Uncancelled Culture

David Baddiel [UK]

David Baddiel is an accomplished comedian, author, screenwriter and television presenter. He began his career as writer and star of numerous hit UK TV comedy shows and in 1992 he performed at the UK’s first ever comedy arena show at Wembley. His song about football, Three Lions, has been a UK no. 1 a record-breaking four times. Also an award-winning author, David has written ten hugely successful children’s books, alongside four critically-acclaimed novels, and in 2021 he released the Sunday Times Politics Book of The Year – his polemic Jews Don’t Count, which has changed the whole conversation around modern identity politics and antisemitism. David followed the book with a TV documentary on the subject that aired in 2022. David’s most recent book, The God Desire, was released in 2023 and explores his keen desire to believe in a deity and why this very desperation to believe proves his atheism correct.

Roxane Gay [USA]

Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018, Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Harper’s Bazaar, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times where she also writes the “Work Friend” column. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, The New York Times’ bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Bad Feminist and The New York Times’ bestselling Hunger: A Memoir of My Body and the nationally bestselling Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business. She is also the author of the Eisner Award winning World of Wakanda for Marvel and the editor of Best American Short Stories 2018. She is currently at work on film and television projects, a book of writing advice, an essay collection about television and culture, and a YA novel entitled The Year I Learned Everything. In 2018, she won a Guggenheim fellowship. She is also the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

Photo: Reginald Cunningham

Andy Mills [USA]

Andy Mills is an American reporter and podcast producer who co-created The Daily at The New York Times, Reflector and several documentary series including Rabbit Hole and The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.

Megan Phelps-Roper [USA]

Born and raised in the Westboro Baptist Church, Megan Phelps-Roper left a life of religious extremism in 2012. She has spent the past decade using her experiences to work with schools on anti-bullying campaigns, with law enforcement organizations investigating deradicalization, and with tech companies on the intersection of safety, free speech, and the value of dialogue across ideological divides. Her journey has been chronicled in The New Yorker, a trio of BBC documentaries, a TED talk, and her memoir Unfollow. She hosted and produced The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, an audio documentary that examines some of the most contentious conflicts of our time through the life and career of the world’s most successful author.

Tim Dean

Tim Dean is a public philosopher, speaker and writer. He has a Doctorate in philosophy from UNSW Sydney on the evolution of morality and specialises in public philosophy, ethics and critical thinking. He is an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney and the author of How We Became Human. He is also an experienced science writer and editor and has worked for outlets such as The Conversation and edited magazines including Cosmos and Australian Life Scientist. He is the recipient of the Australasian Association of Philosophy Media Professionals’ Award for his work on philosophy in the public sphere. He is currently Senior Philosopher and Manos Chair in Ethics at The Ethics Centre.