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 3D PRINTING: A NEW INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7876 Over the past two or three years, the idea of 3D printing has gripped the imagination of everyone from creatives in design and IT through to wider industr...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe ROLE MODELS: ON YOUR BEST BEHAVIOUR? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7895 Amid all the excitement of the London Olympics and Paralympics, there was particular excitement about the idea that British youth now had a much better class o...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe INSTITUTIONS ON LIFE SUPPORT http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7853 From the failures identified by the Francis Report into Mid-Staffs NHS Foundation to the fall-out from the Savile scandal at the BBC, Britain’s institutions seem to be...

From Sandy Hook to Boston: guns, bombs, and a changing America? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7911 In recent years, there have been several seemingly random acts of violence committed by young males in the US – shootings in Aurora, Colorado and Sandy Hook, Connecticut and a bombing at the Boston Marathon. Following each case, there has been heated discussion about how the...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe FREE RIDERS: CYCLE HELMETS AND HEALTH AND SAFETY http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7910 Many of us remember cycling as children with great nostalgia for the freedom represented by having a bicycle. The freedom to visit friends without...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe CHURCH AND STATE: A MARRIAGE ON THE ROCKS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7854 Whilst the Church of England has never quite attracted the ire from secularists afforded to seemingly more dogmatic religions like the Catholicism or fun...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe WHAT IS ADDICTION? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7881 Now that the prestigious Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (DSM V) has recognised gambling as a behavioural addiction, some fear the door been opened to me...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe HOT OFF THE PRESS - TWERK HARD, PLAY HARD: THE PORNIFICATION OF THE PUBLIC REALM http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/8712 While the debate on banning topless Page 3 models from newspapers rages on, it seems there is a more subtle debate...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe HISTORY WARS http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7866 Education secretary Michael Gove recently said, ‘there is no part of the national curriculum so likely to prove an ideological battleground for contending armies as history.’ On this...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe INFRASTRUCTURE AND INVESTMENT: HAVE WE LOST OUR NERVE? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7879 With HM Treasury having recently set up a new body to oversee £350bn of infrastructure investment, are we about to see an explosion of large...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe CHEWING THE FACTS: WHAT'S THE TRUTH OF THE OBESITY CRISIS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7903 According to ‘Reducing Obesity and Improving Diet’, a policy document produced by the Department of Health in March 2013, most people in...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT IRONY? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7858 Over the past decade or so, there has been no shortage of people keenly forecasting the end of irony. And little wonder. ‘Being ironic’, which was modish during th...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe SUICIDE: THE ULTIMATE SELFISH ACT? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7862 A dramatic rise in suicides in the UK in 2011 prompted the government’s new Suicide Prevention Strategy, with mental health campaigners emphasising the need to c...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe SPECIAL UK AUDIO BOOK LAUNCH AND DISCUSSION 'THE GALA CONCERT, VERDI/WAGNER 200 YEARS' http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/8113 In 2013 the world is celebrating two of the greatest opera composers in history – Giuseppe Verdi and Richard...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe COMPUTER MODELLING: ALL ABOUT THE IMAGE? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7900 Computer modelling is magic that turns empirical observations into our imaginary future. How many of us will need pensions, artificial hips, or houses in 2...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe PATHOLOGISING ISRAEL http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7907 Many progressives in the West today seem to regard Israel as a problem they wish would just go away. How different from the post-war period, which saw widespread support on th...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe LAST ORDERS: CALLING TIME ON THE PUB http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7913 Despite anxieties about teenage boozing, young people are in fact drinking less alcohol than ever before. And they are particularly unlikely to drink in pubs....

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe ARTS IN SCHOOLS: LUXURY OR NECESSITY? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7864 Following fierce opposition to the omission of compulsory arts education from the proposed Ebacc, the new qualification has been scrapped, apparently saving t...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe IS CHEATING RUINING SPORT? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7912 Accusations of cheating are rife in modern sport. In cycling, Lance Armstrong has been hauled off his pedestal and traduced for blood doping and taking supplements. In f...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe FROM SHIPMAN TO MID STAFFS - DOES DOCTOR STILL KNOW BEST? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7852 Much recent discussion around healthcare has been focused on the NHS reforms and the scandal at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, wh...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe THE LAW AND OUR PRIVATE LIVES: AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7861 The very public incident involving Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi earlier this year made domestic violence a major talking point, but th...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe SACRIFICE AND PHILANTHROPY: WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7857 At the beginning of this year, billionaire Bill Gates promised to use his wealth to create a polio-free world. This was in addition to the £478mill...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe WHAT IS 'NEW ENVIRONMENTALISM'? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7843 Like most ideologies or political movements, environmentalism has always contained different strands and shades of opinion. But in recent years, there has been incr...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe FACEBOOK GENERATION: GROWING UP IN PUBLIC http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7875 Whether being hailed as agents of radical change or fretted over as potential victims of grooming and cyber-bullying, the first generation raised with the...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe STRAND INTO AND TO READ OR NOT TO READ? THE CANON IN THE 21ST CENTURY http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7885 ‘The battle is lost. These resentniks have destroyed the canon.’ Such was the view of noted American critic Harold Bloom. Bloo...