Adapt or Remake: what if it’s the system, not you?

Please check ticket info for this event below, incl. information about access.

Who decides what is healthy in a sick world or what is normal in one of endless difference?

In her book Mad World, Micha Frazer-Carroll scrutinizes the way that mental health, and illness, are defined under capitalism. Robert Chapman’s book Empire of Normality reveals a society obsessed with productivity, and the current rise in understanding of neurodiversity. They are joined by poet and disability campaigner Fiona Robertson for a conversations about the many worlds we stand to gain once we understand that the fault lies, not with us, but with the system that regards us as broken.

Find Fiona Robertson's zine Your Life is Not Over; A Book of Apocalypses and How to Survive Them HERE.

Our Speakers

Micha Frazer-Carroll is a columnist at the Independent. She has previously edited for gal-dem, the Guardian and Blueprint, a mental health magazine that she founded. Micha has also written for Vogue, HuffPost, Huck and Dazed. She was nominated for the Comment Awards’ Fresh New Voice of the Year Award, and the Observer/Anthony Burgess Award for Arts Criticism. She is invested in using journalism to challenge systems of power.

Robert Chapman is a neurodivergent philosopher, writing on neurodiversity theory, madness and disability. They have taught at King’s College London, the University of Bristol, Sheffield Hallam and Durham University where they are currently an Assistant Professor in Critical Neurodiversity Studies. They blog at Psychology Today and at Critical Neurodiversity.

Fiona Robertson is a disability justice campaigner who has been working in this space for nearly two decades. After becoming ill at university, she believed she'd lost everything until she met activists who taught her other ways of seeing disability. Since then she's been dedicated to changing what she can, when she can, as her health allows. She believes in plurality of methods, so has worked with direct action, international collectives, and was the SNP's Equalities Convener for three years.

*Please note that masks will be required at this event (as with all Lighthouse events).

*Accessibility: All events will be professionally filmed & livestreamed. The Roxy is wheelchair accessible (including toilets) and we'll have provisions for neurodivergent guests including stims, quiet space and colour-coded lanyards.

*Events are £5 or free -we completely understand paying for one or two events and then getting free spots for others. The Radical Book Fair is entirely bookshop run and ticket sales are vital to keeping the fair sustainable and paying all our speakers so all support is heartily welcome!

*Featured books: The book & ticket option will select the most recently published book at any given event, if you’re not sure which book you want or don’t want that featured book, then buy a £5 voucher ticket that can be used for any of the books below.

*If you'd like to help make the book fair accessible to more folks, please consider adding Please check ticket info for this event below, incl. information about access.to our pay-it-forward fund HERE.