Past Events
- The Institute of Ideas at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
- Orwell Centenary at the Book Festival
- Three panel discussions
- Venue: Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh
- Date: August 13, 2003 to August 23, 2003
- Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions)
- Booking: Box office: 0131 624 5050
Wednesday 13 August 2003, 7.30pm The art of political journalism
'My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. [I write] because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention'.
George Orwell
Why I Write
Does partisan campaigning journalism mean taking liberties with the facts, or can political ideals coexist with a commitment to the truth? If war journalists are 'embedded' with one set of troops, can they hope to report objectively on what is happening? Does objectivity have to mean neutrality?
- Allan Little
- world affairs correspondent, BBC
- Iain Macwhirter
- columnist, Sunday Herald
- Brendan O'Neill
- assistant editor, spiked
- Chris Shaw
- controller of news and current affairs, Channel 5
Chair:
- Claire Fox
- Institute of Ideas
Friday 15 August 2003, 7.30pm Surveillance Society
'How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.'
George Orwell
1984
Today, CCTV is pervasive, and companies gather information about our lifestyles. Have we embraced Big Brother, swapping freedom for security? Some argue if we have nothing to hide we have nothing to fear, but is there something to be said for secrets?
- Karen Bartlett
- director, Charter 88
- Joan Burnie
- columnist, Daily Record
- Dolan Cummings
- Institute of Ideas, author of Surveillance and the City
- Alan Lydiard
- co-director of Northern Stage's 1984
Chair:
- Claire Fox
- Institute of Ideas
Saturday 23 August 2003, 7.30pm The art of literary criticism
'[E]very novelist, has a message... All art is propaganda. [An] aesthetic preference is either something inexplicable or it is so corrupted by non- aesthetic motives as to make one wonder whether the whole of literary criticism is not a huge network of humbug.'
George Orwell
Charles Dickens
Orwell's doubts about artistic objectivity resound in our own relativistic times. Can critics make aesthetic judgements free from subjective prejudice? But how should works of fiction be judged?
- James Wood
- author The Book against God
- Erica Wagner
- books editor, the Times
- AL Kennedy
- author Indelible Acts
Chair:
- Tiffany Jenkins
- Institute of Ideas
