The Middle Way Society Creators & Guests

Stephen Batchelor is a author and teacher, writing books and articles on Buddhist topics and leading meditation retreats throughout the world.

Tobias Jones is a freelance journalist whose work focuses on true crime, communalism, football and contemporary (and 20th century) Italy. He is also an author, teacher, and community-builder. He teaches journalism at Università Degli Studi di Parma, and is Director of Windsor Hill Wood, a refuge he co-founded with his wife for people in crisis.Previously, Jones was on the staff of the London Review of Books and the Independent on Sunday. He has had a weekly column in the Observer and in Internazionale.Jones's work has appeared in many publications in the US, the UK, and Italy. Most of his freelance work appears in the Guardian. He has published published five non-fiction books and three novels. He appears regularly on British and Italian TV and radio.

Peter Tatchell is a British human rights campaigner, originally from Australia, best known for his work with LGBT social movements.Tatchell was selected as the Labour Party's parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey in 1981. He was then denounced by party leader Michael Foot for ostensibly supporting extra-parliamentary action against the Thatcher government. Labour subsequently allowed him to stand in the Bermondsey by-election in February 1983, in which the party lost the seat to the Liberals. In the 1990s he campaigned for LGBT rights through the direct action group OutRage!, which he co-founded. He has worked on various campaigns, such as Stop Murder Music against music lyrics allegedly inciting violence against LGBT people and writes and broadcasts on various human rights and social justice issues. He attempted a citizen's arrest of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in 1999 and again in 2001.In April 2004, he joined the Green Party of England and Wales and in 2007 was selected as prospective parliamentary candidate in the constituency of Oxford East, but in December 2009 he stood down due to brain damage he says was caused by a bus accident as well as damage sustained during various protests. Since 2011, he has been the Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

Alison Gopnik is a Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California.

Melanie Joy, PHD, EDM, is a psychologist, speaker, and organizational and relationship coach.Joy has written several books, but her best known is her first, "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism," which was published in 2010.Joy is the founding president Beyond Carnism, a foundation with the mission of fighting the belief system that allows people to eat animals.Previously, Joy was a lecturer at the University of Massachusetts, where she taught privilege and oppression, psychological trauma, addiction, domestic violence, feminist psychology, and animal rights.Joy received her B.A. in Foreign Languagesfrom Harvard Extension School, her M.Ed. in Teaching from Harvard University, and her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Saybrook University.