The Academy was founded by the Academy of Ideas in 2011 and came under the auspices of the Battle of Ideas charity in 2019.
The theme of The Academy 2013 – which ran from Saturday 20 – Monday 22 July with a special Youth Academy day for scholars on Friday 19 July – was Man and nature.
Schedule
Youth Academy day
What is classical music? (Ivan Hewett)
Man: sinner or saint? (Dr David A Jones)
After tradition: thoughts on culture (Angus Kennedy)
Day one
Plenary: Hobbes: the nature of human government (Professor Frank Furedi)
Classics: Nature. It is. It isn’t. The Pre-Socratics and the Sophistics (Professor Dennis Hayes)
History: Louis XIV: man and monarch (Dr Phil McCluskey)
Literature: Man’s real nature: fallen angel (Claire Fox)
Plenary: Jean-Jacques Rousseau: founder of the sciences of man
Day two
Plenary: Hegel: the unnatural historian (Professor Frank Furedi)
Classics: Nature, convention and society in Plato’s Republic (Professor Angie Hobbs)
History: 1848 and the making of modern Germany (Dr Alan Hudson)
Literature: Man in nature: the romantic sensibility (Dr Stacey McDowell)
Sunday Short: Boethius and Medieval Allegorical Thought (Richard Swan)
Sunday Short: Negroes with guns! Disarming blacks 1866-1970 (Dr Kevin Yuill)
Sunday Short: Medieval Allegorical texts: an introduction (Richard Swan)
Sunday Short: War and politics (Professor James Woudhuysen)
Plenary: Nietzsche: surpassing humanity (Professor Ken Gemes) – Conference Room
Day three
Classics: Cicero; natural law; human duty (Angus Kennedy)
History: Futurism; for science not art; youth not age; enslave nature! Smash the past! (Bruno Waterfield)
Literature: Man’s inner nature: self reflection and being psychological (Dr Tim Black)
Classics: The Self as a work of art in the Renaissance (Dr Tiffany Jenkins)
History: The rise of Big History (and the descent of man) (Professor Frank Furedi)
Literature: Man’s future nature: science fiction and beyond (Ken Macleod)
Plenary: Freud: The unconscious and the repressive society