From Peterloo to Deliberative Assemblies

Posted on: March 31st, 2026 by Alan Wareham

Greater Manchester has been the site of many democratic movements.

The Peterloo Massacre saw the state kill its own citizens because they had the guts to demand the electoral franchise include working class men. The Chartists, whose presence was particularly strong in the North West, extended the struggle for suffrage that inspired Peterloo. Their demands were reasonable yet remain radical in our contemporary context. And the suffragists, then the suffragettes, with their tireless campaigns to extend suffrage to women, mobilised from across our city-region.

In Greater Manchester, something is brewing. A new way of doing things. People are coming together to demand change because we are sick of ordinary people’s voices being ignored. It’s a movement for real people power, a movement to give ordinary people a seat at the table. It is the movement for a permanent and powerful Citizens’ Assembly of Greater Manchester.

Citizens’ assemblies are deliberative decision-making bodies that work like juries. They bring together a representative group of ordinary people, selected by lottery to prevent self-selection by those with particular interests. Anyone in the local area can be selected, including non-citizens, people without fixed addresses and younger people. Participants are paid so everyone can participate equally. They then work together for over 30 hours to make decisions on a particular topic. Participants hear and watch testimony from experts with lived and learnt experience on the subject and then discuss potential solutions among themselves.

From Belfast to Paris to Fortaleza, decisions that affect ordinary people are made by ordinary people through these mechanisms. This is how we defend and rebuild our democracy: through deliberation.

Join Willie Sullivan, from the Electoral Reform Society, and Liv Ouwehand, from the Sortition Foundation, for a discussion about democratic reform, deliberative democracy and citizens’ assemblies.

Practical Information

The talk includes a Q&A session and light refreshments can be purchased from the venue’s bar.

Booking is essential.

Accessibility Information

The venue is wheelchair accessible with an accessible toilet on the ground floor. Please contact us regarding any specific accessibility requirements you may have by emailing events@manlitphil.ac.uk

 

Artificial Light and Biological Time

Posted on: March 27th, 2026 by Alan Wareham

Can we use smart lighting choices to have our cake and eat it?

Life on earth has evolved to use changing patterns of light to keep track of time over the 24hrs of the day and 12 months of the year. The appearance of artificial light disrupts the ancient relationships between light and time and represents an unprecedented challenge for biological clocks.

Professor Robert Lucas will talk about this conflict between human choices and biological time. Professor Robert Lucas will cover what biological clocks are, how they work, and their relationship with light. Professor Robert Lucas will then explore how the conflict between biological and anthropogenic time shapes the modern human experience and impacts the living world around us.

Professor Robert Lucas will finally consider the extent to which we can use smart lighting choices to have our cake and eat it.

Who should attend?

This talk will appeal to anyone curious about sleep, health, modern life, and the natural world, from students, researchers, and science enthusiasts to parents, shift workers, designers, planners, and anyone interested in how artificial light affects our bodies, behaviour, and environment.

Questions to consider

About people and health

  • What are the most important ways light influences our biological clocks?
  • How much artificial light at night is enough to disrupt sleep or circadian rhythms?
  • Are some people more vulnerable than others to light disruption?
  • What is the impact of screens compared with room lighting or street lighting?
  • What practical changes can people make at home to better support healthy biological timing?

About modern life

  • Is it possible to balance 24-hour societies with the needs of our biological clocks?
  • What are the biggest conflicts between human schedules and biological time?
  • Are shift workers facing unavoidable harms, or are there realistic ways to reduce them?
  • Has modern lighting fundamentally changed human behaviour in ways we still underestimate?

About design and policy

  • What do “smart lighting choices” actually look like in homes, workplaces, and cities?
  • Can lighting be designed to improve health while still meeting needs for safety, productivity, and comfort?
  • What should architects, employers, schools, or local authorities be doing differently?
  • Is there good evidence that changes in public lighting can reduce harm to wildlife?
  • Where is the line between helpful innovation and overreliance on technology?

About the wider environment

  • How does artificial light affect animals, plants, and ecosystems?
  • Are there particular kinds of lighting that are especially damaging to the living world?
  • Can reducing light pollution benefit both biodiversity and human wellbeing?
  • What lessons can humans learn from how life on earth evolved with natural light cycles?

Practical Information

The talk includes a Q&A session.Booking is essential.

Accessibility Information

The venue is wheelchair accessible with an accessible toilet on the ground floor. Please contact us regarding any specific accessibility requirements you may have by emailing events@manlitphil.ac.uk

Can We Build A Poet?

Posted on: March 27th, 2026 by Alan Wareham

Synopsis

(The focus paper is available to DOWNLOAD HERE)

Large Language Models can generate content resembling poetry but is it actually poetry and does this mean we have created a poet? Poetry and poets have existed throughout history and the definitions of both have been debated continuously. This paper attempts to define the acceptance criteria for an artificial poet and how this task could be interpreted by Romantic and Modernist poets. Would either consider the building of an artificial poet possible?

Questions for discussion

  • Is lived experience necessary for poetry, or only for poets?
  • Can meaning exist without intention?
  • If AI learns poetry from human poetry, is it creating anything new or just recombining? Does this matter? Is this just what humans do anyway?
  • Is the fact that AI poetry is preferred to human poetry evidence that LLMs do in fact understand human feeling in the same way that we do? Is it just that the exact mechanism of that understanding is hidden within the model parameters and not understood by us yet?
  • If machines could feel, could a sufficiently advanced AI ever satisfy the Romantic criteria for a “poet for machines”?
  • Do you agree with the limitations of AI with respect to modernist poetry? Does AI actually fulfil Eliot’s theory of poetry better than humans do?
  • Do you agree that AI cannot accurately identify emotions?
  • If you read a poem, feel deeply moved, and later discover it was written by a machine—has the value of the poem changed, or only your interpretation of it?

What to Expect

The Lit&Phil Philosophy Forum is a space where serious ideas meet joyful exploration. Whether you are a seasoned philosopher or a curious newcomer, our discussions are designed to foster a spirit of open-minded inquiry. We prioritise respectful dialogue, intellectual curiosity, and the shared pursuit of understanding over adversarial debate. This is philosophy as it should be – dynamic, inclusive, and profoundly engaging.

Practical Details

(The focus paper is available to DOWNLOAD HERE)

Note on Attendance: Due to the popularity of these events, places are often fully booked. If you reserve a ticket but later find you cannot attend, we kindly ask that you cancel promptly to allow others the opportunity to join.

Manchester Lit&Phil Literary Book Club

Posted on: March 24th, 2026 by Alan Wareham

Elizabeth Gaskell, one of Britain’s most highly regarded Victorian novelists, lived at 84 Plymouth Grove in Manchester when the city was the epicentre of an industrial and social quake. It’s little wonder her books often depicted socially-conscious portrayals of industrial life in Manchester, class conflict, and the experiences of women.

She’s perhaps best known for her novels Cranford and North and South, as well as her celebrated biography of her contemporary and friend Charlotte Brontë. We’ll be discussing her last – and unfinished – novel Wives and Daughters: a story of romance, scandal and intrigue set in a gossiping English village during the early nineteenth century.

The Manchester Lit&Phil Literary Book Club is free and exclusively for members, operating on a first come first serve basis, up to a maximum of 15 people.

 

Save the date and start reading

May 26 book club: A Handful of Dust, by Evelyn Waugh. (Contemporary fiction)

June 30 book club: The Places in Between, Rory Stewart (Non-fiction)

 

Lit & Phil Literary Book Club: Tuesday April 28

Book: Wives and Daughters, by Elizabeth Gaskell

Time: 6.15pm to 7.45pm

Location: Chief Librarian’s Office, Third Floor, Manchester Central Library, St Peters Square, City Centre, M2 5PD

Frederick Douglass: A Global Life

Posted on: March 23rd, 2026 by Alan Wareham

Inaugural Frederick Douglass Lecture – SOLD OUT

The Inaugural Frederick Douglass Lecture, presented in a partnership between the Manchester Lit & Phil, The University of Manchester and CARISMA.

Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama, Bridgeford Street, Manchester M13 9PL

Context

In 2021, the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society (the Lit &Phil) commissioned independent research into Society members’ links with the transatlantic slave trade between 1780-1865. In response to the findings (published in 2023) and their wider present day societal implications, the Society committed to a series of actions to widen its reach and diversify its offering. One of those actions was to establish the Frederick Douglass Lecture series – to commemorate a leading, inspirational black abolitionist campaigner who, born into slavery, rose to become one of the leading social reformers of his time. He had close links to Manchester in the 1840s and to several prominent Lit & Phil abolitionist members. His contributions to political philosophy and human rights are enduring, not least in our continuing discussions today about racism, inequality and social justice. In honouring Douglass, we aim to recognise the complex and difficult legacies of the slave trade in British culture, celebrate those who fought against slavery and look forward, seeking ways to promote inclusivity, equality and respect for diversity within society at large.

“FREDERICK DOUGLASS – A GLOBAL LIFE“

Frederick Douglass was an international figure, not only because his writing took his words and his message across continents, but because he spent over 4 years of his life living travelling outside the United States. He first left the US in 1845 as a ‘fugitive slave’, travelling to Britain and Ireland to escape the possibility of recapture and re-enslavement. In 1859 he returned to Britain and on both trips gave powerful speeches against American slavery. In the 1880s, after the Civil War, Douglass again crossed the Atlantic to tour Europe and the Mediterranean and at the end of the same decade he lived and worked in the Republic of Haiti, as the US government’s Minister Resident and Consul General. It was during his four years outside the United States that Frederick Douglass became a free man. It was in Britain and Ireland that he developed as an orator and acquired the funds to start his first abolitionist newspaper – The North Star.

The 2026 Inaugural Frederick Douglass Lecture will be delivered by British Nigerian historian David Olusoga OBE, who is a BAFTA winning film-maker, author and Professor of Public History at The University of Manchester. Professor Olusoga explores how his time outside of the United States – in particular his years in England and Ireland – helped forge Frederick Douglass.

The event will be chaired by Professor Erinma Bell MBE.

An audience Q&A will follow the discussion.

David Olusoga OBE

David Olusoga OBE is a British Nigerian author, historian, presenter and BAFTA-winning film-maker. He is Professor of Public History at The University of Manchester and was awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to history and community integration. He specialises in the British Empire and how we experience its lasting effects in modern society. David has presented historical television programmes on the BBC. His television credits include Civilisations, Black and British, Our NHS: A Hidden History, A House Through Time and the BAFTA award-winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners.

Professor Erinma Bell MBE DL

Professor Erinma Bell MBE DL is an Honorary Patron of the Lit & Phil and a Manchester-based academic and community peace practitioner with longstanding experience in conflict resolution, youth violence prevention, and community-centred social development. Professor Bell has contributed significantly to public dialogue on social justice, ethical leadership, and inclusive civic participation. Her involvement reflects the Series’ commitment to informed public engagement and to connecting historical enquiry with contemporary moral and social questions.

Creative Manchester

Creative Manchester is an interdisciplinary research platform based at The University of Manchester. The platform champions research in creativity and creative practice, bringing together research communities with external stakeholders to explore new research areas and address strategic opportunities. Please visit the website for more information Creative Manchester.

Register here to receive regular updates on upcoming Creative Manchester news, events and funding opportunities. You can also connect with Creative Manchester via our Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

The Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society

Founded in 1781, the Manchester Lit & Phil is the oldest scientific and literary society in the UK outside London. Established to promote the advancement of knowledge through discussion and lectures, today the Lit & Phil continues its tradition of public engagement by offering regular talks and events across science, technology, philosophy, and the arts, serving as a forum for intellectual exchange in Manchester and beyond. The 2023 research report was produced by the University of Central Lancashire’s Black Atlantic Research Institute and can be read, alongside Erinma Bell’s response, at: https://www.manlitphil.ac.uk/read-watch-listen/the-manchester-literary-philosophical-society-and-the-transatlantic-slave-trade-1780-1865/

CARISMA

CARISMA (Community Alliance for Renewal Inner South Manchester Area) is a Manchester-based programme working to build safer, more inclusive and cohesive communities. It supports children, young people, adults and families through peacebuilding, community leadership, hate crime awareness, and inclusive wellbeing programmes. Its founder and and director, Professor Erinma Bell, will chair this event.

Accessibility

If you have particular access or dietary needs, please let us know in advance by providing details when registering for your ticket or by emailing creative@manchester.ac.uk

Exploring the Surface of Titan

Posted on: March 23rd, 2026 by Alan Wareham

What does it take to land on one of the most mysterious worlds in the Solar System?

After a 7-year journey of 1.5 billion km, the joint NASA–ESA Cassini-Huygens mission reached Saturn in 2004. On Christmas Day 2004, the European-built Huygens probe separated from Cassini and began its final approach to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Just over two weeks later, Huygens descended through Titan’s dense, orange atmosphere for more than two hours, transmitting extraordinary data all the way down before making a historic soft landing. It continued sending images and measurements from the frozen surface for over an hour — and remains, to this day, the most distant soft landing ever achieved in the Solar System.

This remarkable mission also has a Manchester story. One of the instruments carried all the way to Titan was designed by Dr John Geake of the University of Manchester. Decades later, a small piece of Manchester technology still rests on Titan’s cold, hazy landscape.

In this special talk, Professor John Zarnecki, Principal Investigator for a collection of instruments in the Huygens Science Surface Package, will offer personal insights into one of the great adventures of modern space exploration. He will explore how the mission came together, what its scientific objectives were, what Huygens discovered about Titan’s atmosphere and surface, and what we can expect from Dragonfly, NASA’s upcoming mission to return to Titan.

If you are fascinated by space exploration, planetary science, engineering, or the stories behind ambitious scientific missions, this is an event not to miss.

There will be time for questions and discussion. Early booking is strongly recommended.

Who Should Attend?

This event will appeal to:

  • anyone interested in space, astronomy, and planetary science
  • students and lifelong learners curious about how space missions are designed and delivered
  • people interested in NASA, ESA, and the history of major space exploration missions
  • audiences keen to hear a first-hand account from a leading scientist involved in the mission
  • those with an interest in Manchester’s contribution to global scientific discovery

No specialist knowledge is required.

Questions This Talk Will Explore

  • How did the Cassini-Huygens mission begin, and why was Titan such an important target?
  • What were the mission’s main scientific objectives?
  • What did Huygens reveal about Titan’s atmosphere, surface, and weather?
  • What made landing on Titan so technically challenging?
  • What role did scientists and engineers from Manchester play?
  • Why is Titan still one of the most exciting destinations in the Solar System?
  • How is NASA’s Dragonfly mission progressing, and what could it discover next?

Practical Information

The presentation will include time for questions and discussion.

Booking is strongly advised.

Access

Access to the event is via the Altrincham Street entrance.

Accessibility Information

If you have any specific accessibility requirements, please contact us at events@manlitphil.ac.uk.

Manchester Lit&Phil Annual Percival Lecture

Posted on: March 10th, 2026 by Alan Wareham

The Percival Lecture

From Manchester, for the world: The University of Manchester’s 2035 strategy

Professor Duncan Ivison: President and Vice-Chancellor of The University of Manchester 

The University of Manchester was born as an answer to a question posed amid the Industrial Revolution: what kind of new knowledge and citizens were needed for Manchester to thrive in a world undergoing profound change? As it enters its third century, it stands at a similarly pivotal moment. Technological, geopolitical, economic and social revolutions are reshaping the world. What knowledge and skills does the digital age demand? What big leaps lie ahead for the University?

Since arriving in Manchester in 2024 to become its President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Duncan Ivison has led the development of a new strategy, Manchester 2035, following a year-long process of consultation with staff, students, alumni and external partners. Published in 2025, this new strategy addresses the question: what it means to be a truly great civic university for the 21st century?

In this talk, Professor Ivison will outline how the University plans to work with its city and region in new ways, where this deep-rooted sense of place is matched by global reach, through researchers, partners and alumni who share its purpose to improve lives, strengthen communities and tackle the world’s biggest challenges. He will talk about the importance it will place on partnerships, academic freedom, freedom of speech, teaching and research excellence, and inclusion.

 

Manchester Li &Phil Annual Percival Lecture

Manchester Lit&Phil is nearly 250 years old, which makes it one of the oldest learned societies in the United Kingdom. Its members have been sharing knowledge and ideas ever since the first meeting in 1781, paving the way for giant leaps forward in the way we understand the world. Past members include Ernest Rutherford, John Dalton and James Joule.

Thomas Percival was the Manchester Lit&Phil’s first President, and the Percival Lecture was established in 1947 to celebrate his legacy.

 

Location

Lecture theatre G.003, Alliance Manchester Business School, Booth St W, Manchester M15 6PB

 

Event schedule

Drinks reception for members and special guests: from 6.00 pm at The Mill. (Located directly opposite G.003.)

Talk starts: 6.45 pm 

Event ends: 8.00 pm

 

Practical Information

Booking is essential. This is a Lit&Phil Members Only Event: We recommend logging into the website to make booking and paying for your ticket quicker and easier.

 

We are very grateful to The University of Manchester for hosting this year’s Percival Lecture. This is a members-only event and places are limited.

Manchester City Centre Peace Trail

Posted on: March 1st, 2026 by Alan Wareham

Curious about the hidden stories of peace in our city? Come along with Steve Roman, passionate peace activist and storyteller, as we wander through Manchester’s streets uncovering the remarkable Peace Trail. 

Meeting Point: Manchester Victoria Station, underneath the large, tiled map 

Duration: 2 hours 

Accessibility: It is suitable for people in wheelchairs. The route is paved and flat, apart from one slope. When we go through the Library there are lifts for those who need them. 

The Walk along the Peace Trail will bring alive Manchester’s radical history, its growth as the world’s first industrial city and its importance as a centre for peace, tolerance and promotion of social justice in the city and around the globe. 

Memorials and locations will gain new meanings as we learn about their peace history and the relevance for civil rights movements. What might we discover about our city’s evolving role—from industrial powerhouse to global advocate for justice and peace? Each stop invites us to see Manchester through fresh eyes. 

The walk will include the following themes / sites with perhaps some new perspectives: 

  • Migration and the movement of peoples 
  • Gandhi, Manchester Cathedral, the campaign against Chattel Slavery, and Abraham Lincoln 
  • John Dalton, the “Nuclear Timeline”, the Peace Garden, MAG (Mines Advisory Group) and the Nobel Peace Prize 
  • The Hidden Gem and religious tolerance, Free thinking and Science 
  • Elizabeth Raffald, Margaret Ashton, Erinma Bell, Lydia Becker, Suffragists and Suffragettes 
  • and, subject to time, Peterloo, the popular reform movement and Engels 

The guide is donating his fee to charity 

Manchester Lit&Phil Literary Book Club

Posted on: March 1st, 2026 by Alan Wareham

Adapted into a sumptuous, star-studded movie that won seven Academy awards, the memoir Out of Africa recalls Danish socialite Karen Blixen’s time as a coffee farmer in Kenya in the early part of the last century.

The Times described it as ‘Compelling. . . a story of passion. . . and a movingly poetic tribute to a lost land’. The New York Times begged to differ, saying ‘the country’s history seems to begin with the arrival of Europeans like Karen Blixen . . . her sojourn in Africa, is depicted through a haze of romantic sentimentality that obscures its most obvious and obnoxious features.’

Join us for what is likely to be a lively discussion about Out of Africa, and help us to kick off the first of our non-fiction books on our reading list.

The Lit & Phil Literary Book Club is free and exclusively for members, operating on a first come first serve basis, up to a maximum of 15 people.

Save the date and start reading.

April 28 book club: Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell. (Classic fiction)

May 26 book club: A Handful of Dust, by Evelyn Waugh. (Contemporary fiction)

June 30 book club: The Places in Between, Rory Stewart (Non-fiction)

Airwaves to Algorithms

Posted on: February 9th, 2026 by Alan Wareham

Manchester Lit&Phil in association with Salford University present Airwaves to Algorithms: How broadcasting and media is changing in Manchester.

Greater Manchester has long been home to some of the most famous broadcasters and programmes in the country, from the birth of commercial television at Granada Studios, to the BBC’s first regional television and radio site being based in Rusholme. Now, Salford hosts MediaCity, one of the largest hubs for the creative and broadcast industries in Europe.

So many of the most iconic and influential television and radio programmes in the world have Manchester running through their DNA – and the media and creative industries have long run through Manchester’s DNA too.

Now, though, things are changing. Viewing and listening habits have shifted, the media ecosystem has fragmented, traditional platforms have given way to, or been forced to join, an array of new and thriving digital platforms.

In a world where everyone is a content creator, and everyone is a publisher, where does this leave Manchester and its creative industries? What role does the region play in this new world order? And is traditional broadcast media as we knew it… dead?

Join us for a drinks reception and an interactive panel discussion, chaired by Times Radio’s Darryl Morris.

Our Panel

Darryl Morris – Times Radio – Chair
Seamus Simpson – Prof Media Policy, Salford University
Stuart Morgan – Founder of Audio Always
Matty White – TV & Radio Producer/Presenter

On The Night…

18.00 – 18.30 Venue opens for ticket holders to arrive for a welcome drink in the foyer (Included in ticket)
18.30 – 19.15 Panel discussion/speakers
19.15 – 19.45 Q&A
20.00 Event Closes

Venue

University of Salford, Plot B4, Orange Tower, Media City, Salford M50 2HE.

Plan Your Visit

Full details for Parking, Active travel (walking/cycling), access via Tram, Car and Bus, plus information regarding EV Car Charging can be found at https://www.mediacityuk.co.uk/visit-us/

Accessibility

The venue is fully accessible.

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