving from the river’s tidal origins in the west of the city to the point where it meets the sea in the east, Mudlarking is a search for urban solitude and history on the River Thames, what Lara calls ‘the longest archaeological site in the world’.

What is masculinity? Dominating the world around us, from Trump’s twitter outbursts to deadly gun violence, from male suicide rates to incels on Reddit and 4chan, masculinity is perceived to be ‘toxic’, ‘fragile’ and ‘in crisis’. JJ Bola exposes masculinity as a performance that men are socially conditioned into. Using examples of non-Western cultural traditions, music and sport, he shines light on historical narratives around manhood, debunking popular myths along the way. He explores how LGBTQ men, men of colour, and male refugees experience masculinity in diverse ways, revealing its fluidity, how it’s strengthened and weakened by different political contexts, such as the patriarchy or the far-right, and perceived differently by those around them.

Will Brexit boost jobs? Or wreck the NHS? Or cause food shortages? From strawberries to passports, the broadcaster and journalist Gavin Esler sets out how the most momentous change in Britain for decades will change everyday life. From the food markets of Kent to NHS operating theatres to the boardrooms of big employers, Brexit throws up many surprises.

Pixie Turner will unpack why diet and nutrition misinformation is so problematic, on social media, in mass media, and on a public health level, and why we could all benefit from taking a moment to assess our personal relationship with food. Expect some mythbusting, diet rants, and lots of fully-referenced evidence-based science. — Pixie Turner is a nutritionist (ANutr), food blogger, and science communicator. She graduated with a First Class degree in Biochemistry, and went on to complete a Masters in Nutrition with Distinction. She has been featured as a nutrition expert on BBC and Channel 5, and in publications such as Red magazine, Evening Standard, Grazia, the Telegraph and more. Her second book, ‘The No Need to Diet Book’ was March 2019 and will be available at the talk.

What if you aren’t who you think you are? What if you don’t really know the people closest to you? And what if your most deeply-held beliefs turn out to be … wrong? In her book Stop Being Reasonable, philosopher and journalist Eleanor Gordon-Smith tells six lucid, gripping stories that show the limits of human reason. She discusses some of these stories with Little Atoms podcaster Neil Denny.

Jonathan H. Marks argues that public-private partnerships create “webs of influence” that undermine the integrity of public health agencies and distort health policy and research. These collaborations also frame public health problems and their solutions in ways that protect and promote the commercial interests of corporate “partners.” We should expect multinational corporations to develop strategies of influence as far as the law allows. But public bodies can and should develop counter-strategies to insulate themselves from influence.

Kerry Hudson discusses her book Lowborn with James Bloodworth. Lowborn is a powerful, personal, agenda-changing work of non-fiction on poverty in Britain – a book like nothing that’s been written before, and a book that we all need to pay attention to. Kerry Hudson grew up in all-encompassing, grinding poverty. Always on the move with her single mother, Kerry attended 9 primary schools and 5 secondary schools, living in B&Bs and council flats. Kerry scores 8 out of 10 on the Adverse Childhood Experiences measure of childhood trauma. Whilst many people would like to think that Kerry was an exception – that she was unlucky, or a one-in-a-million case. Sadly, this just isn’t true. All of the people Kerry grew up with were experiencing exactly the same as she was. Some a little less, and some far worse. The difference is that Kerry saw an opportunity for a different existence and ran for it.

What do we see when we watch a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat or read a person’s mind? We are captivated by an illusion; we applaud the fact that we have been fooled. Why do we enjoy experiencing what seems clearly impossible, or at least beyond our powers of explanation? In this talk Dr Gustav Kuhn examines the psychological processes that underpin our experience of magic.

How we lost our green and pleasant land, and how to take it back. For centuries, England’s elite have covered up how they got their hands on millions of acres of our land, by constructing walls, burying surveys and more recently, sheltering behind offshore shell companies. But with the dawn of digital mapping and the Freedom of Information Act, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for them to hide. Trespassing through tightly-guarded country estates, ecologically ravaged grouse moors and empty Mayfair mansions, writer and activist Guy Shrubsole has uncovered a wealth of never-before-seen information about the people who own our land, to create the most comprehensive map of ownership in England that has ever been made public.

The new neuroscience that shatters the myth of the female brain. This is not feminist science – it’s just science. - Prof Gina Rippon.

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99. Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018. © Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99. Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018. © Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99. Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018. © Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99. Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018. © Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99. Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018. © Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited

Pause for Thought was a humanist alternative to the BBC Radio 4 programme Thought for the Day, broadcast on BBC World Service from 1997-99. Produced by Christopher Templeton. Donated to Conway Hall Library & Archives Aug 2018. © Christopher Templeton, Tempting Films Ltd & Pemberton Publishing Limited