Archived Events

• Upcoming
• Archived

Connection & Playfulness

Sunday Assembly London will be speaking about connection and playfulness and have trained fool and cultural entrepreneur Adam Taffler speaking. He will be telling us about his experience of how playfulness crosses political & ideological divides and can serve to unite us and foster harmony, trust, community and joy when practised in everyday situations. Giving practical examples there will be an opportunity to try techniques out on the day and takeaways for the wider world.

Anything-but-beans food drive

Sunday Assembly's regular food bank drive for donations. Items desperately needed by Camden Food Bank. You can donate anything except baked beans (the ratio of beans to other donations is 3:1), but to get you started here are some priority items needed.

Black by Le Gateau Chocolat

Featuring a repertoire ranging from Wagner and Purcell to Nina Simone and Whitney Houston, Black is an intimate and confessional portrait of Nigerian singer Le Gateau Chocolat’s life: his hopes, his fears and his battle with depression.This is a new version of the critically-acclaimed show re-staged with the Psappha New Music Ensemble.

Exam Time!

A Quiz of LGBT & Humanist History. A quiz to mark LGBT History Month. Produced in association with the AHS - Atheist, Humanist and Secular Students

Friday Club

Friday Club meets on or around the last Friday of the month. The goal is to help you to work on whatever it is that makes you nervous about what lies ahead. We want to help you re-frame how you feel so that you can approach whatever it is that is making you fearful with curiosity, playfulness, and interest, and, with the help of the group, enjoy the thing that part of you wishes you could avoid!

The Story 2017

The seventh The Story conference returns to Conway Hall on Friday, February 17th, 2017.

President’s Lecture: Eike König

Join us for the second D&AD lecture of the year - from Eike Eike König.

Eat More Pie

Imagine if you were told that you can have your pie and eat it too. How would you respond? - A workshop from Debbie Smith and Gail Gibson.

Clerical child rapists and their facilitators – are the churches coming clean? by Keith Porteous Wood

Keith Porteous Wood took seven years to get the Vatican examined by the UN for its non-compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly over clerical rape and other violence against children in its care. The UN’s verdict could hardly have been more damning.

Why are some of us so effective at creating anxiety and stress? Pt 2

Camilla Ghazala explores how Individual Psychology offers a practical prevention and treatment model for anxiety disorders.

The Disappearance of Émile Zola

Michael Rosen traces the incredible story of Émile Zola’s escape to London in the aftermath of the scandalous Dreyfus Affair

Louise Kemény & Friends

Schoenberg String Quartet No.2 in F sharp minor Op.10 Ravel Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé Stravinsky Trois Poésies de la Lyrique Japonaise Copland As it fell upon a day Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire Op.21

Children’s Workshop with Catriona McDermid (bassoon)

Particularly suitable for those aged 5-10. Contact us if you are bringing a young person outside this range and we will do our best to accommodate them!

Dystopian Times

Stand Up For Darwin

Stand Up For Darwin returns, featuring: Lawrence Krauss, Jay Foreman, Kate Smurthwaite, London Humanist Choir and special guests.

Positive Psychology – new ideas for happier living

Join Action for Happiness for an inspiring and thought-provoking evening to explore exciting new discoveries from the science of happiness.

New Frontiers in UK Politics?

Discussion Event: Jonathan Bartley (Co-Leader, Green Party), Peter Taheri (Secretary/Chair Nominee, Hampstead and Kilburn Labour Party) and Timothy Barnes (Conservative candidate for Bloomsbury Ward 2018).The new leadership of the Green Party has called for a “progressive alliance” involving Labour, Greens, Plaid Cymru, the SNP and the Lib Dems to take on the Conservatives in a 2020 election. This requires progressives to put aside their differences and unite behind a common new purpose – but are they up to the challenge?Or is the way forward in the UK best left to one of the established main parties? Can they adapt and meet the aspirations of our nation in this new era of political turmoil?

Attraction Matters: Or Does It?

Bi-monthly celebrations of life from Sunday Assembly London, with singing, reflection and a lecture from Social Psychologist Viren Swami about attraction.

London’s Agitators and Protesters for Equality 1880s-1980s

This course will provide information and tell stories from from a selection of these struggles that took place over a 100 year period from the 1880s to the 1980s – from the struggles of women making matches in the Bryant and May factory to the mass protests against apartheid outside South Africa Houses. It will attempt to illuminate how these struggles began, what they were trying to achieve, how they recruited supporters and activists and what they did.

My Death, My Decision?

What is a 'good death'? For some people, it is a medically assisted death, when they feel their life is complete - something denied in the UK.Phil Cheatle will explain the approach of the campaign group 'My Death, My Decision', providing much stronger protection for 'vulnerable people', while rejecting the restriction of assisted dying to those with a life-expectancy of 6 months or less a criterion that attracts criticism from both sides of the debate.

Politic Man

“Can you ever separate the personal from the political? Is it right to stick to your convictions even if it means sacrificing those closest to you?”Following a successful debut at the Loft in the Ugly Duck Creative Space, Bermondsey in December, Three 4 All Theatre Company is proud to announce its London Tour of ‘Politic Man’ at various venues from January 20th. And coming to the Brockway Room, Conway Hall on Sat January 28th.A true story. Poignant. Devastating and highly relevant for today. It tells the story of Bermondsey MP Alfred Salter and his wife Ada and how politics transformed their community yet shattered their private lives.

how to: An Evening with David Salle

An Evening with David Salle. David Salle is the leading American postmodernist painter, the shaping spirit of a movement which provocatively took the entire history of art as its raw material as well as subject matter. His works are mysteriously original, yet everything they contain has had a life elsewhere: in paintings, in advertising, in comics, in photographs, yet somehow the result is all art. To coincide with his new book – How to See: Looking, Talking and Thinking about Art– Salle will walk us through the museum without walls that is his world.

Causality in Psychosis

Penny Georgiou lectures in Lacan’s 1946 paper ‘A Presentation on Psychical Causality’.

British Witchcraft Documentaries of the 1970’s

Gary Parsons will be discussing the documentaries made at the height of the British witchcraft revival in the early 70's.

Trio Anima

Dubois Terzettino Hahn Romanesque Ravel Sonatine en trio Fauré Après un rêve Op.7/1 Debussy Syrinx Debussy Children's Corner, arr. Salzedo Ravel Le tombeau de Couperin, arr. Silverthorne Couperin La Superbe Debussy Sonate

What if we could Rebuild the EU?

There are scenarios that could lead to the break-up of the EU. Polls show that the EU is not very popular in many countries. Upcoming elections in several EU countries and informed opinion suggests that disintegration cannot be ruled out. It was formed in a very different era and with the emergence of globalisation and digital technologies, it is no longer fit for purpose. Its economic and social outcomes anyway leave much to be desired. Should our focus now be on creating a brand new EU rather than worrying about soft and hard versions of BREXIT?In this unique and controversial discussion event Lucy Anderson, London Labour MEP, and Professor Keith Pilbeam, an expert in international economics, will address this huge question and others head-on. Come along and be part of it!

Sex Appeal Six

Sex Appeal is an annual star-studded comedy benefit event, with all proceeds going to the young people's sexual health charity Brook.

Worry less, achieve more, love what you do

Start 2017 with practical ideas to help you re-boot your life and discover how to worry less, achieve more and love what you do.

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger is amongst the most influential and important thinkers of the 20th Century. The first part of the course covers his magnum opus, Being and Time (1927). We then move on to consider his later writings on technology, art, and language.

Mindfulness in Eight Weeks

A nine session mindfulness course, led by Anna Black.

Metaphors, Stories and Analogical Thinking

in this course, we will discuss the nature of thought, imagination and language use and the place of metaphors and analogical thinking in philosophical and intellectual activity.

Walter Benjamin

The course will take a chronological and textual approach, starting with Benjamin’s writings from the mid/late 1920s and ending with his final text from 1940.

Philosophers of Otherness 1: Levinas, Foucault, Lacan

The course will introduce the three figures by focusing on close reading of one seminal text by each of them. We will begin with Totality and Infinity (1961) by Emmanuel Levinas; then examine The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (1978) by Michel Foucault; and conclude by studying Jacques Lacan’s Ecrits (1966).

Existentialism

This course studies the work of several of the most famous existentialist thinkers.

Carducci Quartet & Simon Callaghan

Mozart Quartet in B flat K458 'Hunt' Webern Six Bagatelles, Langsamer Satz Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor Op.34

The Question of Iran

After giving a brief background of Iran, Masoud Ahmadi will discuss the current situation of human rights in the country and the role of Irans rulers in the turmoil in the Middle East. While we in the West are correctly concerned about ISIS and the claim of an Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and Syria, a very important issue is overlooked: the ruling expansionist Caliph in Tehran. By focusing on human rights, we will hear how the unfortunate trend of events in the region can be stopped and in fact reversed.

4th Birthday & Kindfulness

Sunday Assembly is 4 years old and we're going to party in style! Bring your party hats, put on your Sunday best and let's get ready to celebrate us celebrating life as a community for all this time!

Song-Recital Melodies & Lieder

Melodies from Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, Debussy, Poulenc,Caplet,Viardot and Wolf from Varda Kotler and Israel Kastoriano. The melodies brings different sides of each composer: Poetic-lyric melodies against Humoristic-satiric.

From Burnout to Badass: How to Shake Off the Gloom and Step into the Light

A self-development workshop in partnership with Psychologies Magazine (www.psychologies.co.uk)

Why are some of us so effective at creating anxiety and stress?

How Individual Psychology offers a practical prevention and treatment model for anxiety disorders – in two parts January 10th and February 14th 2017.

Heath Quartet

Beethoven Quartet in D Op.18/3 Bartók Quartet No.1 in A minor Sz.40 Dvořák Quartet in G Op.106

Alzheimer’s Research – the Latest

Dementia and Alzheimer's disease 'breakthroughs' appear in the newspapers every week, but in reality there hasn't been a new drug for any form of dementia in almost 15 years. Dr Clare Walton will talk about some of latest developments taking place in dementia research and highlight the leading work taking place here in the UK.

3 talks on 3 philosophers

To celebrate its recent launch, the International School of Philosophy is holding a set of talks on three very different philosophers from different periods in history.

#JC4PM Christmas bash

The #JC4PM tour is putting on a special event at Conway Hall with some of our favourite acts - and some new ones - for a Christmas bash.

Poetic Naturalism – a New Understanding of Life and the Universe

“Naturalism” is the idea that there is only one world, the natural world, which follows the laws of nature and which can be investigated by scientific methods. The term “Poetic Naturalism” was introduced by theoretical physicist Sean Carroll in his 2016 book, The Big Picture. Carroll is perhaps the greatest living humanist thinker and in his book he explores humanity's big questions including: the origin of life, meanings in life and the origin of the universe.Chris Street will hold your hand and take you through an incredible journey of new understandings of our existence on Planet earth.

Nothing: The Best Present

For the last Sunday Assembly London of 2016 we are joined by the amazing Laurence Shorter. In his quest to understand the secrets of happiness, he has authored a bestselling book on positive thinking (The Optimist, 2009), written and performed his own one-man show at the Edinburgh Festival, and created the Lazy Guru, the world’s first cartoon guide to mindfulness and flow.