Academy of Ideas

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe ATHEISM: WHAT'S THE POINT? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6815 From the controversy over teaching ‘intelligent design’ in schools, to arguments over prayers at council meetings or religiously based opposition to euthanasia, abortion...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe BABY CULTURE VULTURES http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6792 The coalition government said earlier this year that no one could call themselves educated unless they’d had culture and art running through their education. This surely stru...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe BUILDING AN INTELLECTUAL LEGACY - THE BATTLE FOR WHICH IDEAS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6808 ‘Ideas are the cogs that drive history, and understanding them is half way to being aboard that powerful juggernaut rather than under...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe FREE SCHOOLS: MYTH AND REALITY http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6798 With 24 ‘free schools’ open, and another 79 on the way, it seems education minister Michael Gove has struck a nerve by inviting parents to ‘go it alone’. Free school...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe WELCOME ADDRESS 2012 https://academyofideas.org.uk/2012/10/20/battle-of-ideas-festival-2012-welcome-address/ ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION The eighth annual Battle of Ideas festival opened with a Welcome Address hosted by Claire Fox, Director of the Academy of Idea...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe ONE YEAR ON: ASSESSING THE STATE OF THE NATION http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6754 In the aftermath of widespread rioting in English cities in August 2011, responses revealed predictable fault lines among the commentariat. The tablo...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe A CRISIS OF COMPASSION: WHO CARES? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6776 A constant stream of harrowing media stories highlights incidents of extreme lack of compassion in institutions charged with caring for the vulnerable. The recen...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe RACISM TODAY: ALIVE AND KICKING? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6780 Recently it seems football has been beset by a never-ending series of racist incidents: Liverpool’s Luis Suarez accused of racially abusing Manchester United’s Pat...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe LESSONS FROM AMERICA: THE NEW CULTURE WARS http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6750 ‘The culture war is back’, proclaimed one American newspaper earlier this year. And it’s not difficult to see why. A variety of social issues, be it gay...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe HIGH AND LOW CULTURE: SEPARATED AT BIRTH? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6768 ‘For a mass society is nothing more than that kind of organised living which automatically establishes itself among human beings who are still related to...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe EUROPE'S NEW FAR RIGHT, FEAR OR FANTASY? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6784 Many have started to sound alarm bells about the rise of right-wing parties across Europe. In addition to the right’s victories in Hungary’s national elect...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe EUROPEAN SPRING? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6766 Perry Anderson in his book The New Old World argued that the ‘contempt for elementary principles of democracy shown by the elites of the [European] Council and Commission… is reci...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe MEDIA-BASHING LIVE http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6790 ‘Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel’, runs a famous warning. Yet, if all the charges submitted to the Leveson Inquiry are to be believed, maybe the media need to...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe ARE EXAMS A CHEAT? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2012/session_detail/6761 Education secretary Michael Gove caused a storm in the summer by proposing to replace GCSEs with tougher exams more akin to the old O-levels. But exams had already been making h...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe WAGNER'S JEWS: CAN YOU SEPARATE THE ART FROM THE MAN? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/8031 While the celebrations marking Richard Wagner’s bicentennial show he is still respected as a composer, the controversy over his notorious poli...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe 2013 PLENARY - GREAT BOOKS http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/8083 Today, amid the explosion of writing and publishing on and offline, prioritising what texts are important to read is, at the very least, daunting. Moreover, works centra...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe DEVELOPMENT AID: HINDRANCE OR HELP? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7898 Western aid to the developing world has been a constant since the 1940s, but justifications for it have varied. After 60 years and $3 trillion of development ai...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe CUTS, CUTS, CUTS: WHAT, WHERE AND WHY? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7897 At the last general election, there was a consensus that public spending would have to be cut sooner or later, whichever party or parties formed a government...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe WHAT IS IT TO BE CULTURED? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7865 Culture has a very wide range of meanings: from the anthropological sense of the culture of a people or nation to the more restricted sense of high culture, and the trad...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: BRAVE NEW WORLD OR GEEK CHIC? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/8027 Sensationalist headlines surrounding the so-called ‘three parent baby’ offered a reminder of how scientific advancements can divide opinion. Publ...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe FROM MEDICI TO SAATCHI: SHOULD ART COLLECTIONS BE MADE PUBLIC? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7869 The worlds of art and money have always been intertwined, and art collectors – from the dukes and popes of the Renaissance to the lik...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe DIGITAL CREATIVITY: CAN WE ALL BE COMPOSERS NOW? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7828 While the LSO’s performance of work composed by computer programme has tended to provoke curiosity rather than critical acclaim, there seems little...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe GROW YOUR OWN? THE URBAN AGRICULTURE REVOLUTION http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7917 Food production was once the preserve of the countryside. But today enthusiasts promote the benefits for all communities - including city-dwellers –...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe DESIGNING CITIZENS: ARCHITECTS AS NUDGERS? Healthy City pioneer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, argues, ‘we have a responsibility as human beings to save lives,’ suggesting a government’s ‘highest duty’ is to make ‘healthy solutions the default social op...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe MASTER-PLANNING THE FUTURE? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7889 The great American urbanist Daniel Burnham, the man who drafted the first comprehensive city plan a century ago, summed up the necessary ambition involved in the art of...