Associate Fellow; editor, Culture WarsDolan Cummings
Dolan Cummings is an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Ideas, having been research and editorial director from 2001 to 2010. He continues to edit the IoI's online review, Culture Wars, where he also writes about books, films and theatre. He developed the Round Table Rumbles theatre debates at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2001-2004 and at the National Theatre in London in 2005, and he continues to organise regular arts discussions through the Culture Wars Forum.
Dolan has a particular interest in the role of intellectuals, building on Ideas, Intellectuals and the Public, a conference he organised in 2003. He edited a collection of essays on this subject for a special issue of the academic journal Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (CRISPP). This is also available as a book, The Changing Role of the Public Intellectual – the introduction is available online (Ideas, Intellectuals and the Public [PDF])
He is also editor of a collection of essays, Debating Humanism, by contributors to the first annual Battle of Ideas festival in London. He has produced several strands and individual debates at the Battle of Ideas over the years, on themes as various as religion and secularism, liberty, culture, community, music, law and America, and he both speaks and chairs at similar events across the UK and beyond. He appears regularly on radio and television as a commentator on the above issues, and is one of the co-founders of the Manifesto Club, a campaign group for freedom in everyday life.
Recent articles
A complete archive of Dolan's Culture Wars essays and reviews can be found here.Dolan contributed several pieces to the Daily Telegraph 'Ways and Means' blog in 2009.Selected articles
‘These rocks are here for me, waiting for the drill’, spiked review of books, 27 November 2009How public is public space?, Blueprint, August 2009 (not available online)The depraved genius of John Calvin, spiked review of books, 31 July 2009Choosing life, Culture Wars, 12 June 2009Where Raskolnikov went wrong, Culture Wars, 6 March 2009Knowing me, knowing you, Culture Wars, 16 January 2009Lead on Macduff: McLeadership and the real thing, Battle in Print essay, Culture Wars, 4 November 2008Capitalism, the financial crisis, and us, Battle in Print essay, Culture Wars, 4 November 2008Cops and dealers (and The Wire), Culture Wars, 12 September 2008Beyond the dogma: the real abortion debate, Culture Wars, 1 July 2008You won’t fool the children of the ‘revolution’, Culture Wars, 18 April 2008Why we need a Humanist Reformation, spiked, 5 March 2008Cynical capitalism, cynical anti-capitalism, Culture Wars, 4 March 2008Defending the Terror, spiked review of books, 30 November 2007Count me out of Atheism's creed, Times Online, 22 October 2007In defence of 'radicalisation', spiked review of books, 21 September 2007Smoking Policies: a civilised approach [PDF], Manifesto Club Thinkpiece, September 2007Ossifying the Enlightenment, spiked review of books, 24 August 2007'Free Speech' is more than a slogan', spiked, 18 October 2006'Thinking outside the text', New Statesman, 9 January 2006Publications
'Death to Freedom of Expression!' in Artistic Freedom – Anxiety and Aspiration, Printed Project, Issue 8 (edited by Munira Mirza), October 2007'Confessions of a Justified Rangers Supporter' in It's Rangers for Me, edited by Ronnie Espin and Graham Walker (Fort, 2007)Debating Humanism (ed.) (2006)'Think Tanks and Intellectual Authority outside the University: Information Technocracy or Republic of Letters?' [PDF] in Participating in the Knowledge Society, edited by Ruth Finnegan (Palgrave 2005).Who's Antisocial?: New Labour and the Politics of Antisocial Behaviour (ed.) (2005)The Changing Role of the Public Intellectual (ed.) (2004)In Search of Sesame Street: policing civility for the 21st century (1999)Surveillance & the city (1997)
