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The Sheffield culture guide written by in-the-know locals

Festival of Debate

Founded in 2015, Festival of Debate is an annual series of panel discussions, debates, Q&As, artistic responses, keynote speeches and other public events in Sheffield, exploring politics, economics and society. It’s coordinated in collaboration with over 50 partners across the city, from grassroots campaign groups to the city’s largest institutions.

Past keynote speakers have included Yanis Varoufakis, Reni-Eddo Lodge, Ed Miliband, Prof David Nutt, Owen Jones, Melissa Benn, Afua Hirsch, Francesca Martinez, Polly Toynbee, Nick Clegg, The Guilty Feminist, John Pilger, Grayson Perry, James O’Brien, Julian Assange, Paul Mason, Steve Silberman and George Monbiot.

Unfortunately their 2020 event programme was cancelled in late March due to the Covid-19 crisis but they’ve launched the brand new Festival of Debate Online, providing a digital platform for discussion and debate of the key social, political, environmental and economic issues of the day.

See the Festival of Debate Online programme.

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In Conversation with The Slumflower

Chidera Eggerue preaches her messages of self-love and body positivity to thousands on her blog The Slumflower. Hear her discuss her campaigning work and plans for a documentary questioning ideals of beauty, in a talk filmed at Doc/Fest 2019.

A Beautiful Obsession: a plantsman’s journey in his own garden

Tue. 6 July 2021

Jimi Blake recounts the creation of Hunting Brook Gardens in Ireland – five acres of amazing botanical gardens and fifteen acres of wonderful woodland gardens and valley.

Poetry in Conversation

A politically infused spoken-word performance with Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan. Her debut collection Postcolonial Banter came out in 2019. Her words are a disruption of comfort, a call to action, a redistribution of knowledge and an outpouring of dissent.

CMC 2018 Keynote: Beeban Kidron

An award-winning director and producer, and co-founder of educational charity Into Film, Beeban Kidron is passionate about the role stories can play in the development of young people’s identities and their sense of what it is to be human.