The UK’s biggest non-partisan politics festival has revealed its programme for its eighth year in Sheffield.
Festival of Debate 2022 will feature satirist Armando Iannucci, writer and trans rights campaigner Shon Faye, feminist journalist Gloria Steinem, local government expert and online sensation Jackie Weaver, human rights activist Baroness Shami Chakrabarti and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, alongside a wide-ranging schedule of community events led by grassroots groups and individual citizens.
Overall it will include 60 events running until 31 May, with an additional keynote talk from environmental activist and writer George Monbiot on 23 June at Sheffield’s Octagon Centre. For the first time, the festival programme will be ‘blended’, with some events hosted in person and others online.
Headline events include creative campaign group Led By Donkeys, Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran, and David Wengrow, co-author of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity with the late David Graeber.
Festival of Debate programmer Joe Kriss said: “The Festival of Debate is a reflection of the most pressing movements for change. At a time when things look so polarised and trust in institutions of all kinds has reached rock bottom, it’s important that we make space for improving our collective understanding of the problems we face as a society—and what solutions could look like.
We work with a cross-section of community activists, publishers and the voluntary and community sector to create a platform that seeks to connect people to new ideas and campaigns.’
Other events include environmental Hub Day by Grassroots exploring the future of our planet, an analysis of the recommendations from Sheffield’s Race Equality Commission and talks on creating a more neuro-divergent city, the future of the local media and re-wilding in the city.
The full programme is now available at festivalofdebate.com
