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: 12.15pm to 1.15pm
Lunchtime Debates Lecture Theatre 1
Genetics and genomics: medicine made to measure?
Lunchtime Debates Lecture Theatre 2
Debating Development
Activism Zone Student Union
The Fight over Flight: what's the problem with air travel?

Saturday 31 October: 1.30pm to 3.00pm
In Conversation Salons Lecture Theatre 2
Bookshop Barnie at the Battle: 'Why We Disagree about Climate Change'

Saturday 31 October: 3.30pm to 5.00pm
Battle for Reproductive Choice Lecture Theatre 1
Three’s a crowd? The battle over population and reproduction

Saturday 31 October: 5.15pm to 6.30pm
Thought for the day Courtyard Gallery
School Science Education: an experiment gone wrong?

Sunday 1 November: 10.45am to 12.15pm
Battle for Energy Lecture Theatre 1
Abundant, Cheap, Clean... Contentious? Why is energy a battlefield today?

Sunday 1 November: 12.30pm to 1.30pm
Lunchtime Debates Lecture Theatre 1
A Green New Deal: can environmentalism save the economy?

Sunday 1 November: 1.45pm to 3.15pm
Battle for Energy Lecture Theatre 1
A New Nuclear Age?
In Conversation Salons Lecture Theatre 2
A Space Age Future? Sci-fi film clips and discussion

Sunday 1 November: 3.45pm to 5.15pm
Battle for Energy Lecture Theatre 1
Solving the Energy Crisis: all about lightbulbs and lifestyle?

Festival Buzz
Democracy and its Discontents

View: Democracy and its Discontents

"The Battle of Ideas is adrenaline for the mind. A chance for intellectual fisticuffs with some of the best-known and most stimulating thinkers in the world."
Colin Blakemore, professor of neuroscience, Oxford University