Bristol Launches Second Festival of Ideas

BRISTOL, ENGLAND.- Bristol launched the programme for its second Festival of Ideas. Over 40 events, on subjects as wide-ranging as Brunel and progress, Darwin, the environmental future and the role of ideas, will take place 9-25 May in Bristol Harbourside. The centrepiece of the festival is a debate asking the question ‘should we apologise for the past?’. With the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007 approaching, and calls for a public apology to be made in Bristol and elsewhere for involvement in the trade, speakers including philosopher A C Grayling, Lola Young, Ekow Eshun (artistic director of the ICA) and historian Andrew Roberts will address this issue.

Andrew Kelly, Director of the Festival, said :‘The festival is designed to promote open debate on critical issues that face Bristol and other cities. We aim to bring the best writers in fiction and non-fiction to the city to meet and debate with the people of Bristol. The apologies debate is a critical one for Bristol, as it is an issue that comes up frequently.’

The 2006 festival is part of Brunel 200, the year-long celebrations of the life, work and legacy of Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the 200th anniversary of his birth. Another debate looks at whether the great age of progress, typified by Brunel and his contemporaries, is now at an end. Other debates include sessions on how ideas travel, what the South West should do for Darwin 200 in 2009, heroes and heroism today, and the creativity of the past. Leading novelists are also participating including Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm, and Margaret Atwood.

Other speakers include: Joan Bakewell, Geoff Dyer, John Gray, Charles Handy, Roy Hattersley, Julia Hobsbawm, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Sir Jeremy Isaacs, Andrea Levy, James Lovelock, Pankaj Mishra, Geoff Mulgan, Tariq Ramadan, Ziauddin Sardar, Chris Smith, Sara Wheeler and Lewis Wolpert.

Andrew Kelly added: ‘This is a fantastic range of speakers and debates. Bristol is in for a treat in May. It is appropriate that this takes place as part of Brunel 200. Brunel was a man of ideas and Bristol is a city of ideas. We hope that Brunel 200 and this Festival of Ideas will help inspire new ideas and also help identify solutions to some of the pressing problems of our time.’

A new website – www.ideasfestival.co.uk – is also launched today. In addition to providing details of the programme, it is a forum for debate around some of the issues in the festival. The website has full details of the program.