Richard Sugg is the author of 18 books, including Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires (3rd edn, 2020), The Real Vampires (2023), Talking Dirty: A History of Disgust from Jesus Christ to Boris Johnson (2023) and Dogsygen (2024). Impossible Journeys: How Dogs Reinvented Love, Family and Home is out with Harper Collins in May 2027. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, The Lancet, BBC History and Der Spiegel, and on international television and podcasts. His books have been translated into Turkish and Japanese. He previously lectured in English and History at Cardiff University and Durham University.
A. Victor Coonin is a leading historian, critic and reviewer of Renaissance Art. He is the author and editor of numerous books on the subject, including From Marble to Flesh: The Biography of Michelangelo’s David (2014), and has taught at Rhodes College since 1995. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee.
Bashabi Fraser is Emeritus Professor and co-founder and Director of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs) at Edinburgh Napier University. Her most recent publications include Scottish Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: the Continuum of Ideas (2017), Rabindranath Tagore’s Global Vision (2015) and Letters to My Mother anf Other Mothers (2015). She lives in Edinburgh.
Patricia Allmer is a leading scholar of Surrealism and teaches Art History at the University of Edinburgh. Her books include René Magritte: Beyond Painting (2009) and Lee Miller: Photography, Surrealism, and Beyond (2016). Her curated exhibitions include Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism (2009) and Taking Shots: The Photography of William S. Burroughs (2014).
Clarissa Hyman is a food and travel writer who contributes to a wide range of publications. Her previous books include The Jewish Kitchen (2003), Cucina Siciliana (2004) and Oranges: A Global History (Reaktion, 2013). Based in Manchester, she has twice won the Glenfiddich Food Writer of the Year Award.
Pauline Fairclough is Professor of Music at the University of Bristol. She is a well-known authority on Soviet music and on Shostakovich in particular. Her last book, Classics for the Masses: Shaping Soviet Musical Identity Under Lenin and Stalin (2016) was co-winner of the BASEES Women’s Forum Book Prize in 2018.
Peter Burke is a pioneering cultural historian and author of over thirty books, including Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (Reaktion, 2019). His books have been translated into more than thirty languages. He is a Life Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the British Academy.
Anastasia Edwards is a writer and food historian, and author of an anthology of writing about Saigon, Saigon: Mistress of the Mekong (2003). She lives in London.
Christopher Lloyd is Emeritus Professor of French at Durham University. His publications on Maupassant include Maupassant: Bel-Ami (1988) and Maupassant Conteur et Romancier (1994).
Harry Margalit is an Associate Professor at UNSW Sydney. His recent publications include Energy, Cities and Sustainability: An Historical Approach (2016).