Talks 2026

Saturday 9th May 2026

Spoken Word Poetry: A powerful, visceral, verbal art form.

Speaker: Max Terry Fishel

This talk by performance poet Max Terry Fishel offers an insight into the world of spoken word poetry, a burgeoning creative space open to everyone. Max will describe a typical open mic spoken word event, and talk about his own journey in this form of poetry. He will illustrate the talk with several of his own pieces, some on political issues, others on a range of topics. Max will also discuss performance techniques, as this is integral to his approach in making this art form accessible to audiences. He hopes that he will inspire audience members to seek out open mic events, and even try their hand at writing and performing!

Saturday 13th June 2026

The rise and decline of Lit and Phils.

Speakers: Drs Heather Ellis & Martha Vandrei

‘This talk explores the extraordinary rise & inexplicable decline of Britain’s literary & philosophical societies, which between the late 18th & early 20^th centuries functioned as key institutions of civic education, public debate & scientific dissemination. Drawing on new research into their membership, activities & spatial organisation, we will examine how these societies operated at the intersection of elite & popular knowledge cultures, often prefiguring later developments in adult education & public engagement. We’ll also reflect on the reasons for their subsequent decline, including professionalisation, institutional redundancy & changing cultural norms, & consider what their history can tell us about the conditions under which ideas flourish, circulate & fade from view in public life.’

Saturday 11th July 2026

Vi Gostling Memorial Lecture

My AI therapist lives in my pocket and knows me inside out.

Speaker: Paul Atkinson

It can feel like Artificial Intelligence is taking over. AI is in the news every day, celebrated as the answer to every problem, & feared as an existential threat to our jobs & our control over our own lives. As a psychotherapist, until recently I thought at least counselling & psychotherapy would be exempt from the march of the machines, that our emotional worlds would always need the attention of fellow suffering human beings. I was wrong. Private companies who provide Talking Therapies for the NHS are using recordings of millions of NHS sessions to teach AI ‘conversational agents’ how to be therapists, independent of human supervision.

Saturday 8th August 2026

Designer babies and how to stop them.

Speaker: Dave King

20 years ago, in the aftermath of the anti-GM food campaign, I gave a talk at NfN, warning of the future of designer baby eugenics. That future, of a genetically stratified society, where parents select IVF embryos for high IQ, or even genetically engineer them, is happening now, in a political climate far worse than anyone predicted. In the US, the hard right & Silicon Valley are coming together in an openly pro-eugenic techno fascism. Our government has announced it will sequence the genome of all babies at birth, & attempt to legalise GM babies in the next two years. Other technologies in the pipeline will turn making babies into an industrial production process that will make Huxley’s Brave New World look primitive. If we don’t want to go quietly into that future, we need to build a coalition led by those targeted for elimination by eugenics: disabled people, black people & the working class.

Saturday 12^th September 2026

Towards ‘Smart’ Prisons and E-Carceration?

Speaker: Mike Nellis, Strathclyde University

The Ministry of Justice anticipates a minimum daily prison population in England & Wales of 95,000 by 2029, up from its present 88,000. More people go to prison, increasingly for longer. Some ‘smart’ prisons infused with digital technologies will allegedly strengthen security & improve rehabilitation. The moment when campaigners believed an array of alternatives to prison would enable sentencers to use prison less has long passed; alternatives are themselves becoming more punitive. ‘Prison outside prison’ & ‘incarceration without walls’ are recent government watchwords involving even greater uses of electronic monitoring, delivered by the private sector & risk turning probation into a surveillance agency, more closely involved with the police. The British Left never agreed on a viable, radical critique of carceral practices, but there are still resources to draw on.

Saturday 10th October 2026

Dulwich Picture Gallery: The original gallery, unlocking art for all.

Speaker: Angela Diamond

Dulwich Picture Gallery has the enviable distinction of being the world’s first public art gallery. Angela Diamond will tell the absorbing story of how two immigrants from humble backgrounds took the art collection of a king and donated it to ordinary people. Angela will also talk about Tirzah Garwood, who recently was exhibited at the gallery. Tirzah (1908 – 1951) was a multi-skilled artist who spent most of her working life in or near Great Bardfield in Essex and was married to the much better-known Eric Ravilious. Angela has had a life time’s commitment to widening access to education for adults – working in refugee camps for the UNHCR, in Waltham Forest’s Adult Education Service for over thirty years and now both volunteering and working at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Saturday 14th November 2026

International Bodies: Are they toothless tigers?

Speaker: Douglas Saltmarshe

What do we refer to when we talk about human rights, refugees or asylum? How do we look upon the changes that we, the global community, have addressed issues of race, gender, nuclear proliferation & global warming? What rights do civilians have in times of war & what are the obligations of occupying powers? Douglas Saltmarshe’s professional activity has led him to engage with many situations related to conflict & development. In this talk he draws on his experiences in Afghanistan, the Middle East & elsewhere to illustrate the value of the tools, that is the frameworks & institutions, that we’ve developed to address these issues. He notes that these structures are coming under increasing threat & reflects where this might be taking us.

Saturday 12th December 2026

The Spycops Scandal – Exposing England’s secret political police.

Speaker: Dave Morris

Fifteen years ago, campaigners began to uncover a secret unit in the Metropolitan Police which had been infiltrating left wing & progressive organisations and movements since 1968. Up to 1,000 groups were targeted, including the Anti-Apartheid movement, CND, anti-racist & family justice campaigns, trade union branches, left-wing parties, anarchist, animal rights & environmental groups. Shocking tactics included engineering sexual relationships with women, acting as agents-provocateurs, hoovering up personal information on many thousands of people to send to MI5, & adopting the identities of deceased children. Come & hear how campaigners fought back, turned the tables & put the Police on trial in what has become the longest Public Inquiry in UK history.