2009 Programme: Festival weekend overview

The Festival weekend includes more than 70 debates which are listed below ordered by time slot and room. To see Saturday or Sunday sessions only, select the day you want from the menu on the left or select sessions by Theme.

Or view and print out the Timetable as a two-page PDF.


Saturday 31 October: 10.30am to 12.00am
Café Controversies Café
Chav-bashing: demonising the ‘white working class’?

Saturday 31 October: 1.30pm to 3.00pm
Café Controversies Café
Welfare Dependency: who benefits?

Saturday 31 October: 3.30pm to 5.00pm
In Conversation Salons Lecture Theatre 2
Who ate all the pies? Football, greed and the recession

Saturday 31 October: 5.15pm to 6.30pm
Keynote Controversies Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Rethinking Therapy Culture: changing the subject?

Sunday 1 November: 9.45am to 10.30am
Breakfast Banter Courtyard Gallery
The Battle over Video Games
Breakfast Banter Café
The Ugly Game? The Old Firm, football rivalry and the politics of behaviour

Sunday 1 November: 10.45am to 12.15pm
Keynote Controversies Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Nudge Nudge, Nag Nag: the new politics of behaviour
Battle for Work Courtyard Gallery
The changing meaning of work – from work-life balance to unemployment
Café Controversies Café
We don't need no Sex Education

Sunday 1 November: 12.30pm to 1.30pm
Head to Head Debates Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Should physician-assisted dying be legalised?

Sunday 1 November: 1.45pm to 3.15pm
Café Controversies Café
Policing the Playground: do anti-bullying campaigns do more harm than good?
Creativity Zone Student Union
Shaping Social Policy: Designers and Crime

Sunday 1 November: 3.45pm to 5.15pm
Keynote Controversies Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
The Good Society: virtues for a post-recession world
In Conversation Salons Lecture Theatre 2
Songs of Innocence and Experience: what should today's kids be reading?
Café Controversies Café
Standing up to Supernanny: why we need a Parents' Liberation Movement

Sunday 1 November: 5.30pm to 6.30pm
Thought for the day Lecture Theatre 1
Shopping: are we all ethical now?
Thought for the day Courtyard Gallery
Is the NHS institutionally ageist?
Thought for the day Café
Sporty kids and pushy parents
Thought for the day Henry Moore Gallery
Head to head debate: Is it the duty of schools to promote community cohesion?

Festival Buzz
'Turn That Racket Off'

View: 'Turn That Racket Off'

"The Battle of Ideas goes from strength to strength. The intensity, variety and depth of debate, sustained for an entire weekend, makes for a unique experience charging the intellectual batteries for the rest of the year."
Raymond Tallis, emeritus professor of geriatric medicine, Manchester University