2010 Programme: Festival Saturday overview

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

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

Saturday 30 October: 10.30am-12.00pm
Keynote Controversies Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Trust in an age of cynicism
Lecture Theatre 1
Ageing and medicine: quality versus quantity?
Courtyard Gallery
What's the point of the social sciences?
Lecture Theatre 2
Happy-clappy architecture: designing for well-being
Café
Obama's America: is racism history?
Henry Moore Gallery
What makes life sacred?
Student Union
Going nowhere? Staying local in a global village
Saturday 30 October: 12.15pm-1.15pm
Lunchtime Debates Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Behind closed doors: privacy vs transparency?
Lecture Theatre 1
Alternative medicine: the pros and cons
Courtyard Gallery
Is the Big Society the good society?
Lunchtime Debates Lecture Theatre 2
Economists behaving badly?
Lunchtime Debates Henry Moore Gallery
Your conscience, my health: the right to refuse?
Lunchtime Debates Student Union
Plug in, turn on, drive off: the future of cars?
Saturday 30 October: 1.30pm-3.00pm
Keynote Controversies Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
The empty square: the public engaged or imagined?
Lecture Theatre 1
Rationing and medicine: what price life?
Courtyard Gallery
Too much, too young: why is policy obsessed with teenage mums?
Lecture Theatre 2
From banks to BP: can we trust big business?
Café
Post-Lula Brazil: country of the future?
Henry Moore Gallery
Worth three tenors? The value of opera
Student Union
Should apes have rights?
Saturday 30 October: 3.30pm-5.00pm
Keynote Controversies Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Is the West still the best?
Lecture Theatre 1
Patient centred healthcare: the right to choose?
Courtyard Gallery
Early intervention: saving children from their future?
Lecture Theatre 2
Choosing tomorrow's children
Café
Negotiating South Africa's past: can we forgive and forget?
Henry Moore Gallery
Instrumental music: should music be a tool of social policy?
Student Union
What are universities for?
Saturday 30 October: 5.15pm-6.30pm
Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
The great population debate: too many carbon footprints?
Lecture Theatre 1
Debating Matters International Final: Organ Donation - UK versus India
Courtyard Gallery
Doting Dads
Lecture Theatre 2
Bookshop Barnie at the Battle: Voodoo Histories
Café
Africa and oil
Henry Moore Gallery
The war on alcohol: new puritanism or healthy sobriety?
Student Union
Political graffiti or self-important art?

Festival Buzz

Battle of Ideas 2006 Welcome Address

"There was an astonishing range of opinions expressed while I was there, some of them pure nonsense, others profound, all of them provocative."
Daniel Moylan, Deputy chairman, Transport for London