Advisory board
Bristol Festival of Ideas is managed by an advisory board comprising the following members:
Jane Arthurs
University of the West of England (UWE)
Professor Jane Arthurs is Head of the Department of Culture, Media and Drama at the University of the West of England in Bristol. Her teaching and research are in the field of film and television studies and feminist approaches to cultural analysis. Her publications include Television and Sexuality: Regulation and the Politics of Taste (2004), Crash Cultures (2002) Women’s Bodies: Discipline and Transgression (1999).
Julian Baggini
Freelance philosopher, author and journalist
Julian Baggini is a British writer specialising in philosophy. He is the author of The Pig that Wants to be Eaten and 99 other Thought Experiments (2005) and is a co-founder and editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine. He has written for the Guardian, the Independent, the Observer and the BBC, and has been a regular guest on BBC Radio 4′s In Our Time. Baggini was awarded his PhD in 1996 from University College London for a thesis on the philosophy of personal identity. His latest book is Should You Judge This Book by Its Cover? He has undertaken many events for the Bristol Festival of Ideas ranging from The Philosophy of the Simpsons to issues of identity and Britishness. He was one of the judges for the first Bristol Festival of Ideas Book Prize. Visit Julian’s blog here.
Peter Begen
Arnolfini, Bristol
Peter Begen is currently Manager of the Arnolfini bookshop in Bristol.
Mark Cosgrove
Watershed Media Centre, Bristol
Mark Cosgrove has worked in independent cultural film exhibition for 20 years, and is currently Head of Cultural Programme at Watershed Media Centre in Bristol. He is also Creative Director of Encounters Short International Film Festival and has been on the juries of DepicT!, Cork Film Festival, Leuven Kort Short Film festival and The Europa Label at Directors’ Fortnight, Cannes Festival, Uppsala International Festival. He produces dispatches from festivals he attends and a monthly cinema podcast.
Andrew Kelly
Bristol Cultural Development Partnership (BCDP)
Andrew Kelly is Director of Bristol Festival of Ideas and Bristol Cultural Development Partnership. He founded and led At-Bristol, Brief and Animated Encounters Festivals, Digital Arts Development Agency and the Bristol Great Reading Adventure. He is author of 12 books.
Rachel Murray
At-Bristol, Bristol
Rachel Murray is At-Bristol‘s Director of Learning.
Carinna Parraman
University of the West of England (UWE)
Carinna Parraman is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England in Bristol. She is a printmaker and has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad. She leads a European Union, Framework 6 Marie Curie project entitled CREATE, (Colour Research for European Advanced Technology Employment). The long term objective is to develop with artists, designers, technologists and scientists a cross disciplinary approach to improving colour and print. Visit the CREATE website here.
Maddy Probst
Watershed (UWE)
Maddy Probst is Programme Producer at Watershed Media Centre in Bristol.She manages DepicT! and a number of young people’s engagement initiatives including Electric December and Fresh Flix. She facilitates Europa Cinemas’ Young Audience Workshops, as part of the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival, Cineteca Di Bologna. Prior to Watershed, she worked for Vital Distribution, the leading UK provider of sales, marketing and distribution services to over 75 independent music labels.
Suzanne Rolt
St Georges, Bristol
Suzanne Rolt is Director of the concert and recording venue, St George’s Bristol. As part of her previous role, with a national music charity, she coordinated an annual festival of music in London.
Sue Shephard
Sue spent most her working life as a doumentary television director/producer with the BBC and then as a commissioning Editor for Channel 4.
When she and her writer/historian husband moved to Bristol in 1995, Sue took up writing full-time. Pickled, Potted & Canned: A History of Food Preserving won the 2001 Andre Simon special award. Seeds of Fortune: A Victorian Gardening Dynasty, published in 2003, was similarly very well reviewed. A novel set in WW1 and a biography of Constance Spry will be published in 2010. Sue has an MA in Garden History from the University of Bristol.
Judith Squires
University of Bristol
Judith Squires is Professor of Political Theory and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law at the University of Bristol.
Mike Zeidler
Modoto Ltd., Social Venture Network Europe, Association of Sustainability Practitioners, The Hub Bristol
Since 2003 Mike Zeidler has been running Modoto Ltd., a consultancy helping people to balance social, environmental and economic concerns in their business thinking. He stepped down as a trustee of the New Academy of Business in September 2004 to re-invent it as the Association of Sustainability Practitioners. In 2006, he founded The Hub Bristol and was invited onto the board of the Social Venture Network Europe.