Podcasts about sussex university

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Best podcasts about sussex university

Latest podcast episodes about sussex university

The Just Checking In Podcast
Mind On The Game - Aaron Bowes - Part 2

The Just Checking In Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 9, 2025 64:17


In this episode of Mind On The Game we checked back in with Aaron Bowes. Aaron plays as the First XV fly-half in the Ashford Rugby Club's Men's team. He is also an old friend of VENT Founder Freddie Cocker. We first checked back in with Aaron way back when in December 2020, where we discussed how he got into rugby, the life skills it gave him including self-confidence and his friendship with Freddie, when they first met whilst studying at Sussex University together. We also discussed some bullying he went through in school because of his ears and the operation he had to pin them back which stopped the bullying and the fresh start it gave him. In Part 2, we discuss an ACL injury Aaron suffered in September 2021, at a point where he was playing his best rugby, the surgery he had to have for it in June 2022 and the recovery journey he went through for a whole year, before starting playing again in the 2023/24 season. We also discuss his desire to get back into the gym now he is fully recovered and so he avoids going through a similar injury again, and some memorable games he's played in this year and last year which helped him get his mojo back. For Aaron's continued mental health journey, we discuss the milestone of reaching 30 years old, the stress of buying a house with his partner and the role she has played on his mental health, and a recent award he received at his workplace. As always, #itsokaytovent You can listen to Part 1 of Aaron's journey here: https://soundcloud.com/venthelpuk/mind-on-the-game-aaron-bowes Support Us: Patreon: www.patreon.com/venthelpuk GoFundMe: www.gofundme.com/f/help-vent-supp…ir-mental-health Merchandise: www.redbubble.com/people/VentUK/shop Music: @patawawa - Strange: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70wfeJSEvk

PRI's The World
Palestinian Red Crescent demands international investigation into killing of rescue workers

PRI's The World

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 8, 2025 48:51


The Palestinian Red Crescent is demanding an international investigation into the Israeli attack last month on a convoy of ambulances and emergency workers in southern Gaza that killed 15 people. Also, Sussex University in the UK is offering a new degree called Climate Justice, Sustainability and Development. And, the US and DRC close in on a new minerals deal. Plus, a look at how collaboration in space is still possible amid geopolitical tensions.Listen to today's Music Heard on Air. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Discovery
Inside Health: Can Insomnia be fixed?

Discovery

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2024 27:45


Perhaps you couldn't drift off, or maybe you woke in the middle of the night and then couldn't nod off again. In this edition of Inside Health we're talking all about insomnia. It's an issue that may affect many of us at some point in our lives – but for some it goes beyond a short period of not being able to sleep and becomes something more serious. James is joined by a trio of experts ready to answer to them: Dr Allie Hare, president of the British Sleep Society and consultant physician in sleep medicine at the Royal Brompton Hospital, Colin Espie, a professor of sleep medicine at Oxford University and Dr Faith Orchard, a lecturer in psychology at Sussex University. We're going to find out why we get insomnia, when to seek help and how much factors like ageing, menopause, needing the loo or shift work matter. And we'll look at the latest advice and treatments. Can insomnia be fixed?

InsideTheHive.TV - Podcast
Silent Earth - Dr. Dave Goulson Sussex University

InsideTheHive.TV - Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 14, 2024 50:25


Sign up to my Newsletter: https://www.insidethehive.tv/newsletters/inside-the-hive-tv-newsletter Support my sponsor Apis Tactical: https://apis-tactical.com/ Dr. Goulson new book: https://amzn.to/3Z7zV78 Description In today's episode, I have the pleasure to speak with Dr. Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex. We discuss his career, his new book for children called "Insectarium," the problems with modern agriculture and its growing dependency on pesticides, how the pesticide industry tries to silence researchers who talk about this subject, and other topics. Other books authored by Dr. Goulson: Silent Earth: https://amzn.to/40Ormzc Bumblebees: Behaviour, Ecology, and Conservation: https://amzn.to/4frWIzY Gardening for Bumblebees: A Practical Guide to Creating a Paradise for Pollinators: https://amzn.to/40O8b8x Garden Jungle: https://amzn.to/3UVAXjV

Kvartal
Fredagsintervjun: Transaktivisternas strategi har varit brutalt aggressiv

Kvartal

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2024 22:51


Professorn, författaren och feministen Kathleen Stock intervjuas av Magnus Thorén. Efter år av mobbning och utfrysning från vissa studenter och till och med kollegor kände Kathleen Stock, professor i filosofi, att hon inte orkade längre. Hon sa upp sig från ansedda Sussex University. Orsaken till hoten och protesterna var att hon hävdat att det existerar två biologiska kön, och att detta måste beaktas i frågor om genus, trans och i så kallad könsbekräftande vård. Hur blev ett så självklart konstaterande som att det existerar två kön så laddat, och kan begrepp som genus, trans och queer i förlängningen hota de landvinningar som gjorts när det gäller homosexuellas rättigheter?

Fredagsintervjun
Transaktivisternas strategi har varit brutalt aggressiv

Fredagsintervjun

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2024 22:51


Professorn, författaren och feministen Kathleen Stock intervjuas av Magnus Thorén. Efter år av mobbning och utfrysning från vissa studenter och till och med kollegor kände Kathleen Stock, professor i filosofi, att hon inte orkade längre. Hon sa upp sig från ansedda Sussex University. Orsaken till hoten och protesterna var att hon hävdat att det existerar två biologiska kön, och att detta måste beaktas i frågor om genus, trans och i så kallad könsbekräftande vård. Hur blev ett så självklart konstaterande som att det existerar två kön så laddat, och kan begrepp som genus, trans och queer i förlängningen hota de landvinningar som gjorts när det gäller homosexuellas rättigheter?

KPFA - Letters and Politics
Genocide: Its History & Meaning

KPFA - Letters and Politics

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 29, 2024 59:57


Guest: Martin Shaw is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Sussex University and Research Professor at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals.  He is the author of several books on Genocide and War including What is Genocide? The post Genocide: Its History & Meaning appeared first on KPFA.

The Natural Nurse and Dr. Z
The Natural Nurse and Dr Z: David Hoffmann B.Sc., F.N.I.M.H., RH (AHG) New Book: HERBAL INTELLIGENCE

The Natural Nurse and Dr. Z

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 13, 2024 54:40


David Hoffmann B.Sc., F.N.I.M.H., RH (AHG)   A Fellow of Britain's National Institute of Medical Herbalists, David Hoffmann has been a phytotherapist for 45 years.   Graduating in Biological Science from Sussex University in 1973, and after clinical training  became a member of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists 1978. He was ‘elevated' to fellowship of the Institute in 1995.   After moving to the US in 1986 he joined the faculty of the California School of Herbal Studies. He was one of the 12 founding members and a past president of the American Herbalist Guild.   The author of 14 books, translated into 9 languages, such as The Holistic Herbal and Medical Herbalism. A peripatetic teacher to herb schools, as well as academic institutions, and frequent presenter at conferences throughout the English speaking world. In 2004 he joined Traditional Medicinals as formulator and Principal Scientist, retiring in 2020,   An activist his whole life, he ran for parliament in the UK for the Green Party in 1983. So, after being a clinical phytotherapist forever, he now has finally discovered the garden and that he is actually an herbalist!

Mergers & Acquisitions
Moral Economies of Care in the (post) COVID Classroom, Episode 2: A Conversation with Jenny Hewitt, Dinah Rajak, and Sarah-Jane Phelan

Mergers & Acquisitions

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2024 22:06


Why are all our teachers quitting? From 2021 to 2022, straight after the pandemic 40,000 teachers in England left the profession before retirement, the highest number in a decade. Figures from the Department of Education also show unfilled teacher vacancies were at a record high and sick days taken were up 50 percent on pre-pandemic levels. But why? Trust, Risk and Responsibilisation. These are the main findings that emerged from research conducted during the pandemic via audio diaries. Primary school teachers were asked to record their everyday experiences into an MP3 player allowing them to express whatever concerns or observations they had, whenever they wanted. The result is a first-hand account of life as a primary school teacher on the front line. In this three part podcast we will hear what their lives were like at the time, the pressures they were under and what they personally sacrificed to do the job. The findings of the research showed just how these three key areas contributed to the low rate of teacher retention, then and now. In order to maintain the anonymity of the people and the schools included in this research, the excerpts you hear have been re-recorded with other people's voices, but these are their words and their stories. Hosted by Judith Koch, a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of International Relations at Sussex University, she will be speaking to Dr. Dinah Rajak, Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex, Dr. Sarah-Jane Phelan, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Cambridge and Dr. Jenny Hewitt, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Queen Mary University of London who collaboratively designed and undertook this research. The first episode focused on the methodology used to conduct this research, exploring how audio-diaries accessed real-time insights on teaching staff's own terms, and practically how this research was able to be done during the lockdowns. This episode delves into the findings of this research and identifies the three keys issues that impacted hugely on how teachers did their jobs and still do – Trust, Risk and Responsibilisation. The final episode will look at future implications and policy recommendations. Host: Judith Koch Interviewees: Dr. Dinah Rajak, Dr. Sarah-Jane Phelan and Dr. Jenny Hewitt Dr. Sarah-Jane Phelan Dr. Jenny Hewitt Dr. Dinah Rajak Producers: Elisa Kennedy and Judith Koch .player4926 .plyr__controls, .player4926 .StampAudioPlayerSkin{ border-radius: 10px; overflow: hidden; } .player4926{ margin: 0 auto; } .player4926 .plyr__controls .plyr__controls { border-radius: none; overflow: visible; } .skin_default .player4926 .plyr__controls { overflow: visible; } Your browser does not support the audio element.

One Planet Podcast
Environmental Justice & Politics: PRIYAMVADA GOPAL & FRANÇOISE VERGÈS discuss Elections in UK & France

One Planet Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 26, 2024 66:53


"I would say what we can celebrate is the incredible mobilization of the young people. They went everywhere, they knocked on the door, they mobilized. This was an incredible, incredible mobilization. So that was extraordinary because it showed real mobilization and an understanding that the National Rally was a real threat. We knew that if they came to power, the first people who would be targeted would be people of color, and that was absolutely clear."For our snap episode on the snap elections in the UK and France, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with eminent decolonial scholar activists, Françoise Vergès in France and Priyamvala Gopal in the UK. Following the defeat of right wing parties in both countries in the polls, we discuss what's changed with the elections, what hasn't changed, and what should movements, activists, and organizers be focusing on.Priyamvada Gopal is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge and Professorial Fellow, Churchill College. Her present interests are in the literatures, politics, and cultures of empire, colonialism and decolonisation. She has related interests in the novel, South Asian literature, and postcolonial cultures. Her published work includes Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (Routledge, 2005), After Iraq: Reframing Postcolonial Studies (Special issue of New Formations co-edited with Neil Lazarus), The IndianEnglish Novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford University Press, 2009) and, most recently, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2019) which was shortlisted for the British Academy Prize for Global Cultural Understanding and the Bread and Roses Prize. Her writing has also appeared in The Hindu, Outlook India, India Today, The Independent, Prospect Magazine, The New Statesman, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and The Nation (USA). She is working on a new project called Decolonization: the Life and Times of an Idea which examines a range of thinkers, contexts and struggles across the Global South.Françoise Vergès is a writer and decolonial antiracist feminist activist. A Reunionnese, she received an education that ran counter to the French hegemonic school from her anticolonial communist and feminist parents and the members of their organisations. She received her Ph.D in Political Theory from Berkeley University in 1995. She remained an activist during these years, collaborated on Isaac Julien's film "Black Skin, White Masks » and published in feminist and theory journals. She has taught at Sussex University and Goldsmiths College and has been a visiting professor at different universities. She has never held a teaching position in France but created the Chair Global South(s) at Collège d'études mondiales where she held workshops on different topics (2014-2018). She was president of the National Committee for the History and Remembrance of Slavery (2009-2012), was a co-founder of Decolonize the Arts (2015-2020), the director of the scientific and cultural programme for a museum project in Reunion Island (2004-2010, a project killed by the State and the local conservatives). She is the convener and curator of L'Atelier a collective and collaborative seminar/public performance with activist and artists of color. Recent publications include: Programme de désordre absolu. Décoloniser le musée (2023), A Feminist Theory of Violence (2021), De la violence coloniale dans l'espace public (2021), The Wombs of Women. Capital, Race, Feminism (2021), A Decolonial Feminism (2020).www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comhttps://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20www.instagram.com/speaking_out_of_place

Sustainability, Climate Change, Politics, Circular Economy & Environmental Solutions · One Planet Podcast
Environmental Justice & Politics: PRIYAMVADA GOPAL & FRANÇOISE VERGÈS discuss Elections in UK & France

Sustainability, Climate Change, Politics, Circular Economy & Environmental Solutions · One Planet Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 26, 2024 66:53


"I would say what we can celebrate is the incredible mobilization of the young people. They went everywhere, they knocked on the door, they mobilized. This was an incredible, incredible mobilization. So that was extraordinary because it showed real mobilization and an understanding that the National Rally was a real threat. We knew that if they came to power, the first people who would be targeted would be people of color, and that was absolutely clear."For our snap episode on the snap elections in the UK and France, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with eminent decolonial scholar activists, Françoise Vergès in France and Priyamvala Gopal in the UK. Following the defeat of right wing parties in both countries in the polls, we discuss what's changed with the elections, what hasn't changed, and what should movements, activists, and organizers be focusing on.Priyamvada Gopal is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge and Professorial Fellow, Churchill College. Her present interests are in the literatures, politics, and cultures of empire, colonialism and decolonisation. She has related interests in the novel, South Asian literature, and postcolonial cultures. Her published work includes Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (Routledge, 2005), After Iraq: Reframing Postcolonial Studies (Special issue of New Formations co-edited with Neil Lazarus), The IndianEnglish Novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford University Press, 2009) and, most recently, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2019) which was shortlisted for the British Academy Prize for Global Cultural Understanding and the Bread and Roses Prize. Her writing has also appeared in The Hindu, Outlook India, India Today, The Independent, Prospect Magazine, The New Statesman, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and The Nation (USA). She is working on a new project called Decolonization: the Life and Times of an Idea which examines a range of thinkers, contexts and struggles across the Global South.Françoise Vergès is a writer and decolonial antiracist feminist activist. A Reunionnese, she received an education that ran counter to the French hegemonic school from her anticolonial communist and feminist parents and the members of their organisations. She received her Ph.D in Political Theory from Berkeley University in 1995. She remained an activist during these years, collaborated on Isaac Julien's film "Black Skin, White Masks » and published in feminist and theory journals. She has taught at Sussex University and Goldsmiths College and has been a visiting professor at different universities. She has never held a teaching position in France but created the Chair Global South(s) at Collège d'études mondiales where she held workshops on different topics (2014-2018). She was president of the National Committee for the History and Remembrance of Slavery (2009-2012), was a co-founder of Decolonize the Arts (2015-2020), the director of the scientific and cultural programme for a museum project in Reunion Island (2004-2010, a project killed by the State and the local conservatives). She is the convener and curator of L'Atelier a collective and collaborative seminar/public performance with activist and artists of color. Recent publications include: Programme de désordre absolu. Décoloniser le musée (2023), A Feminist Theory of Violence (2021), De la violence coloniale dans l'espace public (2021), The Wombs of Women. Capital, Race, Feminism (2021), A Decolonial Feminism (2020).www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comhttps://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20www.instagram.com/speaking_out_of_place

Social Justice & Activism · The Creative Process
PRIYAMVADA GOPAL & FRANÇOISE VERGÈS on the Recent Elections in Britain & France

Social Justice & Activism · The Creative Process

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 26, 2024 66:53


"I would say what we can celebrate is the incredible mobilization of the young people. They went everywhere, they knocked on the door, they mobilized. This was an incredible, incredible mobilization. So that was extraordinary because it showed real mobilization and an understanding that the National Rally was a real threat. We knew that if they came to power, the first people who would be targeted would be people of color, and that was absolutely clear."For our snap episode on the snap elections in the UK and France, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with eminent decolonial scholar activists, Françoise Vergès in France and Priyamvala Gopal in the UK. Following the defeat of right wing parties in both countries in the polls, we discuss what's changed with the elections, what hasn't changed, and what should movements, activists, and organizers be focusing on.Priyamvada Gopal is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge and Professorial Fellow, Churchill College. Her present interests are in the literatures, politics, and cultures of empire, colonialism and decolonisation. She has related interests in the novel, South Asian literature, and postcolonial cultures. Her published work includes Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (Routledge, 2005), After Iraq: Reframing Postcolonial Studies (Special issue of New Formations co-edited with Neil Lazarus), The IndianEnglish Novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford University Press, 2009) and, most recently, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2019) which was shortlisted for the British Academy Prize for Global Cultural Understanding and the Bread and Roses Prize. Her writing has also appeared in The Hindu, Outlook India, India Today, The Independent, Prospect Magazine, The New Statesman, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and The Nation (USA). She is working on a new project called Decolonization: the Life and Times of an Idea which examines a range of thinkers, contexts and struggles across the Global South.Françoise Vergès is a writer and decolonial antiracist feminist activist. A Reunionnese, she received an education that ran counter to the French hegemonic school from her anticolonial communist and feminist parents and the members of their organisations. She received her Ph.D in Political Theory from Berkeley University in 1995. She remained an activist during these years, collaborated on Isaac Julien's film "Black Skin, White Masks » and published in feminist and theory journals. She has taught at Sussex University and Goldsmiths College and has been a visiting professor at different universities. She has never held a teaching position in France but created the Chair Global South(s) at Collège d'études mondiales where she held workshops on different topics (2014-2018). She was president of the National Committee for the History and Remembrance of Slavery (2009-2012), was a co-founder of Decolonize the Arts (2015-2020), the director of the scientific and cultural programme for a museum project in Reunion Island (2004-2010, a project killed by the State and the local conservatives). She is the convener and curator of L'Atelier a collective and collaborative seminar/public performance with activist and artists of color. Recent publications include: Programme de désordre absolu. Décoloniser le musée (2023), A Feminist Theory of Violence (2021), De la violence coloniale dans l'espace public (2021), The Wombs of Women. Capital, Race, Feminism (2021), A Decolonial Feminism (2020).www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comhttps://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20www.instagram.com/speaking_out_of_place

Education · The Creative Process
PRIYAMVADA GOPAL & FRANÇOISE VERGÈS on the Recent Elections in Britain & France

Education · The Creative Process

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 26, 2024 66:53


For our snap episode on the snap elections in the UK and France, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with eminent decolonial scholar activists, Françoise Vergès in France and Priyamvala Gopal in the UK. Following the defeat of right wing parties in both countries in the polls, we discuss what's changed with the elections, what hasn't changed, and what should movements, activists, and organizers be focusing on."I would say what we can celebrate is the incredible mobilization of the young people. They went everywhere, they knocked on the door, they mobilized. This was an incredible, incredible mobilization. So that was extraordinary because it showed real mobilization and an understanding that the National Rally was a real threat. We knew that if they came to power, the first people who would be targeted would be people of color, and that was absolutely clear."Priyamvada Gopal is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge and Professorial Fellow, Churchill College. Her present interests are in the literatures, politics, and cultures of empire, colonialism and decolonisation. She has related interests in the novel, South Asian literature, and postcolonial cultures. Her published work includes Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (Routledge, 2005), After Iraq: Reframing Postcolonial Studies (Special issue of New Formations co-edited with Neil Lazarus), The IndianEnglish Novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford University Press, 2009) and, most recently, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2019) which was shortlisted for the British Academy Prize for Global Cultural Understanding and the Bread and Roses Prize. Her writing has also appeared in The Hindu, Outlook India, India Today, The Independent, Prospect Magazine, The New Statesman, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and The Nation (USA). She is working on a new project called Decolonization: the Life and Times of an Idea which examines a range of thinkers, contexts and struggles across the Global South.Françoise Vergès is a writer and decolonial antiracist feminist activist. A Reunionnese, she received an education that ran counter to the French hegemonic school from her anticolonial communist and feminist parents and the members of their organisations. She received her Ph.D in Political Theory from Berkeley University in 1995. She remained an activist during these years, collaborated on Isaac Julien's film "Black Skin, White Masks » and published in feminist and theory journals. She has taught at Sussex University and Goldsmiths College and has been a visiting professor at different universities. She has never held a teaching position in France but created the Chair Global South(s) at Collège d'études mondiales where she held workshops on different topics (2014-2018). She was president of the National Committee for the History and Remembrance of Slavery (2009-2012), was a co-founder of Decolonize the Arts (2015-2020), the director of the scientific and cultural programme for a museum project in Reunion Island (2004-2010, a project killed by the State and the local conservatives). She is the convener and curator of L'Atelier a collective and collaborative seminar/public performance with activist and artists of color. Recent publications include: Programme de désordre absolu. Décoloniser le musée (2023), A Feminist Theory of Violence (2021), De la violence coloniale dans l'espace public (2021), The Wombs of Women. Capital, Race, Feminism (2021), A Decolonial Feminism (2020).www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comhttps://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20www.instagram.com/speaking_out_of_place

Feminism · Women’s Stories · The Creative Process
PRIYAMVADA GOPAL & FRANÇOISE VERGÈS on the Recent Elections in Britain & France

Feminism · Women’s Stories · The Creative Process

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 26, 2024 66:53


"I would say what we can celebrate is the incredible mobilization of the young people. They went everywhere, they knocked on the door, they mobilized. This was an incredible, incredible mobilization. So that was extraordinary because it showed real mobilization and an understanding that the National Rally was a real threat. We knew that if they came to power, the first people who would be targeted would be people of color, and that was absolutely clear."For our snap episode on the snap elections in the UK and France, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with eminent decolonial scholar activists, Françoise Vergès in France and Priyamvala Gopal in the UK. Following the defeat of right wing parties in both countries in the polls, we discuss what's changed with the elections, what hasn't changed, and what should movements, activists, and organizers be focusing on.Priyamvada Gopal is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge and Professorial Fellow, Churchill College. Her present interests are in the literatures, politics, and cultures of empire, colonialism and decolonisation. She has related interests in the novel, South Asian literature, and postcolonial cultures. Her published work includes Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (Routledge, 2005), After Iraq: Reframing Postcolonial Studies (Special issue of New Formations co-edited with Neil Lazarus), The IndianEnglish Novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford University Press, 2009) and, most recently, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2019) which was shortlisted for the British Academy Prize for Global Cultural Understanding and the Bread and Roses Prize. Her writing has also appeared in The Hindu, Outlook India, India Today, The Independent, Prospect Magazine, The New Statesman, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and The Nation (USA). She is working on a new project called Decolonization: the Life and Times of an Idea which examines a range of thinkers, contexts and struggles across the Global South.Françoise Vergès is a writer and decolonial antiracist feminist activist. A Reunionnese, she received an education that ran counter to the French hegemonic school from her anticolonial communist and feminist parents and the members of their organisations. She received her Ph.D in Political Theory from Berkeley University in 1995. She remained an activist during these years, collaborated on Isaac Julien's film "Black Skin, White Masks » and published in feminist and theory journals. She has taught at Sussex University and Goldsmiths College and has been a visiting professor at different universities. She has never held a teaching position in France but created the Chair Global South(s) at Collège d'études mondiales where she held workshops on different topics (2014-2018). She was president of the National Committee for the History and Remembrance of Slavery (2009-2012), was a co-founder of Decolonize the Arts (2015-2020), the director of the scientific and cultural programme for a museum project in Reunion Island (2004-2010, a project killed by the State and the local conservatives). She is the convener and curator of L'Atelier a collective and collaborative seminar/public performance with activist and artists of color. Recent publications include: Programme de désordre absolu. Décoloniser le musée (2023), A Feminist Theory of Violence (2021), De la violence coloniale dans l'espace public (2021), The Wombs of Women. Capital, Race, Feminism (2021), A Decolonial Feminism (2020).www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comhttps://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20www.instagram.com/speaking_out_of_place

Speaking Out of Place
Priyamvada Gopal and Françoise Vergès on the Recent Elections in Britain and France

Speaking Out of Place

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 25, 2024 66:37


For our snap episode on the snap elections in the UK and France, we're joined by eminent decolonial scholar activists, Françoise Vergès in France and Priyamvada Gopal in the UK.  Following the defeat of right wing parties in both countries in the polls, we discuss what's changed with the elections, what hasn't changed, and what should movements, activists, and organizers be focusing on.Priyamvada Gopal is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge and Professorial Fellow, Churchill College. Her present interests are in the literatures, politics, and cultures of empire, colonialism and decolonisation. She has related interests in the novel, South Asian literature, and postcolonial cultures.  Her published work includes Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (Routledge, 2005),  After Iraq: Reframing Postcolonial Studies (Special issue of New Formations co-edited with Neil Lazarus), The Indian English Novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford University Press, 2009) and, most recently, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2019) which was shortlisted for the British Academy Prize for Global Cultural Understanding and the Bread and Roses Prize. Her writing has also appeared in The Hindu, Outlook India, India Today, The Independent, Prospect Magazine, The New Statesman, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and The Nation (USA). She is working on a new project called Decolonization: the Life and Times of an Idea which examines a range of thinkers, contexts and struggles across the Global South. Françoise Vergès is a writer and decolonial antiracist feminist activist. A Reunionnese, she received an education that ran counter to the French hegemonic school from her anticolonial communist and feminist parents and the members of their organisations. She received her Ph.D in Political Theory from Berkeley University in 1995. She remained an activist during these years, collaborated on Isaac Julien's film "Black Skin, White Masks » and published in feminist and theory journals. She has taught at Sussex University and Goldsmiths College and has been a visiting professor at different universities. She has never held a teaching position in France but created the Chair Global South(s) at Collège d'études mondiales where she held workshops on different topics (2014-2018). She was president of the National Committee for the History and Remembrance of Slavery (2009-2012), was a co-founder of Decolonize the Arts (2015-2020), the director of the scientific and cultural programme for a museum project in Reunion Island (2004-2010, a project killed by the State and the local conservatives). She is the convener and curator of L'Atelier a collective and collaborative seminar/public performance with activist and artists of color. Recent publications include: Programme de désordre absolu. Décoloniser le musée (2023), A Feminist Theory of Violence (2021), De la violence coloniale dans l'espace public (2021), The Wombs of Women. Capital, Race, Feminism (2021), A Decolonial Feminism (2020). 

The Bridge
How China became prosperous

The Bridge

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 24, 2024 63:23


We invite economist, Professor Michael Dunford of Sussex University on to explain China's economy. We talk about how China began raising people out of poverty in the 1950s to the present. And also about plans to promote high quality growth moving forward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Water In Food
The Drip by AQUALAB: Ultra-processed food with guest Marlana Malerich

Water In Food

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 23, 2024 30:29


Marlana Malerich from Adapted Co, is the Co-Founder and Sustainable Food Systems Researcher at the Rooted Research Collective (RRC). Marlana, poised to begin her PhD at Sussex University, has spent the last six months focused on ultra-processed foods and plant-based meat alternatives. She joins the show to unpack the complexities of defining and understanding ultra-processed foods through systems like NOVA and Nutri-Score. In this episode, you'll hear about:The NOVA nutritional framework vs the Nutri-score system The history behind hyper palatability of ultra-processed foods – and its link with tobacco companiesIssues with moisture sorting affecting shelf life and texturePros and cons between plant-based and animal-based productsBalancing your diet while navigating the complexity of food classification systemsJump to:(03:50) Negative effects of globally distributed junk food.(08:18) Focus on alternative proteins, and challenges with food advertising.(11:07) Media focusing on ultra-processed foods labeling.(14:38) Ultra-processed foods are designed for overconsumption.(20:07) Plant-based options vary in nutrition quality.(23:39 Reminding myself to appreciate being here alive.(26:50) Featured artist and song(29:09) This episode's MantraFeatured Artist and Song:Deep Mind by ROBMONLinks mentioned in this episode:‘Nutrition and health. The issue is not food, nor nutrients, so much as processing' by Carlos A Monteiro‘The Impact of Transnational ‘‘Big Food'' Companies on the South: A View from Brazil' by Carlos A Monteiro‘Ultra-processed foods: how functional is the NOVA system?' by Véronique Braesco, et alIs the Ultra-processed Food (UPF) concept useful, and for what goals?‘Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses' by Melissa M Lane et al‘Food Politics' by Marion NesselAlabora (Foxall Pale Blue Remix) by Beyhude, music was chosen by Marlana MalerichConnect with the showAQUALABZachary Cartwright, PhD

The Three Ravens Podcast
Local Legends #13: Dr Paul Quinn

The Three Ravens Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 20, 2024 77:02


For our final Local Legends episode for Series 4, Martin gathers round the campfire to talk about the folklore of Sussex with Dr Paul Quinn.Paul grew up in Sussex, going on to complete his doctorate at the University of Sussex, working on anti-Catholicism and the Early Modern Stage. He has a wide array of interests, from Doctor Who and popular science fiction to the history of fairy tales, Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and the links between Catholic discrimination and magic. After completing his postdoctoral fellowship at Sussex University's Centre for Early Modern and Medieval Studies, he moved ultimately to the University of Chichester, where he teaches modules including ‘Fairy Tales: From Early Modern to Postmodern' and ‘Theatres of Pleasure and Theatres of Pain.' Moreover, if you visit the Sussex folktale centre website, you can get a sense of the scale of the work he encounters, as editor of the Centre's journal Gramarye. Past issues include all sorts of fascinating scholarly articles covering English subjects like Lady Godiva and Queen Mab to Classical tales such as those of Daedalus and Demeter to lively discussions of a vast array of European folklore, from Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel to the Snow Queen, Rumpelstiltskin, and The Miller's Daughter.Suffice to say, Paul is an interesting chap, and as someone who has spent most of his life in Sussex he's very well equipped for this conversation – one which compliments our series finale as released on Monday, answering one of the big questions about Sussex folklore thrown up in that recording.To learn more about Paul and his work at The Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction, visit the centre's website at https://www.sussexfolktalecentre.org/The Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays (Magic and Medicines about folk remedies and arcane spells, Three Ravens Bestiary about cryptids and mythical creatures, Dying Arts about endangered heritage crafts, and Something Wicked about folkloric true crime from across history) plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcast Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Poetry of Reality with Richard Dawkins
Kathleen Stock and Richard Dawkins Question Modern Gender Identity

The Poetry of Reality with Richard Dawkins

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 8, 2024 47:30


The savage missiles hurled at Kathleen Stock in the stocks of Sussex University gives the lie to the pretense that her tormentors should be pitied as an oppressed minority who just want to peacefully get on with their life. I've long admired her gentle courage in the face of vicious bullying. When we finally met at the Dissident Dialogues Conference in New York this May, I felt an instant affinity. It was a pleasure to conduct the following interview.Join Substack: https://richarddawkins.substack.com/ Subscribe to Poetry of Reality Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmwfdgHA_R9fzr1L0_hxdVw Follow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.poetry.of.reality/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RichardDawkinsBooks Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePoetryofReality

Mergers & Acquisitions
Moral Economies of Care in the (post-) COVID Classroom, Episode 1: A Conversation with Jenny Hewitt, Dinah Rajak, and Sarah-Jane Phelan

Mergers & Acquisitions

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2024 25:51


Why are all our teachers quitting? From 2021 to 2022, straight after the pandemic 40,000 teachers in England left the profession before retirement, the highest number in a decade. Figures from the Department of Education also show unfilled teacher vacancies were at a record high and sick days taken were up 50 percent on pre-pandemic levels. But why? In this three part podcast we will hear true accounts from staff on the front line spoken at the most frightening time of their careers. In order to maintain the anonymity of the people and the schools included in this research, the excerpts you hear have been re-recorded with other people's voices, but these are their words and their stories. Dr. Dinah Rajak Dr. Sarah-Jane Phelan Dr. Jenny Hewitt Research conducted during the pandemic via audio diaries shows first hand the daily pressures put on teachers during that time. Voices from teachers who were afraid for their own lives but still went in to teach, staff who went to the houses of vulnerable students on Christmas Day, just to check they were ok and young and highly experienced teachers who left their jobs because they couldn't see a way out. Hosted by Judith Koch, a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of International Relations at Sussex University, she will be speaking to Dr. Dinah Rajak, Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex, Dr. Sarah-Jane Phelan, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Cambridge and Dr. Jenny Hewitt, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Queen Mary University of London who collaboratively designed and undertook this research. In this episode we look at the methodology used to conduct this research, exploring how audio-diaries accessed real-time insights on teaching staff's own terms, and practically how this research was able to be done during the lockdowns. The next episode will look at the findings and the final episode looks at future implications and policy recommendations. Host: Judith Koch Interviewees: Dr. Dinah Rajak, Dr. Sarah-Jane Phelan and Dr. Jenny Hewitt Producer: Elisa Kennedy and Judith Koch Music: Thanks to Universfield and Ashot Danielyan for the use of their music from Pixabay .player4912 .plyr__controls, .player4912 .StampAudioPlayerSkin{ border-radius: 10px; overflow: hidden; } .player4912{ margin: 0 auto; } .player4912 .plyr__controls .plyr__controls { border-radius: none; overflow: visible; } .skin_default .player4912 .plyr__controls { overflow: visible; } Your browser does not support the audio element.

Heterodox Out Loud
Trans Rights and Gender Identity with Kathleen Stock | Ep. 19

Heterodox Out Loud

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2024 71:48


What happens when public policy meets the complex world of modern gender identity? Our guest today is Kathleen Stock, a former professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, author of the critically-acclaimed "Material Girls", and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) awardee. Kathleen joins host John Tomasi to navigate the often-tense intersection of trans rights, gender identity, and academic freedom. Despite facing protests, security threats, and professional challenges, Kathleen steadfastly advocates for open inquiry and reasoned debate.  Today, John and Kathleen discuss the controversial landscape of transgender issues. Kathleen criticizes the medicalization of gender questioning and the societal pressure it places on individuals. She explains how academic and societal frameworks have rapidly evolved with the influence of activism, particularly examining the ramifications for single-sex spaces and public policies. In This Episode:Criticism of the medicalization of gender questioningThe societal impact of Stonewall's policy changes and the Gender Recognition ActChallenges faced by Kathleen in professional settings due to her viewsDebates over the inclusion of trans women in single-sex spaces and sportsThe role of free speech and reason in academic discourseConcerns for the future of universities and academic freedom Follow Kathleen on X here: https://x.com/DocstockkCheck out her book Material Girls: https://a.co/d/02sKzGz9 About Kathleen:Kathleen Stock is a contributing writer at UnHerd and a co-director of The Lesbian Project. She is the author of Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism (Little Brown 2021) and Only Imagine: Fiction, Interpretation and Imagination (Oxford University Press 2017). Until 2021, she was a Professor of Philosophy at Sussex University. In the last few years, she has written for UK national publications on a range of issues, especially on sex, gender, and women's rights. In 2024, she was highly commended for her UnHerd columns at the UK Press Awards; in 2022, she was voted World's Top Thinker in Prospect Magazine. She was awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to higher education in 2020. Follow Heterodox Academy on:Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Fax5DyFacebook: https://bit.ly/3PMYxfwLinkedIn: https://bit.ly/48IYeuJInstagram: https://bit.ly/46HKfUgSubstack: https://bit.ly/48IhjNF

All in the Mind
Tetris as therapy; internet addiction and teens; the psychology of secrets

All in the Mind

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 11, 2024 30:28


You probably know the video game Tetris, perhaps you've even played it, but have you ever thought about it as therapy? Claudia Hammond talks to Professor Emily Holmes from Uppsala University, about her work using Tetris as a psychological intervention for unwanted memories. During the pandemic many ICU workers found they were experiencing intrusive memories about the traumatic events they had experienced. Prof Holmes and her colleague, consultant clinical psychologist Dr Julie Highfield, ran a trial offering Tetris therapy to ICU workers and showed they could reduce intrusive memories significantly.Next, you may have seen headlines this week suggesting that teenage brains could be worryingly and irrevocably changed by excessive internet use. It is the latest in a recent surge of concern about teenagers' relationship to technology. Claudia and studio guest, Sarah king from Sussex University, dig into the research and discover that the evidence isn't as worrying as the headlines make it sound.And do you have a secret? Apparently most of us do and we can't resist thinking about them even though that rumination can impact our wellbeing. Claudia discusses the psychology of secrets with Dr Michael Slepian from Columbia University in New York. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Lorna Stewart Production Coordinator: Siobhan Maguire Studio Manager: Emma Harth Content Editor: Holly SquireICU workers testimony clips taken from https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000j22z

Yes SHE Can Project
Episode 58: Rosie Nixon- Author, Coach, Host & Philanthropist @rosiejnixon

Yes SHE Can Project

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2024 45:16


Come and join the conversation with the gorgeous Rosie Nixon: Author, Coach, Host, Philanthropist & HELLO! Magazine Editor-at-Large. We begin with Rosie's recollection of cutting out the pages of Smash Hits Magazine, graduating from Sussex University & getting her first taste of journalism. Her early career as a book editor,moving into magazines later, pouring over the pages of the Media Guardian as it was at the time, THE place for job opportunities in the industry, a far cry from the instant access job postings we have today!We chat about the day to day in an editorial role, being so immersed in the intensity of her work & the pressure of wearing so many hats. Going from working in teen magazines like Bliss & Just Seventeen,she then ventured into more celebrity content and started filling up her "little black book" of contacts over the years.We have a nostalgic look back on the times when life was simpler, when we used to get our news from physically picking up a copy of our favourite title!We reminisce about the old days with the flow chart quizzes in magazines, gathering info about friendships, boys, our favourite bands & growing up!Rosie is an advocate for inspiring women through her work with HELLO!, charity ambassadorships, coaching, campaigns, you can tell that the passion runs deeply with her and it's her life mission to make sure that women's voices are heard loud & clear.Chatting about the importance of looking at our lives & recognising when things need to change, Rosie tells me of her venture into coaching, specifically for midlife women, the transition having come from a time of her own personal change and the desire to help others to do the same. Continuing to want to amplify the voices of women in multiple capacities in issues such as menopause and FGM awareness, Rosie adds an extra layer of credibility to her campaigns and work by having the backing of leading experts, something which massively sets her apart from others, further cementing her as a trusted figure in her line of work! This comes from the personal sense of responsibility that she's always felt in her career to give the impressionable younger audience in particular, sound advice and access to the best information possible. It is clear that Rosie has and has always had the best interests of her audience at heart and tells me about the vital importance of starting conversations around topics that are often difficult to talk about.We move on to chat about all things books! Her path to becoming an author was always at the forefront of her mind with being a writer anyway as a journalist & editor, something she did find difficult in the beginning however was finding her authentic voice as a novelist. Convinced that there was a certain style she "should" be writing in, Rosie tells me about the lightbulb moment for her when she realised she should in fact write about what she knew! She tells me about her The Stylist trilogy, the main character going on her own epic journey of self-discovery, mirroring Rosie's own personal experiences in many ways. Exploring ways in which we as women find out what works for us,Rosie and I share what helped us through some of our darkest times. We discuss the key to knowing when we are ready to share our story, showing ourselves the same compassion & kindness that we would for others.The positive impact that journaling had, crediting it as a great tool that she utilised to help her in a therapeutic way. The re-release of her Be Kind book which was originally released during the pandemic, will now be available in paperback at a super affordable price in October 24. Packed full of tips, tools and inspirational words,centered around self compassion and kindness. Such an inspiring lady, breaking down barriers, championing others & paving the way,opening up conversations for so many women & the next generation, you are an absolute joy & a true definition of YES SHE CAN! Find out more about Rosie here: www.rosienixon.co.uk

That's Helpful with Ed Stott
The Science of Cold Water Therapy & How to Start

That's Helpful with Ed Stott

Play Episode Listen Later May 16, 2024 38:07


We know how fabulous getting out in the water can be for our mental health & overall well-being but there's a growing body of research showing that cold water can be absolutely transformative, whether it's from your shower, pool or  the ocean. So what is it ACTUALLY doing to our bodies & how can we start to reap the benefits in our own lives? Dr Mark Harper is a consultant anesthetist at Sussex University hospitals in the UK and a leading expert in the prevention of hypothermia in surgical patients and in the therapeutic uses of cold-water adaptation and cold water swimming. Want to become a podcast sponsor, got some feedback for me or just fancy a chat? Email me - thatshelpful@edstott.com CONNECT WITH US Connect with ⁠That's Helpful on Instagram. Find Mark on Instagram & via his website. BOOKS Chill, The Cold Water Swim Cure OTHER THINGS MENTIONED 100 Days of Vitamin SeaThat's Helpful - Drawn To Water? Blue Mind is Why TIMESTAMPS  00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:26 - When is cold good for us & when is it bad? 00:02:14 - When did Mark become interested in this? 00:05:05 - Why are we only just discovering the benefits? 00:06:52 - The benefits of cold water exposure 00:10:00 - What's happening in our bodies when we're exposed? 00:11:38 - Cold water exposure keeps you in the moment 00:13:07 - The optimum conditions 00:15:00 - Why is 3 mins the ideal time? 00:19:06 - Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable 00:19:53 - How to utilise cold showers for health benefits 00:21:47 - Things to avoid 00:24:13 - The side-effects of cold water exposure 00:26:10 - Should you combine a sauna with cold water exposure? 00:28:47 - The main take-aways 00:30:00 - Cold water exposure for migraines 00:34:27 - Cold water exposure as prep for surgery

Inside Health
Can insomnia be fixed?

Inside Health

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2024 27:53


How did you sleep last night? Perhaps you couldn't drift off, or maybe you woke in the middle of the night and then couldn't nod off again.In this special edition of Inside Health we're talking all about insomnia. It's an issue that may affect many of us at some point in our lives – but for some it goes beyond a short period of not being able to sleep and becomes something more serious.You've been getting in touch with your questions, and James is joined by a trio of experts ready to answer to them: Dr Allie Hare, president of the British Sleep Society and consultant physician in sleep medicine at the Royal Brompton Hospital, Colin Espie, a professor of sleep medicine at Oxford University and Dr Faith Orchard, a lecturer in psychology at Sussex University.We're going to find out why we get insomnia, when to seek help and how much factors like ageing, menopause, needing the loo or shift work matter. And we'll look at the latest advice and treatments. Can insomnia be fixed? You can keep in touch with the team by emailing insidehealth@bbc.co.ukPresenter: James Gallagher Producer: Gerry Holt Researcher: Katie Tomsett Production coordinator: Liz Tuohy Studio managers: Jackie Margerum & Andrew Garratt

Win Today
#140 | [WT Remix]: How To Actually Retain & Apply Knowledge From Books You Read

Win Today

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2024 55:39 Transcription Available


***Previously played as episode #120 on Win Today***Do you recognize the importance of reading but don't always know how to pick which book to read? Or, do you enjoy reading but struggle to remember and leverage the content? The right book at the right time can bridge the gap between potential and performance. That's exactly what our special guest, Nick Hutchison, founder and CEO of BookThinkers, has experienced and shared with us.Books, as we know, are a treasure trove of wisdom and personal experiences of others. Discover how to use emotion, action, and teaching to strengthen memory connections.Nick teaches us how to set intentions with reading, pick the right books, and become better readers. "One 2009 study by Sussex University researchers showed that reading may reduce stress by as much as 68 percent."Rise Of The Reader BookBook Thinkers PodcastBook Thinkers WebsiteNick Hutchison - SocialThank you for tuning in! If you feel led, please subscribe & share the show to others who you believe would benefit from it.Keep in touch below! LinkedIn | www.linkedin.com/in/ryanacass/ Instagram | @ryanacass + @wondaytoday Become A Champion Of Life | www.championtribe.win Sign up to receive updates about Won Day, plus leadership and goal-setting tips! Click here Join The Weekly Win E-Mail Club Launching In 2024! (Link Here)

The Tudor Chest - The Podcast
The House of Dudley with Dr Joanne Paul

The Tudor Chest - The Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 14, 2024 79:14


Dr Joanne Paul is a historian, author, broadcaster and former lecturer at Sussex University. She joins me today for a fascinating and at times amusing discussion all about the house of Dudley, the famous family for whom the tower of London and execution would loom large, from the hated Edmund Dudley, to John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, to the charismatic great love of Queen Elizabeth I's life, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. This was a family who came from very humble stock, but who would rise to the very top of the Tudor nobility, witnessing up close all of the drama associated to this most infamous of royal dynasties.

Gender: A Wider Lens Podcast
Premium: Silencing, Shaming and Scapegoating with Kathleen Stock

Gender: A Wider Lens Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 2, 2024 3:34


This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.widerlenspod.comAfter the release of her book "Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism" in 2021, while she was a Professor of Philosophy at Sussex University, Dr. Kathleen Stock found herself being targeted by a group of activists. She faced harassment and protests including placing provocative stickers and posters throughout the campus with transphobic allegations against Stock, despite her book's thoughtful exploration of trans identification. The hostility towards Stock, which gained public attention, escalated, isolating her from her colleagues and ultimately resulted with her losing her job. Stock's experiences shed light on the broader issues surrounding academic freedom, social isolation, and the challenges of navigating contentious topics in educational institutions.In this bonus episode for premium subscribers, Dr. Kathleen Stock reflects on her experiences, highlighting the lack of support from colleagues and the university. The conversation delves into the aftermath of her departure from Sussex, exploring its impact and how Stock coped with challenges, including the role of public support, family, and her transition to a new career in writing.Watch our full length episode with Dr. Kathleen Stock: https://www.widerlenspod.com/p/episode-152

Win Today
#120 | Rise Of The Reader: How To Truly Leverage & Pick The Right Books Ft. Nick Hutchison

Win Today

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 6, 2023 53:05 Transcription Available


Do you recognize the importance of reading but don't always know how to pick which book to read? Or, do you enjoy reading but struggle to remember and leverage the content? The right book at the right time can bridge the gap between potential and performance. That's exactly what our special guest, Nick Hutchison, founder and CEO of BookThinkers, has experienced and shared with us. Books, as we know, are a treasure trove of wisdom and personal experiences of others. Discover how to use emotion, action, and teaching to strengthen memory connections.Nick teaches us how to set intentions with reading, pick the right books, and become better readers. "One 2009 study by Sussex University researchers showed that reading may reduce stress by as much as 68 percent."Rise Of The Reader BookBook Thinkers PodcastBook Thinkers WebsiteNick Hutchison - SocialThank you for tuning in! If you feel led, please subscribe & share the show to others who you believe would benefit from it.Keep in touch below! LinkedIn | www.linkedin.com/in/ryanacass/ Instagram | @ryanacass + @wondaytoday Become A Champion Of Life | www.championtribe.win Sign up to receive updates about Won Day, plus leadership and goal-setting tips! Click here Seeking To Become An Author? Check Out Scribe Media - Use My Link!

Fistful of Chords
Memory Lane (Live) - The Renegades

Fistful of Chords

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2023 4:17


Sentimental song about the passage of time. Lyrics by Jim, music by Tim Allard. Performed live at The Star Guildford by The Renegades in February 2022. The photo is of three of The Renegades taken at Sussex University in 1992, a period that this song is directly written about.

Rock's Backpages
E161: Mick Gold on Let It Rock + Pub Rock + Bruce Springsteen + Jann Wenner

Rock's Backpages

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2023 71:58


In this episode we welcome music writer/photographer turned award-winning TV director Mick Gold and ask him to return to the mid-'70s to discuss pub rock, Bruce Springsteen and the wonderful Let It Rock magazine. Mick explains how he fell in with Let It Rock's "hard-up left-wing intellectuals" after penning a 5,000-word Beatles thesis at Sussex University. We then hear about the magazine and its eclectic agenda, along with our guest's parallel career as a photographer and his 1976 photo-essay book Rock on the Road. This in turn leads to a conversation about the "pub rock" scene that mushroomed in London during Let It Rock's 1972-75 lifespan. Along with Mick's 1975 Dr. Feelgood interview, Mark, Martin and Barney share their memories of gigs by Kilburn & the High Roads and Chili Willi & the Red Hot Peppers. The gradual transition from Pub to Punk is recalled and analysed with passing reference to Mick's 1976 Street Life interview with Patti Smith. The mid-'70s theme takes us into clips from a 2016 audio interview in which Bruce Springsteen talks to Vanity Fair's David Kamp about 1975's breakthrough classic 'Born to Run' — and then to a further discussion of the Boss' inclusion in Jann Wenner's controversial new book The Masters. After Mark quotes from interviews with Dizzy Gillespie, James Brown, Todd Rundgren, Chic and Wham!, Jasper talks us out with his notes on pieces about Nona Hendryx and Rammellzee. Pieces discussed: The Band, Rock on the Road introduction, Bob Dylan at 60, Brinsley Schwarz, Dr. Feelgood, Pub Rock Proms, Bruce Springsteen on 'Born to Run', Dizzy Gillespie, Ike & Tina Turner, James Brown, Todd Rundgren, Chic, Wham!, Bruce Springsteen, Nona Hendryx and Rammellzee.

Machine Learning Street Talk
Autopoitic Enactivism and the Free Energy Principle - Prof. Friston, Prof Buckley, Dr. Ramstead

Machine Learning Street Talk

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2023 94:46


We explore connections between FEP and enactivism, including tensions raised in a paper critiquing FEP from an enactivist perspective. Dr. Maxwell Ramstead provides background on enactivism emerging from autopoiesis, with a focus on embodied cognition and rejecting information processing/computational views of mind. Chris shares his journey from robotics into FEP, starting as a skeptic but becoming convinced it's the right framework. He notes there are both "high road" and "low road" versions, ranging from embodied to more radically anti-representational stances. He doesn't see a definitive fork between dynamical systems and information theory as the source of conflict. Rather, the notion of operational closure in enactivism seems to be the main sticking point. The group explores definitional issues around structure/organization, boundaries, and operational closure. Maxwell argues the generative model in FEP captures organizational dependencies akin to operational closure. The Markov blanket formalism models structural interfaces. We discuss the concept of goals in cognitive systems - Chris advocates an intentional stance perspective - using notions of goals/intentions if they help explain system dynamics. Goals emerge from beliefs about dynamical trajectories. Prof Friston provides an elegant explanation of how goal-directed behavior naturally falls out of the FEP mathematics in a particular "goldilocks" regime of system scale/dynamics. The conversation explores the idea that many systems simply act "as if" they have goals or models, without necessarily possessing explicit representations. This helps resolve tensions between enactivist and computational perspectives. Throughout the dialogue, Maxwell presses philosophical points about the FEP abolishing what he perceives as false dichotomies in cognitive science such as internalism/externalism. He is critical of enactivists' commitment to bright line divides between subject areas. Prof. Karl Friston - Inventor of the free energy principle https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q_4u0aoAAAAJ Prof. Chris Buckley - Professor of Neural Computation at Sussex University https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=nWuZ0XcAAAAJ&hl=en Dr. Maxwell Ramstead - Director of Research at VERSES https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=ILpGOMkAAAAJ&hl=fr We address critique in this paper: Laying down a forking path: Tensions between enaction and the free energy principle (Ezequiel A. Di Paolo, Evan Thompson, Randall D. Beere) https://philosophymindscience.org/index.php/phimisci/article/download/9187/8975 Other refs: Multiscale integration: beyond internalism and externalism (Maxwell J D Ramstead) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33627890/ MLST panel: Dr. Tim Scarfe and Dr. Keith Duggar TOC (auto generated): 0:00 - Introduction 0:41 - Defining enactivism and its variants 6:58 - The source of the conflict between dynamical systems and information theory 8:56 - Operational closure in enactivism 10:03 - Goals and intentions 12:35 - The link between dynamical systems and information theory 15:02 - Path integrals and non-equilibrium dynamics 18:38 - Operational closure defined 21:52 - Structure vs. organization in enactivism 24:24 - Markov blankets as interfaces 28:48 - Operational closure in FEP 30:28 - Structure and organization again 31:08 - Dynamics vs. information theory 33:55 - Goals and intentions emerge in the FEP mathematics 36:58 - The Good Regulator Theorem 49:30 - enactivism and its relation to ecological psychology 52:00 - Goals, intentions and beliefs 55:21 - Boundaries and meaning 58:55 - Enactivism's rejection of information theory 1:02:08 - Beliefs vs goals 1:05:06 - Ecological psychology and FEP 1:08:41 - The Good Regulator Theorem 1:18:38 - How goal-directed behavior emerges 1:23:13 - Ontological vs metaphysical boundaries 1:25:20 - Boundaries as maps 1:31:08 - Connections to the maximum entropy principle 1:33:45 - Relations to quantum and relational physics

Woman's Hour
Listener Week: Psychedelics, Peripheral friendship, Posthumous conception, Beach Guardian

Woman's Hour

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2023 57:23


For Listener Week, you, our listeners, decide what we cover on the programme. Listener Rachel asked Woman's Hour to explore the potential of using psychedelic drugs in medicine and whether these drugs might affect women differently to men. Academics have been researching psilocybin as a possible new treatment for depression, PTSD and anorexia, when used in conjunction with therapy. Anita Rani is joined by Professor David Nutt, Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London; and Catherine Bird, Senior Clinical Trials Manager at the Centre for Affective Disorders at Kings College London. Helen, a listener, wanted Woman's Hour to highlight the importance of peripheral friendships. These are casual acquaintance relationships; the people in your life that you don't see often, or your co-workers who give you joy, or kindness, but aren't your close family. Anita meets Helen and they talk to Dr Gillian Sandstrom, a senior lecturer in the Psychology of Kindness at Sussex University, who has studied these relationships Posthumous conception is when assisted reproductive technology is used to establish a pregnancy and produce genetic offspring following the death of a parent. Listener, Lauren McGregor, wrote to Woman's Hour wanting to discuss the importance of having the legal paperwork properly completed and signed should you ever find yourself in a situation when you have to consider this. Anita is joined by Lauren and a family lawyer, who has experience of working with fertility law, Louisa Gheveart. Earlier this year, research from the University of Portsmouth showed there are 100 times more microplastics in the coast around the UK than there were six years ago. Anita talks to the marine biologist and PhD student Emily Stevenson who is on a mission to clean up the patch of Cornwall's north coast where she grew up. Emily founded Beach Guardian in 2017 with her dad to try to empower local communities to combat plastic waste along the coastline. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt Studio manager: Giles Aspen 00:00 Opener 02:28 Psychedlics 17:12 Peripheral Friendship 30:45 Posthumous Conception 46:18 Beach Conservation

Conversations with Peter Boghossian
Peter Boghossian & Kathleen Stock: Lesbians Don't Have Penises

Conversations with Peter Boghossian

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 6, 2023 85:52


Special thanks to Birch Gold Group for sponsoring today's episode. Text "PETER" to 989898 for your FREE info kit on gold.Kathleen Stock is a British philosopher, author, and gender critical feminist who recently left mainstream academia. She resigned her professorship at Sussex University at the end of 2021 due to ideological censorship and death threats from trans activists. Like Peter Boghossian, Kathleen is a Founding Faculty Fellow at the University of Austin, Texas (UATX). Peter and Kathleen were both participating faculty in UATX's Forbidden Courses program this summer and met for a conversation. Kathleen talks about the strange new world LGBTQ+ activists have created for gay men and lesbians, particularly defining gay identity as “same gender attracted.” Kathleen, herself a lesbian, is concerned about the confusing messages young lesbians receive from gender ideologues—like the notion that “lesbians can have penises.” Peter and Kathleen also discuss preferred pronouns, cultish qualities in trans activism, the new Virgin Mary (any pregnant trans man), the callow misuse of philosophy, the effect of morally fashionable beliefs on philosophers, ruined academic disciplines, Wittgenstein, women's competitive nature, the Substitution Hypothesis, the ethics of gender transition, backward reasoning, and hope for the next generation. Kathleen Stock's latest book is "Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism." She is a columnist for UnHerd and recently launched The Lesbian Project with Julie Bindel. Follow Kathleen's work:The Lesbian Project UnheardTwitterWatch this episode on YouTube.

Learning Bayesian Statistics
#87 Unlocking the Power of Bayesian Causal Inference, with Ben Vincent

Learning Bayesian Statistics

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2023 68:38


Proudly sponsored by PyMC Labs, the Bayesian Consultancy. Book a call, or get in touch!Listen on PoduramaMy Intuitive Bayes Online Courses1:1 Mentorship with meI'll be honest — this episode is long overdue. Not only because Ben Vincent is a friend, fellow PyMC Labs developer, and outstanding Bayesian modeler. But because he works on so many fascinating topics — so I'm all the happier to finally have him on the show!In this episode, we're gonna focus on causal inference, how it naturally extends Bayesian modeling, and how you can use the CausalPy open-source package to supercharge your Bayesian causal inference. We'll also touch on marketing models and the pymc-marketing package, because, well, Ben does a lot of stuff ;)Ben got his PhD in neuroscience at Sussex University, in the UK. After a postdoc at the University of Bristol, working on robots and active vision, as well as 15 years as a lecturer at the Scottish University of Dundee, he switched to the private sector, working with us full time at PyMC Labs — and that is a treat!When he's not working, Ben loves running 5k's, cycling in the forest, lifting weights, and… learning about modern monetary theory.Our theme music is « Good Bayesian », by Baba Brinkman (feat MC Lars and Mega Ran). Check out his awesome work at https://bababrinkman.com/ !Thank you to my Patrons for making this episode possible!Yusuke Saito, Avi Bryant, Ero Carrera, Giuliano Cruz, Tim Gasser, James Wade, Tradd Salvo, William Benton, James Ahloy, Robin Taylor,, Chad Scherrer, Nathaniel Neitzke, Zwelithini Tunyiswa, Bertrand Wilden, James Thompson, Stephen Oates, Gian Luca Di Tanna, Jack Wells, Matthew Maldonado, Ian Costley, Ally Salim, Larry Gill, Ian Moran, Paul Oreto, Colin Caprani, Colin Carroll, Nathaniel Burbank, Michael Osthege, Rémi Louf, Clive Edelsten, Henri Wallen, Hugo Botha, Vinh Nguyen, Raul Maldonado, Marcin Elantkowski, Adam C. Smith, Will Kurt, Andrew Moskowitz, Hector Munoz, Marco Gorelli, Simon Kessell, Bradley Rode, Patrick Kelley, Rick Anderson, Casper de Bruin, Philippe Labonde, Michael Hankin, Cameron Smith, Tomáš Frýda, Ryan Wesslen, Andreas Netti, Riley King, Yoshiyuki Hamajima, Sven De Maeyer, Michael DeCrescenzo, Fergal M, Mason Yahr, Naoya Kanai, Steven Rowland, Aubrey Clayton, Jeannine Sue, Omri Har Shemesh, Scott Anthony Robson, Robert Yolken, Or Duek, Pavel Dusek, Paul Cox, Trey Causey, Andreas Kröpelin, Raphaël R, Nicolas Rode, Gabriel Stechschulte, Arkady, Kurt TeKolste, Gergely Juhasz, Marcus Nölke, Maggi Mackintosh, Grant Pezzolesi, Avram Aelony and Joshua Meehl.Visit https://www.patreon.com/learnbayesstats to unlock exclusive Bayesian swag ;)Links from the show:Ben's website:

Teachers Talk Radio
What is drama for in schools? : The Friday Morning Break with John Gibbs

Teachers Talk Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2023 76:26


Why teach drama, what happens in drama lessons, and is the subject thriving or declining? If you're a drama teacher or if you want to explore what schools are for, join me and my guest, Karen Hall, lecturer in drama in education at Sussex University and PGCE course leader. Karen is also a teacher and school leader.

The Greatest Non Hits
Billy Idol: Rebel Yell

The Greatest Non Hits

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 6, 2023 56:37


This album is an amazing collaboration between Billy Idol, Guitarist Steve Stevens and Famed producer Keith Forsey. Born William Michael Albert Board, Billy Idol began his music career as the front Man for the punk band Generation X, formed shortly after he dropped out of Sussex University in 1976. Rebel Yell's a hard rockin album with its roots in Punk and a huge american rock influence. Given that he spent a good portion of his childhood living in the states, it's obvious American Rock cuts through the punk and delivers incredible hits, with the non hits not too far behind. For the fans of our sound clips, the Jerky boys are all over this episode. Enjoy!!Support the show

Scribble Talk
Baachu Talk Equity Matters Episode 4 with Simon Fanshawe OBE – "Multi-talented Diversity Champion - Amplifying Voices and Creating Inclusive Environments"

Scribble Talk

Play Episode Listen Later May 11, 2023 58:07


SIMON FANSHAWE OBE is a diversity consultant, broadcaster and author. He is the co-founder of Diversity by Design which supports organisations to truly diversify their senior people. His latest book “The Power of Difference – where the complexities of diversity and inclusion meet practical solutions” was published in December 2021 by Kogan Page. He was voted the second Most Influential Thinker in 2022 by HR Magazine.He is currently on the Board of Powerful Women and is Chairman of Hexagon Housing Association.He was previously Chairman of Sussex University, a non-exec director of Housing & Care 21, a Governor of the Museum of London and on the Board of Brighton Dome & Festival. He has long been involved in campaigns for equality and positive social change and has served on the Board of companies and organisations in the private and charity sectors for over thirty-five years. He was a co-founder of Stonewall and of the Kaleidoscope Trust.He was awarded an OBE in 2013 for services to Higher Education and made an Honorary Doctor of the University of Sussex for services to diversity and human rights.He lives in Brighton with his husband and they have neither children nor dogs. When not celebrating difference, he is cooking.Support the show

Let's Talk Social Work
It's a family affair

Let's Talk Social Work

Play Episode Listen Later May 4, 2023 48:08


In February, Let's Talk Social Work examined the Government's strategy for children's social care in England, Stable Homes Built on Love, and we're returning to an important issue discussed in that episode—kinship care.Andy McClenaghan is joined by kinship carer, Natalie Boyes, Sam Turner, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the charity Kinship, and Dr Paul Shuttleworth, Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Education and Social Work at Sussex University. Their conversation explores what kinship care is, the challenges kinship carers face, what social workers need to know about it, and what needs to change to ensure children in kinship care, and their carers receive the support they need.During the conversation Sam references the document Practising in kinship care: The perspectives of specialist social workers. Paul's podcast, Do Do Social Work, co-hosted with Sarah Flagg, can be accessed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and everywhere else you get your podcasts. Some of Paul's research can be accessed below: Shuttleworth, P.D. (2023) 'What matters for child participation - The role of valuation-based dialogical participation for children living in kinship care in England' Child and Youth Service Review (149) Available at :https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.106959Shuttleworth, P.D. (2022) ‘Recognition of Family Life by Children Living in Kinship Care Arrangements in England', The British Journal of Social Work, p. bcac114. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcac114 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

PEAK40
9 Tips for Better Immunity & The Science of Staying Well w Dr. Jenna Macciochi, PhD

PEAK40

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2022 44:57


In Season 2, Episode 8, Dr. Marc Bubbs interviews Dr. Jenna Macciochi, PhD, expert immunologist, lecturer at Sussex University and author of Immunity: The Science of Staying Well.    ABOUT JENNA: Immunologist at Sussex University & Author: Immunity: The Science of Staying Well // Mama of twins // Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrJMacc   FOLLOW DR BUBBS: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbubbs/ Twitter: twitter.com/DrBubbs​​​​​​​ Website: DrBubbs.com   BOOKS: PEAK: The New Science of Athletic Performance That Is Revolutionizing Sport (#1 BEST SELLER)  PEAK40: The New Science of Midlife Health for a Leaner, Stronger Body and Sharper Mind   >> New PEAK40 Nutrition Coaching in 2023! We're onboarding our 2023 coaching group from January 4th to 20th. Learn more at DrBubbs.com/PEAK40 >> Save $100 OFF with promo code 2023 >> Save 50% our 1-Year Program with promo codeXMAS2022! ... You can also join our PRE-SALE list to hear more about the coaching program for 2023.

Witness History
The BBC broadcasting through the Iron Curtain

Witness History

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 20, 2022 9:04


It is the 90th anniversary of the BBC World Service. Broadcasting to countries behind the Iron Curtain without a free or independent media between 1947 and 1991 was arguably the service's finest hour. The corporation was on the front line of the information war as the BBC's former Moscow correspondent Bridget Kendall recalls. Programmes such as the German Service's Letters Without Signatures created a sense of community among isolated East Germans who could not air their views publicly at home. Meanwhile, Peter Udell, the former controller of European Services, had the challenge of trying to overcome the Soviet censors. Produced and presented by Josephine McDermott. Archive recordings of former employees in the BBC Oral History Collection were used courtesy of Sussex University. (Photo: A West Berlin policeman looks at an East German watchtower at night, 1961. Credit: Getty Images)

KickBack - The Global Anticorruption Podcast
83. Maggie Murphy and Dan Hough on integrity in football

KickBack - The Global Anticorruption Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2022 37:05


Ahead of the Qatar World Cup, we welcome Maggie Murphy, CEO of Lewes Football Club and a former Senior Global Advocacy Manager at Transparency International. She speaks to Dan Hough, self-professed football obsessive and Professor of Politics at Sussex University. Maggie takes us through her journey from anti-corruption campaigning to football management. She and Dan discuss the ethical problems affecting football, including the FIFA scandal, and how these issues exacerbate inequity between the men's and women's games. Maggie offers an alternative vision for ethical club management which we can all buy into.

Business Without Bullsh-t
EP 124 - Crypto Special - Carol Alexander: "Publish or perish"

Business Without Bullsh-t

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 13, 2022 81:46


Meet Carol Alexander, Professor of Finance at Sussex University who is an expert in FinTech, blockchains and crypto amongst a whole raft of other things. She also holds BSc in Mathematics with Experimental Psychology (First Class) and a PhD in Algebraic Number Theory from the University of Sussex, and an MSc in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.Carol is also the author of the best-selling textbook “Market Models” and of the four-volume textbook series Market Risk Analysis amongst others and has also published a raft of industry paper publications which you can find at www.carolalexander.org or her University of Sussex profile pages.Our extended conversation takes a deep dive into all things Crypto and FinTech. From hearing Carol's crystal clear explanations on what crypto, blockchain and smart contracts actually are and how they work, to discussing NFTs, how they'll shape society's future and the rise of Web 3.0, we leave no stone unturned!Clear your diary, pull up a chair and press play (and don't forget your notebook!)BWB is powered by Oury Clark.

Freedom Pact
#244: Dr Jenna Macciochi - Immunologist On The Science Of Staying Well

Freedom Pact

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2022 61:32


Dr Jenna Macciochi specialises in understanding how nutrition and lifestyle interact with the immune system in health and disease. With over 20 years' experience she is on a mission to break down the science behind our health and share the secrets of how to be well, for good. Based in Brighton, Jenna is a lecturer at Sussex University, a qualified fitness instructor and health coach and author of Immunity: the science of staying well. Links: https://www.drjennamacciochi.com/ https://www.youtube.com/freedompact (VIDEO PODCASTS) https://freedompact.co.uk/ https://www.instagram.com/freedompact/ https://twitter.com/freedompactpod

The Nazi Lies Podcast
The Nazi Lies Podcast Ep. 16: The Free Speech Crisis

The Nazi Lies Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2022 87:33


Mike Isaacson: If your free speech requires an audience, might I suggest a therapist? [Theme song] Nazi SS UFOsLizards wearing human clothesHinduism's secret codesThese are nazi lies Race and IQ are in genesWarfare keeps the nation cleanWhiteness is an AIDS vaccineThese are nazi lies Hollow earth, white genocideMuslim's rampant femicideShooting suspects named Sam HydeHiter lived and no Jews died Army, navy, and the copsSecret service, special opsThey protect us, not sweatshopsThese are nazi lies Mike: Welcome once again to The Nazi Lies Podcast. I am joined by two historians today. With us is Evan Smith, lecturer at Flinders University in Adelaide, and David Renton, who taught at a number of universities in the UK and South Africa before leaving the academy to practice law, though he still finds time to research and write. Each of them has a book about today's topic: the free speech crisis. Dr. Smith's book, No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech, chronicles the No Platform policy of the National Union of Students in the UK from its foundation in 1974 to the present day. Dr. Renton's book, No Free Speech for Fascists: Exploring ‘No Platform' in History, Law and Politics, tells a much longer story of the interplay of radical leftist groups, organized fascists, and the state in shaping the UK's speech landscape and their significance in politics and law. Both are out from Routledge. I have absolutely no idea how we've managed to make the time zones work between the three of us, but welcome both of you to the podcast. Evan Smith: Thank you. David Renton: Thanks, Mike. Mike: So David, I want to start with you because your book goes all the way back to the 1640s to tell its history. So what made you start your story in the 1640s, and what did contention over speech look like before Fascism? David: Well, I wanted to start all that time back more than 300 years ago, because this is the moment when you first start to see something like the modern left and right emerge. You have in Britain, a party of order that supports the state and the king, but you also have a party which stands for more democracy and a more equal distribution of wealth. And essentially, from this point onwards in British, European, American politics, you see those same sites recreating themselves. And what happens again, and again, and again from that point onwards for hundreds of years until certainly say 50 years ago, you have essentially the people who are calling for free speech, whether that's the levellers in 1640s, Tom Paine 100 years later, J.S. Mill in the 19th Century. The left is always the people in favor of free speech. In terms of the right, if you want a kind of the first philosopher of conservatism, someone like Edmund Burke, he's not involved in the 1640s. He's a bit later, about a century and a half later. But you know, he supports conservatism. So what's his attitude towards free speech? It's really simple. He says, people who disagree with him should be jailed. There should be laws made to make it harder for them to have defenses. And more and more of them should be put in jail without even having a trial. That's the conservative position on free speech for centuries. And then what we get starting to happen in the late 20th century, something completely different which is a kind of overturning of what's been this huge, long history where it's always the left that's in favor of free speech, and it's always the right that's against it. Mike: Okay. Now, your contention is that before the appearance of Fascism, socialist radicals were solidly in favor of free speech for all. Fascism changed that, and Evan, maybe you can jump in here since this is where your book starts. What was new about Fascism that made socialists rethink their position on speech? Evan: So fascism was essentially anti-democratic and it was believed that nothing could be reasoned with because it was beyond the realms of reasonable, democratic politics. It was a violence, and the subjugation of its opponents was at the very core of fascism. And that the socialist left thought that fascism was a deeply violent movement that moved beyond the traditional realm of political discourse. So, there was no reasoning with fascists, you could only defeat them. Mike: So, let's start with David first, but I want to get both of you on this. What was the response to Fascism like before the end of World War II? David: Well, what you do is you get the left speaking out against fascism, hold demonstrations against fascism, and having to articulate a rationale of why they're against fascism. One of the things I quote in my book is a kind of famous exchange that takes place in 1937 when a poet named Nancy Cunard collected together the writers, intellectuals, and philosophers who she saw as the great inspiration to– the most important writers and so on that day. And she asked them what side they were taking on fascism. What's really interesting if you read their accounts, whether it's people like the poet W.H. Auden, novelist Gerald Bullitt, the philosopher C.E.M Joad, they all say they're against fascism, but they all put their arguments against fascism in terms of increased speech. So C.E.M Joad writes, "Fascism suppresses truth. That's why we're against fascism." Or the novelist Owen Jameson talks about fascism as a doctrine which exalts violence and uses incendiary bombs to fight ideas. So you get this thing within the left where people grasp that in order to fight off this violence and vicious enemy, they have to be opposed to it. And that means, for example, even to some extent making an exception to what's been for centuries this uniform left-wing notion: you have to protect everyone's free speech. Well people start grasping, we can't protect the fascist free speech, they're gonna use it to suppress us. So the Left makes an exception to what's been its absolute defense of free speech, but it makes this exception for the sake of protecting speech for everybody. Mike: Okay. Evan, do you want to add anything to the history of socialists and fascists before the end of World War Two? Evan: Yeah. So just kind of setting up a few things which will become important later on, and particularly because David and I are both historians of antifascism in Britain, is that there's several different ways in which antifascism emerges in the interwar period and several different tactics. One tactic is preventing fascists from marching from having a presence in public. So things like the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 is a very famous incident where the socialists and other protesters stopped the fascists from marching. There's also heckling and disrupting of fascist meetings. So this was big meetings like Olympia in June 1934, but then also smaller ones like individual fascist meetings around the country were disrupted by antifascists. There was also some that are on the left who also called for greater state intervention, usually in the form of labor councils not allowing fascists to congregate in public halls and stuff like that. So these kinds of arguments that fascism needs to be confronted, disrupted, obfuscated, starts to be developed in the 1930s. And it's where those kinds of free speech arguments emerge in the later period. Mike: Now immediately after the Second World War, fascist movements were shells of their former selves. They had almost no street presence and their organizations usually couldn't pull very many members. Still, the response to fascism when it did pop up was equally as vehement as when they organized into paramilitary formations with membership in the thousands. Something had qualitatively changed in the mind of the public regarding fascism. What did the immediate postwar response to public fascist speech look like, and what was the justification? Evan, let's start with you and then David you can add anything he misses. Evan: David probably could tell the story in a lot more detail. In the immediate post-war period in Britain, Oswald Mosley tries to revive the fascist movement under the title The Union Movement, but before that there's several kind of pro-fascist reading groups that emerge. And in response to this is kind of a disgust that fascists who had recently been imprisoned in Britain and their fellow travellers in the Nazis and the Italian Fascists and the continental fascists had been, you know, it ended in the Holocaust. There was this disgust that fascists could be organizing again in public in Britain, and that's where it mobilizes a new kind of generation of antifascists who are inspired by the 1930s to say "Never again, this won't happen on our streets." And the most important group and this is The 43 Group, which was a mixture of Jewish and communist radicals, which probably David can tell you a little bit about. David: I'd be happy to but I think before we get to 43 Group, it's kind of worth just pausing because the point Mike's left is kind of around the end of the Second World War. One thing which happens during the Second World War is of course Britain's at war with Germany. So what you start to get is Evan talked about how in the 1930s, you already have this argument like, “Should stopping fascism be something that's done by mass movements, or should it be done by the state?” In the Second World War the state has to confront that question, too, because it's got in fascism a homegrown enemy, and the British state looks at how all over Europe these states were toppled really quickly following fascist advance, and very often a pro-fascist powerful section of the ruling class had been the means by which an invading fascism then found some local ally that's enabled it to take over the state and hold the state. So the British state in 1940 actually takes a decision to intern Oswald Mosley and 800 or so of Britain's leading fascists who get jailed initially in prisons in London, then ultimately on the Isle of Man. Now, the reason why I'm going into this is because the first test of what the ordinary people in Britain think about the potential re-emergence of fascism comes even before the Second World War's ended. When Oswald Mosley is released from internment, he says he has conditioned phlebitis, he's very incapacitated, and is never going to be politically active again. And the British state buys this. And this creates–and an actual fact–the biggest single protest movement in Britain in the entire Second World War, where you get hundreds of people in certain factories going on strike against Oswald Mosley's release, and high hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions demanding that he's reinterned, and you start to get people having demonstrations saying Mosley ought to go back to jail. That kind of sets the whole context of what's going to happen after the end of the Second World War. Mosley comes out and he's terrified of public opinion; he's terrified about being seen in public. He's convinced that if you hold meetings you're going to see that cycle going on again. So for several years, the fascists barely dare hold public meetings, and they certainly don't dare hold meetings with Mosley speaking. They test the water a bit, and they have some things work for them. Evan's mentioned the 43 Group so I'll just say a couple sentences about them. The 43 Group are important in terms of what becomes later. They're not a vast number of people, but they have an absolute focus on closing down any fascist meeting. We're gonna hear later in this discussion about the phrase "No Platform" and where it comes from, but you know, in the 1940s when fascist wanted to hold meetings, the platform means literally getting together a paste table and standing on it, or standing on a tiny little ladder just to take you a couple of foot above the rest of your audience. The 43 Group specialize in a tactic which is literally knocking over those platforms. And because British fascism remained so isolated and unpopular in the aftermath of the Second World War, you know, there are 43 Group activists and organizers who look at London and say, "All right, if there going to be 12 or 13 public meetings in London this weekend, we know where they're going to be. If we can knock over every single one of those other platforms, then literally there'll be no fascists to have any chance to find an audience or put a public message in Britain." That's kind of before you get the term 'No Platform' but it's almost in essence the purest form of No Platforming. It's people being able to say, "If we get organized as a movement outside the state relying on ordinary people's opposition to fascism, we can close down every single example of fascist expression in the city and in this country." Mike: Okay. So through the 50's and 60's, there were two things happening simultaneously. On the one hand, there was the largely left wing student-led free speech movement. And on the other hand, there was a new generation of fascists who were rebuilding the fascist movement in a variety of ways. So let's start with the free speech movement. David, you deal with this more in your book. What spurred the free speech movement to happen? David: Yeah. Look in the 50s and 60s, the free speech movement is coming from the left. That's going to change, we know it's going to change like 20 or 30 years later, but up to this point we're still essentially in the same dance of forces that I outlined right at the start. That the left's in favor of free speech, the right is against it. And the right's closing down unwanted ideas and opinion. In the 50s and 60s, and I'm just going to focus on Britain and America, very often this took the form of either radicals doing some sort of peace organising–and obviously that cut against the whole basic structure of the Cold War–or it took the form of people who maybe not even necessarily radicals at all, just trying to raise understanding and consciousness about people's bodies and about sex. So for the Right, their counterattack was to label movements like for example in the early 60s on the campus of Berkeley, and then there's originally a kind of anti-war movement that very quickly just in order to have the right to organize, becomes free speech movements. And the Right then counter attacks against it saying, "Essentially, this is just a bunch of beats or kind of proto-hippies. And what they want to do is I want to get everyone interested in drugs, and they want to get everyone interested in sexuality, and they want everyone interested in all these sorts of things." So their counterattack, Reagan terms this, The Filthy Speech Movement. In the late 60s obviously in states, we have the trial of the Chicago 7, and here you have the Oz trial, which is when a group of radicals here, again that their point of view is very similar, kind of hippie-ish, anti-war milieu. But one thing is about their magazines, which again it seems very hard to imagine today but this is true, that part of the way that their their magazine sells is through essentially soft pornographic images. And there's this weird combination of soft porn together with far left politics. They'll get put on trial in the Oz trial and that's very plainly an attempt– our equivalent of the Chicago 7 to kind of close down radical speech and to get into the public mind this idea that the radicals are in favor of free speech, they're in favor of extreme left-wing politics, and they're in favor of obscenity, and all these things are somehow kind of the same thing. Now, the point I just wanted to end on is that all these big set piece trials–another one to use beforehand is the Lady Chatterley's Lover trial, the Oz trial, the Chicago 7 trial, all of these essentially end with the right losing the battle of ideas, not so much the far right but center right. And people just saying, "We pitched ourselves on the side of being against free speech, and this isn't working. If we're going to reinvent right-wing thought, make some center right-wing ideas desirable and acceptable in this new generation of people, whatever they are, then we can't keep on being the ones who are taking away people's funds, closing down ideas. We've got to let these radicals talk themselves out, and we've got to reposition ourselves as being, maybe reluctantly, but the right takes the decision off of this. The right has to be in favor of free speech too. Mike: All right. And also at this time, the far right was rebuilding. In the UK, they shifted their focus from overt antisemitism and fascism to nebulously populist anti-Black racism. The problem for them, of course, was that practically no one was fooled by this shift because it was all the same people. So, what was going on with the far right leading into the 70s? Evan, do you want to start? Evan: Yeah. So after Mosley is defeated in Britain by the 43 Group and the kind of antifascism after the war, he moves shortly to Ireland and then comes back to the UK. Interestingly, he uses universities and particularly debates with the Oxford Union, the Cambridge Union, and other kind of university societies, to find a new audience because they can't organize on the streets. So he uses–throughout the '50s and the '60s–these kind of university platforms to try and build a fascist movement. At the same time, there are people who were kind of also around in the '30s and the '40s who are moving to build a new fascist movement. It doesn't really get going into '67 when the National Front is formed from several different groups that come together, and they're really pushed into the popular consciousness because of Enoch Powell and his Rivers of Blood Speech. Enoch Powell was a Tory politician. He had been the Minister for Health in the Conservative government, and then in '68 he launches this Rivers of Blood Speech which is very much anti-immigration. This legitimizes a lot of anti-immigrationist attitudes, and part of that is that the National Front rides his coattails appealing to people who are conservatives but disaffected with the mainstream conservatism and what they saw as not being hard enough in immigration, and that they try to build off the support of the disaffected right; so, people who were supporting Enoch Powell, supporting the Monday Club which is another hard right faction in the conservatives. And in that period up until about the mid 1970s, that's the National Front's raison d'etre; it's about attracting anti-immigrationists, conservatives to build up the movement as an electoral force rather than a street force which comes later in the '70s. Mike: There was also the Apartheid movement, or the pro-Apartheid movement, that they were building on at this time as well, right? Evan: Yeah. So at this time there's apartheid in South Africa. In 1965, the Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia has a unilateral declaration of independence from Britain to maintain White minority rule. And a lot of these people who are around Powell, the Monday Club, the National Front, against decolonization more broadly, and also then support White minority rule in southern Africa. So a lot of these people end up vocalizing support for South Africa, vocalizing support for Rhodesia, and that kind of thing. And it's a mixture of anti-communism and opposition to multiracial democracy. That's another thing which they try to take on to campus in later years. Mike: So finally we get to No Platform. Now, Evan, you contend that No Platform was less than a new direction in antifascist politics than a formalization of tactics that had developed organically on the left. Can you talk a bit about that? Evan: Yeah, I'll give a quick, very brief, lead up to No Platform and to what's been happening in the late '60s. So Enoch Powell who we mentioned, he comes to try and speak on campus several times throughout the late 60s and early 70s. These are often disrupted by students that there's an argument that, "Why should Enoch Powell be allowed to come onto campus? We don't need people like that to be speaking." This happens in the late 60s. Then in '73, Hans Eysenck, who was a psychologist who was very vocal about the connection between race and IQ, he attempts to speak at the London School of Economics and his speech is disrupted by a small group of Maoists. And then also– Mike: And they physically disrupted that speech, right? That wasn't just– Evan: Yeah, they punched him and pushed him off stage and stuff like that. And a month later, Samuel Huntington who is well known now for being the Clash of Civilizations guy, he went to speak at Sussex University, and students occupied a lecture theater so he couldn't talk because they opposed his previous work with the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. This led to a moral panic beginning about the end of free speech on campus, that it's either kind of through sit-ins or through direct violence, but in the end students are intolerant. And that's happening in that five years before we get to No Platform. Mike: One thing I didn't get a good sense of from your books was what these socialist groups that were No Platforming fascists prior to the NUS policy stood for otherwise. Can we talk about the factionalization of the left in the UK in the 60s and 70s? David, maybe you can help us out on this one. David: Yeah, sure. The point to grasp, which is that the whole center of British discourse in the ‘70s was way to the left of where it is in Britain today, let alone anywhere else in the world. That from, say, ‘64 to ‘70, we had a Labour government, and around the Labour Party. We had really, really strong social movements. You know, we had something like roughly 50% of British workers were members of trade unions. We'll get on later to the Students Union, that again was a movement in which hundreds of thousands of people participated. Two particular groups that are going to be important for our discussion are the International Socialists and International Marxist Group, but maybe if I kind of go through the British left sort of by size starting from largest till we get down to them. So the largest wing we've got on the British left is Labour Party. This is a party with maybe about half a million members, but kind of 20 million affiliated members through trade unions, and it's gonna be in and out of government. Then you've got the Communist Party which is getting quite old as an organization and is obviously tied through Cold War politics to the Soviet Union. And then you get these smaller groups like the IS, the IMG. And they're Trotskyist groups so they're in the far left of labor politics as revolutionaries, but they have quite a significant social heft, much more so than the far left in Britain today because, for example, their members are involved in editing magazines like Oz. There is a moment where there's a relatively easy means for ideas to merge in the far left and then get transmitted to the Labour Party and potentially even to Labour ministers and into government. Mike: Okay, do you want to talk about the International Marxist Group and the International Socialists? Evan: Do you want me to do that or David? Mike: Yes, that'd be great. Evan: Okay. So as David mentioned, there's the Communist Party and then there's the International Socialists and the International Marxist Group. The International Marxist Group are kind of heavily based in the student movement. They're like the traditional student radicals. Tariq Ali is probably the most famous member at this stage. And they have this counter cultural attitude in a way. International Socialists are a different form of Trotskyism, and they're much more about, not so much interested in the student movement, but kind of like a rank and file trade unionism that kind of stuff, opposition to both capitalism and Soviet communism. And the IS, the IMG, and sections of the Communist Party all coalesce in the student movement, which forms the basis for pushing through a No Platform policy in the Nationalist Union of Students in 1974. Mike: Okay. So in 1974, the National Union of Students passes their No Platform policy. Now before we get into that, what is the National Union of Students? Because we don't have an analogue to that in the US. Evan, you want to tackle this one? Evan: Yeah. Basically, every university has a student union or a form of student union–some kind of student body–and the National Union of Students is the national organization, the peak body which organizes the student unions on all the various campuses around the country. Most of the student unions are affiliated to the NUS but some aren't. The NUS is a kind of democratic body and oversees student policy, but individual student unions can opt in or opt out of whether they follow NUS guidelines. And I think what needs to be understood is that the NUS was a massive organization back in those days. You know, hundreds of thousands of people via the student unions become members of the NUS. And as David was saying, the political discourse is much bigger in the '60s and '70s through bodies like this as well as things like the trade union movement. The student movement has engaged hundreds of thousands of students across Britain about these policies much more than we see anything post the 1970s. David: If I could just add a sentence or two there, that's all right. I mean, really to get a good sense of scale of this, if you look at, obviously you have the big set piece annual conventions or conferences of the National Union of Students. Actually, it doesn't even just have one a year, it has two a year. Of these two conferences, if you just think about when the delegates are being elected to them how much discussion is taking place in local universities. If you go back to some local university meetings, it's sometimes very common that you see votes of 300 students going one way, 400 another, 700 going one way in some of the larger universities. So there's an absolute ferment of discussion around these ideas. Which means that when there are set piece motions to pass, they have a democratic credibility. And they've had thousands of people debating and discussing them. It's not just like someone going on to one conference or getting something through narrowly on a show of hands. There's a feeling that these debates are the culmination of what's been a series of debates in each local university. And we've got over 100 of them in Britain. Mike: Okay, how much is the student union's presence felt on campus by the average student? Evan: That'd be massive. David: Should I do this? Because I'm a bit older than Evan and I went to university in the UK. And it's a system which is slowly being dismantled but when I was student, which is like 30 years ago, this was still largely in place. In almost every university, the exceptions are Oxford and Cambridge, but in every other university in Britain, almost all social activity takes place on a single site on campus. And that single site invariably is owned by the student's union. So your students union has a bar, has halls, it's where– They're the plumb venues on campus if you want to have speakers or if you want to have– Again, say when punk happened a couple of years later, loads and loads of the famous punk performances were taking place in the student union hall in different universities. One of the things we're going to get onto quite soon is the whole question of No Platform and what it meant to students. What I want to convey is that for loads of students having this discussion, when they're saying who should be allowed on campus or who shouldn't be allowed on campus, what's the limits? They feel they've got a say because there are a relatively small number of places where people will speak. Those places are controlled by the students' union. They're owned and run by the students' union. It's literally their buildings, their halls, they feel they've got a right to set who is allowed, who's actually chosen, and who also shouldn't be invited. Mike: Okay, cool. Thank you. Thank you for that. That's a lot more than I knew about student unions. Okay. Evan, this is the bread and butter of your book. How did No Platform come about in the NUS? Evan: So, what part of the fascist movement is doing, the far-right movement, is that it is starting to stray on campus. I talked about the major focus of the National Front is about appealing to disaffected Tories in this stage, but they are interfering in student affairs; they're disrupting student protests; they're trying to intimidate student politics. And in 1973, the National Front tried to set up students' association on several campuses in Britain And there's a concern about the fascist presence on campus. So those three left-wing groups– the IMG, the IS and the Communist Party–agree at the student union level that student unions should not allow fascists and racists to use student buildings, student services, clubs that are affiliated to the student union. They shouldn't be allowed to access these. And that's where they say about No Platform is that the student union should deny a platform to fascists and racists. And in 1974 when they put this policy to a vote and it's successful, they add, "We're going to fight them by any means necessary," because they've taken that inspiration from the antifascism of the '30s and '40s. Mike: Okay. Now opinion was clearly divided within the NUS. No Platform did not pass unanimously. So Evan, what was opinion like within the NUS regarding No Platform? Evan: Well, it passed, but there was opposition. There was opposition from the Federation of Conservative Students, but there was also opposition from other student unions who felt that No Platform was anti-free speech, so much so that in April 1974 it becomes policy, but in June 1974, they have to have another debate about whether this policy should go ahead. It wins again, but this is the same time as it happens on the same day that the police crackdown on anti-fascist demonstration in Red Lion Square in London. There's an argument that fascism is being propped up by the police and is a very real threat, so that we can't give any quarter to fascism. We need to build this No Platform policy because it is what's standing in between society and the violence of fascism. Mike: Okay. I do want to get into this issue of free speech because the US has a First Amendment which guarantees free speech, but that doesn't exist in Britain. So what basis is there for free speech in the law? I think, David, you could probably answer this best because you're a lawyer. David: [laughs] Thank you. In short, none. The basic difference between the UK and the US– Legally, we're both common law countries. But the thing that really changes in the US is this is then overlaid with the Constitution, which takes priority. So once something has been in the Constitution, that's it. It's part of your fundamental law, and the limits to it are going to be narrow. Obviously, there's a process. It's one of the things I do try and talk about in my book that the Supreme Court has to discover, has to find free speech in the American Constitution. Because again, up until the Second World War, essentially America has this in the Constitution, but it's not particularly seen as something that's important or significant or a key part of the Constitution. The whole awe and  mysticism of the First Amendment as a First Amendment is definitely something that's happened really in the last 40-50 years. Again, I don't want to go into this because it's not quite what you're getting at. But certainly, in the '20s for example, you get many of the big American decisions on free speech which shaped American law today. What everyone forgets is in every single one of them, the Supreme Court goes on to find some reason why free speech doesn't apply. So then it becomes this doctrine which is tremendously important to be ushered out and for lip service be given to, just vast chunks of people, communists, people who are in favor of encouraging abortion, contraception, whatever, they're obviously outside free speech, and you have to come up with some sophisticated justifications for that. In Britain, we don't have a constitution. We don't have laws with that primary significance. We do kind of have a weak free speech tradition, and that's kind of important for some things like there's a European Convention on Human Rights that's largely drafted by British lawyers and that tries to create in Articles 10 and 11 a general support on free speech. So they think there are things in English legal tradition, in our common law tradition, which encourage free speech.  But if we've got it as a core principle of the UK law today, we've got it because of things like that like the European Convention on Human Rights. We haven't got it because at any point in the last 30, or 50, or 70 or 100 years, British judges or politicians thought this was a really essential principle of law. We're getting it these days but largely by importing it from the United States, and that means we're importing the worst ideological version of free speech rather than what free speech ought to be, which is actually protecting the rights of most people to speak. And if you've got some exceptions, some really worked out well thought exceptions for coherent and rational reasons. That's not what we've got now in Britain, and it's not what we've really ever had. Mike: Evan, you do a good job of documenting how No Platform was applied. The experience appears to be far from uniform. Let's talk about that a little bit. Evan: Yeah, so there's like a debate happening about who No Platform should be applied to because it states– The official policy is that No Platform for racists and fascists, and there's a debate of who is a racist enough to be denied a platform. There's agreement so a group like the National Front is definitely to be No Platform. Then there's a gray area about the Monday Club. The Monday Club is a hard right faction within the conservatives. But there's a transmission of people and ideas between National Front and the Monday Club. Then there's government ministers because the British immigration system is a racist system. The Home Office is seen as a racist institution. So there's a debate of whether government politicians should be allowed to have a platform because they uphold institutional racism. We see this at different stages is that a person from the Monday Club tries to speak at Oxford and is chased out of the building. Keith Joseph, who's one of the proto-Thatcherites in the Conservative Party, comes to speak at LSE in the 1977-78 and that there is a push to say that he can't be allowed to speak because of the Conservative Party's immigration policies and so forth like that. So throughout the '70s, there is a debate of the minimalist approach with a group like the International Socialists saying that no, outright fascists are the only ones to be No Platformed. Then IMG and other groups are saying, "Actually, what about the Monday Club? What about the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children? What about Conservative Ministers? Are these people, aren't they also sharing that kind of discriminatory agenda that shouldn't be allowed a platform?" Mike: Okay, and there were some objections within the National Union of Students to some applications of No Platform, right? Evan: Yeah, well, not so much in the '70s. But once you get into the '80s, there's a big push for it. But probably the biggest issue in the '70s is that the application of No Platform to pro-Israel groups and Jewish student groups. In 1975, there's a UN resolution that Zionism is a form of racism, and that several student groups say, "Well, pro-Israel groups are Zionists. If Zionism is a form of racism and No Platform should be applied to racists or fascists, shouldn't they the pro-Israel groups then be denied a platform? Should pro-Israel groups be disaffiliated from student unions, etc.?" Several student unions do this at the local level, but there's a backlash from the NUS at the national level so much so the NUS actually suspends No Platform for about six months. It is reintroduced with an explicit piece of it saying that if No Platform is reinstituted, it can't be applied to Zionists groups, to pro-Israel groups, to Jewish societies. But a reason that they can't, the NUS can't withhold No Platform as a policy in the late 1970s is because they've been playing catch up because by this time, the Anti-Nazi League, Rock Against Racism are major mass movements of people because the National Front is seen as a major problem, and the NUS has to have some kind of anti-Fascist, anti-racist response. They can't sit on their hands because they're going dragged along by the Anti-Nazi League. Mike: One thing that you talked about in your book, David, is that simultaneous to No Platform was this movement for hate speech prohibitions. Talk about how these movements differed. David: Well, I think the best way to convey it is if we go back to the motion that was actually passed at the National Union of Students spring conference in May '74. If you don't mind, I'll just begin by reading it out. Conference recognizes the need to refuse any assistance, financial or otherwise, to openly racist or fascist organizations or societies (e.g., Monday Club, National Front, Action Party, Union Movement, National Democratic Party) and to deny them a platform. What I want to try and convey is that when you think about how you got this coalition within the National Union of Students in support of that motion, there were like two or three different ideas being signaled in that one motion. And if you then apply them, particularly what's happening as we're talking 50 years later now, if you apply them through the subsequent 50 years of activism, they do point in quite different directions. To just start up, “conference recognizes the need to refuse any assistance” dadadada. What's really been good at here, I'm sure some of the people who passed No Platform promotion just had this idea, right? What we are, we're a movement of students' unions. We're a movement of buildings which are run by students and are for students. People have said to themselves, all this motion is really committing us to do is to say that we won't give any assistance to racist or fascist organizations. So what that means in practice is in our buildings, in our halls, we won't invite them in. Now, it may be that, say, the university will invite a conservative minister or the university will allow some far-right person to have a platform in election time. But the key idea, one key idea that's going on with this, just those things won't happen in our students' unions. They're our buildings; they're our halls. To use a term that hasn't really been coined yet, but this is in people's heads, is the idea of a safe space. It's just, student unions are our safe space. We don't need to worry about who exactly these terrible people are. Whoever and whatever they are, we don't want them on our patch. That's idea number one. Idea number two is that this is really about stopping fascists. It's not about any other form of discrimination. I'll come on to idea three in a moment. With idea three, this is about fascist organizations. You can see in a sense the motion is talking to people, people coming on and saying like I might not even be particularly left wing, but I don't like fascists. Evan talked about say for example, Zionist organizations. Could a Zionist organization, which is militantly antifascist, could they vote this motion? Yes. And how they'd sell it to themselves is this is only about fascism. So you can see this in the phrase, this is about refusing systems to “openly racist or fascist organizations,” and then look at the organizations which are listed: the National Front, well yeah, they're fascists; the Union Movement, yeah, they're fascists; the National Democratic Party, they're another little fascist splinter group.And then the only one there that isn't necessarily exactly fascist is the Monday Club who are a bunch of Tories who've been in the press constantly in the last two years when this motion is written for their alliance with National Front holding demonstrations and meetings together. So some people, this is just about protecting their space. Some people, this is about excluding fascists and no one else. But then look again at the motion, you'll see another word in there. “Conference recognizes the need to refuse any assistance to openly racist or fascist organizations.” So right from the start, there's a debate, what does this word racist mean in the motion? Now, one way you could read the motion is like this. From today, we can all see that groups like the National Front are fascists. Their leaders can spend most of the rest of the decade appearing constantly in literature produced by anti-fascist groups, identifying them as fascist, naming them as fascist, then we have to have a mass movement against fascism and nazism. But the point is in 1974, that hadn't happened yet. In most people's heads, groups like the National Front was still, the best way to describe them that no one could disagree to at least say they were openly racist. That was how they described themselves. So you could ban the National Front without needing to have a theological discussion about whether they fitted exactly within your definition of fascism. But the point I really want to convey is that the motion succeeds because it blurs the difference between saying anything can be banned because it's fascist specifically or anything can be banned because it's racist or fascist. This isn't immediately apparent in 1974, but what becomes pretty apparent over time is for example as Evan's documented already, even before 1974, there have been non-fascists, there have been conservatives going around student unions speaking in pretty racist terms. All right, so can they be banned? If the answer is this goes to racists or fascists, then definitely they can be banned. But now wait a second. Is there anyone else in British politics who's racist? Well, at this point, both main political parties are standing for election on platforms of excluding people from Britain effectively on the basis of the color of their skin. All right, so you can ban all the main political parties in Britain. All right, well, how about the newspapers? Well, every single newspaper in Britain, even the pro-Labour ones, is running front page articles supporting the British government. All right, so you could ban all newspapers in Britain. Well, how about the television channel? Well, we've only got three, but the best-selling comedies on all of them are comedies which make fun of people because they're foreigners and because they're Black. You can list them all. There's dozens of these horrible programs, which for most people in Britain now are unwatchable. But they're all of national culture in Britain in the early '70s. Alright, so you say, all right, so students we could ban every television channel in Britain, every newspaper in Britain, and every political party in Britain, except maybe one or two on the far left. It's like, wait a second people, I've only been doing racism. Well, let's take seriously the notion, if we're against all forms of racism, how can we be against racism without also being against sexism? Without being against homophobia? So the thing about No Platform is there's really only two ways you can read it in the end, and certainly once you apply it outside the 1970s today. Number one, you can say this is a relatively tightly drawn motion, which is trying to pin the blame on fascists as something which is growing tremendously fast in early 1970s and trying to keep them out. Maybe it'd be good to keep other people out too, but it's not trying to keep everyone out. Or you've got, what we're confronting today which is essentially this is an attempt to prevent students from suffering the misery, the hatred, the fury of hate speech. This is an attempt to keep all hate speech off campus, but with no definition or limit on hate speech. Acceptance of hate speech 50 years later might be much more widely understood than it is in early '70s. So you've got warring in this one motion two completely different notions of who it's right politically to refuse platforms to. That's going to get tested out in real life, but it's not been resolved by the 1974 motion, which in a sense looks both ways. Either the people want to keep the ban narrow or the people want to keep it broad, either of them can look at that motion and say yeah, this is the motion which gives the basis to what we're trying to do. Mike: Okay. I do want to get back to the notion of the maximalist versus the precisionist view of No Platform. But first before that, I want to talk about the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism to just get more of a broader context than just the students in Britain in terms of antifascism. David, do you want to talk about that? David: Okay. Well, I guess because another of my books is about Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League, so I'll try and do this really short. I'll make two points. First is that these movements which currently ended in the 1970s are really very large. They're probably one of the two largest street movements in post-war British history. The only other one that's candidate for that is the anti-war movement, whether that's in the '80s or the early 2000s. But they're on that same scale as amongst the largest mass movements in British history. In terms of Rock Against Racism, the Anti-Nazi League, the total number of people involved in them is massive; it's around half a million to a million people. They're single most famous events, two huge three carnivals in London in 1977, which each have hundreds of thousands of people attending them and bring together the most exciting bands. They are the likes of The Clash, etc, etc. It's a movement which involves people graffitiing against Nazis, painting out far-right graffiti. It's a movement which is expressed in streets in terms of set piece confrontations, clashes with far-right, Lewisham in ‘76, Southall in ‘79. These are just huge movements which involve a whole generation of people very much associated with the emergence of punk music and when for a period in time in Britain are against that kind of visceral street racism, which National Front represents. I should say that they have slightly different attitudes, each of them towards the issue of free speech, but there's a massive interchange of personnel. They're very large. The same organizations involved in each, and they include an older version of the same activist who you've seen in student union politics in '74 as were they you could say they graduate into involvement in the mass movements like Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League. Now, I want to say specifically about the Anti-Nazi League and free speech. The Anti-Nazi League takes from student politics this idea of No Platform and tries to base a whole mass movement around it. The idea is very simply, the National Front should not be allowed a platform to speak, to organize, to win converts anywhere. Probably with the Anti-Nazi League, the most important expressions of this is two things. Firstly, when the National Front tries to hold election meetings, which they do particularly in the run up to '79 election, and those are picketed, people demonstrated outside of them  A lot of them are the weekend in schools. One at Southall is in a town hall. These just lead to repeated clashes between the Anti-Nazi League and the National Front. The other thing which the Anti-Nazi League takes seriously is trying to organize workers into closing off opportunities for the National Front spread their propaganda. For example, their attempts to get postal workers to refuse to deliver election materials to the National Front. Or again, there's something which it's only possible to imagine in the '70s; you couldn't imagine it today. The National Front is entitled to election broadcasts because it's standing parliament. Then the technical workers at the main TV stations go on strike and refuse to let these broadcasts go out. So in all these ways, there's this idea around the Anti-Nazi League of No Platform. But No Platform is No Platform for fascists. It's the National Front should not get a chance to spread its election message. It's not yet that kind of broader notion of, in essence, anything which is hate speech is unacceptable. In a sense, it can't be. Because when you're talking about students' unions and their original No Platform motion and so forth, at the core of it is they're trying to control their own campuses. There's a notion of students' power. The Anti-Nazi League, it may be huge mass movement and may have hundreds of thousands people involved in it, but no one in Anti-Nazi League thinks that this organization represents such a large majority that they could literally control the content of every single TV station, the content of every single newspaper. You can try and drive the National Front out, but if people in that movement had said right, we actually want to literally carve out every expression of racism and every expression of sexism from society, that would have been a yet bigger task by another enormous degrees of scale. Mike: Okay, I do want to talk a little bit more about Rock Against Racism just particularly how it was founded, what led to its founding. I think it gives a good sense of where Britain was at, politically. David: Right. Rock Against Racism was founded in 1976. The two main events which are going on in the heads of the organizers when they launched it, number one, David Bowie's weird fascist turn, his interview with Playboy magazine in which he talks about Hitler being the first rock and roll superstar, the moment where he was photographed returning from tours in America and comes to Victoria Station and appears to give a Nazi salute. The reason why with Bowie it matters is because he's a hero. Bowie seems to represent the emergence of a new kind of masculinity, new kind of attitude with sexuality. If someone like that is so damaged that he's going around saying Hitler is the greatest, that's really terrifying to Bowie fans and for a wider set of people. The other person who leads directly to the launch of Rock Against Racism is Eric Clapton. He interrupts a gig in Birmingham in summer '76 to just start giving this big drunken rant about how some foreigner pinched his missus' bum and how Enoch Powell is the greatest ever. The reason why people find Eric Clapton so contemptible and why this leads to such a mass movement is weirdly it's the opposite of Bowie that no one amongst the young cool kids regards Clapton as a hero. But being this number one star and he's clearly spent his career stealing off Black music and now he's going to support that horror of Enoch Powell as well, it just all seems so absolutely ridiculous and outrageous that people launch an open letter to the press and that gets thousands of people involved. But since you've asked me about Rock Against Racism, I do want to say Rock Against Racism does have a weirdly and certainly different attitude towards free speech to the Anti-Nazi League. And this isn't necessarily something that was apparent at the time. It's only kind of apparent now when you look back at it. But one of the really interesting things about Rock Against Racism is that because it was a movement of young people who were trying to reclaim music and make cultural form that could overturn British politics and change the world, is that they didn't turn around and say, "We just want to cut off all the racists and treat them as bad and shoot them out into space," kind of as what the Anti-Nazi League's trying to do to fascists. Rock Against Racism grasped that if you're going to try and change this cultural milieu which is music, you actually had to have a bit of a discussion and debate and an argument with the racists, but they tried to have it on their own terms. So concretely, what people would do is Rock Against Racism courted one particular band called Sham 69, who were one of the most popular young skinhead bands, but also had a bunch of neo-nazis amongst their roadies and things like that. They actually put on gigs Sham 69, put them on student union halls, surrounded them with Black acts. Knew that these people were going to bring skinheads into the things, had them performing under Rock Against Racism banner, and almost forced the band to get into the state of practical warfare with their own fans to try and say to them, "We don't want you to be nazis anymore. We want you to stop this." That dynamic, it was incredibly brave, was incredibly bold. It was really destructive for some of the individuals involved like Jimmy Pursey, the lead singer of Sham 69. Effectively saying to them, "Right, we want you to put on a gig every week where you're going to get bottled by your own fans, and you're going to end up like punching them, just to get them to stop being racist." But we can't see any other way of shifting this milieu of young people who we see as our potential allies. There were lots of sort of local things like that with Rock Against Racism. It wasn't about creating a safe space in which bad ideas couldn't come in; it was about going onto the enemy's ideological trend and going, "Right, on this trend, we can have an argument. We can win this argument." So it is really quite an interesting cultural attempt to change the politics of the street. Mike: Okay, now you two have very different ideas of what No Platform is in its essence. Evan, you believe that No Platform was shifting in scope from its inception and it is properly directed at any institutional platform afforded to vociferous bigots. While David you believe that No Platform is only properly applied against fascists, and going beyond that is a dangerous form of mission creep. Now, I absolutely hate debates. [laughter] I think the format does more to close off discussion than to draw out information on the topic at hand. So, what I don't want to happen is have you two arguing with each other about your positions on No Platform (and maybe me, because I have yet a third position). David: Okay Mike, honestly, we've known each other for years. We've always been– Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. David: –your listeners will pick up, there's loads we agree on, too. So I'm sure we can deal without that rubbish debate. [Evan laughs] Mike: All right. So what I'd like to do is ground this discussion as much as possible in history rather than abstract moral principles. So in that interest, can each of you talk a bit about the individuals and groups that have taken the position on No Platform that you have, and how they've defended their positions? David let's start with you. What groups were there insisting that No Platform was necessary but its necessity was limited to overt fascists? David: Well, I think in practice, that was the approach of Rock Against Racism. They took a very different attitude towards people who were tough ideological fascists, to the people who were around them who were definitely racist, but who were capable of being argued out of that. I mean, I've given the example of the policy of trying to have a debate with Sham 69 or use them as a mechanism to change their audience. What I want to convey is in every Rock Against Racism group around the country, they were often attempts to something very similar. People talk about Birmingham and Leeds, whether it be sort of local Rock Against Racism groups, they might put on– might get a big band from some other city once a month, but three weeks out of four, all they're doing is they're putting on a local some kind of music night, and they might get a hundred people there. But they'd go out of the way to invite people who they saw as wavering supporters of The National Front. But the point is this wasn't like– We all know how bad faith debates work. It's something like it's two big ego speakers who disagree with each other, giving them half an hour each to debate and know their audience is already persuaded that one of them's an asshole, one of them's great. This isn't what they were trying to do. They were trying to win over one by one wavering racists by putting them in an environment where they were surrounded by anti-racists. So it was about trying to create a climate where you could shift some people who had hateful ideas in their head, but were also capable of being pulled away from them. They didn't do set piece debates with fascists because they knew that the set piece debates with fascists, the fascists weren't going to listen to what they were going to say anyway. But what they did do is they did try to shift people in their local area to try and create a different atmosphere in their local area. And they had that attitude towards individual wavering racists, but they never had that attitude towards the fascist leaders. The fascist leaders as far as they're concerned, very, very simple, we got to close up the platform to them. We got to deprive them of a chance. Another example, Rock Against Racism, how it kind of made those sorts of distinctions. I always think with Rock Against Racism you know, they had a go at Clapton. They weren't at all surprised when he refused to apologize. But with Bowie, there was always a sense, "We want to create space for Bowie. We want to get Bowie back because Bowie's winnable." That's one of the things about that movement, is that the absolute uncrossable line was fascism. But if people could be pulled back away from that and away from the ideas associated with that, then they wanted to create the space to make that happen. Mike: Okay, and Evan, what groups took the Maximalist approach to No Platform and what was their reasoning? Evan: Yeah. So I think the discussion happens once the National Front goes away as the kind of the major threat. So the 1979 election, the National Front does dismally, and we can partially attribute that to the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism, kind of this popular antifascist movement. But there's also that Margaret Thatcher comes to power, and there's an argument that's made by historians is that she has pulled away the racist vote away from the National Front back to the conservatives. It's really kind of a realignment of leftwing politics under Thatcher because it's a much more confrontational conservative government, but there's also kind of these other issues which are kind of the new social movements and what we would now term as identity politics, they're forming in the sixties and seventies and are really big issues in the 1980s. So kind of like feminism, gay rights, andthat,  there's an argument among some of the students that if we have a No Platform for racism and fascism, why don't we have a No Platform for sexism? Why don't we have a No Platform for homophobia? And there are certain student unions who try to do this. So LSE in 1981, they endorse a No Platform for sexist as part of a wider fight against sexism, sexual harassment, sexual violence on campus is that misogynist speakers shouldn't be allowed to have a presence on campus. Several student unions kind of have this also for against homophobia, and as a part of this really divisive issue in the mid 1980s, the conservative government is quite homophobic. Section 28 clause 28 is coming in in the late eighties. It's a whole kind of homophobia of AIDS. There's instances where students object to local Tory politicians who were kind of outwardly, explicitly homophobic, that they should be not allowed to speak on stage. Then also bubbling along in the background is kind of the supporters of apartheid, so South African diplomats or kind of other people who support the South African regime including Conservative politicians, is that several times throughout the 1980s, they are invited to speak on campus, and there's kind of a massive backlash against this. Sometimes the No Platform policy is invoked. Sometimes it's just simple disruption or kind of pickets or vigils against them. But once fascism is kind of not the main issue, and all these different kind of politics is going on in the eighties, is that there's argument that No Platform for fascism and racism was important, but fascism and racism is only one form of hate speech; it's only one form of discrimination; it's only one form of kind of bodily violence; and we should take them all into consideration. Mike: Okay. Now there's been a fair bit of backlash against No Platform in kind of any of its forms from various sectors, so let's talk a bit about that. Let's start with the fascist themselves. So their response kind of changed somewhat over time in response to No Platform. David, you talk about this. David: Yeah. In the early ‘70s in Britain or I suppose in the late ‘70s too, what's extraordinary is how little use fascist make out of saying, "We are being attacked, free speech applies. We've got to have the right to be heard." I made the point earlier that Britain doesn't have a strong legal culture of free speech. We do have some culture of free speech. And again, it's not that the fascists never use these terms at all, they use them, but they use them very half-heartedly. Their dominant approach is to say, "We are being attacked by the left. The left don't understand we have better fighters than them. If they attack us on the streets, we'll fight back. In the end, we'll be the ones who win in a kind of battle of machismo, street fighting power." Now A, that doesn't happen because actually they lose some set piece confrontations, mostly at Lewisham in 1977. But it's interesting that they don't do the kind of thing which you'd expect the far right to do today, which is to say, like the British far right does today, they constantly say, "We're under attack. Free speech demands that we be heard. We're the only people who take free speech seriously." There's a continuous process in the British far right these days of endlessly going on social media every time anyone even disagrees with them a little bit, they immediately have their faces taped up and present themselves as the victim of this terrible conspiracy when in the mid-'70s when there really were people trying to put the far right out of business, that isn't what the far right did. I think, in essence, a whole bunch of things have to change. You have to get kind of a hardening of the free speech discourse in the United States; you have to have things like the attack on political correctness; the move by the American center-right from being kind of equivocal on free speech to being extremely pro-free speech; and you need to get the importation into Britain of essentially the same kind of free speech discourse as you have in States. Once we get all of that, the British far right eventually twigs that it's a far more effective way of presenting themselves and winning supporters by posing as the world's biggest defenders of free speech.  But in the ‘70s, they haven't learned that lesson yet, and their response is much more leaden and ineffective. In essence, they say, "No Platform's terrible because it's bullying us." But what they never have the gumption to say is, "Actually, we are the far right. We are a bunch of people putting bold and dangerous and exciting ideas, and if we are silenced, then all bold and dangerous and difficult ideas will be silenced too." That's something which a different generation of writers will get to and will give them all sorts of successes. But in the ‘70s, they haven't found it yet. Mike: Okay. Now fascists also had some uneasy allies as far as No Platform is concerned among Tories and libertarians. So let's talk about the Tories first, what was their opposition to No Platform about? Evan, you talk about this quite a bit in your book. Evan: Yeah. So the conservative opposition to No Platform is essentially saying that it's a stock standard thing that the left call everyone fascist. So they apply it to broadly and is that in the ‘80s, there's a bunch of conservative politicians to try to go onto campus, try to speak, and there's massive protests. They say that, "Look, this is part of an intolerant left, that they can't see the distinction between fascism and a Conservative MP. They don't want to allow anyone to have free speech beyond that kind of small narrow left wing bubble." In 1986, there is an attempt, after a kind of a wave of protest in '85, '86, there is an attempt by the government to implement some kind of protection for free speech on campus. This becomes part of the Education Act of 1986, that the university has certain obligations to ensure, where practical, free speech applies and no speech is denied. But then it's got all kind of it can't violate the Racial Discrimination Act, the Public Order Act, all those kind of things. Also, quite crucially for today, that 1986 act didn't explicitly apply to student unions. So student unions argued for the last 30 years that they are exempt from any legislation and that they were legally allowed to pursue their No Platform policy.

covid-19 united states america tv american history black health chicago europe english israel uk battle politics talk law crisis british germany race society africa european left ireland dm army lies jewish south africa conference students world war ii supreme court nazis jews economics states idea britain discord oxford adolf hitler acceptance minister cambridge oz birmingham rock and roll constitution conservatives limits clash aids holocaust cold war berkeley david bowie lover south africans human rights pentagon iq powell rivers soviet union leeds universities soviet home office free speech playboy labour vietnam war mill policing federation first amendment london school libertarians hollow fascism eric clapton apartheid declaration of independence fascists leftists israel palestine margaret thatcher sham zionism labour party conservative party communist party routledge zionists mosley tories soc isle of man civilizations lse marxists clapton ian smith conservative mps renton edmund burke auden flinders university national union rhodesia nus american constitution lewisham southall oxford union stuart hall lady chatterley evan smith maximalist national front education act toby young unborn children sussex university european convention samuel huntington enoch powell maoists tariq ali oswald mosley cambridge union tom paine rock against racism students union cable street corbynism david yeah trotskyism trotskyist david well mike yeah monday club spiked online victoria station public order act revolutionary communist party mike there mike so no platform action party racial discrimination act national democratic party mike one david thank mike all david renton evan david jimmy pursey
The Visible Voices
Hella Pick Pioneering British-Austrian Journalist

The Visible Voices

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 7, 2022 39:58


Hella Pick was born in Vienna, came to the UK on a Kindertransport and has lived in UK since 1939. She is a Graduate of the London School of Economics, was awarded a CBE in 2000, and received an honorary doctorate from Sussex University in 2018. She is a British-Austrian journalist who spent 35 years reporting for the Guardian in Washington, at the UN and all over Europe. Her memoir Invisible Walls was published in 2021 She was on the staff of the Guardian newspaper from 1961- 1997, working first as UN correspondent, later Washington correspondent, East-West affairs correspondent, Diplomatic Editor, and Associate Foreign Affairs Editor. She has been a frequent contributor to BBC news programs and appearances on German and Austrian TV. Since 1998 she has worked a Senior consultant first for Lord Weidenfeld's Club of Three and after its  foundation for his Institute of Strategic Dialogue, where she became Director of the Arts and Culture Programme organising international meetings on political/strategic, economic and arts issues, and also for five years an annual Europe-China Media exchange project.  Hella has served on the Advisory Board of the German-Jewish Studies Centre at Sussex University for more than 10 years, and on behalf of Lord Weidenfeld was closely involved in the establishment of the Chair of Israel Studies at Sussex University.  She is currently acting in an advisory capacity for the establishment of the Sussex University Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies  She is the author of Simon Wiesenthal - A Life in Search of Justice published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1996). Her latest book , her memoir is Invisible Walls – a Journalist in search of her Life'  was published by Weidenfeld&Nicolson (2021).

Better Place Project with Steve Norris
Feel Good Friday! The Story of Bernadette Russell and 365 Days of Random Acts of Kindness

Better Place Project with Steve Norris

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 29, 2022 7:25


This week's Feel Good Friday episode shines a light on Bernadette Russell from the UK, who after having a random positive experience in a post office, decided to commit to doing an act of kindness for 365 consecutive days.  The experience would change her life forever!  Steve chats about Bernadette's story, while playing clips from her BBC 4 appearance, while also sharing some fascinating findings that have just come in after the completion of the world's largest study on kindness, conducted by the University of Sussex, involving 60,000 volunteers.  There is so much to learn from this study about the benefits to the world when we are kind to each other.  And the good news is that kindness is all around us!To become a Better Place Project Member (and receive free BPP Merch) and support our show, please visit:https://www.patreon.com/BetterplaceprojectTo stay connected with Better Place Project and for updates and behind the scenes info, please follow us on social media:Website: www.BetterPlaceProject.org(Leave us a voice message directly from the home page of our website)Instagram: @BetterPlaceProj    To follow Steve & Erin on Instagram: @SteveNorrisOfficial  @Erinorris

The Motherkind Podcast
The secret to solving the tension between ambition and Motherhood with Dr. Jenna Macciochi

The Motherkind Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2021 62:29


This week's guest is with one of the UK's leading scientists, immunologist Dr. Jenna Macciochi, who is also a mum of twins. This is an incredibly powerful episode about the tension between motherhood and work. So if you have ever felt pulled in multiple directions, then this episode is for you. It is in two halves. The first half is very personal from Dr. Jenna. She shares so courageously and honestly about her experience with burnout and how it was the start of a total realignment of her priorities. I found it incredibly inspiring and thought-provoking. I think you are going to love what Dr. Jenna shares. The second half is from her professional expertise, about winter bugs and what we can all be doing to stay as well as possible this winter. We chat about: What can happen if we don't look after our health The tension between motherhood and work How to use boundaries to reconcile this tension What to do to avoid getting ill this winter What to do if you do get ill And the answer to the question we all are asking: Is it true that we are all going to be more susceptible to winter bugs because we have been in lockdown and isolation? As always, we continue the conversation over on Instagram, so come and join us there. Resources mentioned in this episode: Author of Immunity: The Science of Staying Well Website www.drjennamacciochi.com Instagram www.instagram.com/dr_jenna_macciochi Twitter www.twitter.com/drjmacc FREEBIES! Find out how you can take control of your life, reconnect to you and more! Download ‘10 Ways to Reconnect to You' and our weekly and monthly check-in on Motherkind.co. Are you ready to find freedom from guilt? Let me help you find Freedom from Perfectionism if you are a mother who has ever felt not quite enough. FREE WORKSHOPS in NOVEMBER 2021 - How to have an (actual) Happy Christmas Motherkind + Whirli are pleased to offer 4 x free workshops for parents and carers. Click here to find out more and register. About Dr. Jenna Macciochi Dr. Jenna Macciochi has over 20 years' experience as a scientist researching the impact of lifestyle on the immune system in health and disease. A strong advocate of preventative medicine, she is on a mission to break down the science behind our health and share the secrets of how to be well. Based in Brighton, Jenna is a lecturer at Sussex University and a qualified fitness instructor. Her writing has been featured in The Times, Women's Health, Marie Claire, Glamour Magazine and Metro amongst others. She is a mother of 5-year-old twins and a keen home cook, creating recipes inspired by her farm-to-table Scottish roots and capturing her husband's Italian heritage.

The Mind, Body and Soul in Healing
Hoarding and Psychotherapy with Stelios Kiosses

The Mind, Body and Soul in Healing

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 16, 2021 44:17


"If you discard an item that a compulsive hoarder is attached to - it could be an empty box, a tin, or something like that. If you throw that particular item that they are attached to away, the grief that a compulsive hoarder will experience is the same amount of grief that one would experience with the loss of a loved one. The same intensity of grieve and mourning will be displayed as if you have lost a real person."   Episode Description: We begin our conversation by outlining the differences between collecting, clutter, and hoarding. Stelios describes the hoarder's fortress of material items that parallels their emotional defenses that keep them from experiencing internal vulnerability and loss. He sees the goal of treatment as helping individuals transform from an intolerable to a tolerable interplay with the world and with others. We review the subject of behavioral cleaning of their homes which if not done sensitively can overwhelm the hoarder. He has found that it must be done in conjunction with psychotherapy if it is to aid the person's capacity to mourn. We close with his describing his difficult personal journey and how powerful psychotherapy has been in his life.   Our Guest: Stelios Kiosses is a psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice. He studied psychodynamic counseling and clinical supervision at the University of Oxford and was previously trained in psychotherapy and experimental psychology at Sussex University. Stelios currently teaches at Harvard University Extension School. In his public role, he has acted as a UK TV psychologist and presenter for Channel 4's hit series The Hoarder Next Door narrated by Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman and currently is patron of the Prince's Foundation School of Traditional Arts one of HRH Prince of Wales core charities. His book The Power of Talking: Stories From The Therapy Room has just been published by Phoenix Publishing House.

“That’s Myrony” (My + Irony)
Eli Goldsmith Founder of Unity Inspires Projects Shares His Vision & Also His Divine Myronies!!

“That’s Myrony” (My + Irony)

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 27, 2021 68:14


Eli Goldsmith shares his history of growing up in London from his well-known family in the music business…do you remember Live Aid and the reunion of Led Zeppelin? Well his family was connected to those performances along with so many other artists and bands not to mention also doing merchandising for WWF…too bad as a podcast you can't see Alysha's expressions when he shares his myronic stories from those days because her jaw drops in absolute amazement so many times!! Eli now lives in Jerusalem where he is affectionately called the Midnightrabbi by his students in addition to being an agent, manager, author, teacher, director, producer and also fellow podcaster!! Click the links below to also find out more about Eli's vision to help unite the world as Founder of Unity Inspires Projects where he is helping to create unification through love and shared inspiration!! About the Guest: (bio, personal links, resource links)Goldsmith #inspired, is originally from a well-known family, in the music biz and entertainment industry, from London, has transferred his upbringing and talents to be at the cutting edge of culture and Jewish talent hosting events for many programs. Recently, managing the well-known music artist Nissim Black, consulted successfully with high profile media articles, world tour, & online music biz opportunities! He studied in England at John Lyons School Harrow, Woodhouse College, and Sussex University! Continuing his education in Israel, Talmudic Law and group council at Ohr Somayach, Kollel Aiza HaBirah and Kollel Boston, in Derech Hamelech and Rabbi in 6 well-known programs where was named honorably the Midnightrabbi by the beloved students themselves, He has rounded off his outlook with a large breath of wisdom including the "7 habits" from Stephen Covey to become the “10 habits” practical business successful approach. Working as a Consultant in the well-known Charity for 4 years, the Jaffa Institute & sister program the Bet Shemesh Educational Center is where he honed his talents in management & formed a bond with many special people worldwide.Currently, Eli is growing all Breslev Israel platforms for Rav Shalom Arush and Emuna Team! He is developing with success new projects and platforms to inspire, alongside performing as a dynamic PR representative successfully for many Social Media and Music companies! Eli contributes to professionalism, HR, training with CX talks, and positive developmental feedback. Speaking in front of large audiences online and in-person with real confidence brings change. Eli is dedicated to a 2020 Vision of Unity Projects, and Emuna is our Future. These projects are the keys to the root of the issues in our generation! Eli the Founder of Unity Inspires Projects will accomplish these needed changes! This includes our Unity Booking Agency Growing list of talented Creatives and Artists :)! Thanks for your Unity Focus and Inspired Collaboration with our Projects!https://www.instagram.com/unityinspiresprojectshttps://twitter.com/goldsmithelihttps://unityinspiresprojects.comunityinspiresprojects@gmail.comLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/eligoldsmithakamidnightrabbi/Podcast - https://anchor.fm/eligoldsmithAbout the Host:Alysha Myronuk is the creator of the