An illustrated exploration of the history of controversial cartooning, and the story of it's relationship to free speech, by long time local pen dipper 'Polyp'.

[caption id="attachment_428" align="aligncenter" width="681"] You can see more of Polyp's cartoons at www.polyp.org.uk[/caption]

From Roman times through to last week's shocking revenge attack, cartoonists have always been the focus of outrage, censorship and conflict. What is it about this often trivialized art form that evokes such powerful reactions?

We'll be including a look at the surprisingly familiar history of the medium's conflict with Christianity and socially accepted moral consensus, and in the discussion afterwards we'll pull at the complex knot of what it means to be offensive. Is there a simple way to untie it?

Once described as a “nerdy kid who couldn’t fight her way out of a wet paper bag”, Rosi Sexton has had an unlikely career. On 11th December, she’ll talk about her journey from PhD in theoretical computer science to becoming the UK’s first female UFC fighter. Along the way, she'll take a skeptical look at martial arts and the self-defence industry, talk about why being punched in the face doesn’t feel like you might expect, and discuss some of the lessons she’s taken away from 15 years in the Mixed Martial Arts world.

We’re overusing the earth’s finite resources, and yet excessive consumption is failing to improve our lives. In this talk, Dan O’Neill will lay out a visionary but realistic alternative to the perpetual pursuit of economic growth—an economy where the goal is enough, not more. He will explore specific strategies to conserve natural resources, stabilise population, reduce inequality, fix the financial system, create jobs, and more—all with the aim of maximizing long-term well-being instead of short-term profits.

Dan O’Neill is a lecturer in ecological economics at the University of Leeds, and the chief economist at the Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE). His work focuses on the changes that would be needed to achieve a prosperous non-growing economy, and alternative ways of measuring progress besides GDP. He is co-author (with Rob Dietz) of Enough Is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources, an international best-seller which has recently been made into a short film.