Contributors

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University and a political commentator who has received Guggenheim, Fulbright and other fellowships. An expert on fascism, authoritarian rulers, Donald Trump and propaganda, she has written for or appeared on BBC World News, Washington Post, The New York Times, Sky News, New Yorker and other media outlets.

Dr Arthur Benjamin is a professor of Mathematics in California. He is also a professional magician.

Erica Benner is a political philosopher and historian of ideas. She has taught at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and is the author of, among others, Really Existing Nationalisms, Be Like the Fox, and Adventures in Democracy. She currently teaches at the Hertie School for Governance in Berlin, LSE Ideas in London and for academic programmes in Sweden and China.

Celia Bell's short fiction has appeared in VQR, The White Review, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Austin, Texas, where she works in beekeeping when not writing.

Catherine Belsey chaired the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory at Cardiff University before moving to Swansea as Research Professor in English. Much of her work is on Shakespeare and cultural criticism. Her books include Critical Practice (1980, second edition 2002), Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction (2002) and A Future for Criticism (2011).

Nahid de Belgeonne, known as 'the nervous system whisperer', is a Somatic Movement Educator and breath and yoga teacher with a passion for sharing the healing benefits of movement. She has been a pivotal part of the London fitness landscape for 15 years, operating the yoga and wellbeing brand Good Vibes and now focuses on private clients with her somatic and restorative system called The Human Method. She has been featured in publications including The Times, Harpers Bazaar, Tatler and Stylist.

Jo Ann Beard is the author the collections Festival Days and The Boys of My Youth, and the novel In Zanesville. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, Best American Essays, and others, and has received a Whiting Foundation Award, fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2022 Award in Literature. She teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College.

Mary Beard is the most acclaimed classicist working today. She is the Professor Emerita of Classics at Cambridge and is the Classics editor of the TLS. She is also the co-host, with Charlotte Higgins, of the podcast Instant Classics. Her books include the bestselling, Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii as well as Confronting the Classics, SPQR, Women & Power, Emperor of Rome and Talking Classics. Her work has been published in over 35 languages.

Ernest Becker was born in Massachusetts to Jewish immigrant parents. After completing military service, in which he served in the infantry and helped to liberate a Nazi concentration camp, he attended SyracuseUniversity in New York. In his early 30s, he returned to Syracuse University to pursue graduate studies in cultural anthropology. The first of his nine books, Zen: A Rational Critique was published in 1961. He died in 1974 at the age of 49, two months before he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Denial of Death.After his death, the Ernest Becker Foundation was founded, using Becker's ideas to support research in science, the humanities, social action and religion.

David Bayles is a photographer, writer & conservationist. He is the past Director of Pacific Rivers Council and co-author of numerous scientific articles on endangered aquatic species. His recent book Notes on a Shared Landscape offers a superbly crafted collection of his photographs & personal writings about the American West.

Jon Bauer was born in Surrey but now lives in Australia. He has written short stories and plays for stage and radio. Rocks in the Belly, his first novel, was shortlisted for the IMPAC Prize, the Miles Franklin Award and won the Indie Fiction Award in Australia.