OUTRIGHT HEAD-ONISM! EXPAND YOUR MIND AT WILDERNESS WITH ‘SECRET FORUM’, ‘IDLER ACADEMY’ AND ‘NATURES’

Notes to Editors

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Notes to editors:
Secret Forum partners include:
Intelligence Squared - The School of Life - Granta - Oxford University - The Huffington Post - Tibor-Jones - The Royal Observatory - 5X15 - Literary Death Match – The Roundhouse’s Elephant Collective - Hammer & Tongue - Wild Law - BERG - The Future Laboratory - Fast Future - The Liars' League - Factory Theatre - PLEB - The Lost Lectures.

Secret Forum speakers & workshop leaders include:
Jamie Catto (One Giant Leap producer, and founding member of Faithless)
Alok Jha (Guardian correspondent & presenter of the Science Weekly podcast)
Aleks Krotoski (broadcaster & Guardian tech columnist)
Dale Templar (BBC, Human Planet producer)
Ann Daniels (Polar explorer)
Gabrielle Walker (Antarctic explorer)
Roman Krznaric (Life Lessons from the Wonderbox of History)
Jay Griffiths (Author of Pip Pip and Wild, An Elemental Journey)
Marek Kukula (Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory)
Alys Fowler (The Thrifty Gardener)
Tali Sharot (The Optimism Bias)
Ben Rawlence (Radio Congo)
Paul Kingsnorth (Dark Mountain project)
Plus many, many more...

Comedy:
Robin Ince, Michael Legge, Jeff Innocent, Rob Carter

Idler Academy
Programmes include:

Biology with Hugh Warwick
Hugh Warwick is an ecologist and the author of a Prickly Affair: My Life with Hedgehogs and more recently, The Beauty in the Beast. His stage show has been labeled 'ecological stand-up' and combines a lot of wisdom with a lot of wit.

Wild running with Boff Whalley of Chumbawumba
Boff Whalley is the guitarist for Chumbawumba. He is also a writer, and has just published his book on running. Running for Boff is about freedom, discovery and adventure. We welcome Boff as the Idler's grooviest ever PE teacher. As well as talking about his passion for running, we hope to persuade him to play some banjo and maybe even lead some healthful exercises.

Latin with Susanna Hislop
Susanna Hislop is the Idler Academy's head of Latin. She favours a strict old-fashioned approach to learning, but may also take you into transports of joy when she teaches Catullus and his love poems. She is a playwright and stand-up, and is writing a book about Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway.

Mark Vernon with Ancient Philosophy classes
Dr Mark Vernon has a PhD and is a former priest. He is our Head of Philosophy, and at Wilderness will enlighten pupils about the great philosophers of Ancient Greece, including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus.

Lucy Cooke on the peculiar habits of the sloth
Lucy Cooke is an expert on both frogs and sloths. At Wilderness she will be teaching us about the habits of the delightful, slow and charming sloth, and will be giving out stickers to those who would like to join the Sloth Appreciation Society. Her film on Costa Rica's sloth orphanage was a gigantic hit on Vimeo.

Ben Moor with Frisbee Tree Golf
Ben Moor is an actor, comedian and writer. Author of More Trees to Climb, he is the Idler Academy's Sports Master and will be taking games of Frisbee Tree Golf. If we're lucky, he will also give a lecture.

Dan Kieran on Idle Travel
Dan Kieran is a former deputy editor of the Idler and he is now one of our geography teachers. He will be discussing his new book on Idle Travel, published by the wonderful AA.

Matthew De Abaitua on the hidden history of camping
Matthew De Abaitua is the author of the Art of Camping, and will be delivering a lecture on strange camping cults of the past.

QI's John Mitchinson on William Morris
John Mitchinson is Director of Information at QI and co-author of the million-selling QI books. He will be lecturing on the life and work of wallpaper designer, poet and radical firebrand William Morris.

How to Write a Poem with Clare Pollard
Clare Pollard is the author of numerous books of poetry for Bloodaxe and plays for Faber. She will be lecturing on the great roman poet Ovid.

Make & mend drop in workshop with Caterina Coates

Michael Tyack on Tudor and Medievel period
Michael Tyack is the Idler Academy's Head of Minstelsy, and he will be playing jaunty numbers from the Tudor and Medieval period on lute and cittern, and also lecturing on unusual tuning methods.

Natures
Envisioning New Worlds. Ideals that Western society has held dear for centuries – reductionist science, competition, progress, and separation from nature – are beginning to change direction. We are developing new stories to understand our connection to each other, the non-human world we inhabit and ultimately ourselves.

Will a 21st century renaissance marrying art and science shine light on intractable environmental challenges? What will happen when emergent technologies re-configure conceptual categories of what is living and what is not? What kind of sciences and ways of knowing the world will shape prosperous human societies now and in the future? Does science hold the answers to true sustainability and ultimately what language might describe the consciousness of a house cat?

Natures can confirm the RSA are bringing their events programme to Wilderness. Constructing a world class panel of fellows the RSA plans to host a discussion on themes pertaining to its strapline- 21st century enlightenment, asking how might be think different to live differently? The award winning Animate series will be shown throughout the weekend in the Natures tent with speakers along the Natures themes of the philosophy of science and sustainability.

Natures good friends Guerilla Science are hosting two brilliant surprising and weird sessions on art/science. By offering the unexpected, GS challenges negative misconceptions about science. Such as the common belief that it reduces life’s complexities into humdrum mundanities – or, worse, that it is boring.

Natures partners include:
The RSA - (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) - An enlightenment organisation committed to finding innovative practical solutions to today’s social challenges.

Guerilla Science - Dedicated to science by stealth, they are committed to unconventional and eye-opening atmospheres that help more people discover the unimaginable realities science reveals to us.

Earth Watch Institute - An international environmental charity committed to conserving the diversity and integrity of life on earth to meet the needs of current and future generations.

The Land - Magazine written by and for people who believe that the roots of justice, freedom and democracy lie not so much in access to money, or to the ballot box, as in access to land and its resources.

The Finance Lab - The Finance Innovation Lab is a place where people who have good ideas about how to create a better financial system, can take them and do something with them.

Iain McGilChrist (author of the seminal work The Master and His Emissary) and Sally Angel - In discussion of Holistic Science, Neuroscience and Envisioning New Worlds with a screening of Animate Earth.