Takes place on Thursday 14th June 2018, 7.30pm to 9.00pm at The Woodman, New Canal Street, Birmingham B5 5LG (near Millennium Point)

Takes place on Saturday 21st April from 11.30am to 4.45pm, upstairs at the Old Joint Stock, 4 Temple Row West, Birmingham B2 5NY

What do disputes between identity-based groups such as women and transsexuals really mean today? Do they have a genuinely progressive dimension in society, or are they simply about conformity and hollow etiquette?

Admission fee is £10. Buy your ticket on Eventbrite.

The day’s itinerary:

11.30am to 1.00pm. Session 1 – What do women want?

Months after American actress Alyssa Milano’s tweet gave birth to the #MeToo social-media movement, the fascination with alleged sexual harassment scandal shows no signs of abating.

#MeToo has opened up a conversation about sexual harassment, we’re told. But is this a one-sided conversation, in which women who fail to toe the #metoo line are labelled misogynists, patriarchs and rape apologists?

And when men have lost their jobs for everything from accusations of knee touching to attending men-only events, is the meaning of sexual harassment losing clarity? Or does metoo mark a significant step forward, with outmoded sexual behaviour exposed and made unacceptable?

Is feminism preoccupied with frightening women about sex? Is the #MeToo movement a positive change for women's freedom? Or is today's sex panic an example of how reactionary feminism has become?

Speakers:

Ella Whelan – Ella is a journalist and a campaigner for free speech.
Additional speakers to be confirmed

Readings

Feminism has become obsessed with victimhood. Irish Times, 2018
Parents reckon feminism 'is not relevant'. The Scotsman, 2018
Banning F1 grid girls is a distraction from the wider workplace war. Spiked, 2018
Policing pregnancy: The new attack on women's autonomy. Spiked, 2017

 

13.00-13.45. Lunch

Lunch is not provided but is available from the bar downstairs.

13.45-15.15. Session 2 – Race and racism today: what can we learn from Martin Luther King?

To mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, we reappraise the legacy of his most famous dictum. In his iconic speech, King stated: ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.’

But for all our reverence for this magnificent vision, King’s positive aspirations to eradicate racial difference and his commitment to equal treatment are now under severe strain.

Identity politics seems to have seized the reins from the civil rights movement – but how well does it align with King’s call to judge people by the ‘content of their character’? If judging people by their skin colour ever went away, it seems to be back with a vengeance.

Today’s social justice warriors – many of whom invoke King’s name – demand racially-segregated safe spaces on campuses and espouse ideas that are diametrically opposed to the universalist philosophy that informed King’s work. Are they more preoccupied by biological features than by character?

What would Martin Luther King make of today’s intersectional politics of identity? What can we learn from Martin Luther King?

Speakers:

Michell Chresfield – Michell is a lecturer in US History at the University of Birmingham

Vincent Gould – Vincent is an artist, actor and satirist

Cheryl Hudson – Cheryl is a lecturer in American History at the University of Liverpool

Readings

On MLK Day, stand against identity politics. National Review, January 2017
The ignoble lie: How the new aristocracy masks its privilege. First Things, 2018
Identity politics - What is to be done? Huffington Post, May 2017
Identity politics is killing college life. Spiked, September 2013

15.15-15.30. Drinks break

15.30-16.45. Session 3 – Exploring equality

We live at a time when the question of equality is polarising our political landscape. This talk will examine equality of opportunity, equality of outcome and equality of treatment. These are three markedly different areas of equality, each with distinctive implications for the way we organise society.

The passion and anger that tends to accompany equality activism today can obscure the conflicts that arise between different forms of equality. Activists demanding one form of equality (such as outcome) fail to see that this very equality might negate another form of equality (such as treatment). There is also a worrying tendency to see equality as a categorical imperative that trumps other social values, including difference, diversity and competition.

Equality is often used to justify demands that express irrational resentments and entitlement, hindering attempts to tackle genuine discrimination where it arises. This talk will explore these problems and attempt to offer some solutions that prioritise the flourishing of individuals, rather than groups.

Speaker

Dr Greg Scorzo – Greg is a director and editor of the online magazine Culture on the Offensive.

Sunday 1st October 2017, 1.30pm - 6.00pm, at Centrala, Unit 4, Minerva Works, 158 Fazeley Street, Birmingham B5 5RT 

Entrance fee: £7

At the centenary of the 1917 revolution which brought the Bolsheviks to power in Russia, Birmingham Salon looks at the enduring legacy of this and other past revolutions.

Buy your ticket on Skiddle now.

The afternoon's itinerary:

1.45 pm - 3.45 pm

Film screening of Every Cook Can Govern: The Life, Impact, and Works of CLR James
CLR James, the Trinidad-born revolutionary wrote about Toussaint L'Ouverture leading the 18th century revolution in Haiti in his acclaimed work, Black Jacobins. The film focuses on his life, writing and ideas, and interweaves never before seen footage of James with testimony from those who knew him.

4.15 pm - 5.45 pm

Live debate: The centenary of the Russian revolution – what is its legacy?
During 10 days that shook the world in October 1917, the Red Guard, armed factory workers, soldiers and sailors took over the telegraph office, Winter Palace and other key buildings in the then capital, Petrograd. The revolution ultimately failed. But does that mean that the Bolsheviks, and those who fought for Peace, Bread and Land, were wrong to overthrow the old regime?

What impact did the Russian revolution have on the 20th century world? What is its relevance to today? Does its ultimate failure mean that we must simply give up on the idea of a political struggle for social change? Or should we instead reflect on how better to go about building a new society?


The debate will be chaired by Helene Guldberg.

Speakers:

Dr Mike Fitzpatrick: Doctor and writer, former GP and veteran left-winger

Christopher Read: Professor of 20th Century History at the University of Warwick. Author of Lenin: A Revolutionary Life (Routledge, 2005) and War and Revolution in Russia: 1914-22 - The Collapse of Tsarism and the Establishment of Soviet Power (Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave 2013)

Thursday 8th June 7.30 pm
at The Victoria, John Bright Street, Birmingham, B1 1BN

Saturday 18th March from 1pm to 5pm
Upstairs at the Old Joint Stock, 4 Temple Row West, Birmingham B2 5NY

The EU referendum exposes the UK as a divided nation, with swathes of economically moribund territory and little sense of active parliamentary representation.  As the government leads us towards invoking Article 50 to start negotiations to leave the European Union, join us for our Saturday afternoon event – with two debates that will explore what shape our economy and democracy are in, what needs to change, and whether Brexit will help or hinder.

Tickets available here.

After Brexit – Where is the Economy Heading?

The Leave vote will involve one of the most significant institutional changes for our economy in recent times. And although negotiation terms are becoming clearer, the uncertainty remains acute.
Since the Referendum, sterling has been shaky, and Ernst and Young forecasts economic slowdown in the short term, with longer range economic health depending on overseas trade performance, which is chronically weak.
Now that May has committed the UK to leaving the Single Market, can free trade agreements elsewhere compensate? What exactly do World Trade Organization (WTO) trade terms entail? Does post-referendum stability simply belie the severity of problems ahead? After all, we have yet to leave the EU, so the impact has yet to materialise.
Pro-Leave economists argue that WTO tariffs are “relatively low and falling”. Prognoses for the Eurozone are dire in any case, and the UK has been grappling with problems such as productivity for decades.
Is Brexit simply forcing us to confront longstanding economic realities? Could it galvanise UK businesses into seizing opportunities with more dynamic parts of the world? Or is it the death knell for our way of life?

Speakers
Phil Mullan
Phil Mullan combines business management with research and writing, primarily on economic matters. His next book is published at the end of March 2017: Creative destruction: How to start an economic renaissance (Policy Press). In business, he is a director of Epping Consulting, having completed eight years in senior management roles with Easynet Global Services. He was previously chief executive of Cybercafé Ltd. running the Cyberia internet cafe franchise.
Dr Huw Macartney
Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham.  Huw is a political economist whose work is broadly concerned with the politics of banking and financial services.  He is the author of European Democratic Legitimacy and the Debt Crisis, and Variegated Neoliberalism: European Financial Market Integration.

Chaired and produced by Sarah Bartlett

Recommended Readings
Huw Macartney on Trump, Brexit, the London riots, and alternative economic futures

Economic forecasts from Ernst and Young as the UK prepares to leave the EU

Social Market Foundation reviews the effects of EU membership on UK growth

Macro-economic predictions from the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge

Phil Mullan in Spiked lays out a five-point plan for kick-starting the economy

After Brexit - Is Democracy Working?

The Brexit vote reveals a divided demos, conflicting notions of the role of parliament, calls for a further referendum, criticism of campaign content, and distrust in experts and politicians.
Some see the result and the ensuing disorientation among politicians and others who had predicted financial disaster as a sign of the revolutionary potential of people power.  Others worry about an extremist side to a demos that remains angry and disillusioned by the economic turbulence of the 2008 crash. 
The coincidental publication of books Against Elections and Against Democracy suggest a wider sense that something is amiss with democracy as we know it. Turnout in the referendum was 72% but in recent by-elections there is little sign of any general upward trend. Is disillusion with political parties a good or bad thing?
And is it right to question the checks and balances of our democratic system? How should we view the ire directed at the High Court and Supreme Court, and at expert advisers? 
Is the response to the surprising result of the referendum an indication that we need to reform our democracy, and if so, how?

Speakers
Tom Pratt
Tom is a local campaigner - as well as chair of Unlock Democracy Birmingham. He is currently active in the West Midlands Politics of Networks, and stood last year as a candidate in the Sutton Coldfield Town Council elections. Unlock Democracy Birmingham has been active for 6 years. At present the group is campaigning for greater transparency around the Metro Mayor and the West Midlands Combined Authority.

Peter Kerr
Peter Kerr is a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on British party politics and democracy. He has authored several publications on developments in British politics since 1945, including the book Postwar British Politics: From Conflict to Consensus (Routledge). He is also the co-founder and editor of the journal British Politics.

Tom Slater
Tom is the Deputy Editor of spiked online, a current affairs magazine which campaigned for the immediate invoking of Article 50 following the referendum. He is also a regular contributor to the Spectator, the Telegraph and Time Out.

Chaired and produced by Rosamund Cuckston

Readings
A review of Against Democracy by Jason Brennan

Mick Hume argues for more, not less, people power in democracy

George Monbiot has a shopping list of democratic reforms

The US, France, and India are labelled flawed democracies in the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index

Love: A Post-Socratic Dialogue

Wednesday 15th February, 7.30 pm

The Victoria, John Bright Street, Birmingham, B1 1BN

Pornography is one of the visual expressions of sex and sexuality.  Among the oldest surviving examples of erotic depictions are Palaeolithic cave paintings and carvings, which suggests that that looking at pictures of naked bodies is an ancient habit.

In modern times, though, there is widespread concern that communication technologies have led to the unhealthy and excessive proliferation of pornography. Does the ability to access explicit sexual images from our smartphones represent sexual liberation or corruption?

A massive growth in the production of pornography has prompted producers and performers to push the boundaries of their work in order maintain profits and stay ahead in a very busy market.  It is possible to argue that that this gives us more choice and information about sexual behaviour, but are these vivid images also confusing and desensitising? Young men say they are being traumatised by violent sexual imagery, and some young people are reported to be exposed to pornography before their first kiss.  How do we balance our responsibility to protect children and teenagers with the liberty to engage with pornography without resorting to hypocrisy?

Some feminists and seek to ban all pornography on the grounds that it leads to the objectification of women and rape.  Are the anti-porn feminists very different from religious leaders who call for women to cover themselves up in order to avoid sexually inciting men? More and more people claim they are ‘addicted’ to viewing sexually explicit material. Is this just a symptom of modern childishness, or are we enslaved rather than liberated by pornography.

The debate is produced and will be chaired by Rosie Pocklington.

Speakers
Luke Gittos is law editor at spiked, a British Internet magazine focusing on politics, culture and society from a humanist and libertarian viewpoint. He is also solicitor practising criminal law and convenor of the London Legal Salon.

Jerry Barnett is an author, technologist, photographer and activist. His long experience in anti-fascist politics led him to become a dedicated campaigner for free speech and sexual freedom, and he founded the Sex & Censorship campaign in 2013. His book Porn Panic! was published in August by Zero Books.