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Angus Kennedy is head of external relations for the Institute of Ideas, working principally to programme the annual Battle of Ideas festival in London and its international satellite events. He chairs the Institute’s Economy Forum and helps organise its discussions. He writes for spiked and Culture Wars, among other publications, with particular interests in the Holocaust, the classics, culture and…

Ayhan Kaya is a lecturer at the Department of International Relations, and head of the Centres for Migration Research and European Studies at Istanbul Bilgi University. He specializes in Euro-Turks in Germany and France, the Circassian diaspora in Turkey, and the construction and articulation of modern diasporic identities. He received his PhD and MSc degrees at the University of Warwick.…

Dr.. Meryem Kanmaz is a graduate of the Erasmus University in Brussels and also studied political science at the Brussel’s Free University, where her graduate thesis considered the secularisation process in Turkey (Thank God We are Secular, an analysis of the Turkish secularisation project). Until May 1999, she worked as coordinator of the Casa Blanca Centre for migrant women in…

Renée Jones-Bos has been the secretary-general of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs since the 1st July 2012. From 2008 to 2012 she was the Dutch ambassador to the United States of America. Previously she served as the [deputy] director-general for Regional Policy and Consular Affairs (2003 to 2008) and as an ambassador-at-large for human rights from 2000 to 2003.…

Anna Jermolaewa is a photo and video artist based in Vienna and Karlsruhe. Anna grew up in Leningrad, but left the Soviet Union in 1989 after being persecuted for her work on the dissident journal Democratic Opposition. She holds a degree in history of art from Vienna University, is a graduate of the Vienna Academy of Arts, and has been…

Lukáš Jelínek is a Czech political scientist at the Masaryk Democratic Academy and has worked both as an advisor to the social democratic Špidla government and as a political analyst and media consultant. Lukáš sits on the editorial board of Literární noviny and has written for Mladá fronta Dnes, Hospodářské noviny, Právu, Sedmé generaci and Slovu. Information valid as of…

Drago Jančar is a Slovenian writer, playwright and essayist based in Ljubljana. In the mid-1970s, in the then relatively liberal Yugoslavia, he was imprisoned on a charge of hostile propaganda, for bringing a booklet about a wartime massacre perpetrated by Tito’s troops in 1945 from Austria and lending to some friends. He was released after three months and subsequently called…

Rajendra Jain is the chairman of, and a professor at, the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for European Studies in New Delhi, India. He is the Jean Monnet chair and adjunct professor (research) at the Monash European and EU Studies Centre of the Monash University in Melbourne. He was a visiting professor at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris…

Maria Ivancheva is a doctoral student of sociology and social anthropology at the Central European University, Budapest. Her research focuses on the past and present of socialism as reflected in the history of student movements and the contemporary higher education reforms in Venezuala. Maria Ivancheva is also a member of the Sofia based collective situated in the Xaspel Social Centre…

Yudhishthir Raj Isar is a professor of cultural policy studies at the American University of Paris. He is an analyst, advisor and public speaker who straddles the differing worlds of cultural theory, experience and practice. He is a professor of cultural policy studies at The American University of Paris (Jean Monnet professor, 2003-2008), an eminent research visitor with the Institute…

Yasan Iliev is a project manager for New Europe Corporate Advisory. Born in the Balkans, he has lived in Europe and Asia Pacific. He currently works in the financial industry at New Europe Corporate Advisory, Ltd [NECA]. NECA is member of the European Privatisation and Investment Corporation network represented in Central and South-East Europe, Russia, the Ukraine, the United Arab…

Michal Hvorecký is a Slovak writer, blogger, columnist and translator. After spending time in the US, Belgium, Austria and Germany, he is currently based in Bratislava, where he heads the Goethe-Institut Library. He has published several collections of short stories and essays, as well as a number of novels. His novel Dunaj v Amerike [Death on the River Danube] (2012) has…