CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS ON

CONFLICT & PEACE

Art and Terror

Sandra Melone & Alexandra David

 Conversations | Sat 17th Jan | 5-7pm 

Terrorist and insurgent groups use songs, poems, images, and videos as weapons, to recruit, justify violence, and to glorify their cause. Drawing on her Art & Terror research, Alexandra David shows how analysing this cultural output sheds light on motives, identities, and fears, and why ignoring it weakens efforts to prevent radicalisation and build peace.

To join Sandra Melone is Alexandra David, a Brussels-based political analyst and journalist, and the founder of Art & Terror, a platform examining how art and media shape conflict and extremist narratives. A former researcher at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel, she writes for The Times of Israel and Travel Tomorrow on culture, politics, and radicalisation.

Open to everyone | Booking required

Bar open

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ABOUT THE HOST

Hosting the Series is Sandra Djuvara Melone, CEO of Zancora Consulting, which she founded in 2021, with a strong expertise in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, crisis management, human rights and, not last, gender. With a vast experience on the ground, she has worked across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. She knows first hand what living through civil war is like. Sandra is the Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of Search for Common Ground, Europe, one of the world’s leading international non-governmental organisations working in peacebuilding and conflict transformation, where she's been involved in various roles since 1995. Sandra is a founding member of the European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation (EPCPT), of the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO), and of the Child Soldiers Initiative (CSI). Before dedicating her career to conflict transformation, Sandra worked in human rights advocacy with Amnesty International, and in international education.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Small (10-20)	Available on request

HOPE NOT HATE

How to defeat the far right

A salon with nick lowles

Ideas / Salon | Thurs 22nd Jan | 6.30-8.30 pm

*Doors open at 6.30pm. The speaker will start at 7pm.

Not a Member yet? Join Full Circle now & come to events at the Members' rate!

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Nick Lowles is chief executive of Hope not Hate, the UK's largest anti-racism and anti-extremism movement. He was the former editor of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight.

GOOD READS

How to defeat the far-right: Lessons from hope not hate (2025).

KEY LINKS

HOPE not hate website

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ADDITIONAL INFO

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Medium (40-50)	Available on request

Deep Thought series

Funding and organising
progressive survival and resurgence 

with Andreea Petre-Goncalves

Ideas / Conversations | Sat 24th Jan | 5-7pm

Join us for a hopeful conversation with Andreea.

How many breathtakingly godawful, surreal news headlines did we wake up to in 2025? Nobody knows anymore. Short of running into the woods screaming, this is a good time to plan for a future that is not societal breakdown, mass hallucination and apocalyptic conflict.

The world as we know it is already gone. A small number of humans hold disproportionate power over technology, capital, politics and our collective war capabilities. Our societal arrangements have long favoured the powerful, and now we’re in vulgar inequality dystopia, our livelihoods precarious and minds warped by technology-enabled mass delirium. This needs knocking over before it’s too late. 

The far right have known it a long time, and have put in the hard work and investment to reap the rewards. They have funded political parties, community building, think-tanks, rent-a-gobs. We need to be just as diligent.

It’s time to get serious about funding and organising a progressive societal resurgence, and look ahead to 5, 10, 15 years from now. A progressive army will march on its stomach, not only on sarcastic memes, funny though we are. The infrastructure of change (places like Full Circle for instance) can’t survive on air and positivity alone. New societal principles are within our reach, as is a new paradigm that will replace the set-up that has landed us here. We need to fund and organise the path to this in a committed, abundant and strategic way. Those who hold resources have moral and strategic responsibility to fuel our collective recovery.

Tall order? No, the alternative is worse.

Join us to discover the movement building already happening and find your own space.

Open to everyone

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ABOUT THE HOST

Andreea Petre-Goncalves was 8 years old when totalitarian Communism collapsed overnight in her native Romania. She saw then how quickly yesterday’s absolute truth can become tomorrow reviled atrocity. She knows that societal narratives can shift fast, and when they do, they make deep system re-set possible. For two decades she worked for international development, human rights, health and sustainability in the EU institutions and international NGOs. In 2019 she set up Flare, a Brussels-based think-and-do tank that experiments with practical ways of shifting the collective ideas we hold of what is normal and desirable. This work builds on 15 years of her researching and writing about societal narrative shifts. She is a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader and a member of Global Diplomacy Lab.

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ADDITIONAL INFO 

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Small (10-15)	Available on request

Act on 

TECH & DEMOCRACY

with Maria Koomen

 Ideas / Action | Sat 31st Jan | 2-4:30 pm

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ABOUT THE HOST

Maria Koomen is a Democracy, governance & tech analyst and advocacy specialist. She is the former governance director at the Centre for Future Generations, working on the challenges at the intersection of emerging technologies, democracy, and governance. Her work focused on ensuring that governance systems evolve to keep pace with technological and societal change.

Maria led the Open Governance Network for Europe, a joint initiative of Open Government Partnership and Democratic Society to drive connection, dialogue, and learning around public participation, transparency, and accountability with an eye to improving democracy and governance in and across the European Union. Prior to that Maria was senior programme manager on the Democracy Conflict & Governance program at the Carnegie Europe.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Medium <30	Available on request

Deep Thought series

with Andreea Petre-Goncalves

Ideas / Conversations | Sat 7th Feb | 5-7pm

Join us for a hopeful conversation with Andreea

Stay tuned, more details coming soon

Open to everyone

__________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE HOST

Andreea Petre-Goncalves was 8 years old when totalitarian Communism collapsed overnight in her native Romania. She saw then how quickly yesterday’s absolute truth can become tomorrow reviled atrocity. She knows that societal narratives can shift fast, and when they do, they make deep system re-set possible. For two decades she worked for international development, human rights, health and sustainability in the EU institutions and international NGOs. In 2019 she set up Flare, a Brussels-based think-and-do tank that experiments with practical ways of shifting the collective ideas we hold of what is normal and desirable. This work builds on 15 years of her researching and writing about societal narrative shifts. She is a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader and a member of Global Diplomacy Lab.

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ADDITIONAL INFO 

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Small (10-15)	Available on request

Games: The dangerous medium of 21st century politics

A salon with max Haiven

Ideas / Salon | Fri 13th Feb | 6.30-8.30 pm

*Doors open at 6.30pm. The speaker will start at 7pm.

Not a Member yet? Join Full Circle now & come to events at the Members' rate!

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Max Haiven is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair in the Radical Imagination at Lakehead University. He teaches Social Justice Studies and Media Studies programs and also directs the ReImagining Value Action Lab (RiVAL). As part of Sense & Solidarity, he offers strategy and communications workshops for social movements, produces podcasts and builds infrastructure for the next generation of transformative public intellectuals. His writing has been published widely for both academic and non-academic readers on topics including the imagination, (anti-)capitalism, social movements, art and financialization. Max has produced several research-driven podcasts about themes including financialization and anxiety, conspiracy theories and cultures, Amazon and science fiction, capitalism and play, social movements and psychology and games and (anti)fascism. He also makes and thinks about games. Billionaires and Guillotines is his latest board game.

GOOD READS

The Player and the Played, From Gamed Capitalism to 21st Century Fascism (forthcoming 2026); Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire (2022); Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire, the Demons of Capital, and the Settling of Unpayable Debts (2020); Art after Money, Money after Art: Creative Strategies Against Financialization (2018). 

KEY LINKS

Max Haiven, website

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ADDITIONAL INFO

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Medium (40-50)	Available on request

CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS ON

CONFLICT & PEACE

Epidemiology and Conflict

Sandra Melone & Xavier De Radigues

 Conversations | Sat 14th Feb | 5-7pm 

What can epidemiology tell us about war? And how can it help build peace? Join us for an eye-opening conversation on the powerful role of epidemiology in conflict zones - one that helps reveal the hidden toll of war, predict emerging crises, and shape life-saving responses.

Together with Sandra Melone and epidemiologist Xavier de Radiguès, we'll explore how epidemiologists measure the real impacts of conflict - excess mortality, famine, massive population displacement and outbreaks - and how this knowledge guides humanitarian action and global advocacy.

Our co-host, Xavier de Radiguès is a seasoned medical epidemiologist who has spent the majority of his career working in contexts of natural and/or man-made disasters with Médecins Sans Frontières/Epicentre, Médecins du Monde, and the World Health Organization.

Open to everyone | Booking required

Bar open

__________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE HOST

Hosting the Series is Sandra Djuvara Melone, CEO of Zancora Consulting, which she founded in 2021, with a strong expertise in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, crisis management, human rights and, not last, gender. With a vast experience on the ground, she has worked across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. She knows first hand what living through civil war is like. Sandra is the Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of Search for Common Ground, Europe, one of the world’s leading international non-governmental organisations working in peacebuilding and conflict transformation, where she's been involved in various roles since 1995. Sandra is a founding member of the European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation (EPCPT), of the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO), and of the Child Soldiers Initiative (CSI). Before dedicating her career to conflict transformation, Sandra worked in human rights advocacy with Amnesty International, and in international education.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Small (10-20)	Available on request

Deep Thought series

with Andreea Petre-Goncalves

Ideas / Conversations | Sat 7th Mar | 5-7pm

Join us for a hopeful conversation with Andreea

Stay tuned, more details coming soon

Open to everyone

__________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE HOST

Andreea Petre-Goncalves was 8 years old when totalitarian Communism collapsed overnight in her native Romania. She saw then how quickly yesterday’s absolute truth can become tomorrow reviled atrocity. She knows that societal narratives can shift fast, and when they do, they make deep system re-set possible. For two decades she worked for international development, human rights, health and sustainability in the EU institutions and international NGOs. In 2019 she set up Flare, a Brussels-based think-and-do tank that experiments with practical ways of shifting the collective ideas we hold of what is normal and desirable. This work builds on 15 years of her researching and writing about societal narrative shifts. She is a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader and a member of Global Diplomacy Lab.

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ADDITIONAL INFO 

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Small (10-15)	Available on request

THE IDEOLOGICAL BRAIN

A salon with LEOR ZMIGROD

Ideas / Salon | Thurs 12th Mar | 6.30-8.30 pm

*Doors open at 6.30pm. The speaker will start at 7pm.

Not a Member yet? Join Full Circle now & come to events at the Members' rate!

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr Leor Zmigrod is an award-winning scientist and author, political psychologist and neuroscientist investigating why some brains are susceptible to extreme ideologies and how minds can break free from rigid dogmas. The Ideological Brain is her first book. Her research has also been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, TIME, New Scientist, Financial Times, The Times, amongst other international outlets. She was listed on Forbes 30 Under 30 in the Science & Healthcare category, and has received numerous awards in science. Her research explores the psychology of ideological extremism using methods from experimental psychology, cognitive science, political science, and neuroscience. In particular, she investigates the cognitive, emotional, and neurobiological characteristics that might act as vulnerability factors for radicalization and ideological behaviour.

GOOD READS

The Ideological Brain. A radical science of susceptible minds (2025).

KEY LINKS

Leor Zmigrod website

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ADDITIONAL INFO

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Medium (40-50)	Available on request

Identity, history, indignity

A salon with LEa YPI

Ideas / Salon | Thurs 26th Mar | 6.30-8.30 pm

*Doors open at 6.30pm. The speaker will start at 7pm.

Not a Member yet? Join Full Circle now & come to events at the Members' rate!

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Lea Ypi (FBA, FAE) is Ralph Miliband Professor in Politics and Philosophy at LSE, a permanent fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and an Honorary Professor in Philosophy at the Australian National University. A native of Albania, she has degrees in Philosophy and in Literature from the University of Rome La Sapienza, a PhD from the European University Institute and was a Post-Doctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. She is the author of Indignity: A Life Reimagined and Free: Coming of Age at the end of History, both published by Penguin Press as well as Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency, The Meaning of Partisanship (with Jonathan White), and The Architectonic of Reason, published by Oxford University Press. Her work has been translated into more than thirty-five languages and won numerous prizes, including the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the Slightly Foxed First Biography Award, the Ridenhour Prize for truth-telling, the British Academy Prize for Excellence in Political Science and a Leverhulme Prize for Outstanding Research Achievement. She coedits the journal Political Philosophy and occasionally writes for the Financial Times and the Guardian.

GOOD READS

Indignity, A life reimagined (2025); Free: Coming of Age at the End of History (2021); The Architectonic of Reason (2021); The Meaning of Partisanship (2016, with Jonathan White)

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ADDITIONAL INFO

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Medium (40-50)	Available on request

Deep Thought series

with Andreea Petre-Goncalves

Ideas / Conversations | Sat 18th Apr | 5-7pm

Join us for a hopeful conversation with Andreea

Stay tuned, more details coming soon

Open to everyone

__________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE HOST

Andreea Petre-Goncalves was 8 years old when totalitarian Communism collapsed overnight in her native Romania. She saw then how quickly yesterday’s absolute truth can become tomorrow reviled atrocity. She knows that societal narratives can shift fast, and when they do, they make deep system re-set possible. For two decades she worked for international development, human rights, health and sustainability in the EU institutions and international NGOs. In 2019 she set up Flare, a Brussels-based think-and-do tank that experiments with practical ways of shifting the collective ideas we hold of what is normal and desirable. This work builds on 15 years of her researching and writing about societal narrative shifts. She is a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader and a member of Global Diplomacy Lab.

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ADDITIONAL INFO 

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Small (10-15)	Available on request

THE DEMOCRATIC MARKETPLACE

HOW A MORE EQUAL ECONOMY CAN SAVE OUR POLITICAL IDEALS

A salon with LISA HERZOG

Ideas / Salon | Mon 20th Apr | 6.30-8.30 pm

*Doors open at 6.30pm. The speaker will start at 7pm.

Not a Member yet? Join Full Circle now & come to events at the Members' rate!

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Lisa Herzog is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Groningen. She works at the intersection of political philosophy and economic thought. Herzog has published on the philosophical dimensions of markets (both historical and systemical), liberalism and social justice, ethics in organizations and the future of work. She currently focuses on workplace democracy, professional ethics, and the role of knowledge in democracies. She is a co-editor of the interdisciplinary journal Review of Social Economy.

GOOD READS

The Democratic Marketplace: How a More Equal Economy Can Save Our Political Ideals (2025); Citizen Knowledge: Markets, Experts, and the Infrastructure of Democracy (2022).

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ADDITIONAL INFO

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Medium (30-40)	Available on request

Deep Thought series

with Andreea Petre-Goncalves

Ideas / Conversations | Sat 16th May | 5-7pm

Join us for a hopeful conversation with Andreea

Stay tuned, more details coming soon

Open to everyone

__________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE HOST

Andreea Petre-Goncalves was 8 years old when totalitarian Communism collapsed overnight in her native Romania. She saw then how quickly yesterday’s absolute truth can become tomorrow reviled atrocity. She knows that societal narratives can shift fast, and when they do, they make deep system re-set possible. For two decades she worked for international development, human rights, health and sustainability in the EU institutions and international NGOs. In 2019 she set up Flare, a Brussels-based think-and-do tank that experiments with practical ways of shifting the collective ideas we hold of what is normal and desirable. This work builds on 15 years of her researching and writing about societal narrative shifts. She is a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader and a member of Global Diplomacy Lab.

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ADDITIONAL INFO 

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Small (10-15)	Available on request