WHAT'S ON
Full List
in partnership with The Brussels Times
Social | TUES 24 March | 7.30-10.30pm Doors open 7pm
Put your general (and Brussels Times!) knowledge to the test at our regular quiz night with The Brussels Times! Come with a team or join one when you arrive – we’ll match you up.
Join us for fun night of trivia, drinks & good company. Bring your knowledge & let’s quiz!
Quiz starts at 7.30pm sharp!
Come alone and join a table with others or with friends. Maximum table 5 people per team.
Open to all | Bar open with drinks & snacks
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ADDITIONAL INFO
ACCESS
Bar & snacks
Indignity by Lea Ypi
Culture | Thurs 26th Mar | 6-7pm*
*Exceptionally, doors open at 5.30pm. The book club begins at 6pm sharp.
Monthly meet up to discuss a great read, along with drinks & good company.
WE HAVE REACHED THE REGISTRATION LIMIT FOR THE BOOK CLUB. YOU CAN JOIN THE WAIT LIST OR SIGN UP FOR THE SALON TALK.
This month we exceptionally gather around a great read in the company of the author herself! Join Lea Ypi and fellow readers to discuss Indignity: A life reimagined.
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When Lea Ypi discovers a photo of her grandmother, Leman, honeymooning in the Alps in 1941 posted by a stranger on social media, she is faced with unsettling questions. She investigates the truth about her family's past by tracing the steps of her grandmother through 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. With its philosophical depth and historical context, the book blends memoir and historical investigation, exploring the struggle to preserve individual dignity against grand political narratives and surveillance. Indignity is both about Ypi's personal journey and about survival in an age of extremes, about what we can truly know about those closest to us and about the moral authority with which we can judge the acts of previous generations.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lea Ypi holds the Ralph Miliband Chair in Politics and Philosophy at the London School of Economics. Her first trade book, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History won the Ondaatje Prize and the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Costa Biography Award. It is translated into over thirty languages.
Bar open with snacks
Ideas / Salon | Thurs 26th Mar | 7-9pm *Doors open at 6.30pm. The speaker will start at 7.15pm.
SOLD OUT JOIN THE WAITLIST
BOOK FOR DINNER AFTER THE EVENT HERE>>
Not a Member yet? Join Full Circle now & come to events at the Members' rate!
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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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.
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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DINNER DINING I Thurs 26th Mar I 9.00-10.00pm Book your place for dinner for after the event MEMBERS ONLY
Seasonal menu, all dietary requirments catered for if known in advance!
EUR25 for a main course vegetarian menu.
Settle your bill at the bar.
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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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.
Theme to be announced soon Sandra Melone
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
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.
SINGLES APERO
Social | Sat 11th Apr | 7-9pm
The Singles Apero is our popular series of monthly encounters where you can meet other social singles in a safe space without matching pressure. Feel free to bring any single friends along or just come by yourself.
Open to all singles | Booking required
Big Kiss, Bye-Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett
Culture | Thurs 16th Apr | 7:00-8:30 pm
*Doors open at 6.30pm. The book club begins at 7pm.
‘Bennett writes like no one else. She is a rare talent.’ ― Karl Ove Knausgaard
Uprooted by circumstance from city to deep countryside, a woman lives in temporary limbo, visited by memories of all she’s left behind. The most insistent are those of Xavier, whom she still loves but no longer desires, a displacement he has been unable to accept. An unexpected letter from an old acquaintance brings back a torrent of others she’s loved or wanted. Each has been a match and a mismatch, a liberation and a threat to her very sense of self. The ephemera left by their passage –a spilled coffee, an unwanted bouquet, a mind-blowing kiss—make up a cabinet of curiosity she inventories, trying to divine the essence of intimacy. What does it mean to connect with another person? How do we let them go? In this tour de force of fiction, the inventive Claire-Louise Bennett explores the mystery of how people come into and go out of our lives, leaving us forever in their grasp.
Claire-Louise Bennett grew up in Wiltshire and studied literature and drama before moving to Ireland where she worked in and studied theatre for several years. In 2013 she was awarded the inaugural White Review Short Story Prize and her debut book, Pond, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2016. Claire-Louise's fiction and essays have appeared in a number of publications including The White Review, Stinging Fly, gorse, Harper's Magazine, Vogue Italia, Music & Literature, New York Times Magazine and New Yorker. Big Kiss, Bye-Bye is her third work of fiction.
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!
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.
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
Watch the trailer here
HOW A MORE EQUAL ECONOMY CAN SAVE OUR POLITICAL IDEALS
Ideas / Salon | Mon 20th Apr | 6.30-8.30 pm
*Doors open at 6.30pm. The speaker will start at 7pm.
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.
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.
The Democratic Marketplace: How a More Equal Economy Can Save Our Political Ideals (2025); Citizen Knowledge: Markets, Experts, and the Infrastructure of Democracy (2022).
Social | Sat 25th Apr | 5-7pm
Curious about Full Circle? Join us for a drink & discover what we're all about.
Whether you're already part of our community or simply intrigued, you’ll have the opportunity to meet the team, explore the house & hear more about our future plans – including what the different types of Full Circle memberships have to offer. It’s a relaxed & informal setting, ideal for asking questions & seeing if this is a place where you feel at home.
We warmly welcome current members & their guests too – so feel free to bring a friend or two along. It's a lovely way to connect with others who share a curiosity for ideas, culture & community. No pressure, just good company & a great conversation.
We're looking forward to welcoming you!
We only have 120 tickets and we always sell out!!
It's time to dust off your dancing shoes and join a traditional Scottish ceilidh.
No previous experience or dancing skills required - the band will be calling out the steps as we go along. If you're a ceilidh regular then you know how much fun it is!
Bring your friends or come along but please, no spikey heels on our rather beautiful wooden floor.
* 7.30pm doors open - bar snacks available
* 8.00pm start dancing!
* 10.30pm Band finishes
*TICKET INCLUDES 1 DRINK (BEER, WINE OR SOFT)
BAR SNACKS AVAILABLE ALL EVENING
Bar & light food
The Hoggies are the original Brussels-based Scottish ceilidh band.
Ideas / Conversations | Sat 16th May | 5-7pm
Join us for a hopeful conversation with Andreea Stay tuned, more details coming soon
Helen Of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman
Culture | Thurs 21st May | 7:00-8:30 pm
‘A furious energy runs through Helen of Nowhere, whose every sentence is a joy to read.' ― Ayşegül Savaş, author of The Anthropologists
In the middle of the countryside, a realtor is showing a disgraced professor around an idyllic house. She speaks not only about the home's many wonderful qualities but about its previous owner, the mystifying Helen, whose presence still seems to suffuse every fixture. Through hearing stories of Helen's chosen way of living, the man begins to see that his story is not actually over – rather, he is being offered a chance to buy his way into the simple life, close to the land, that's always been out of reach to him. But as evening fades into black, he will learn that the asking price may be much higher, and stranger, than anticipated. Philosophically and formally adventurous, at once intimate and cosmic in scope, Helen of Nowhere asks: What must we give up in exchange for true happiness?
Makenna Goodman is an American editor and a writer. She is the author of two novels: Helen of Nowhere and The Shame and has written for international publications including the New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Harvard Review, The White Review, BOMB, The Common, ASTRA Magazine and Mousse Magazine. She has worked in publishing for two decades as an editor with gardeners, horticulturalists, artists, farmers, essayists, cultural critics, designers, scientists, composters, seed savers, foragers, and fermenters, and books she has developed and edited have won awards including the James Beard Award, the American Horticultural Society Award, and the IACP award. She is currently executive editor at Timber Press.
TECH & DEMOCRACY with Maria Koomen
TECH & DEMOCRACY
with Maria Koomen
Ideas / Action | Sat 30th May | 2-4:30 pm
Save the date for our third 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 on what this all means for democracy and how we can actually take action that makes a real difference for us and others.
Social | Sat 30th May | 7-9pm
All My Precious Madness by Mark Bowles
Culture | Thurs 25th Jun | 7:00-8:30 pm
Great news! The author, Mark Bowles, joins us virtually to discuss his award-winning novel together.
This is the last book club before the summer break! Join us.
‘Unapologetically erudite and frequently brutal' - The Telegraph
Henry Nash has hauled his way from a working class childhood in Bradford, through an undergraduate degree at Oxford, and into adulthood and an academic elite. But still, he can’t escape his anger. As the world – and men in particular – continues to disappoint him, so does his rage grow in momentum until it becomes almost rapturous. And lethal. This is the story of a man at odds with the world. A man who wants to escape his violent past but instead – most emphatically – repeats it.
A savagely funny novel that disdains literary and moral conventions, All My Precious Madness is also a work of deep empathy – even when that also means understanding the darkest parts of humanity. One of the most electric debuts of the last decade.
Mark Bowles is a published author and a committed teacher. Born and raised in Bradford, he went on to study at Liverpool and Oxford Universities. His first novel, All My Precious Madness, was published by Galley Beggar in 2024, and has been nominated for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Authors’ Club First Novel Prize. His second novel, How Do People Stay the Same, will be out in Spring 2025.
Social | Sat 27th June | 7-9pm
This is our last get together before the summer break. Come join us or see you back in September!
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