[Salon] Lea Ypi: Identity, history, indignity

When
26/03/2026
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location
Full Circle House, 89 Ch. de Vleurgat, 1050 Ixelles
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Identity, history, indignity

A salon with LEa YPI

Ideas / Salon | Thurs 26th Mar | 7-9pm
*Doors open at 6.30pm. The speaker will start at 7.15pm.

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Political philosopher Lea Ypi returns to Full Circle to explore themes of dignity, history, memory, identity, and nationhood - prompted by an online photo of her happy grandparents on their 1941 honeymoon, while war raged all over Europe. Records of her grandmother’s youth were destroyed in the early days of communism in Albania - or at least that had been the official story until that moment. What follows is a thrilling reimagining of the past - the vanished world of Ottoman aristocracy, the making of modern Greece and Albania, a global financial crisis, the horrors of war and the dawn of communism in the Balkans.

While investigating the truth about her family delving into secret police archives, Ypi grapples with uncertainty. By turns epic and intimate, profound and gripping, she explores what it means to survive in an age of extremes. It reveals the fragility of truth, both personal and political, and the cost of decisions made against the tide of history. Ultimately, she asks, what do we really know about the people closest to us? And with what moral authority do we judge the acts of previous generations? Blending memoir with historical investigation, we dive into the struggle to preserve individual dignity against surveillance and grand political narratives.

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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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FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Large (80-100)	Available on request

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[Conversations] Deep Thought Series with Andreea Petre-Goncalves

When
11/04/2026
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Location
Full Circle House, 89 Ch. de Vleurgat, 1050 Ixelles

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Deep Thought series

with Andreea Petre-Goncalves

Ideas / Conversations | Sat 11th Apr | 3-5 pm

Join us for a hopeful conversation with Andreea

* Stay tuned, more details coming soon *

In the Deep Thought series, Andreea offers opportunities to interrogate our ideas of what is normal and desirable in society. Together we walk towards the mindset shifts that are needed to protect our planet, make the world safe and ensure lives and dignity and meaning for all. Deep Thought is a space for courage and authenticity, with no stone left unturned. We build trust, encourage each other and take action together.

What happens to trust in a transactional world? What does a selfish society do for our happiness? What does meaningful work mean in an era of precarity, automation and uncertainty? What is society for? Join us for our monthly conversations.

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

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[Conversations] Critical Conversations on Conflict & Peace:

When
11/04/2026
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

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CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS ON
CONFLICT & PEACE

Theme to be announced soon

Sandra Melone

Conversations | Sat 11th Apr | 5-7pm

Save the date. More info coming soon!

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

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[Ideas] Act On: Democracy

When
18/04/2026
2:00 PM - 4:30 PM

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Act on: DEMOCRACY

with Maria Koomen & Nicoleta Prutean

Ideas / Action | Sat 18th Apr | 2-4:30 pm

*Act On sessions offer quarterly action-oriented get-togethers on a specific issue, between experts and an audience willing to DO something about it.*

Save the date for our second Act on Democracy session with Maria and Nicoleta. We will delve deeper into our human core needs, elaborate on tech/AI ability to support and sabotage, and reflect together on what this all means for democracy and how we can actually take action that makes a real difference for us and others.

More info coming soon!

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ABOUT THE HOSTS

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.

Nicoleta Prutean is a neuroscientist and policy analyst, currently leading research on tech & the brain at the Centre for Future Generations. Drawing on her expertise in brain science, her mission is to ensure that evidence on how emerging technologies affect mental health translates into policies that both protect and empower future generations.

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ADDITIONAL INFO


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

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[Culture] Film Screening: The Cost of Growth

When
18/04/2026
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

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Film & Discussion

The Cost of Growth

2025, Eng | Duration 93' | Age recommended 13+

The film will be followed by discussion with
director Thomas Maddens

Culture | Sat 18th Apr | 5-7 pm

The Cost of Growth is an eye-opening documentary following two climate activists as they investigate the root causes of today’s polycrisis. Through conversations with grassroots movements, economic experts, and policy and business insiders, the film examines the structural flaws of an economy dependent on endless growth. With a global perspective and a strong focus on Europe’s political role, it connects stories of changemakers from Brussels to Serbia and from Sápmi to Italy.

As ecological breakdown, inequality and polarisation intensify, the film exposes the hidden costs of global capitalism while highlighting hopeful alternatives. The Cost of Growth showcases communities and movements working towards ecological and economic justice, and explores pathways to a democratic, bottom-up economy beyond growth.

Join our conversation with film director Thomas Maddens after the screening. Together we deepen understanding, amplify our voices and take action.

Watch the trailer here

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ADDITIONAL INFO


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

Show details

[Salon] Lisa Herzog: The democratic marketplace

When
20/04/2026
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location
Full Circle House, 89 Ch. de Vleurgat, 1050 Ixelles

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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.

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Democracy has been hollowed out by capitalism. A narrow view of markets and their aims—prioritizing efficiency, profit, and growth—now dominates thinking about democracy itself. Citizens are ignorant of the deep principles of self-governance, having long since adopted a facile equation between democracy and voting as a consumer choice. Lisa Herzog argues that democracy is still possible, but only if democratic values get embedded in everyday experience—including economic experience. That requires new ways of thinking about markets and their goals, and real reforms.

Lisa speaks about the foundational structures of a democratic economy, in which markets are not just tools for maximizing profit, but instead balance growth with goals like ecological sustainability and the preservation of time outside of work. These are not utopian dreams, Herzog contends. The proposals of democratic economics are already being tested around the world. And the shift in social norms that are needed is already under way.

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