2013 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.
Sunday 20 October: 12.15pm-1.15pm
Lunchtime Debates Cinema 1
The empty square: the public engaged or imagined?
"To contribute to Battle of Ideas is to add a few words to a giant, communal speech-bubble out of the gap-toothed mouth of British opinion. It is a strong reminder that the joys of free, uncalculated speech and the right to attack orthodoxies can in no way be assumed in 2012 – that we use them or lose them."
Piers Hellawell, composer; professor of composition, Queen’s University Belfast
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