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Raworths Salon North: November
Get ready for a night of curiosity, creativity, and unexpected connections. Raworths Salon North brings the world’s most fascinating ideas in arts, science, and psychology into an intimate cabaret style setting right here in Harrogate.
We’re delighted to welcome Dr Daisy Dixon, a prize winning philosopher and Assistant Professor at Cardiff University, whose work explores the philosophy of art and the uneasy edge where aesthetics meets ethics. From immoral and dangerous art to oppressive monuments and aesthetic protest, she asks how art can challenge us, unsettle us, and sometimes even cause harm.
Joining her is Professor Ben Alderson-Day of Durham University, a leading voice in psychology and the science of perception. In his work, he explores one of the most intriguing human experiences: the unsettling sense of a presence when we are alone. From hallucinations and sleep paralysis to dementia and Parkinson’s, he examines how the brain generates the feeling that someone or something is there, and what that reveals about consciousness, imagination, and reality.
Completing the line up is Dr Campbell Price, who will take the Salon audience on a journey through ancient Egypt, from mummies and tombs to gods and golden treasures. He brings to life one of the world’s most fascinating civilisations, revealing its people, beliefs, and enduring legacy in vivid detail.
Each talk runs for 30 minutes including Q and A, with intervals to grab a drink, browse books from our incredible local bookseller Imagined Things, or simply soak up the buzzing atmosphere.
With a drink in hand and ideas in the air, it’s an evening to discover something unexpected, meet interesting people, and leave with your head buzzing long after the lights go down.
Hosted by producer and presenter Natasha Knight, Raworths Salon North is a celebration of bold thinking, brilliant storytelling, and the thrill of discovering ideas that stick with you.
Voted one of GQ magazine’s “Top 100 Things to Do in the World.”
Kindly sponsored by Raworths Solicitors
Ben Alderson-Day
Ben Alderson-Day is a Professor of Psychology at Durham University and the Scientific Chair of the International Consortium on Hallucinations Research. A specialist in atypical cognition and mental health, his work spans cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, philosophy and child development. He has written for The Guardian, TIME Magazine, Aeon, and Reader’s Digest. At Durham, Ben is also the Co-Director of the Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities, a centre for interdisciplinary health research funded by Wellcome. Ben leads one of its projects, ReaderBank, which is a collaboration with Edinburgh International Book Festival. the ReaderBank is charting how the mind responds to stories, how readers differ from one another, and what that might mean for mental health and wellbeing.
Dr Daisy Dixon
Dr Daisy Dixon is a prize-winning philosopher. She is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Philosophy at Cardiff University, specialising in the philosophy of art – particularly immoral and dangerous art that entrenches structural injustice. Her work examines the collision between aesthetics and ethics: why certain artworks scandalise, how art can normalise harm, and what it means to call a work of art ‘dangerous’. She has written on oppressive monuments, aesthetic protest, deceptive art and immoral artists, and has an art practice in painting and sonic sculpture. In 2024, she was shortlisted for the BBC’s New Generation Thinker scheme.
Dr Campbell Price
Dr Campbell Price received a BA, MA and PhD in Egyptology from the University of Liverpool, where now he is an Honorary Research Fellow. Since 2011, he has been Curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum, part of the University of Manchester, one of the UK’s largest Egyptology collections. Campbell has undertaken fieldwork in Egypt at the sites of Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, Saqqara and at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. He has published widely on ancient Egyptian material culture and its interpretation. Recent books include Brief Histories: Ancient Egypt (Orion, 2024) and (with Stephanie Boonstra) Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries (Egypt Exploration Society 2025). Current research centres on understandings of the ancient Egyptian face in art history, museum encounters and popular culture. He has lectured extensively throughout the UK, and internationally, and regularly comments and advises on Egyptological themes for TV and radio.
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