James Thompson is Vice President for Social Responsibility and Professor of Applied and Social Theatre at the University of Manchester. He leads the University’s social responsibility goal which includes how the university orientates its research, teaching/learning, community engagement, and processes to making a positive social, environmental and cultural impact on society. He has overall responsibility for the cultural institutions of the university – working closely with the Directors of Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, Manchester Museum and the Whitworth Gallery.

He is also the Founder and Co-Director of In Place of War – a project researching and developing arts programmes in war and disaster zones. He has developed and run theatre projects in Africa and South Asia (principally DR Congo and Sri Lanka). He has written widely on theatre applied to conflict, peacebuilding, and reconciliation and his most recent books are Performance Affects: Applied Theatre and the End of Effect (2009) and Humanitarian Performance: from Disaster Tragedies to Spectacles of War (2014).

Talks: Art in Place of War: Creative Responses to Conflict Around the World, Future Then: Stupid Apes – Is the War Always Inevitable?