Anxiety culture: Book launch and panel discussion

John Allegrante is the Charles Irwin Lambert Professor of Health Behavior and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

His research focuses on behavioral self-management and health outcomes in adult chronic disease and the prevention of adolescent drug use. He also has written extensively about epistemological, theoretical, and methodological issues, as well as research-to-practice translation in the science of health promotion.

Allegrante has been a W. K. Kellogg Foundation Fellow, Pew Policy Career Development Fellow, and Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Iceland. He holds an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York and received the 2017 Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award from the CDC Foundation.

Michael Schapira works at the intersection of philosophy and education, with a particular focus on the theoretical and historical foundations of the modern university.

He is the author of University in Crisis: From the Middle Ages to the University of Excellence (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) and also serves as an editor for the literary journal Full Stop. He currently lives in Scotland.

Julie Reshe is a Ukrainian-born philosopher and negative psychoanalyst.

She is currently a Visiting Professor at University College Dublin and a visiting scholar at University College Cork. She also serves as the Director of the Institute of Psychoanalysis at the Global Center for Advanced Studies.

Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including AEON and Sublation Media. Her latest book, Negative Psychoanalysis for the Living Dead: Philosophical Pessimism and the Death Drive (Palgrave, 2023), explores the intersection of philosophical pessimism and psychoanalysis. She currently lives and works in Ireland.

A philosopher and sociologist, Raphaël Liogier is Professor at Aix-Marseille Université in France and the UM6P in Morocco, where he directs the Institute for advanced studies. He has been a visiting scholar at numerous universities, including the University of Varanasi (India) and Louvain la Neuve (Belgium).

He has published extensively on the changes in human identities and beliefs linked to globalization, the internet, AI and transhumanism. His latest book, Khaos. La promesse trahie de la modernité, argues that our collective anxiety, which prevents us from seeing the future in a positive light, stems from the repression of the real, positive meaning of modernity in the form of materialism and nihilism.

Gisele Dias is a Chartered Psychologist and Assistant Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience at University College London, in the Department of Psychology and Human Development. She holds a PhD in Science from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, as well as an MSc in Biological Sciences from UFRJ where she focused on understanding the neurobiological basis of anxiety.

Her current research centres on co-designing and evaluating psychological programmes that enhance positive mental health, particularly in universities, schools, and for female survivors of domestic abuse. With expertise in culturally inclusive education, mental health, student wellbeing, anxiety, and stress management, Gisele also focuses on applied positive psychology and curriculum decolonisation. She has published numerous scientific articles and book chapters. She is a coaching psychologist trained at the Centre for Coaching in London.

John O'Regan is Professor of Critical Applied Linguistics and Vice-Dean (International) at the IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society. He specialises in English as a global language, intercultural communication and critical discourse analysis, and has wide interests in political economy, critical social theory and imperial history.  His most recent book is Global English and Political Economy (Routledge, 2021).