Talks & lectures, Politics

Tax evasion, avoidance and non-collection cost £120 billion while benefit fraud was below £5 billion (2010). Katy Clark MP, Mark Serwotka (PCS leader) and Owen Jones discuss who’s really scrounging. With over 24 times as much lost to tax cheats, why do we hear little about them but so much about benefit scroungers? We…

This instalment brings members of the New York House & Ballroom community to Glasgow, along with queer theorists, performance artists, archivists, theologians and filmmakers, to explore Voguing, drag, clubbing, and the politics of race, class and gender.

An age-free arts festival with music, literature and spoken word, visual art and crafts, film and theatre as well as a programme of talks and debates. 2013 promises intimate venues, rising stars, unique collaborations, participation and mental stimulation.

Gain some insight into a topic that affects everyone, with Dr Shona Hilton of the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit.

Ann Cvetkovich discusses queer archives and the importance of recording traumatic cultural experience.

Presenter of the Today Programme for almost 20 years, James Naughtie talks about his career in political journalism and touches on his passion for music, giving an insight into his interesting life.

Big Ideas presents big questions, then lets an expert have a stab at answering it before turning it to the audience for discussion. Brief, informal and relaxed, the pub-based event is open to anyone and everyone.

Borders Writers’ Forum members look to a variety of literary sources, from poetry to prose to history, for discussion on the alluring nature of Scotland.

Ahead of June's G8 summit, this series of events brings together international figures from politics, business, academia and the arts to debate migration, resources and culture. Curated by Zamyn in partnership with Accenture, Africa Progress Panel, Barclays, Penguin Books, SOAS, University of London and Tate.

Coalition 'reforms' are making education a privilege for the few. Join staff and students fighting back as ordinary families cannot afford tuition fees, privatisation threatens universities including Sussex, schools like Worthing High are forced into academies, GCSE grades are undermined. Christine Blower (NUT leader)…

An evening with former Scottish Socialist Party MSP Rosie Kane, as she tells the story of her life with wit and wisdom.

A unique education festival developed and promoted by the sector agency College Development Network, aimed at challenging, provoking and generating ideas about how education could be. Launched this year by Mel Young, President of The Homeless World Cup, there will be virtual games, philosophy cafés, a night of dangerous…

This diverse and peace-promoting festival joins Edinburgh's cultural line-up in August with a generous programme of over 400 activities ranging from top-quality speakers and conversations to performances, film, food, exhibitions, family activities, workshops and art.

An annual lecture that looks at the study of Natural Theology in broad terms, with the goal to advance modern theological thought.

Author and broadcaster Paul Mason outlines the ways in which technology has enabled global protest movements and asks how the old political models of ruling and resisting are being undermined. Chaired by Professor William Sweeney. Speech-to-Text Reported event.

A series of talks at Langside Library covering a variety of topics.

Jack Halberstam mines mainstream culture for its queer potential in relation to female masculinity and drag kings, anarchy, failure and chaos, here finding an emergent cultural idiom of anarchistic revolt in Jay Z and Kanye West's No Church in the Wild.

A debate on the sex trade with Rhoda Grant (Labour MSP and proposer of bill to criminalise buying sex) and Richard Lucas (of SOLAS) sparring with Laura Lee (Sex Workers' campaigner) and Douglas Fox (of the International Union of Sex Workers). Followed by a Q&A.

Ann Cvetkovich looks at the possibilities of a queer community politics and how aspects of queer life and intimacy are depathologised to create new modes of creative survival.

Close, Professor of Physics at Oxford University, and Holloway, a former Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, talk science and religion, pitting the God Particle against God. Chaired by Sally Magnusson.

What do you know about the City of London, the Corporation that runs it, and the economic crisis? Inspired by the Occupy movement, filmmakers Lee Salter and Michael Chanan contribute to the current debate about capitalism by seeking to bring the Corporation of London out of the shadows. Watch this revealing film then…

The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations brings together a panel of experts to discusses the state of the housing sector as it faces increasing pressure from welfare reform and financial constraints. Speakers include Minister for House and Welfare Margaret Burgess; John Hocking of Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust; and…