director, European Speechwriter Network
Isocrates, Cicero, Erasmus – these were giants of Western intellectual culture, but we’ve forgotten all about them. In 2009, when the world was reeling from the consequences of corruption at the highest levels, Brian Jenner formed an organisation to revive the lessons of these great teachers.
The European Speechwriter Network is a society of writers who gather every year to initiate each other into the esoteric aspects of Europe’s shared linguistic heritage. Members study rhetoric in order to reignite political passions, reinvigorate democracy and reject scientific rationalism across the continent of Europe.
Brian, who has worked as a speechwriter since 1999, has travelled Germany from Bournemouth in the UK on a trip to revive the study of rhetoric in Wittenberg to create an antidote to the narrow specialisation that characterises the modern university. He’s made time in his schedule to judge our debating competition.