Blip

About this episode

Convention on Modern Liberty 28.2.2009 London Evening Plenary: Pen Session, chaired by Henry Porter Supported by English PEN, the final session will be a smaller informal discussion, aiming to reflect on the day and discuss the larger implications for public life. Lisa Appignanesi is an author and president of English PEN, a registered charity which seeks to promote literature as a means of greater understanding between the world’s people. She has run its highly successful 'Free Expression is No Offence Campaign' against the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Works include the novels, Memory and Desire, Dreams of Innocence and The Memory Man. She also wrote a classic study of Freud’s Women with John Forrester. Billy Bragg is an English musician who blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs. Bragg has been involved with grassroots political movements, and this is often reflected in his lyrics. Bragg backed the 1984 miners' strike, and the following year he formed the left-wing group Red Wedge, which promoted the Labour Party. More recent political activities include his 2006 book The Progressive Patriot expressed his view that English socialists can reclaim patriotism from the right wing. Feargal Sharkey is a singer, who first found fame as the lead vocalist of pop punk band The Undertones, famous for the hit single "Teenage Kicks", discovered by John Peel. In October 2008, he became head of UK Music, an umbrella organisation representing the collective interests of the UK's commercial music industry. He has become prominent in criticising the use of Form 696 by the Metropolitan Police' requiring event promoters to provide data on performers and audiences. Cory Doctorow is a Canadian blogger, journalist and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favor of liberalizing copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licenses for his books. Some common themes of his work include digital rights management, file sharing, Disney, leftist politics, and Post scarcity economics. Paul Gilroy is a Professor at the London School of Economics. Gilroy is a sociologically inclined scholar of Cultural Studies and Black Atlantic culture. He is the author of "After Empire" (2004). Gilroy is known as a path-breaking scholar and historian of the music of the Black Atlantic diaspora, as a commentator on the politics of race, nation and racism in the UK, and as an archaeologist of the literary and cultural lives of blacks in the western hemisphere.

• Release Date

  May 7, 2009

• Runtime

  58:52