Jerry Brotton is Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London and a leading expert in the history of cartography. He presented the BBC4 series Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession in 2010, and is the author of numerous critically acclaimed books, including Global Interests: Renaissance Art between East and West (Reaktion, 2000), co-written with Lisa Jardine, and the bestselling and prize-winning A History of the World in Twelve Maps (2012).
Anton van der Lem is Scaliger Fellow at Leiden University Library, where he was formerly Curator of Rare Books.
Helen M. Rozwadowski is Professor of History and Founder of the Maritime Studies Program at the University of Connecticut. She is the author of Fathoming the Ocean: The Discovery and Exploration of the Deep Sea (2005), winner of the 2008 Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize.
Nina Edwards is a freelance writer based in London. Her books include Darkness: A Cultural History (2018) and Pazazz: The Impact and Resonance of White Clothing (2023), both published by Reaktion Books.
Mike O’Mahony is Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture at the University of Bristol. He is the author of Sport in the USSR (2006), Sergei Eisenstein (2008) and Olympic Visions (2012), all published by Reaktion Books.
Originally a marine biologist, Trevor Day is the author or co-writer of more than 25 books in marine science and life sciences, including Oceans (2008) and Whale Watcher (2006). He lives in Wiltshire, UK.
Richard M. Berrong is professor of French literature at Kent State University. He is the author of two previous books on Loti, Putting Monet and Rembrandt into Words: Pierre Loti’s Recreation and Theorization of Claude Monet’s Impressionism and Rembrandt’s Landscapes in Literature (2013) and In Love with a Handsome Sailor: The Novels of Pierre Loti and the Emergence of Gay Male Identity (2003).
Kirk Curnutt is Professor and Chair of English at Troy University, Alabama. His most recent books include Reading Hemingway’s ‘To Have and Have Not’ (2017) and American Literature in Transition, 1970–1980 (2018).
John Sutherland, the Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London, is a much-published author and journalist and a familiar figure in the literary world. He has long had the wish to write on boxing, the most hurtful sport, and what it has come to mean in his own lifetime.