Events

We are very pleased to support this event organised by Bristol Talks with Jay Griffiths and Michael Malay: a revelatory and exuberant discussion about our relationship to the living world, mischievous, vital and wild.

Jay has written several award-winning books, including Wild: An Elemental Journey and Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time. In her latest work, How Animals Heal Us, she explores how animals heal us as individuals with their vitality, humour and empathy. They offer social remedies too: wolves may be teachers of ethics; bees take collective decisions and monkeys have a sense of justice.

In conversation with celebrated local author of Late Light, Michael Malay, Jay will reflect on the big questions that have always permeated her writing, considering time and the rich wisdoms of Indigenous cultures, and the necessity of challenging the status quo.

Doors open at 7pm. The Folk House bar will be open and we will provide a book stall. The talk is from 7.30-8.30pm. Tickets are available from the Bristol Talks website. 

Organised by the Bristol Humanists, we are pleased to support: 

Energy is Life: Why Environmentalism Went Nuclear, Zion Lights’ personal and powerful journey: from grassroots green activism to becoming one of the UK’s leading advocates for nuclear energy

In a time of climate crisis, energy poverty and growing demand for clean power, she examines why long-established environmentalists like herself once feared nuclear energy, why many have since come to embrace it, and she makes a compelling case for why nuclear energy must be part of the solution. Accessible, evidence-based, and deeply human, there is a challenge to common myths and an invitation for people to rethink what it really means to care for others and the planet alike. If you believe in a greener, fairer future, Energy is Life just might change your mind – and give you hope.
Zion Lights, a patron of Humanists UK, is an award-winning science communicator and environmental advocate who makes complex science clear and compelling. She explores energy, climate, and technology through the lens of human challenges, showing how curiosity and evidence can shape a better future. She will combine technical clarity with a sense of wonder, helping us to see the big questions and the choices that define our civilisation.
Further details: https://www.meetup.com/bristol-humanists/events/313940581/?isFirstPublish=true

In George Orwell’s 1984, a totalitarian party slogan is “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Is this true today, in Russia and in the Middle East? Are historical narratives being manipulated to justify war? In this salon, we’ll dig into the deep histories behind the war in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Your host, philosopher Julian Baggini is joined by journalist and writer James Rodgers, author of The Return of Russia, and Michael Scott-Baumann, author of Palestinians and Israelis: A Short History of Conflict. They’ll be looking at how historical narratives, mixing truth and fiction, shape foreign policy and even lead to war. They will also be looking at whether the laws-based international order is dead, if it was ever alive, what the morally right thing for countries such as our own is, and whether the idea of an ethical foreign policy has any reality. After a break for you to get a drink and gather your thoughts, the second half will be led by your questions and contributions.

BBC Celebrity Traitors faithful finalist, and BAFTA award-winning producer, writer, historian, Professor David Olusoga will be presenting his new history talk at St George's. We are delighted to host a book stall and signing at the event; full details and tickets on the St George's website. We look forward to seeing you there. 

David is the author or co-author of eight books including Black & British: A Forgotten History, The World’s War, Black & British A Short Essential History, The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism.

Recently also seen in BBC2's Empire documentaries, David continues to examine history in depth. Often bringing to light uncomfortable subjects and little-known facts. He uncovers how and why some events and some people are remembered and others forgotten. Taking examples from wars across the world, the British industrial revolution, and other pivotal moments in global history, he uncovers so much that has remained hidden and untaught.

David also writes and presents the long-running BBC history series A House Through Time. Presently he is filming a new series, due for broadcast in April 2026.

Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester, and a columnist for The Observer, David also writes for The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Voice and BBC History Magazine.
A recipient of both the British Academy’s President’s Medal and the Norton Medlicott Medal For Services to History, David is a Fellow of the British Academy, The Royal Society of Literature, The Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Historical Society.

We look forward to supporting this brilliant event on the University of Bristol's leading role in palaeontological science. Join us at the Wills Memorial Building on July 3, 2026 at 7:00 PM (BST) for a fun and fascinating evening all about ancient life. Whether you’re a fossil fanatic or just curious, this festival is the perfect chance to dive into palaeobiology with experts and fellow enthusiasts. Chaired by Alice Roberts, we will present short videos about discoveries at Bristol, and experts will discuss the fundamental questions: where does life come from; what colour were dinosaurs; how did mass extinctions shape modern life; how can we understand the wonders of ancient life on Earth without a time machine?

We are very pleased to support this event organised by Bristol Talks. Natalie Bennett, Green Party member of the House of Lords, will be in conversation with Andrew Kelly.

Natalie will be discussing her book, Change Everything, a practical and hopeful guide for anyone who wants a route map to a fairer, greener future.

About the book
We are living in a social, political, economic and environmental emergency. The status quo is profoundly unstable; change is inevitable. Now is the time to get together to build a far healthier and more balanced world.

The decades-old political orthodoxy – that greed is good, inequality doesn’t matter and we can keep treating the planet as a mine and a dumping ground – has been a recipe for disaster. Our world needs a new vision, the Green vision. From Universal Basic Income to fee education, from less stuff but more life, to genuine democratic opportunities for all, Natalie Bennett brings together a holistic, hopeful and practical vision for the future.

The foundations of Change Everything are conversations with many thousands of people. We need to engage millions to bring together the imagination, talents and energy of all in order to build and repair our societies. Then a positive future is within our reach.

Doors open at 7pm. The Folk House bar will be open and we will provide a book stall. The talk is from 7.30pm. Tickets are available from the Bristol Talks website.

We look forward to supporting this event organised by the Bristol Humanists with Robin Dunbar, author of How Religion Evolved.

When did humans develop spiritual thought? What is religion's evolutionary purpose? And in our increasingly secular world, why has it endured?

Every society in the history of humanity has lived with religion. In How Religion Evolved, its origins are tracked back to what Robin Dunbar terms the 'mystical stance,' the aspect of human psychology that predisposes us to believe in a transcendent world, and which makes an encounter with the spiritual possible. He will explore world religions and their many derivatives, as well as religions of experience practised by hunter-gatherer societies.

Drawing on path-breaking research, clinical case studies and fieldwork from around the globe, as well as stories of charismatic cult leaders, mysterious sects and lost faiths, How Religion Evolved will offer a fascinating and far-reaching analysis of this quintessentially human impulse to believe.

Robin Dunbar is Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford. He is perhaps most famous for the 'Dunbar Number', which is the 150 individuals that each human can sustain meaningful relationships with. His work in anthropology and psychology focuses on the mechanisms that underpin social bonding in primates in general, and humans in particular. He considers that understanding these mechanisms, which includes religion, and the functions that those relationships serve, will give us insights into how humans have managed to create large scale societies using a form of psychology that is evolutionarily adapted to very small scale societies, and why these mechanisms are less than perfect in the modern world.

https://www.meetup.com/bristol-humanists/events/315842885/?eventOrigin=group_events_list