Spring 2012 | Public lectures and events | Video: Recent Episodes
London School of Economics and Political Science
Video files from LSE's spring 2012 programme of public lectures and events, for more recordings and pdf documents see the corresponding audio collection.
Contributor(s): William Patry | Copyright laws are declared to be the underpinnings of creativity, innovation, the knowledge economy, and everything short of curing the sick and feeding the poor. Can copyright laws do all these wonderful things, or are they, in Ian Hargreaves' words, the result of lobbynomics? William Patry is senior copyright counsel at Google Inc. He has written far too much about copyright law, including his new book How to Fix Copyright Law and so now spends his time playing bass clarinet.
Contributor(s): Dimitris Daskalopoulos, Moritz Kraemer, Vicky Pryce, Poul Thomsen | This is a very timely discussion of whether Greece can get out of its current economic crisis. The financial markets show concern that the recent bailout will not be enough and a further rescue may be needed. There is renewed international concern that other euro members will find themselves in difficulty prompting further action – Portugal, it is feared, may need another bailout. The rescue strategy for Greece is clearly the ‘test case’ that will shape the response to any further problem. So, can it work? What must the ‘Troika’ and Greece do to return the economy to growth? The panel debate brings together key experts and protagonists. Dimitris Daskalopoulos is chairman of the board of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV). Moritz Kraemer is managing director EMEA, analytical manager (Sovereign Ratings) at Standard & Poor's. Vicky Pryce is senior managing director-economics of FTI Economics. Poul Thomsen is deputy director, in the European Department of the International Monetary Fund and and head of the Troika Programme for Greece.
Contributor(s): William Hague MP | William Hague MP, Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State, presents Plenary Session II of the 2012 BRISMES Annual Conference. The conference is organised by the LSE Middle East Centre and the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies.
Contributor(s): Professor Abhijit Banerjee | Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo won the FT Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year 2011 for their analysis of why the poor, despite having the same desires and abilities as anyone else, end up with entirely different lives. They argue that so much of anti-poverty policy has failed over the years because of an inadequate understanding of poverty. Looking at some of the most surprising facets of poverty: why the poor need to borrow in order to save, why they miss out on free life-saving immunizations but pay for drugs that they do not need, and why they start many businesses but do not grow any of them, they give us all a new understanding of the complex reality of living on very little and offer practical solutions for reducing poverty. Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at MIT. He is the recipient of many awards, including the inaugural Infosys Prize in 2009, and has been an honorary advisor to many organizations including the World Bank and the Government of India.
Contributor(s): Professor Ghassan Salamé | Professor Ghassan Salamé, Dean, Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) presents the I.B. Tauris Plenary Session I of the 2012 BRISMES Annual Conference. The conference is organised by the LSE Middle East Centre and the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies.
Contributor(s): Professor Daniel Everett | Over the past fifty years, the most popular theory of language is that it is an outgrowth of an innate biogram, often referred to as Universal Grammar. In this lecture he will explore an alternative perspective, namely, that language is a human invention and cultural artefact, passed down from one generation to another. Its principal task is to solve the communication problem that human sociality, what Aristotle referred to as the "social instinct", imposes upon us. Daniel Everett has held appointments in anthropology and linguistics at the University of Campinas, the University of Pittsburgh, Manchester University, and Illinois State University. He is currently Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He is the author of Don't sleep, there are snakes and Language: the cultural tool, both published by Profile. He has conducted research on many Amazonian languages, but is best known for his research on the Piraha language of Brazil.
Contributor(s): Leon Charles, Karl Hood | Grenada's role during the Climate Change negotiations at Durban, during COP17, as the chair of the Alliance of Small Islands States, highlighted the role vulnerable countries can play during international negotiations. Discover what it means to be a small island state facing the impacts of climate vulnerability and how a small country can play such a vital role in international negotiations. Leon Charles is is the Grenadian lead climate change negotiator. He is a former chairman of the AWG-KP (2007) under the UNFCC, and former AOSIS chief negotiator (2007 - 2011). He was the lead consultant in the development of Grenada's National Strategic Plan for Climate Change (2007) and inter alia has also worked on National Communications (First National Communications for Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis and Dominica) and led a vulnerability analysis of Grenada's coastline (CPACC - Component 4 - 1999/2001). Karl Hood became minister of Foreign Affairs, the Environment, Foreign Trade and Export Development in November 2010, and subsequently Foreign minister only from 2011. He entered Parliament as a member of The National Democratic Congress in July of 2008 and served at various times as minister for Labour, Health, Ecclesiastical Affairs, among others. Minister Hood brings to politics a disciplined approach and a great love and compassion for people. He sees politics as the means of creating legislation and formulating policies to enrich the lives of ordinary people. He believes that true progress comes with the development of people, not patronage. Born in Happy Hill, St. George’s, Karl Hood was educated at the Presentation Boys College, the West Indies School of Theology, Nyack College, and Newport University. He holds a master's degree in leadership, is trained as an optician and has practiced as a minister of religion.
Contributor(s): Robert Hodgkinson, Kirstin Gillon, Josep Bisbe, Andrea Dossi, Ian Herbert, Michael Bromwich, Phillie Karkaria | The 33rd annual MARG Conference took place on 22 March 2012. The theme for the 2012 conference was 'Management Accounting Leadership: Global Challenges - Local Responses.' Morning Session - Robert Hodgkinson and Kirstin Gillon (ICAEW), The Finance Function and Information Technology: A Bigger Picture. Josep Bisbe (ESADE Ramon Llull University), Diversity in Culture and Environmental Dynamism as Key Challenges for Performance Measurement Systems in Global Firms. Afternoon Session - Andrea Dossi (SDA Bocconi School of Management, Bocconi University), Control Leadership in MNC's: Global Value based Reporting - Local Strategies. Panel Discussion: How Can Management Accounting Leadership Improve? Josep Bisbe, Andrea Dossi, Ian Herbert and Robert Hodgkinson. Chairman: Michael Bromwich. CIMA Distinguished Practitioner Lecture, Phillie Karkaria (Exectutive Director of Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd), Global Challeges, Local Solutions and Management Accounting Leadership.
Contributor(s): Shami Chakrabarti | New Labour arguably left Britain more comfortable in its diversity and better protected by anti-discrimination law. Equal treatment for gay people advanced significantly and the Human Rights Act provides a modern Bill of Rights for everyone in the Kingdom. Curiously however, parallel laws dishonoured these values in thought, word and deed. Home affairs hyperactivity left ours a less friendly country in which to seek asylum, dissent or even be young. The Coalition bound itself together with "civil liberties" and quickly reversed some excesses of the previous decade. Last year's "Arab Spring saw it promote human rights abroad. However the Government appears bitterly divided by them at home. Is the debate about a more "British" Bill of Rights, political genius, pragmatic fudge or a dangerous swindle capable of depriving us all of vital protection against abuse of power? Shami Chakrabarti has been Director of Liberty (The National Council for Civil Liberties) since September 2003. Shami first joined Liberty as In-House Counsel on 10 September 2001. She became heavily involved in its engagement with the "War on Terror" and with the defence and promotion of human rights values in Parliament, the Courts and wider society. A Barrister by background, she was called to the Bar in 1994 and worked as a lawyer in the Home Office from 1996 until 2001 for Governments of both persuasions. Since becoming Liberty's Director she has written, spoken and broadcast widely on the importance of the post-WW2 human rights framework as an essential component of a democratic society. She is Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, a Governor of the British Film Institute, and a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford in addition to being a Master of the Bench of Middle Temple. She was recently invited to be one of 6 independent assessors advising Lord Justice Leveson in his Public Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the UK Press. Francesca Klug is professorial research fellow and director of the Human Rights Futures Project at LSE.
Contributor(s): Danny Quah, Alastair Newton | Danny Quah is Kuwait Professor at the LSE. Alastair Newton is Senior Political Analyst at Nomura International.
Contributor(s): Professor Abdulkarim Soroush | Professor Soroush will discuss the role of philosophy – and Popper's thought in particular – in Iranian religious and political reform. Abdulkarim Soroush is a leading intellectual in Iran and has held visiting positions at, amongst other institutions, Harvard and Princeton. This event is supported by The Sir Karl Popper Memorial Fund. The Popper Memorial Fund would like to thank the Austrian Cultural Forum |for the generous support they have offered toward the 2012 Lecture.
Contributor(s): Professor Zygmunt Bauman | Being on the left in times of globalisation and divorce of power and politics. New mechanisms of domination and reproduction of inequality, from society of producers to society of consumers. From proletariat to precariat. From solidarity to oneupmanship. Deficit of trust, crisis of agency, and people on the move. Zygmunt Bauman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Leeds. He was awarded the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences in 1991 and the Theodor W. Adorno Award of the city of Frankfurt in 1998. He has been awarded in 2010, jointly with Alain Touraine, the Príncipe de Asturias PrizePrize for Communication and the Humanities. The University of Leeds launched the The Bauman Institute within its School of Sociology and Social Policy in Bauman's honour in September 2010.
Contributor(s): Eric Hanushek, Steve Machin, Ludger Wößmann | LSE Growth Commission, Evidence Session 1: Human Capital | In this session, Eric Hanushek, Stephen Machin and Ludger Wößmann gave their views on the role skills should play in the formulation and implementation of a strategy to secure long-term growth for the UK, reflecting on lessons from international experience and state of the art academic literature. Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He has been a leader in the development of economic analysis of educational issues, and his work on efficiency, resource usage, and economic outcomes of schools has frequently entered into the design of both US and international educational policy. Steve Machin is Professor of Economics at University College London, Research Director at the Centre for Economic Performance, a member of the Low Pay Commission and Director of the Centre for the Economics of Education. Ludger Wößmann is Head of Human Capital and Innovation at CES Ifo Institute for Economic Research, University of Munich.
Contributor(s): Professor Rahel Jaeggi | Does modern society cause us to be alienated from ourselves? This lecture will argue that a re-thinking of the philosophical concept of alienation can provide us with an important resource for social critique. Rahel Jaeggi is professor for practical philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin.
Contributor(s): Tim Weiner | The United States is a country founded on the ideals of democracy and freedom, yet throughout the last century it has used secret and lawless methods to destroy its enemies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the most powerful of these forces. Following his award-winning history of the C.I.A., Legacy of Ashes, Tim Weiner has now written the first full history of the F.B.I. as a secret intelligence service, Enemies: A History of the FBI| which he will talk about in this lecture. Drawn entirely from firsthand materials in the F.B.I.'s own files, Enemies brilliantly brings to life the entire story, from the cracking of anarchist cells to the prosecution of the 'war on terror'. It is the story of America's war against spies, subversives and saboteurs - and the self-inflicted wounds American democracy suffered in battle. Throughout the book lies the long shadow of J. Edgar Hoover, who ran the F.B.I. with an iron fist for forty-eight years. He was not a monster, but a brilliant confidence man who ruled by fear, force, and fraud. His power shaped America; his legacy haunts it. Tim Weiner is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at the New York Times, where he has reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan and fifteen other nations. He was based for a decade in Washington, DC, where he covered the C.I.A. and the Military - the latter topic being the subject of his Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget. He is the author of the bestselling Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, which won the 2007 National Book Award for Non-Fiction.
Contributor(s): James Caan | On Dragons' Den, James Caan saw over 1,000 budding entrepreneurs pitch their ideas from anything that ranged from the bizarre to the revolutionary. Having spent the past 30 years starting, building and growing businesses, James has become recognised as one of the UK's most prominent experts on entrepreneurship. His talk will take you through the journey of an entrepreneur, the pathway to a successful business, but also the ability to recognise when an idea is not a business, potentially saving you the investment of valuable time and money. James Caan is one of the UK's most celebrated businessmen. Having built global multi-million pound recruitment companies, he now has a portfolio of over 30 businesses within his private equity firm, Hamilton Bradshaw. He has consistently followed the mantra of "backing people with passion" and invests in entrepreneurs across a number of sectors including real estate, recruitment and professional services. This event celebrates the publication of James Caan's new book Start Your Business in 7 Days.
Contributor(s): Professor Scott Barrett | Professor Barrett discusses whether the prospect of approaching climate catastrophes makes international cooperation on climate change any easier, and examines how the international system is likely to respond to the future crossing of a 'climate tipping point'. Scott Barrett is the Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Earth Institute.
Contributor(s): Dr Zack Cooper, Paul Corrigan, Frank Dobson MP, Alastair McLellan, Zoe Williams | This event will bring together a range of experts in the field of NHS reform to debate whether competition has a role to play in improving the NHS. Each speaker to talk for 5 to 7 minutes, before opening to questions from the floor. Dr Zack Cooper is a health economist at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. Zack's work focuses on assessing the impact of competition in hospital and insurance markets and analysing the effect of financial incentives and payment reforms on health care delivery. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Chicago and did his Masters and PhD at the London School of Economics. Paul Corrigan CBE is a Labour politician, and was health adviser to Tony Blair. Frank Dobson MP is a Labour Party politician who was Secretary of State for Health from 1997 to 1999. Alastair McLellan is editor of the Health Service Journal. Zoe Williams is a regular columnist in The Guardian and New Statesman.
Contributor(s): Joel Brenner | A former intelligence insider illuminates the strategic vulnerabilities created by the technologies that run our public and private lives, shriveling privacy, bleeding us of technologies that create wealth, power, and jobs, and laying public and private infrastructure open to crippling disruption – with thoughts on how to deal with it. Joel Brenner (LSE PhD 1973) is the author of America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare. He is the former head of US counterintelligence and inspector general of the US National Security Agency and practices law in Washington, DC, focusing on privacy and security issues.
Contributor(s): Dr Mukulika Banerjee, Patrick French, Professor Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor Sunil Khilnani | This panel will focus on the underside of Indian democracy, as visible in, among other things, the insurgencies in Kashmir; a Maoist rebellion in the heart of India; growing inequalities between rich and poor; and the massively high rates of corruption within government. Mukulika Banerjee is a reader in anthropology at the Department of Anthropology, LSE. Patrick French is the author of Liberty or Death and India: a portrait. Maitreesh Ghatak is Professor of Economics at LSE. Sunil Khilnani is director of King's College London's India Institute. Dr Ramchandra Guha is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2011-2012.
Contributor(s): Prof Patrick Dunleavy, Simon Bastow, Adam Cooper, Jonathan Portes, Prof Bernard Silverman, Neil Wholey, Dr Alan Cann, Prof Vicky Randall, Prof Stephen Hanney, Prof Huw Davies, Richard Bartholomew, Prof Edward Melhuish, Prof Sandy Thomas | A half day conference hosted by LSE's Public Policy Group/Impact of Social Sciences Project held on Monday, 12th March 2012 at the Institute for Government, London. With the incentives for academics to engage with government again strengthened through the REF process, this half day conference will examine the ways in which academic research impacts on government and policymaking, how tried and tested methods as well as newer digital technologies are affecting their relationships and the key touch-points where academic expertise can be of most use on major policy issues. Introduction, 2pm, Introduction from the LSE Impacts of Social Sciences team, Speakers: Prof Patrick Dunleavy, Simon Bastow (LSE Public Policy Group) Session 1, 2.20pm, The Policymakers' View: How Government Departments can Better Leverage Academic Research, Speakers: Adam Cooper (Head of Social Science Engagement at DECC, Jonathan Portes (Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research), Prof Bernard Silverman (Chief Scientific Adviser at the Home Office), Neil Wholey (Westminster City Council). Session 2, 3.45pm, The Academics' View: Opening up Academic Work to Policymakers, Speakers: Dr Alan Cann (Leicester University), Prof Vicky Randall (Essex University), Prof Stephen Hanney (Brunel University), Prof Huw Davies (University of St Andrews). Session 3 (Final Session), 5pm, Change, Evaluation and Future-proofing: Academic Interventions in the Policy Process, Speakers: Richard Bartholomew (Chief Research Officer, Department of Education), Prof Edward Melhuish (Director, Impact Evaluation of Sure State), Prof Sandy Thomas (Director of Foresight, Government Office for Science).
Contributor(s): Prof Patrick Dunleavy, Simon Bastow, Adam Cooper, Jonathan Portes, Prof Bernard Silverman, Neil Wholey, Dr Alan Cann, Prof Vicky Randall, Prof Stephen Hanney, Prof Huw Davies, Richard Bartholomew, Prof Edward Melhuish, Prof Sandy Thomas | A half day conference hosted by LSE's Public Policy Group/Impact of Social Sciences Project held on Monday, 12th March 2012 at the Institute for Government, London. With the incentives for academics to engage with government again strengthened through the REF process, this half day conference will examine the ways in which academic research impacts on government and policymaking, how tried and tested methods as well as newer digital technologies are affecting their relationships and the key touch-points where academic expertise can be of most use on major policy issues. Introduction, 2pm, Introduction from the LSE Impacts of Social Sciences team, Speakers: Prof Patrick Dunleavy, Simon Bastow (LSE Public Policy Group) Session 1, 2.20pm, The Policymakers' View: How Government Departments can Better Leverage Academic Research, Speakers: Adam Cooper (Head of Social Science Engagement at DECC, Jonathan Portes (Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research), Prof Bernard Silverman (Chief Scientific Adviser at the Home Office), Neil Wholey (Westminster City Council). Session 2, 3.45pm, The Academics' View: Opening up Academic Work to Policymakers, Speakers: Dr Alan Cann (Leicester University), Prof Vicky Randall (Essex University), Prof Stephen Hanney (Brunel University), Prof Huw Davies (University of St Andrews). Session 3 (Final Session), 5pm, Change, Evaluation and Future-proofing: Academic Interventions in the Policy Process, Speakers: Richard Bartholomew (Chief Research Officer, Department of Education), Prof Edward Melhuish (Director, Impact Evaluation of Sure State), Prof Sandy Thomas (Director of Foresight, Government Office for Science).
Contributor(s): Prof Patrick Dunleavy, Simon Bastow, Adam Cooper, Jonathan Portes, Prof Bernard Silverman, Neil Wholey, Dr Alan Cann, Prof Vicky Randall, Prof Stephen Hanney, Prof Huw Davies, Richard Bartholomew, Prof Edward Melhuish, Prof Sandy Thomas | A half day conference hosted by LSE's Public Policy Group/Impact of Social Sciences Project held on Monday, 12th March 2012 at the Institute for Government, London. With the incentives for academics to engage with government again strengthened through the REF process, this half day conference will examine the ways in which academic research impacts on government and policymaking, how tried and tested methods as well as newer digital technologies are affecting their relationships and the key touch-points where academic expertise can be of most use on major policy issues. Introduction, 2pm, Introduction from the LSE Impacts of Social Sciences team, Speakers: Prof Patrick Dunleavy, Simon Bastow (LSE Public Policy Group) Session 1, 2.20pm, The Policymakers' View: How Government Departments can Better Leverage Academic Research, Speakers: Adam Cooper (Head of Social Science Engagement at DECC, Jonathan Portes (Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research), Prof Bernard Silverman (Chief Scientific Adviser at the Home Office), Neil Wholey (Westminster City Council). Session 2, 3.45pm, The Academics' View: Opening up Academic Work to Policymakers, Speakers: Dr Alan Cann (Leicester University), Prof Vicky Randall (Essex University), Prof Stephen Hanney (Brunel University), Prof Huw Davies (University of St Andrews). Session 3 (Final Session), 5pm, Change, Evaluation and Future-proofing: Academic Interventions in the Policy Process, Speakers: Richard Bartholomew (Chief Research Officer, Department of Education), Prof Edward Melhuish (Director, Impact Evaluation of Sure State), Prof Sandy Thomas (Director of Foresight, Government Office for Science).
Contributor(s): Prof Patrick Dunleavy, Simon Bastow, Adam Cooper, Jonathan Portes, Prof Bernard Silverman, Neil Wholey, Dr Alan Cann, Prof Vicky Randall, Prof Stephen Hanney, Prof Huw Davies, Richard Bartholomew, Prof Edward Melhuish, Prof Sandy Thomas | A half day conference hosted by LSE's Public Policy Group/Impact of Social Sciences Project held on Monday, 12th March 2012 at the Institute for Government, London. With the incentives for academics to engage with government again strengthened through the REF process, this half day conference will examine the ways in which academic research impacts on government and policymaking, how tried and tested methods as well as newer digital technologies are affecting their relationships and the key touch-points where academic expertise can be of most use on major policy issues. Introduction, 2pm, Introduction from the LSE Impacts of Social Sciences team, Speakers: Prof Patrick Dunleavy, Simon Bastow (LSE Public Policy Group) Session 1, 2.20pm, The Policymakers' View: How Government Departments can Better Leverage Academic Research, Speakers: Adam Cooper (Head of Social Science Engagement at DECC, Jonathan Portes (Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research), Prof Bernard Silverman (Chief Scientific Adviser at the Home Office), Neil Wholey (Westminster City Council). Session 2, 3.45pm, The Academics' View: Opening up Academic Work to Policymakers, Speakers: Dr Alan Cann (Leicester University), Prof Vicky Randall (Essex University), Prof Stephen Hanney (Brunel University), Prof Huw Davies (University of St Andrews). Session 3 (Final Session), 5pm, Change, Evaluation and Future-proofing: Academic Interventions in the Policy Process, Speakers: Richard Bartholomew (Chief Research Officer, Department of Education), Prof Edward Melhuish (Director, Impact Evaluation of Sure State), Prof Sandy Thomas (Director of Foresight, Government Office for Science).
Contributor(s): Evelyn Fox Keller | A substantial literature on risk perception demonstrates the limits of human rationality, especially in the face of catastrophic risks. Human judgment, it seems, is flawed by the tendency to overestimate the magnitude of rare but evocative risks, while underestimating risks associated with commonplace dangers. Such findings are particularly relevant to the problem of crafting responsible public policy in the face of the kinds of threat posed by climate change. If the risk perception of ordinary citizens cannot be trusted, then it would seem logical to based policy decisions on expert judgment. But how rational, how trustworthy, are expert assessments of catastrophic risk? I briefly review the limitations of conventional models of expert risk analysis, especially in dealing with the large uncertainties endemic to the risk of low probability-high impact events in the distant future. The challenges such events pose to the underlying assumptions of these analyses are severe enough to question their basic rationality. I argue that a conception of rationality premised on the bounded knowledge of experts and lay citizens alike, based on context appropriate heuristics, may provide a more trustworthy basis for decision making. Evelyn Fox KellerEvelyn Fox Keller is Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on the history and philosophy of modern biology and on gender and science. She is the author of several books, including A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock (1983), Reflections on Gender and Science (1985), The Century of the Gene (2000), and Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors and Machines (2002). Her most recent book, The Mirage of a Space Between Nature and Nuture, is now in press.
Contributor(s): Alistair Darling MP | Alistair Darling is MP for Edinburgh South West and former Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Contributor(s): Professor Kathleen Thelen | Do economic crisis and the emergence of service economies make established ideas about "liberal" and "coordinated" capitalism obsolete? Kathleen Thelen is the Ford Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Contributor(s): Dr Ramachandra Guha | In India, cricketers are even more famous than its film stars; they are venerated and worshipped as gods. This lecture will explain how this sport became an Indian obsession. Ramachandra Guha is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2011-2012.
Contributor(s): Professor Lord Layard | CEP founder Richard Layard will close this series of lectures with a discussion on the economic and social costs of mental illness. Richard Layard is Emeritus Professor of Economics at LSE. He is the head of the Centre for Economic Performance's Programme on Well-Being.
Contributor(s): Rolando Bompadre, Matías Néspolo | As tense as a thriller, as vivid as an undercover documentary, Matías Néspolo’s first novel, Seven Ways to Kill a Cat, examines a place of crime and deprivation. Set in Buenos Aires at the time of Argentina’s financial crash, and seen through the eyes of twenty-year-old Gringo, it tells the story of two boys on the cusp of adulthood who have no choice but to join the gang warfare that rules their community. While its depiction of Buenos Aires rings true in every detail, the barrio could be any place of urban deprivation. With fellow argentine author, Rolando Bompadre, he will discuss society and politics in Latin American literature. Rolando Bompadre teaches Spanish and Italian at the University of Aberdeen, and is author of La víspera de los asesinatos, which was among the finalists of the 1st Premio Tusquets Editores de Novela. Rosalind Harvey has lived in Lima and Norwich, where she fell in love with Spanish and translation, respectively. She now lives in London, where she translates Spanish and Latin American fiction. She has translated Hector Abad’s prize-winning memoir Oblivion and Enrique Vila-Matas’ latest novel Dublinesque with Anne McLean, and her translation of Juan Pablo Villalobos’ Down the Rabbit Hole has been shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. In autumn last year she was one of the first translators in residence at the Free Word Centre. Born in Buenos Aires in 1975, Matías Néspolo studied literature, going on to write poems, short stories, journalism and then Seven Ways to Kill a Cat, his acclaimed first novel. He has been living in Barcelona since 2001 and, in 2010, was selected by Granta as one of their best young contemporary Spanish-language novelists. Seven Ways to Kill a Cat is recommended by English Pen.
Contributor(s): Elif Shafak | Elif Shafak is an award winning novelist and the most widely read female writer in Turkey. She was born in 1971 in Strasbourg and is the author of 11 books, eight of which are novels, including The Bastard of Istanbul (which was long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2008) and The Forty Rules of Love (nominated for 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award). Her new novel, Honour, set partly in London about a half-Kurdish half-Turkish immigrant family, will be published by Penguin in April 2012. She writes in both English and Turkish, and divides her time between London and Istanbul. www.elifshafak.com
Contributor(s): Michael Rosen, Emma-Louise Williams, Lasse Johansson, Andrea Luka Zimmerman | Emma-Louise William’s film, Under the Cranes (2011), is based on the documentary play for voices, Hackney Streets, by poet and former Children's Laureate, Michael Rosen. Blending rare archive footage and dreamlike sequences of present-day Hackney, Williams links the everyday with the social and literary history of this dynamic and culturally diverse East London borough. Following the screening, a panel of speakers will join Williams and Rosen to discuss the hybridity of literature and film, as well as Hackney and the increasing attention it has received in light of the 2012 Olympics and controversial redevelopment projects. Michael Rosen was born in 1946 in north London. He has been writing, performing, broadcasting and lecturing since the early 70s. He co-devised and co-teaches a Masters course at Birkbeck College, University of London. Emma-Louise Williams is a radio producer and first-time film-maker. She is currently making a radio documentary for BBC Radio 4 about unaccompanied, asylum-seeking children and young people in East London. Her work seeks to counter the prevailing perception of the inner city as a site of failure, ugliness and misdeed through a ‘socio-poetics’ of everyday life. Lasse Johansson and Andrea Luka Zimmerman are artists/filmmakers working in East London for Fugitive Images.
Contributor(s): John Lanchester | In his latest state-of-the-nation novel, Capital, John Lanchester tells the story of an ordinary street in the capital, but also of a global crisis. In this conversation with Hay Festival chair Revel Guest, he will discuss the power of a fictional handling of the financial crisis in comparison to non-fictional accounts. John Lanchester is the author of The Debt to Pleasure (winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award), Mr Phillips and Fragrant Harbour, a Sunday Times bestseller, and his work has been translated into 21 languages. His memoir Family Romance was published in 2007 to great acclaim. And his non-fiction work Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No-One Can Pay about the financial crisis was a bestseller both in the UK and the US. He is a contributor to the Guardian and the New Yorker as well as a Contributing Editor to the London Review of Books.
Contributor(s): Horatio Clare, Dr Alex Gillespie, Abigail King | This panel will discuss the relationship between perceptions and realities of travel, and the influence of travel literature and photography on tourist experiences. Horatio Clare is an award-winning author, broadcaster, novelist and journalist. In 2008 he journeyed from South Africa to South Wales following migrating swallows, a journey he wrote about in A Single Swallow. His latest expedition took him from Felixstowe to Los Angeles on a 150,000 tonne container ship. Horatio writes regularly for Conde Nast Traveller and various national newspapers. Alex Gillespie is a Lecturer in Social Psychology at LSE and Co-Editor of Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. He has over fifty publications, including three books. He is interested in tourism and tourist photography as an encounter with the other saturated in fantasy. Abigail King is an experienced journalist and photographer who writes about travel for both print and online media. She has circled the globe twice, camped in the snows of Kilimanjaro and Patagonia and tracked down tigers, turtles and panda bears. She’s then had a hot shower and embraced the city life of New York, Rio, Paris and Tokyo.
Contributor(s): Richard Holloway, Alex Preston | The former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway's memoir, Leaving Alexandria, recounts a life defined by the struggle between public faith and private doubt. Alex Preston’s latest novel, The Revelations, portrays the power of a religious movement amongst a group of young people, exploring why people still need faith in a secular era, and the battle between belief and doubt. Together they will discuss the place of faith, doubt and certainty in our secular modern age. Richard Holloway was Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. A former Gresham Professor of Divinity and Chairman of the Joint Board of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, he is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has written for many newspapers in Britain, including The Times, Guardian, Observer, Herald and the Scotsman. He has also presented many series for BBC television and radio; his new series, on doubt, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 this spring. Alex Preston was born in 1979 and lives with his family in London. His first novel, the bestselling This Bleeding City, won the Edinburgh festival Reader’s First Book awards and the Spear’s First Book Award, and has been translated into twelve languages. Preston writes and reviews for the New Statesman and the Observer and is a regular panellist on BBC2’s The Review Show.
Contributor(s): Marina Lewycka, Jeremy Sams, George Szirtes | A panel of experts discuss translation and storytelling in novels, poetry and opera. Are there fundamental elements to storytelling that are shared across cultures, languages and genres? What is lost, and what is created, in translation? Followed by a reading of the winning entry in the LSE micro-fiction student competition and a performance by students of a classic one act play. Marina Lewycka was born in a refugee camp in Germany in 1946 and moved to England with her family when she was about a year old. She spent most of her life since then trying to become a writer, and finally succeeded in 2005 with A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian which has sold more than a million copies in the UK alone. This was followed by Two Caravans in March 2007 and We Are All Made of Glue in July 2009. Her latest novel is Various Pets Alive and Dead. Jeremy Sams is a translator of opera libretti as well as a lyricist, theatre director, composer, orchestrator and musical director. His latest work, The Enchanted Island, recently opened to critical acclaim at the New York Metropolitan Opera. His many translations include Mozart’s Figaro’s Wedding, La Boheme, The Magic Flute and Wagner’s The Ring Cycle (English National Opera); The Merry Widow (Covent Garden); and Les Parents Terribles, The Miser and Mary Stuart (Royal National Theatre). His film scores have won awards from BAFTA (Persuasion) and Ivor Novello (Enduring Love). As a theatre director his credits include Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Sound of Music (Palladium), Noises Off (West End and Broadway) and The Wind in the Willows (Old Vic). George Szirtes was born in Budapest in 1948 and came to England as a refugee in 1956, following the Hungarian Uprising. He has published some thirteen books of poetry in English, most recently Reel (2004), New and Collected Poems (2008) and The Burning of the Books (2009). These have won the Faber Prize, the Cholmondeley Award and, most recently the T S Eliot Prize. As a translator from Hungarian he has published and edited several books of prize-winning poetry and fiction. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and teaches at UEA.
Contributor(s): Lord Hurd, Sam Leith, Ian Leslie, Jonathan Powell | This distinguished panel will discuss the importance of rhetoric, that famous art of persuasion, as well as the centrality of lying and self-deception to human society and politics. Lord Hurd retired as Foreign Secretary in July 1995, after a distinguished career in Government spanning sixteen years. He served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1984 - 85, Home Secretary from 1985 - 89 and Foreign Secretary 1989 – 1995 in the Governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. After joining the Diplomatic Service, he went on to serve at the Foreign office in Peking, New York (UN) and Rome. He ran Edward Heath’s private office from 1968 - 70 and acted as his Political Secretary at 10 Downing Street from 1970 - 74. He was MP for Mid-Oxfordshire (later Witney) from 1974 to 1997. He was created a Life Peer in 1997, and has since held numerous appointments in the City and in public life. He was Deputy Chairman of Coutts Bank until the end of 2009. Lord Hurd has written ten political novels. His memoirs were published in October 2003. His biography of the life of Sir Robert Peel was published in 2007. His latest book on eleven British Foreign Secretaries was published in 2010 and he is now at work with Edward Young on a biography of Disraeli. Sam Leith is a former Literary Editor of the Daily Telegraph, and contributes regularly to the Evening Standard, Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Spectator and Prospect. He’s the author of two non-fiction books, Dead Pets and Sod's Law and a novel, The Coincidence Engine. His latest book You Talkin’ To Me? Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama is published by Profile Books. Ian Leslie combines careers in advertising and writing. His latest book, entitled Born Liars: Why We Can't Live Without Deceit is about the surprising centrality of lying and self-deception to human society. After studying history at Oxford and the University of Pennsylvania, Jonathan Powell worked for the BBC and Granada TV before joining the Foreign Office in 1979. In 1994 Mr Blair, then Leader of the Opposition, poached him to join his `kitchen cabinet' as his Chief of Staff. When Labour achieved its landslide victory in 1997 Powell was at the heart of the Downing Street machine. He was the only senior member of staff to remain at Blair's side throughout his time at the top of British politics. He is author of The New Machiavelli: How to wield power in the Modern World. Jenni Russell is a political columnist for the Evening Standard and the Sunday Times. She won the Orwell Prize for political journalism in 2011.
Contributor(s): Sarah Salway | Using social media means it has never been easier to get your words out there, but how can you be sure you are being read? Sarah Salway uses personal experience and practical examples to show how you can make the internet work best for you, including getting an audience and writing for personal websites, blogs, podcasts, Facebook pages, and Twitter streams. Canterbury Laureate and Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the LSE, Sarah Salway has been blogging successfully since 2004. She is the author of three novels, including Something Beginning With, and a collection of short stories. Her first poetry collection, You Do Not Need Another Self-Help Book, will be published in March. Her website is at www.sarahsalway.net.
Contributor(s): Reshma Ruia | Reshma Ruia was born in India and grew up in Rome, Italy. After an undergraduate degree in International Relations and post graduate degree in Economic History from LSE, she moved back to Rome where she worked as a development economist with the United Nations and subsequently with the OECD in Paris. She is now based in Manchester, where she obtained an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester University. She is the author of Something Black in the Lentil Soup, described by John Carey in the Times, as a ‘gem of straight-faced comedy.’ One of her short stories has appeared in the Anthology, Too Asian, not Asian Enough. She has recently completed a PhD in Creative Writing from Manchester University and has finished her second novel, A Mouthful of Silence. In this session she will discuss the ways of writing about different cultures- the importance of plot, portrayal of character and narrative voice- as well as what her transition from academic, social scientific culture to a literary one has meant for her writing.
Contributor(s): Dr Llewelyn Morgan | Dr Llewelyn Morgan explores historical and contemporary approaches to one of Afghanistan's most famous monuments, the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Their location's strategic position, controlling passage through the Hindu Kush, has seen a fascinatingly diverse array of visitors and commentators- from Muslims and Christians, to 19th Century classicists on the trail of Alexander the Great and, more recently, UN mine-clearers. Llewelyn Morgan is a classicist, normally occupied reading Classical Latin poetry, and a fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. He has worked in Ireland and the US as well as the UK, writes regularly for the TLS and can occasionally also be heard on Radio 4. His interest in Afghanistan was sparked by discovering an old Russian samovar in his grandmother's house, engraved with the words "Candahar 1881", a relic of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The Buddhas of Bamiyan will be published in the spring of 2012. Paddy Docherty was educated at Oxford University. His graduate research into British imperial history led him to the North West Frontier and he travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the winter of 2003 to research The Khyber Pass, his first book.
Contributor(s): Professor Mark Pagel | Since humans left Africa less than a hundred thousand years ago there has been a staggering explosion of cultures. What caused this blooming of diversity? Why are there so many mutually incomprehensible languages, even within small territories? Why do we rejoice in rituals, wrap ourselves in flags, or define ourselves in opposition to others? Humans are usually seen as differing from other animals because of our inherent traits of consciousness, language and intelligence. But Pagel shows we've had it the wrong way round. Many of these things would not exist without our propensity for culture - our ability to co-operate in small tribal societies, to pass on beliefs and practices and to accumulate knowledge over generations - so that we prospered while others declined. Pagel's extraordinary history of the role of culture in natural selection shows how humans acquired a mind that is hardwired for culture. Our cultures – although an accident of birth - have outstripped our genes in determining who we are, how we think and speak, and who we love and kill. Weaving together evolutionary biology, anthropology, natural history, philosophy and Pagel's years of observing human behaviour around the globe, this book sheds light on everything from art, morality and affection to jealousy, self-interest and prejudice, and asks whether our cultural legacy equips us for the challenges of life in the modern world. Wired for Culture will change how we view ourselves, not just as individuals, but within the wider story of our species. Mark Pagel is head of the Evolution Laboratory in the Division of Zoology, School of Biological Sciences, at the University of Reading, and an External Professor at the renowned Santa Fe Institute. He has travelled the world studying evolution and the spread of cultures from the Chalbi Desert in Kenya to Tanzania and Zanzibar, and remote Oceania. He is the editor-in-chief of the award winning Oxford Encyclopaedia of Evolution and co-author of The Comparative Method in Evolutionary Biology, which is regarded as a classic, as well as the author of articles in Science, Nature, and other journals. Statistical methods that Pagel has developed are used by researchers all over the world to study evolutionary trends across species. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society. This event marks the publication of his latest book, Wired for Culture: The Natural History of Human Cooperation.
Contributor(s): Jonathan Gibbs | The introductory session to the day’s workshops will be looking at ways of getting started, or restarted, in writing fiction. What approaches can you take to plot and character when you do find time to write, and how can you use your time away from your desk to make sure that, when you’re there, you get the most out of it. Jonathan Gibbs has worked as a books journalist for 10 years. He took an MA in Creative Writing at UEA, and is currently nearing the end of a PhD there. The fruits of that, a novel about the Young British Artists, is, as we speak, travelling via his agent to various publishers’ inboxes.
Contributor(s): Justin Cartwright, Professor John Sutherland, DJ Taylor | Recent literary responses to the financial crisis take their place in a rich tradition of novelistic portrayals of the city and finance. What do these tell us of our changing attitude towards, and understanding of, money? Justin Cartwright was born in South Africa and educated in the US and at Oxford University. His work has won numerous awards. In Every Face I Meet was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Leading the Cheers won the Whitbread Novel Award and The Promise of Happiness won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature in 2005. He has won other awards including a Commonwealth Writer's prize and the South African Sunday Times Award. His most recent novel is Other People’s Money, a subtle thriller and also an acutely delineated portrait of a world and a class. It won the Novel of the Year Award at the Spear’s Book Awards. John Sutherland is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor, UCL. He has taught at Edinburgh University, the California Institute of Education and UCL. His latest book, of many, is Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives. DJ Taylor is the author of two acclaimed biographies, Thackerary and Orwell: The Life, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize in 2003. He has written nine novels, the most recent being Derby Day. David is also well known as a critic and reviewer, and his other books include A Vain Conceit: British Fiction in the 1980s and After the War: the Novel and England since 1945. His journalism appears in the Independent and the Independent on Sunday, the Guardian, The Tablet, the Spectator, the New Statesman and, anonymously, in Private Eye. Aifric Campbell completed a linguistics degree and lectured in semantics in Sweden before spending thirteen years as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley in London where she was the first female MD. She left to study psychotherapy and creative writing, most recently at UEA . Aifric is currently teaching creative writing at Imperial College and her first two novels, The Semantics of Murder and The Loss Adjustor were published by Serpent’s Tail. Her latest book, published in March, is On The Floor, a novel set in the global financial markets.
Contributor(s): Ben Masters | Ben Masters' debut novel Noughties examines the highs and lows of modern student life, which reach a climax for his characters on the last night of university. In this conversation with LSE student Aleona Krechetova, he will discuss whether there is such a thing as a ‘standard’ student experience, and how he approached the question of 'relatability' when writing the book. Ben Masters is twenty-five years old. He was born in Northampton and went to Oxford University in 2005. He is currently working on a PhD in English at Cambridge University.
Contributor(s): John Carey, Claire Tomalin | Claire Tomalin’s biography of Charles Dickens, published to mark the bicentenary of his birth this spring, has been acclaimed by critics. It is, as A.N. Wilson wrote in the New Statesman, ‘a book that goes to the heart of the mystery of Dickens as a writer’, and it conjures up a man with as many different selves as a Russian doll. ‘The inimitable’, as Dickens called himself, was a performer or rock-star charisma, who mesmerised audiences of thousands before the invention of the microphone; a social reformer way ahead of his time; a sentimental lover; a cruel husband. He could be vivacious, charming and selfless, but also imperious, vindictive and egotistical. Claire Tomalin discusses his life and work with literary critic and cultural commentator John Carey. John Carey is Emeritus Merton Professor of English at Oxford University, a distinguished critic, reviewer and broadcaster, and the author of many books, including studies of Donne, Dickens and Thackeray. His celebrated polemic What Good are the Arts? provoked much debate and discussion in 2005. He has been a regular critic on BBC2's Newsnight Review, and is also the editor of the best-selling anthologies The Faber Book of Reportage, The Faber Book of Science and The Faber Book of Utopias. Biographer Claire Tomalin was born in London in 1933. After graduating from Newnham College, Cambridge, she worked in publishing for Heinemann, Hutchinson and Cape before switching to journalism, becoming literary editor of both the New Statesman magazine and the Sunday Times newspaper. She is a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Wordsworth Trust, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Vice-President of English PEN. She is the award-winning author of many books, including The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens, Samuel Pepys and Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man. This event is organised in association with the Royal Society of Literature.
Contributor(s): Pavel Litvinov, Michael Scammell | Acclaimed writer and founding editor of Index on Censorship. Michael Scammell and former Russian dissident Pavel Litvinov discuss the nature of censorship and the future of freedom of speech. It was Pavel Litvinov’s courageous public appeal to the West for help, during a Soviet show trial in 1968, that inspired the creation of Index on Censorship magazine, a forum for banned writers, artists and intellectuals in the struggle against censorship. Forty years on, as Index on Censorship celebrates its anniversary, this will be a rare opportunity to hear an illuminating discussion from two leading voices in the history of free speech. Michael Scammell is the author of The Indispensable Intellectual, the authorised biography of Arthur Koestler. Pavel Litvinov is a writer, physicist and human rights activist. Jo Glanville is editor of Index on Censorship.
Contributor(s): Professor Colin Crouch | Reflection on a century of European social democracy reveals its finest triumphs to have been when it has ensured a pluralism and political inclusiveness more extensive than anything that could otherwise be provided in capitalist societies. This essentially liberal achievement, rather than state control, should therefore be seen as its hallmark. This perspective provides the basis for an optimistic appraisal of social democracy’s future, but also points to inhospitable elements in the current and future social environment that have to be confronted and challenged: growing inequality and corporate political power, the decline of trade unions, and the growing irrelevance of the nation state framework within which social democracy built its citizenship. Colin Crouch is professor of governance and public management at Warwick Business School.
Contributor(s): Phillip Gross, Sarah Salway, Ewa Zadrzynska | The Poetry Unites project consists of a series of five-minute films shown on TV, the Internet and in cinemas, in which a poetry lover speaks about his or her life in the context of presenting a favourite poem. This project with a literary dimension reveals both similarities and differences between people. By offering intimate insights into the mind of another person, it contributes to mutual understanding among European citizens. The films bring together millions of people who would otherwise probably never have had contact with each other and therefore would never have seen how much they have in common. In this event, poetry readings, including film clips from the Poetry Unites project, will be followed by a discussion of the importance of poetry in people’s everyday lives. The event will conclude with a short prize-giving presentation for the LSESU Lit Soc Poetry Competition 2011/12 and the announcement and distribution of the second edition of the student led publication, Philosoverse which is supported by the LSE Annual Fund and the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE.
Contributor(s): Professor Adam Kuper | Adam Kuper, who has written widely on the history and theory of anthropology, introduces the work of Charles Seligman, founder of LSE Anthropology, pioneer of fieldwork techniques, and medical doctor who devised means of treating servicemen for shell-shock. He gives insights into Seligman's journals and research notes housed in LSE Library, and provides commentary on Jonathan Miller's documentary about the 1898 Torres Straits expedition: 'Dr Miller and the Islanders', which reveals the problematic racist overtones of the views of late 19th century anthropology. The documentary will be shown after Adam Kuper's talk. Olivia Seligman, radio producer and member of the Seligman family, and students from LSE Anthropology will read extracts from Seligman’s journals and letters.
Contributor(s): Amit Chaudhuri, Ian Jack | A conversation between award-winning Indian wrtier and musician Amit Chaudhuri and former Granta and Independent on Sunday editor Ian Jack, will be followed by a performance by the five-piece Amit Chaudhuri Band. Amit Chaudhuri's first CD ‘This Is Not Fusion’ (Times Music) was released in Britain on the award-winning independent jazz label Babel, and received excellent reviews from some of the most considerable music publications in the UK. He is the only Indian musician to have performed twice at the prestigious London Jazz Festival and he has played in Beijing, Berlin, Lille, Brussels, Frankfurt, and at various venues in Britain - notably the Hay on Wye Festival, the Brecon Jazz Festival, the Big Sky Jazz Festival and the South Bank Centre. His second CD, ‘Found Music’, came out in October 2010 in the UK from Babel to great acclaim. Since 2005, Amit Chaudhuri, with The Amit Chaudhuri Band, has appeared at many world-wide venues.
Contributor(s): Sue Christoforou, Professor Mary Evans, Owen Jones | The recent riots in parts of England have focussed increased attention on what has increasingly been described as the 'underclass' of English society. Various politicians have clambered (or leapt) onto a bandwagon that has defined this group as beyond civil society. Many of the people regarded as dangerous are young and male and one half of the 'chavs' who have been the subject of Owen Jones's book. But who are 'these people' and has a social identity been created for them that sees only the negative in their behaviour? Sue Christoforou is a policy analyst and campaigner. She has worked for a number of national campaigning organisations, including Mind, Macmillan Cancer Support and DrugScope. Mary Evans is centennial professor at the Gender Institute, LSE. Owen Jones is author of Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. He has worked in parliament as a trade union lobbyist and parliamentary researcher.
Contributor(s): Patrick French, Reshma Ruia, Kamila Shamsie | The panellists will discuss and compare the political, social and economic trajectories of India and Pakistan since independence through the lenses of the social sciences and of literature. While India is heralded as a new, democratic, economic powerhouse, Pakistan is deplored as a basket-case of religious-fundamentalism, feudalism and corruption. But those who know the region are aware that both images are oversimplifications. India has managed to portray itself as dynamic, entrepreneurial and democratic but the masses often experience both economic growth and democracy quite differently to what this sanitized image suggests. Pakistan has largely been portrayed negatively as a quasi-medieval feudal-cum-theocratic state but the reality is that, despite its myriad social and political troubles, Pakistan has a modern, capitalist economy; its feudal lords are really capitalist farmers, and its allegedly medieval religious leaders are actually responding to the challenges and contradictions of the modern world. What is clear is that modernization has created winners and losers in both countries and it appears that some of the latter are gravitating towards insurgency; in India towards the Maoists and in Pakistan towards the Islamists. The panellists will discuss these themes from the larger, structural perspectives of the social sciences as well as from the perspective of people's lived experiences through the lens of literature. Patrick French is the author of India: A Portrait, Younghusband, Liberty or Death, Tibet, Tibet and The World Is What It Is. His books have won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Royal Society of Literature W.H. Heinemann Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hawthornden Prize. Anatol Lieven is chair of international relations and terrorism studies at King's College London, and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC. He was previously a journalist, who reported from South Asia, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe for The Times and other publications. His books include Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power, America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, with John Hulsman, Ethical Realism: A Vision for America's Role in the World and most recently Pakistan: A Hard Country. Reshma Ruia was born in India and grew up in Rome, Italy. After an undergraduate degree in International Relations and post graduate degree in Economic History from LSE, she moved back to Rome where she worked as a development economist with the United Nations and subsequently with the OECD in Paris. She is now based in Manchester, where she obtained an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester University. She is the author of Something Black in the Lentil Soup, described by John Carey in the Times, as a ‘gem of straight-faced comedy.’ One of her short stories has appeared in the Anthology, Too Asian, not Asian Enough. She has recently completed a PhD in Creative Writing from Manchester University and has finished her second novel, A Mouthful of Silence. Kamila Shamsie is the author of five novels, and a book of non-fiction, Offence: The Muslim Case. Her most recent novel Burnt Shadows has been translated into more than 20 languages and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. In 2010 The Telegraph named her among the 20 best novelists under 40 in Britain. She writes for The Guardian and the International Herald Tribune, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Trustee of English PEN and FreeWord. She grew up in Karachi, and now lives in London.
Contributor(s): Viviane Reding | Viviane Reding has been the Vice-president of the European Commission, responsible for Justice, Fundamentals Rights and Citizenship since February 2010. In 1999 she joined the European Commission as Commissioner responsible for Education, Culture, Youth, Media and Sports until 2004, and then as Commissioner responsible for Information Society and Media from 2004 to 2010. Prior to her political career, Viviane Reding started off as a journalist at the newspaper Luxembourg Wort in Luxembourg, where she served as President of the Luxembourg Union of Journalists from 1986 until 1998. From 1979 onwards she embarked on a political career, working as a member of the Luxembourg Parliament. Viviane Reding reinforced her position by becoming city councillor of Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg) from 1981 to 1999. She then went on to work as the National President of Christian-Social Women (Luxembourg) from 1988 to 1993 and, finally, the National President of the Christian-Social Party (Luxembourg) from 1995 to 1999. In 1989, Viviane Reding was elected as a member of the European Parliament where she presided first over the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and the Working environment (1992-1994) and then over the Committee for Civil Liberties and Home Affairs (1997-1999).
Contributor(s): AS Byatt, Robert Irwin | AS Byatt and Robert Irwin discuss the enduring relevance of mythical stories and their portrayal of the human experience , and explore whther they are worth retelling time and again. A S Byatt is renowned internationally for her novels and short stories. Her novels include the Booker Prize-Winning Possession and The Children's Book. Her most recent book is Ragnorak: The End of the Gods, a retelling of the Norse myth. A distinguished critic as well as a writer of fiction, A S Byatt was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999. Robert Irwin is the author of For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies, The Middle East in the Middle Ages, The Arabian Nights: A Companion and numerous other specialised studies of Middle Eastern politics, art and mysticism. His novels include The Limits of Vision, The Arabian Nightmare, The Mysteries of Algiers and Satan Wants Me.
Contributor(s): Charlie Beckett, Heather Brooke, Nick Cohen | We will be talking about the paradox that we live in an age when the Internet should make information more available than ever and yet secrecy still abounds. New media should facilitate We will be talking about the paradox that we live in an age when the Internet should make information more available than ever and yet secrecy still abounds. New media should facilitate better democratic debate than ever before, and yet, some fear that open, honest discussion is being drowned out. Charlie Beckett is director of POLIS and author of Wikileaks: News in the Networked Era. Heather Brooke, is an investigative journalist and freedom of expression campaigner and author of The Revolution Will Be Digitised. She was a leading force in the revelations of the MPs' expenses scandal and has battled to improve access to official information from governments, local authorities and other powerful institutions. Nick Cohen, is a journalist and author of You Can't Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom. Nick has used his columns in the Observer and elsewhere to rage against what he sees as the betrayal of real liberal values by the Left in Britain in the face of corporate and political pressure, but also ideological challenges from illiberal forces such as religious fundamentalism.
Contributor(s): Professor Beverley Skeggs | Professor Skeggs will revisit her 1997 study on "respectability" and its political parallels in the present day. In doing so, she will discuss the current vogue for reality television as social work, and our response to it as an audience. Beverley Skeggs is professor of sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Contributor(s): Professor Simon Cottle | This lecture examines some of the complex ways in which media and communications represent and enter into demonstrations, riots and uprisings. Simon Cottle is general editor of the "Global Crisis and the Media" series for the publisher Peter Lang.
Contributor(s): Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Professor Pedro Ferreira, Professor Elaine Fox, Mark Henderson | Media reporting of the sciences can shape public opinion. While it may be insightful and revelatory, it can also be misleading and sensationalist, even irresponsible. This distinguished panel will examine the positives and negatives of the media's role in science communication. Jim Al-Khalili is a British scientist, author and broadcaster. He is a professor of physics at the University of Surrey where he also holds a chair in the public engagement in science. He is a vice president and trustee of the British Science Association and holds an EPSRC Senior Media Fellowship. Pedro Ferreira is a professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford and a fellow and tutor in Physics at Oriel College, Oxford. His first book, State of the Universe, was published in 2006, and he is currently working on a popular history of Einstein's theory of General Relativity, to be published in 2013. He has written for Nature, Science, New Scientist, Physics World, Physics Today, Scientific American, Sky at Night, CERN Courier, BBC Focus and The Guardian. Elaine Fox is professor of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at the University of Essex and currently visiting fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. She is one of the world's leading experimental psychologists. Her research is dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of how the human brain unconciously analyses information. She is current writing about the discovery of specific genes that tip people towards either a pessemistic or optimistic mindset, which in turn are linked to vulnerability and resilience. Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain will be published in Spring 2012. Mark Henderson is Head of Communications at the Wellcome Trust and former Science Editor of The Times. His first book, 50 Genetics Ideas You Really Need to Know was published by Quercus in 2009. His second book, The Geek Manifesto, which explores the relationship between science and politics, will be published by Bantam Press in May 2012. This event is supported by the Hire Intelligence speakers' agency.
Contributor(s): RNDr Petr Nečas | In this lecture by Petr Nečas, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, he will examine how amidst a severe economic crisis, Europe is looking for solutions to restore growth and create jobs. Several fresh concepts and innovative initiatives have recently been put on the table while the potential of the Single Market – a key tool and a well-proven instrument to get the Union back on track – remains unexploited. Petr Nečas became Prime Minister of the Czech Republic after the General Election in 2010. Mr Nečas was sworn by the President in July 2010 and his Government gained vote of confidence by the Parliament in August 2010. Petr Nečas leads the Civic Democratic Party (ODS). Prime Minister Nečas was born on November 19, 1964, in Uherské Hradiště, the Czech Republic. He was educated at the Faculty of Science of the University of J. E. Purkyně in Brno, where he received a post-gradual degree in Natural Sciences in 1988, with Plasma Physics being a topic of his thesis. Before becoming the Member of the Czech Parliament, Mr. Nečas worked as a production engineer and researcher. As a Member of the Parliament since 1992, Petr Nečas held a number of positions in the Committees focused on NATO, defence issues and European Union. Namely, Chairman of Defense and Security Committee, Deputy Chairman on the Joint Committee of the European Parliament and the Czech Parliament, Deputy Chairman on the European Affairs Committee. Prior to becoming the Prime Minister, Petr Nečas served as a Minister of Labor and Social Affairs and a Deputy Prime Minister during 2006 – 2009 and the First Deputy Minister of Defense during 1995 – 1996.
Contributor(s): Jane Davies, David McDaid, Margaret Perkins, Jeanette Winterson | This session explores the substantial role that arts can play in improving health and wellbeing. A number of studies have demonstrated the positive benefits from, for example, reading for people with dementia. Speakers within this session have been working to demonstrate the benefits of arts on health and to develop integral services within health and social care practices. This session will discuss the healing power of literature and hear what is cutting edge today. Jane Davies is founder and director of the Reader Organisation, a national charity “dedicated to bringing about a reading revolution”. Jane taught for fifteen years in the Department of Continuing Education at Liverpool, and set up The Reader magazine as a way of getting the excitement of her reading-together based courses out into the wider world. Since 1997, Jane has wanted to make a bigger place for books and reading in the heart of the nation. David McDaid is senior research fellow in health policy and health economics at LSE Health and Social Care and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies at LSE. David's principle research activities focus on mental health policy predominantly, but not exclusively, in Europe. He has published more than 40 peer reviewed papers largely on the use of economics in policy making and on mental health policy and acted as a consultant to a variety of governments, public and voluntary agencies including the World Health Organisation, the European Commission and Amnesty International. Margaret Perkins is research officer within the Personal Social Services Research Unit at LSE. Margaret has a Master's in Social work from LSE and has experience in hospital social work, local authority mental health and children's work and care management of older people. She also has a number of years experience in the voluntary sector with the Citizen's Advice Bureau service and the Motor Neurone Disease Association advising families on services and support for those living with MND. Jeanette Winterson has won various awards around the world for her fiction and adaptations, including the Whitbread Prize, UK, and the Prix d'argent, Cannes Film Festival. She wrote her first novel, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit|, when she was 23. In 2006 Jeanette Winterson was awarded an OBE for services to literature. She writes regularly for various UK newspapers, especially The Times and The Guardian, and her journalism can be found on the site. Her memoir – Why be happy when you could be normal? – was published in October 2011 and draws on issues of mental health. Tim Joss has been director of the Rayne Foundation since 2005. Tim co-founded and was the first chair of the British Council for School Environments, the independent champion of excellent design and architecture of schools. In 2008, Tim wrote New Flow a better future for artists, citizens and the state|. It led to Tim creating the Public Engagement Foundation, which aims to open up markets for the arts in non-arts settings. Previously Tim was artistic director & chief executive of festivals in Bath where he expanded the Bath International Music Festival and founded the Bath Literature Festival. He has been chair of the British Arts Festivals Association and chair of the Community Music Commission of the International Society for Music Education. He is a visiting senior fellow in Cultural Policy & Management at City University, a trustee of the London Sinfonietta and the Richard Feilden Foundation (which focuses on Africa, education and architecture), and a member of Arts & Business Advisory Council.
Contributor(s): Mr Egemen Bağış | LSE Contemporary Turkish Studies Public Lecture - Creating a Common Future Together: Towards a Visionary Europe. Egemen Bağış is Turkish Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator.
Contributor(s): Professor Roger Scruton, Maurice Fraser | What are the distinctive features of European culture today? To what extent can we lean on our European cultural inheritance, in an age when its Christian foundations are crumbling? And is it one inheritance or many? Roger Scruton is an adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, a new position he took up in July 2009. Prior to that he was a research professor for the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. He is also a fellow of Blackfriars Hall in Oxford. He is a writer, philosopher and public commentator who has specialised in aesthetics with particular attention to music and architecture. He engages in contemporary political and cultural debates as a powerful conservative thinker and polemicist. He has written widely in the press on political and cultural issues. Recent publications include Green Philosophy|, The Uses of Pessimism, Beauty, Understanding Music and I Drink Therefore I Am. Maurice Fraser is a Senior Fellow in European Politics at LSE.
Contributor(s): Professor Stefan Collini | Across the world, universities are now more numerous than they have ever been, yet at the same time there is unprecedented confusion about their purpose and scepticism about their value. In this talk about his new book What Are Universities For? Stefan Collini will provide a spirited and compelling argument for rethinking the way we see our universities and the purposes they serve. Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that the priority for universities is to contribute to economic growth. Instead, he argues that we must reflect on the different types of institution and the distinctive roles they play. In particular we must recognise that attempting to extend human understanding, which is at the heart of disciplined intellectual enquiry, can never be wholly harnessed to immediate social purposes - particularly in the case of the humanities, which both attract and puzzle many people and are therefore the most difficult subjects to justify. Collini is not afraid to take issue with government policies, but his critique is positive as well as fundamental, drawing on deeper insights to propose better starting-points. At a time when the future of higher education lies in the balance, What Are Universities For? offers us a deeper, more persuasive understanding of why universities matter - to everyone. Stefan Collini has become one of the most important critical voices in debates about universities and their future. A frequent contributor to The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement and other publications, he is the author of, among other works, Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (2006). He is Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at Cambridge University.
Contributor(s): Professor Orley Ashenfelter | Real wages measure worker welfare and the cost of labour. After providing some historical background and the basis for their interpretation, Professor Ashenfelter reports the results of a decade long study of wage rates at McDonald's restaurants in over 60 countries. Orley Ashenfelter is Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics and director of the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University.
Contributor(s): Professor Luc Bovens, Dr Marco Simoni, Professor Insan Tunali | These events take up a theme at the heart of contemporary European life, and draw on the expertise of Turkish scholars who might provide a fresh perspective. Luc Bovens is Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, LSE. Marco Simoni is a lecturer in European political economy at the European Institute, LSE. Insan Tunali is associate professor of economics at Koç University, Turkey. This event is jointly organised with the LSE Chair in Contemporary Turkish Studies.
Contributor(s): Professor Roy Bridge | The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was heir to the thrones of Austria-Hungary before his assassination in 1914. Had he lived, his views on international affairs would have helped shape Europe's destiny and may have prevented world war. Roy Bridge is Professor Emeritus of Diplomatic History at the University of Leeds.
Contributor(s): Professor Conor Gearty | 'What are human rights and where do they come from?', asks Professor Conor Gearty in the latest Burning Issue lecture from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Gearty, a professor of human rights law and a practising barrister, looks at the history of human rights and ideas that have informed their development such as democracy and dignity. He challenges the notion that human rights are a western idea, a mere 'cultural accessory', or that they can be used to justify 'necessary evil' – as an excuse to go to war or to torture as part of interrogation for example. The lecture explores the reality of what it is like to be deprived of one's human rights through interviews with a victim of torture and a psychologist. Professor Gearty argues: "We risk our culture if we collude in the idea that our way of life is so valuable that we can afford to depart from it in order to secure it." The lecture is the third and final of LSE's 'Burning Issues' lectures – a short series of interactive talks, designed to showcase the social sciences to a non-academic audience. In the first lecture, ‘Parasites – enemy of the poor’, Professor Tim Allen questions the effectiveness of our fight against one of humankind's most endemic invisible enemies. In the second lecture, the 'Right to Die', Professor Emily Jackson tackles the provocative issue of assisted dying. The Burning Issue Lectures are supported by the LSE Annual Fund and Cato Stonex (BSc International Relations 1986).
Contributor(s): Professor Lord Stern | Five years on from the Stern Review there have been important changes in the world which are likely to have a profound impact on our response to the two defining challenges of the century; overcoming poverty and managing climate change. Lord Stern will discuss how we can bring economics and political economy to the analysis of our response to these challenges in the context of a special but difficult decade in the global economy. The analysis of climate change has seen risk and the new-energy-industrial revolution move up the agenda in recent years, and we have learned more about prospects and mechanisms of collaboration. We require a deepening of the understanding of public policy for promoting the dynamics of transformation and managing immense risks. This should include a strong focus on key market failures. In this series of lectures, Lord Stern will outline the attractiveness of the new energy-industrial revolution and of low-carbon growth and will discuss how we can build the necessary national and international action to respond to the two defining challenges. This is the third of the three lectures, the others take place on 21 and 22 February. Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE. John Van Reenen is Director of the Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
Contributor(s): Professor Charles Tripp | This talk will look at how resistance to regimes' appropriation of public space has been a central theme of the Arab uprisings. Charles Tripp is a professor of politics with reference to the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Contributor(s): Caroline Bird, William Fiennes, Meg Rosoff, Philip Womack | The most popular books today are filled with vampires, ghosts, wizards and other fantasy figures. Is real life so uninspiring? Come along and join the fantasy versus reality debate. Caroline Bird is an award-winning poet. She has had three collections of poetry published by Carcanet; Looking Through Letterboxes|, Trouble Came to the Turnip and Watering Can. Caroline's have also been published in several anthologies, and are published regularly in PN Review, Poetry Review and The North magazine. A member of the Royal Court Young Writers Programme, Caroline has also written several plays including Nothing to Say, The Pie, Lumberjills, A Hymn With Drums and A Special Boy. She is an enthusiastic leader of poetry workshops in Schools and a regular teacher at the Arvon Foundation. William Fiennes is the bestselling author of The Snow Geese and The Music Room, and Director of the charity First Story, which supports creativity and literacy in challenging secondary schools. Meg Rosoff was born in Boston, educated at Harvard and St Martin’s College of Art, and worked in New York City for ten years before moving to London permanently in 1989. She worked in publishing, politics, PR and advertising until 2004, when she wrote How I Live Now, which won the Guardian Children’s fiction prize (UK), Michael L Printz prize (US), the Die Zeit children’s book of the year (Germany) and was shortlisted for the Orange first novel award. Her second novel, Just in Case, won the 2007 Carnegie Medal. Meg’s latest book is There Is No Dog. Philip Womack is the author of two critically acclaimed children's books, The Other Book and The Liberators. This event will be followed by a short prize-giving for the LSE First Story creative writing competition. With thanks for the support of the LSE Annual Fund.
Contributor(s): Mukhtar Hussain, Professor Volker Nienhaus | It is felt that conventional financial systems have failed and should be replaced, or supplemented, by more ethical banking and socially responsible finance. Can Islamic Finance, as a system with a strong religious background and moral framework, satisfy this hope? Mukhtar Hussain is chief executive officer at HSBC Malaysia. Volker Nienhaus is visiting professor, University of Reading.
Contributor(s): Louay Hussein | Louay Hussein is one of Syria's leading intellectuals who has spent his life writing and publishing on political and social debates concerning Syria and the Arab world. He spent seven years in prison because of his views. After his release in 1991, he wrote a book on his experience in prison and the extreme torture to which he was subjected. Despite his experiences, Hussein is a champion of reconciliation and wants to reach a peaceful win-win solution for Syrians. He was the first political opposition figure to be arrested after the onset of the uprising in Syria and was released a few days later, after being tortured.
Contributor(s): Professor Lord Stern | Five years on from the Stern Review there have been important changes in the world which are likely to have a profound impact on our response to the two defining challenges of the century; overcoming poverty and managing climate change. Lord Stern will discuss how we can bring economics and political economy to the analysis of our response to these challenges in the context of a special but difficult decade in the global economy. The analysis of climate change has seen risk and the new-energy-industrial revolution move up the agenda in recent years, and we have learned more about prospects and mechanisms of collaboration. We require a deepening of the understanding of public policy for promoting the dynamics of transformation and managing immense risks. This should include a strong focus on key market failures. In this series of lectures, Lord Stern will outline the attractiveness of the new energy-industrial revolution and of low-carbon growth and will discuss how we can build the necessary national and international action to respond to the two defining challenges. This is the second of the three lectures, the others take place on 21 and 23 February. Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE.
Contributor(s): Professor Lord Stern | Five years on from the Stern Review there have been important changes in the world which are likely to have a profound impact on our response to the two defining challenges of the century; overcoming poverty and managing climate change. Lord Stern will discuss how we can bring economics and political economy to the analysis of our response to these challenges in the context of a special but difficult decade in the global economy. The analysis of climate change has seen risk and the new-energy-industrial revolution move up the agenda in recent years, and we have learned more about prospects and mechanisms of collaboration. We require a deepening of the understanding of public policy for promoting the dynamics of transformation and managing immense risks. This should include a strong focus on key market failures. In this series of lectures, Lord Stern will outline the attractiveness of the new energy-industrial revolution and of low-carbon growth and will discuss how we can build the necessary national and international action to respond to the two defining challenges. This is the first of the three lectures, the others take place on 22 and 23 February. Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE. Judith Rees is Director, LSE.
Contributor(s): Dr Mark Vernon | What, in fact, is the love called friendship? What is the nature of its rules and perils, as well as its promise? Mark Vernon is a writer, broadcaster and journalist. He is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London.
Contributor(s): Michael D. Higgins | On 11 November 2011, Michael D. Higgins was inaugurated as the ninth President of Ireland. A passionate political voice, a poet and writer, academic and statesman, human rights advocate, promoter of inclusive citizenship and champion of creativity within Irish society, Michael D. Higgins has previously served at almost every level of public life in Ireland, including as Ireland's first Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht.
Contributor(s): Dweep Chanana, Anwar Hasan, Shiv Nadar | Mr Dweep I. Chanana is a Director of Philanthropy & Values-based Investing at UBS AG. For the past five years he was responsible for advising clients in Africa, Asia, Israel, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. He previously managed the UNDP’s Growing Sustainable Business initiative in Kenya and worked in the telecommunications industry. Dweep serves as mentor to a number of social enterprises and is co-founding Benefiit, a peer network of professional impact investors. UBS recently concluded a study of family philanthropy in Asia. The study revealed interesting insights into the evolution and state of philanthropy in Asia, and particularly India. Dweep will share some of the findings of the study, including some lesser known and possibly unexpected facets of philanthropy in the region. He will also draw comparisons to the practice of philanthropy globally, in the past and today. Mr Anwar Hasan is the Managing Director of Tata Limited in London. He joined the Tata Group in 1963 in Calcutta with Tata Steel. After holding several executive positions with Tata Steel he was appointed Managing Director of Tata Limited in 1999. Mr Hasan will speak about the Tata model of philanthropy. The founders of Tata had initiated and sustained a tradition of bequeathing much of their personal wealth to the many trusts they have created for the greater good of India and its people. Thus they created an extraordinary saga of philanthropy that has enriched India and its citizens across a century. Today the Tata trusts have come to control 66 per cent of the shares of Tata Sons, the holding company of the group. The wealth that accrues from this asset supports an assortment of causes, institutions and individuals in a wide variety of areas. The trusteeship principle governing the way the group functions casts the Tatas in a rather unique light: capitalistic by definition but socialistic by character. The Tata Group was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2007 in recognition of the group's long history of philanthropic activities. Mr Shiv Nadar is Founder and Chairman of HCL Technologies and the Shiv Nadar Foundation. He founded HCL in the mid 1970s, which today is a $6 billion global enterprise with 90,000 professionals from diverse nationalities, who operate from 31 countries including over 500 points of presence in India. Shiv Nadar was conferred the Padma Bhushan - the third highest civilian honour, awarded by the President of India. Forbes Magazine featured Shiv Nadar in its list of 48 Heroes of Philanthropy in the Asia Pacific region in 2011. Mr Nadar will speak on Creative Philanthropy as a model for building spirals of inspiration. Shiv Nadar Foundation is engaged in empowering people through primary, secondary and higher education and transform lives. Creative Philanthropy is modelled on the principle of building institutions of excellence in education for long-term high impact socio-economic transformation and creating spirals of inspiration & concentric circles of impact and outreach. Mr Nadar posits that the potential outcome of creative philanthropy is its differentiated high impact approach that creates individuals as catalysts of transformation for many others. Dr Ruth Kattumuri is Co-Director, LSE India Observatory.
Contributor(s): Professor Ulrich Beck | German euro-nationalism is not inevitable. Europe's crisis is an opportunity to enlarge democracy. Ulrich Beck is professor of sociology, University of Munich and British Journal of Sociology LSE Centennial Professor in the Department of Sociology.
Contributor(s): Gareth Peirce | Evidence suggests that the British government has colluded in a range of extrajudicial activities – rendition, internment without trial, torture – and has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal its actions. Gareth Peirce is a solicitor whose battles against miscarriages of justice have changed legal history.
Contributor(s): Pierre Dinan | Unlike other African economies since independence, Mauritius has experienced long term sustained economic growth and development. What explains this success? Pierre Dinan is an economic consultant and external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Mauritius.
Contributor(s): Professor Emily Jackson | In a humane society, should it be legal to help those who are suffering terribly to end their lives? Emily Jackson, professor of law at LSE, tackles this provocative issue in a public lecture entitled ‘Right to Die’. Professor Jackson looks at how the law deals with the issue of assisted dying. While there is an absolute prohibition on assisting someone to kill themselves in the UK, Jackson shows that the line drawn between lawful and unlawful practices which may lead to someone’s death, is not clear cut. She asks whether the law draws the line between the right place. The lecture is the second of LSE's 'Burning Issues' lectures – a short series of interactive talks, designed to showcase the social sciences to a non-academic audience. In the first lecture, ‘Parasites – enemy of the poor’, Professor Tim Allen questions the effectiveness of our fight against one of humankind's most endemic invisible enemies. In the third and final lecture, Professor Conor Gearty will ask what human rights are in 'The DNA of Human Rights'. The Burning Issue Lectures are supported by the LSE Annual Fund and Cato Stonex (BSc International Relations 1986).
Contributor(s): Loretta Napoleoni | In this lecture, which coincides with the publication of her latest book Maonomics, Professor Napoleoni will argue that current global economic turmoil is the beginning of the collapse of capitalism and the victory of "communism with a profit motive" (Commi-Capitalism), that the balance of power in the world is shifting from West to East, and that the Chinese Communist economic model is winning out over the Western system. Loretta Napoleoni is an expert on terrorist financing and money laundering, and advises several governments and international organizations on these issues. She also advises several banks on strategies to counter the current economic crisis. She is a regular media commentator for CNN, Sky and the BBC, and writes about terrorism, money laundering and the economy for several European national papers including El Pais, The Guardian and Le Monde.
Contributor(s): Kurt Barling, Sehrish Ejaz-Khan, Rajiv Gopie | Kurt Barling, uses media to examine social injustice, racial prejudice and inequality. Over the past 20 years Kurt has worked on numerous prestigious BBC programmes, made dozens of documentaries and won a string of awards. Kurt will reflect on his time at LSE, and with current LSE students discuss the importance of culture at LSE and beyond. Kurt Barling is a LSE alumnus and BBC London Special Correspondent. Sehrish Ejaz- Khan is an undergraduate student in Economics and Economic History, and Rajiv Gopie is a post graduate student in International Relations, both at LSE.
Contributor(s): Alex Salmond MSP | Alex Salmond will set out his vision for Scotland's future, including the opportunities provided by independence, setting the context for the Scottish government's plans for a referendum. Alex Salmond is the first minister of Scotland. He was born in Linlithgow in 1954. He attended Linlithgow Academy before studying at St Andrews University, where he graduated with a joint honours MA in Economics and History. He became the first ever SNP First Minister of Scotland in May 2007 and won the Aberdeenshire East constituency at the May 2011 election, when the SNP won a majority of seats of in the Scottish Parliament. MSPs re-elected him unopposed for a second term as First Minister on May 18 2011.
Contributor(s): Professor Roger Brownsword, Professor Neil Levy, Professor Sir Michael Rutter | Will developments in the neurosciences change our moral and legal notions of criminality and responsibility – and if so, how? Roger Brownsword is professor of law at King's College London. Neil Levy is deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and the Florey Neuroscience Institute, University of Melbourne. Michael Rutter is professor of developmental psychopathology in the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London.
Contributor(s): Nicholas Wapshott | Eighty years ago at the LSE, Friedrich Hayek launched an assault upon the new economic thinking of John Maynard Keynes. The clash was so bitter and vituperative that it scandalized the cloistered world of academia. Eighty years on, the differences between the two men have still not been finally resolved and their conflicting approaches to the economy continue to define the profound chasm between politicians of left and right. Nicholas Wapshott is a columnist for Reuters and regular contributor to Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He is the author of Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics and Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage. He is a former senior editor for The Times and the New York Sun and editorial consultant to Oprah Winfrey.
Contributor(s): Professor Fawaz Gerges | Islamist parties from Tunisia to Morocco to Egypt, and most likely in Libya when elections take place soon, have won majorities in Parliaments. After decades of being persecuted and outlawed, religious-based activists will take ownership of the seats of power in the Arab heartland. What does the rise of Islamists to power mean to the future of the Middle East and the region's international relations? How will Islamists coming to power affect transition from authoritarianism to pluralism, including institution-building, civil-military dynamics, civil society, and rights of minorities? To what extent will the Islamist moment transform the geostrategic architecture of the Middle East, especially the Arab-Israeli conflict and the new Cold War between the Saudi-led alliance and the Iranian coalition? How will the Western powers respond to the rise of Islamist-led governments, and will both camps dust off a forgotten chapter of co-existence and cooperation during the Cold War? Fawaz Gerges, who has researched religiously-based social movements for more than two decades, will reflect on the causes and implications of the new Islamist moment in the Middle East. Fawaz A. Gerges is a Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also holds the Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East and is the Director of the Middle East Centre at LSE. He earned a doctorate from Oxford University and M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Gerges has taught at Oxford, Harvard, and Columbia, and was a research scholar at Princeton and was a chairholder (the Christian A. Johnson Chair in Middle Eastern Studies and International Affairs) at Sarah Lawrence College, New York. His special interests include Islam and the political process, social movements, including mainstream Islamist movements and jihadist groups (like the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda), Arab politics and Muslim politics in the 20th century, the international relations of the Middle East, the Arab-Israeli conflict, state and society in the Middle East, American foreign policy towards the Muslim world, the modern history of the Middle East, history of conflict, diplomacy and foreign policy, and historical sociology. Gerges is author of three recently acclaimed books: The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda: What American and Western Politicians Don't Want You to Know? (Oxford University Press, 2011); Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy (Harcourt Press, 2007), and The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge University Press, 2005). The Washington Post selected The Far Enemy as one of the best 15 books published in the field. Journey of the Jihadist was on the best-selling list of Barnes and Nobles and Foreign Affairs Magazine for several months.
Contributor(s): Professor Christopher Pissarides | Labour markets across the OECD reacted differently to the financial crisis of 2008 and the debt crisis that followed. Professor Pissarides will review these different responses, seek explanations for them, and draw conclusions about labour market policy in recession. The focus will be on unemployment and how to contain its rise in light of the negative shocks to economic activity. Christopher Pissarides is the Norman Sosnow Chair in Economics, LSE, and recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences.
Contributor(s): Jonathan Steele, Francesc Vendrell | Jonathan Steele's new book, Ghosts of Afghanistan, is the definitive study of the Soviet and US wars in Afghanistan, by one of the few reporters who has covered both occupations. Jonathan Steele is a columnist, author and former chief foreign correspondent of the Guardian. Francesc Vendrell was the EU special representative for Afghanistan, 2002-2008 and is a visiting fellow at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, LSE.
Contributor(s): Thomas Frank | Economic meltdown usually brings calls for change – or it's supposed to. But when Thomas Frank set out to find these, all he heard were loud demands that the losers be hit harder and that the winners get more. In his new book, Pity The Billionaire, which he will discuss in this talk Frank takes us a wild road-trip through the strange landscape of the American Right, the Tea Party and Glenn Beck, makes sense of a topsy-turvy world and shows how instead of complying with the new speed limit, conservative America has stamped hard on the accelerator. It is essential reading for understanding how we all got to where we are, and how we might get out. The founding editor of the Baffler, Thomas Frank is the author of One Market Under God, The Conquest of Cool, What's the Matter with America? and The Wrecking Crew. He is also a contributor to Harper's, The Nation and the New York Times.
Contributor(s): Nicola Dandridge, Professor Sue Mendus | When does freedom of speech threaten the cohesion of a university as a learning community? Should there be any limits on what can be said in a university? Nicola Dandridge is chief executive of Universities UK. Sue Mendus is professor of political philosophy at the University of York. This event is jointly organised with the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method and the LSE Chaplaincy.
Contributor(s): Dr Faramerz Dabhoiwala | Nowadays we believe that consenting adults have the freedom to do what they like with their own bodies. We publicise and celebrate sex; we discuss it endlessly; we are obsessed with the sex lives of celebrities. We think it wrong that in other cultures people suffer for their sexual orientation, that women are treated as second-class citizens, or that adulterers are put to death. Yet until quite recently our own society was like this too. For most of western history, all sex outside marriage was illegal, and the church, the state, and ordinary people all devoted huge efforts to suppressing and punishing it. This was a central feature of Christian civilization, one that had steadily grown in importance since the early middle ages. In his new book which he will discuss in this lecture, Faramerz Dabhoiwala describes in dramatic detail how, between 1600 and 1800, this entire world view was shattered by revolutionary new ideas - that sex is a private matter; that morality cannot be imposed by force; that men are more lustful than women. Henceforth, the private lives of both sexes were to be endlessly broadcast and debated, in a rapidly expanding universe of public media: newspapers, pamphlets, journals, novels, poems, and prints. IThe Origins of Sex shows that the creation of this modern culture of sex was a central part of the Enlightenment, intertwined with the era's major social, political and intellectual trends. It helped create a new model of Western civilization, whose principles of privacy, equality, and freedom of the individual remain distinctive to this day. IFaramerz Dabhoiwala was born in England, grew up in Amsterdam, and was educated at York and Oxford. He is the Senior Fellow in History at Exeter College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and the father of two children.
Contributor(s): Professor Roderick MacDonald | Universities are facing increasing pressure to be relevant for students entering the job market. Yet law faculties are under increasing pressure to become less professional and to broaden their curriculum with interdisciplinary courses in the liberal arts. Might the study of law reclaim the central role that it played in the University a millennium ago? Roderick MacDonald is F R Scott Professor of Constitutional and Public Law at McGill and visiting professor at LSE Law.
Contributor(s): Sri Mulyani Indrawati | Sri Mulyani Indrawati will be exploring the cycles of global economic crisis and the sweep of revolutions and uprisings across the Arab world and beyond and how it is reshaping the substance and practice of international development. Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Managing Director, joined the World Bank in June 2010. She is responsible for the Bank's operations in Africa, East Asia & the Pacific, Europe & Central Asia, Latin America & the Caribbean, the Middle East & North Africa and South Asia. In addition, Sri Mulyani oversees other administrative vice-presidencies and functions, including the Integrity Vice Presidency, Sanctions Board Secretariat and the Office of Evaluation and Suspension. Prior to joining the Bank Group, Sri Mulyani served as Indonesia's Minister of Finance, at which time she guided economic policy for one of the largest countries in Southeast Asia, and one of the biggest states in the world, navigating successfully in the midst of the global economic crisis, implementing key reforms, and earning the respect of her peers across the world. Ms Indrawati served as State Minister and Chair of the Indonesian National Development Planning Agency prior to her position as Finance Minister, Her earlier positions include Coordinating Minister of Economic Affairs, Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, faculty member at the University of Indonesia and a visiting professor at the Andrew Young School of Public Policy at Georgia State University. Ms. Indrawati holds a PhD in economics from the University of Illinois and a BA in economics from the University of Indonesia. She has received numerous honours and awards, including Euromoney Magazine's Global Finance Minister of the Year, and Emerging Markets Best Finance Minister in Asia. She has also been regularly on Forbes List of the 100 Most Powerful Women.
Contributor(s): Dr Carool Kersten | In the course of the last decade, dramatic political events involving Muslims across the world have put Islam under increased scrutiny. The focus of this attention is generally limited to the political aspects and often even further confined by constrictive views of Islamism narrowed down to its most extremist exponents. Much less attention is paid to the parallel development of more liberal and progressive alternative Islamic discourses; but the final decades of the twentieth-century has also seen the emergence of a Muslim intelligentsia exploring new and creative ways of engaging with the Islamic heritage. Their ideas appear to provide an alternative to both the hard secularism represented by either authoritarian or more benign regimes and the advocacy of an Islamic state. It appears that this third way resonates with the ambitions and expectations of those involved in the Arab uprisings of 2011. In this presentation Carool Kersten discusses how three emblematic Muslim intellectuals from Algeria, Egypt and Indonesia give new relevance to religion in the post-secular and post-Islamist Muslim world of the 21st century. Following the lecture, his latest book 'Cosmopolitans and Heretics: New Muslim Intellectuals and the Study of Islam', nominated for the Asia Society's Bernard Schwartz Book Award as well as for the AAR Prize for Best First Book in History of Religion, will be available for purchase and signing.
Contributor(s): Professor Alan Sked | Why do some people retain iconic status in the historical consciousness of various nations? What does this tell us about them? More importantly, what does it reveal about later and present generations? Alan Sked is professor of international history at LSE.
Contributor(s): Professor Shirin M Rai | At times of crisis social expenditure is cut, but with what consequences? Using the concept of depletion, Professor Rai measures the extent of loss for individuals, households and communities. Shirin M. Rai studied at the University of Delhi (India) and Cambridge University (UK) and joined the University of Warwick in 1989. She is Professor in the department of Politics and International Studies. She has directed a four year Leverhulme Trust funded programme on Gendered Ceremony and Ritual in Parliament (2007-2011). Her research interests lie in the area of feminist politics, gender and political institutions, globalisation and development studies. She has written extensively on issues of gender, governance and development in journals such as Signs, Hypatia, New Political Economy, International Feminist Journal of Politics and Political Studies. She is the author of Gender and the Political Economy of Development: from Nationalism to Globalisation (2002). Her latest works are Feminists Theorize the International Political Economy, Special Issue of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (co-ed. With Kate Bedford); The Gender Politics of Development (2008, Zed Books/Zubaan Publishers), (co-ed) Global Governance: Feminist Perspectives (2008, Palgrave) and (ed.) Ceremony and Ritual in Parliament (2010). She is the co-editor (with Wyn Grant) of the Manchester University Press book series Perspectives on Democratic Practice.
Contributor(s): Professor Richard Sennett | Living with people who differ – racially, ethnically, religiously, or economically – is one of the most difficult challenges facing us today. Modern politics emphasises unity and similarity, encouraging the politics of the tribe rather than of complexity. Richard Sennett argues that living with people unlike ourselves requires more than goodwill: it requires skill. The foundations for skilful co-operation lie in learning to listen well and to discuss rather than debate. People who develop these capacities earn a reward: they can take pleasure in the company of others. Sennett discusses how we can strengthen cooperation online, face-to-face in ethnic conflicts, among financial workers and community organisers. This event marks the publication of Sennett's new book Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Co-operation. Richard Sennett retired in 2011 as University Professor at NYU and academic governor and Professor of Sociology at the LSE. He has won numerous international prizes, and was most recently awarded the Spinoza Prize for outstanding contributions to public debate on morality. Together forms part of a three-book project on 'homo faber', focusing on the skills human beings possess to make a life together; the first volume, The Craftsman, was published in 2008. He is the author of many celebrated books including The Fall of Public Man and The Corrosion of Character.
Contributor(s): Dr Naijun Hu | What is social policy? According to Professor Tim Newburn, Head of the Department of Social Policy at LSE, "social policy is an interdisciplinary and applied subject concerned with the analysis of societies' response to social needs. The basic human needs include: food and shelter, a sustainable and safe environment, the promotion of health, the treatment of the sick, the care and support of those unable to live a fully independent life and the education and training of individuals to a certain level that enable them to fully participate in society". Accordingly, ideal social policy should touch every aspect of peoples' needs and well-being, with governments satisfying peoples' needs and expectations. In China's traditional socialism, these needs should be satisfied by the direct delivery of the government. Hence, the Working Unit was of much importance prior to the systemic reforms of the 1990's, whether government, PSOs or enterprises. Consequently, China still has large public sector organisations and huge numbers of public sector employees. After the 1990's, pension, healthcare, housing, unemployment and maternity benefits are being delivered through the social insurance system. The basic characteristics of social insurance are the pooling of risk, the contribution requirement and limits to the level of benefit. However, social insurance alone will not satisfy these needs if China seeks to attain the levels outlined by Professor Newburn. Through comparing social policy as it is understood at the LSE and social policy practices in the UK, the disadvantages of China's social insurance system in meeting peoples' needs are highlighted and analysed, and suggestions made as to how to build and enhance social policy theory and practice in China. Dr Naijun Hu is currently a Visiting Fellow at the LSE Asia Research Centre. He received his PhD in Management at Tsinghua University in 2010. In 2008 and 2009 he spent six months at the Asia Research Centre as a visiting student. Dr Hu was previously a post-doctoral visiting research fellow at King's College London's China Institute.
Contributor(s): Professor Hiski Haukkala, Dr Petr Kratochwil, Dr Nicu Popescu, Professor Stefan Wolff | This roundtable on 'EU Foreign Policy after Lisbon: The EU's Influence in its Eastern Neighbourhood' looks at the impact of the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership on the domestic politics of its partner countries, and how this has changed since the Lisbon Treaty. Professor Hiski Haukkala (University of Tampere, Finland); Dr Petr Kratochwil (Institute of International Relations, Prague); Dr Nicu Popescu (European Council on Foreign Relations); Professor Stefan Wolff (University of Birmingham).
Contributor(s): Professor Alexander Kamenskii | In the course of the eighteenth century, Russia became an active participant in European diplomatic relations. But to what extent was Russia part of Europe? And is it possible to study Europe without including Russia? Alexander Kamenskii is deacon of the Faculty of History and chief research fellow of the Poletaev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
Contributor(s): Dr Ehtisham Ahmad, Rachid Benmassoud, Dr Robert Hathaway, Shahid Kardar, Dr Maleeha Lodhi, Kashif Zafar | Has civilian assistance to Pakistan over the past three decades assisted with development and improvements in living standards, or become a hindrance? Has the availability of bilateral and multilateral largesse, often driven by strategic considerations, subverted the difficult structural reforms that the assistance was designed to promote? The publication of the recent Woodrow Wilson Center report: "Aiding without abetting: making US civilian assistance to Pakistan work for both sides", that calls for a reorientation of the Kerry-Lugar assistance and addresses the operations of USAid, provides an opportunity to discuss some of the issues arising from the poor design and implementation of civilian assistance. There are also growing political concerns in Pakistan about the political "capture" of some of the assistance as well as growing dependency. Dr Ehtisham Ahmad is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Asia Research Centre. Rachid Benmassoud is the World Bank Director for Pakistan. Dr Robert Hathaway is the Director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Shahid Kardar is a former Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan. Dr Maleeha Lodhi is a former High Commissioner of Pakistan to the United Kingdom, and a former Ambassador to the United States. Kashif Zafar from the British Pakistan Foundation will provide an introduction.
Contributor(s): Alain de Botton | Is it possible to remain a committed atheist but nevertheless benefit from the wisdom of religion? Marking the publication of his new book Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton proposes that we look to religions for insights into how we might live in and arrange our societies. Alain de Botton is the author of non-fiction essays on themes ranging from love and travel to architecture and philosophy. His bestselling books include The Architecture of Happiness.
Contributor(s): Dr James McDougall | South Asia, China, Europe, North America, sub-Saharan Africa: most major world regions have histories that can be clearly characterised. The Maghrib, despite being perhaps historically the first region to be provided with a model of historical development (by Ibn Khaldun), remains to a large degree unidentifiable with its own distinctive 'pattern of the past'. This may be changing as scholarship focuses more on global, cross-regional, and interactive histories in which North Africa, as a 'hinge' at the edge of three continents, can easily and productively be placed. But does this approach risk misconstruing North Africa's own particularities? How can regional and global histories together best account for North Africa's place in world history? Dr James McDougall| is Laithwaite Fellow and tutor in modern history at Trinity College. His research interest includes Modern and contemporary Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, African and Islamic history, especially Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco.
Contributor(s): Vítor Gaspar | Vítor Gaspar is Minister of Finance. He was appointed Portuguese Finance Minister in Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho's cabinet in June 2011. Mr Gaspar was an adviser to the Bank of Portugal from February 2010, having been from 2007 Director-General at the Bureau of European Policy Advisers (ERI) with the President of the European Commission. Previously he was Director-General for Research at the European Central Bank for six years. Gaspar was awarded a degree in economics by the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP) in 1982, and has a doctorate in economics by the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, awarded in 1988.
Contributor(s): David Lammy MP | The riots across England in the summer of 2011 were sparked by events in Tottenham, north London. Tottenham was also the site of the Broadwater Farm riots in 1985. David Lammy, MP for the area, reflects on the causes of these events and what role racial inequality played. David Lammy has been the Labour MP for Tottenham since 2000. Rob Berkeley is Director of the Runnymede Trust.
Contributor(s): Cullen Murphy | For centuries states have used their power to censor information, to conduct surveillance, to impose belief, to manipulate and to punish. Cullen Murphy's extraordinary, provocative new book which he will talk about in this lecture explores the idea that the Inquisition - the Catholic body that existed in Europe (and beyond) for over 700 years - is not a medieval oddity, but is intrinsically bound up with the creation of the modern world. Travelling from freshly opened Vatican archives to the detention camps of Guantánamo and the filing cabinets of the Third Reich, he traces the Inquisition's legacy to show how, as time went on, its techniques became the standard operating procedure of secular persecution. Murphy explores the role of the Inquisition in a new phase in the battle between the individual private conscience and the forces that try to contain it. This event marks the publication of his new book God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World. Cullen Murphy is Vanity Fair's editor at large and the author of Are We Rome? and The Word According to Eve. He was previously managing editor of The Atlantic Monthly.
Contributor(s): Wael Ghonim | In this conversation, Wael Ghonim will discuss his new book Revolution 2.0| providing a unique insider's story from the heart of the Egyptian Spring. He gives unparalleled insight into why the Egyptian people finally rejected 30 years of oppression and found a voice. Wael Ghonim was born in 1980 in Cairo, and lived in Saudi Arabia for most of his childhood until moving back to Egypt at the age of 13. A prominent internet entrepreneur, by his mid-twenties Wael was a key member or founder of three of the Arab world's most popular websites, and in 2008 he was hired by Google as Regional Product Manager for the Middle East and North Africa. A passionate and committed individual, Wael's knowledge of technology and his dedication to the cause of democracy in Egypt came together in 2011 when he set up a Facebook page that facilitated the protests that would lead to the departure of Hosni Mubarak.
Contributor(s): Paul Mason | Our world is changing dramatically. Social upheaval has followed worldwide economic crisis and the gulf between the haves and the have-nots is widening. In 2011, this profound disconnect found expression in events that we were told had been consigned to history: revolt and revolution. In his new book Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere which he will discuss in this lecture Paul Mason sets out to explore the causes and consequences of this current wave of struggle, illuminating the links between the economic and social crisis. He explores and analyses what lies behind the new revolutions – a volatile combination of the near collapse of free-market capitalism, new technologies and changes in popular culture, and a profound shift in our understanding of what freedom means. Looking at how new social media have impacted on how we behave and organize, Mason interviews activists on the ground and the people behind these new forms of collective action, providing an insight into the agile networks of Twitter- and Facebook-savvy young protesters supporting the viral spread ofinternational activism. The economics editor of the BBC's flagship program Newsnight, Paul Mason is also one of the most influential journalists on twitter. He first reported live for the BBC on 9/11, and covered the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 from outside its New York HQ. His television and online reports have tracked the social and economic impact of the global meltdown from the mean streets of Gary, Indiana to the elite salons of Davos.
Contributor(s): Peter Hain MP | During a discussion on his latest book Outside In|, former anti-apartheid leader turned Labour cabinet minister Peter Hain will recall his campaigning days, receiving a letter bomb, being prosecuted in two political trials and his role in negotiating the historic 2007 settlement in Northern Ireland. He was also Britain's first-ever African-born Africa Minister and a passionate advocate and deliverer of devolved government to Wales. Featuring Iraq, Mugabe, Europe, Gibraltar, blood diamonds, working with MI5 and MI6, delivering justice for workers robbed of their pensions and compensation for sick miners, Hain gives a fascinating insight into life near the top of the Blair and Brown governments. Peter Hain is the Labour MP for Neath and Shadow Secretary of State for Wales. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1991 and after Labour's victory in 1997, joined the Blair government. Firstly at the Welsh Office and then as minister for Africa and then Europe Minister. He also served as Leader of the House of Commons, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. As the son of courageous anti-apartheid activists, he spent his childhood in South Africa and then in exile in Britain, where he led the campaign against white-only sports tours.
Contributor(s): Professor Tim Allen | For millions of the world's poor, parasitic infections can be debilitating or even lethal. There are high hopes for new mass medication programmes but treatment has not always proceeded as planned, and in some cases there has been fierce local resistance. In this Burning Issue public lecture, Tim Allen – professor of development anthropology – will examine the facts, the failures and the future of our fight against one of humankind's most endemic invisible enemies. The lecture is the first of LSE's 'Burning Issues' lectures – a short series of interactive talks designed with a public audience in mind. Two lectures will follow with Professor Emily Jackson tackling the issue of assisting dying in the 'Right to Die' and Professor Conor Gearty asking what human rights are in 'The DNA of Human Rights'. The Burning Issue Lectures are supported by the LSE Annual Fund and Cato Stonex (BSc International Relations 1986).
Contributor(s): Professor Henry Wai-chung Yeung | In this lecture, Henry Wai-chung Yeung will aim to explain how a number of leading business firms from Asian newly industrialized economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan are articulated into global production networks and become major players in their respective market niches. Drawing upon a triangular analytical framework and original empirical data, he will seek to explain the complex relationships between the dynamic articulation of these leading Asian firms into different global production networks and their simultaneous upgrading from typical followers to market leaders. He will argue that the interplay between corporate strategies and home base advantages within the context of changing global production networks can offer a better explanation of the differentiated competitive outcomes of these Asian firms. He will conclude the lecture with some implications for theory and policy in relation to corporate development in Asian economies. Born in Guangzhou, China, Henry Wai-chung Yeung emigrated with my family to Hong Kong in 1979 moving to Singapore in 1988. He graduated with B.A. First Class Honours in Geography from the National University of Singapore and obtained his Ph.D. from the School of Geography, University of Manchester in England in 1995, returning to Singapore to start his career at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. Since 2005, he has been Professor of Economic Geography. His research interests cover broadly theories and the geography of transnational corporations, Asian firms and their overseas operations and Chinese business networks in the Asia-Pacific region. I have conducted extensively research on Hong Kong firms in Southeast Asia, the regionalization of Singaporean companies, and the emergence of leading Asian firms in the global economy. The National University of Singapore (NUS) and LSE are both top-ranked, research-led universities. NUS is one of just five institutions with which LSE is developing multi-faceted partnerships for mutual benefit of staff and students. This is the 2nd of a new "LSE-NUS" public lecture series, which seeks to provide a global platform to increase the profile and impact of prominent researchers.
Contributor(s): Dr Ramachandra Guha | High annual growth rates, a rising middle class, and successes in the software sector have led to much talk of India becoming a superpower. But rather than seek to expand India's influence abroad, the political class and intellectual elite would do well to focus on the fissures within. Ramachandra Guha is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2011-2012.
Contributor(s): Professor John Sidel | Over the past several months, an alarmist picture of developments in Egypt has emerged in the media, raising the spectre of Islamization, inter-religious violence, and generalized criminality and disorder. Yet these early signs of trouble are amply familiar to observers of transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy elsewhere in the developing world. In particular, the case of Indonesia is especially instructive, given a set of striking parallels with Egypt today. Against this backdrop, Professor John Sidel, author of Riots, Pogroms, Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia (Cornell University Press, 2006) will discuss democratization in Egypt in the light of Indonesia's experience over the past thirteen years since the fall of long-time president Suharto (Indonesia's Mubarak) in 1998. His lecture will reveal what Indonesia's experience of democratization portends for Egypt in the months and years. John Sidel is the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at LSE. Professor Sidel specializes in the study of Southeast Asia and has three main areas of thematic expertise and interest in the study of politics, as reflected in his research, writing, and teaching: local politics, religion and politics, and nationalism and transnational forces.
Contributor(s): Dr Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis | Placed at the crossroads of three continents, Cyprus remains of key strategic importance in the Eastern Mediterranean. Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis is the minister of foreign affairs for Cyprus.
Contributor(s): Professor Martti Koskenniemi | Martti Koskenniemi is director of the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights and visiting professor at LSE Law.
Contributor(s): Bill Gates, Professor Hans Rosling | The Global Poverty Project has partnered with The Co–operative during the UN Year of Co-operatives to launch a new initiative that will raise awareness and inspire communities to take action for the 1.4 billion people still living in extreme poverty. Bill Gates will speak to the inaugural Global Poverty Ambassadors as part of the London launch of his Annual Letter. In the letter, he will outline the key innovations and commitment needed to continue making progress against global challenges like disease and poverty in 2012. Bill is inviting students from around the world to write their own letters on the most urgent issues we face today. (If you have a big idea you would like to share, please write 300-500 words and email it to annualletter@gatesfoundation.org). Professor Hans Rosling will also address the Ambassadors and students using his extraordinary, interactive graphics, which reveal global trends and the great benefits of development aid. Bill Gates is co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Hans Rosling is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute and co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder Foundation.
Contributor(s): Jodi Kantor, Professor Sarah Churchwell | Jodi Kantor will be in conversation with Professor Sarah Churchwell to discuss her new book The Obamas: A Mission, A Marriage which is an intimate portrait of the Obamas in the White House by a New York Times journalist who has been covering the President and first lady for 5 years. The Obamas had never lived together full-time as a family until they moved into the White House - and that's where their political and personal lives became inextricable. Kantor interviewed the Obamas together in the Oval Office and is the only author to be granted access to Michelle Obama's East Wing. Filled with detail and insight into their partnership and personalities, The Obamas: A Mission, A Marriage reveals the hidden aspects of their time in the White House. With a keen eye for the ironies of public life and the realities of power, Kantor brings into sharp focus the question that underpins the Obamas' marriage: can politics achieve real change in society? Jodi Kantor began her journalism career by dropping out of Harvard Law School to join Slate.com in 1998. Four years later, she became the youngest section editor of The New York Times, taking over and revamping the Arts & Leisure section. She began covering the Obamas for the paper in 2007, writing front-page stories that chronicled their biographies and philosophies, and also writing about Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and other major political figures along the way. She is a recipient of the Columbia Young Alumni Achievement Award, she was chosen by Crain's Magazine as one of "40 Under 40" New Yorkers, and she appears regularly on American television, including Today and the Charlie Rose Show. Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities. Her research and teaching expertise are in 20th-21st century and contemporary American literature and culture; American film history and theory, gender theory; cultural studies and popular culture; life-writing and literary theory.
Contributor(s): Dr Roy F Baumeister | A new understanding of how people control themselves has emerged from the past decade of research studies. Self-control depends on a limited energy supply, and each person's willpower fluctuates during the day as various events deplete and then replenish it. Decision making and creative initiative also deplete the same willpower supply, while eating and sleeping can restore it. Some circumstances propel people to perform well despite depleted willpower, including power and leadership roles, local incentives, and personal beliefs. People with high self-control specialize less in resisting temptation than avoiding it. Roy F Baumeister is one of the world's most influential psychologists. He received his PhD from Princeton in 1978 and currently is Francis Eppes Eminent Scholar and head of the psychology programme at Florida State University. He was over 450 scientific publications, and Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength is his latest book.
Contributor(s): Rodric Braithwaite, Andrei Grachev, Professor Margot Light | What were the origins of the collapse of the USSR? What did 1991 look and feel like from the inside? What is the legacy of 1991 for the former USSR itself? This expert panel will reflect on how history unfolded. Rodric Braithwaite was British Ambassador to Moscow from 1988 to 1992. Andrei Grachev served on the International Relations Department of the CPSU and was confidant and official spokesman for Mikhail Gorbachev. Margot Light is Professor Emeritus in the Department of International Relations, LSE.
Contributor(s): Professor Yezid Sayigh | The construction of authoritarian power in Arab states over past decades has enmeshed national armies in political, economic, and social structures and dynamics. Democratic transition therefore implicates constitutional debates about the nature of the state with renegotiation of the role and status of the military. Yezid Sayigh is a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, where his work focuses on the future political role of Arab armies, the resistance and reinvention of authoritarian regimes, and the Israel-Palestine conflict and peace process.
Contributor(s): Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi | Against the backdrop of the ongoing global banking crisis, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi discusses the economic problems and prospects of sub-Saharan Africa over the decade ahead. Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Contributor(s): Jean-Michel Severino, Martin Wolf | Two economic experts discuss the state of the world economy after the eurozone financial crisis. Jean Michel Severino is inspector general at the French Ministry of Finance. Martin Wolf is a journalist at the Financial Times.
Contributor(s): Professor Helmut Anheier, Professor Mient Jan Faber, Professor Marlies Glasius, Professor Mary Kaldor | The panel will discuss the political implications of giving power to ordinary people in an era when the nation-state has lost its primacy as a political actor. The event launches the book Bottom-up Politics: an agency-centred approach to globalisation. Helmut Anheier is professor of sociology at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin. Mient Jan Faber is Professor Emeritus at the Free Universit, Amsterdam and visiting professor at the University of Houston. Marlies Glasius is Professor of Citizens Involvement in War Zones and Post-Conflict Zones at the Faculty of Social Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, and a Visiting Fellow at the LSE Human Security and Civil Society Research Unit. Mary Kaldor is professor of Global Governance and director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, LSE.
Contributor(s): Liam Byrne MP | As we enter the year of the Beveridge Report's 70th Anniversary, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Liam Byrne MP, sets out Labour's case for welfare reform. Liam Byrne is Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and Coordinator of Labour's policy review. Elected in 2004, Liam held several ministerial positions in the Labour Government before becoming Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2009. Before entering politics Liam co-founded the eCommerce business egsgroup.com, and worked as a banker with NM Rothschilds. He was a Fulbright scholar at the Harvard Business School where he took his MBA with honours.
Contributor(s): Philip Coggan | The world is drowning in debt. Greece is on the verge of default. In Britain, the coalition government is pushing through an austerity programme in the face of economic weakness. The US government almost shut down in August because of a dispute over the size of government debt. Our latest crisis may seem to have started in 2007, with the collapse of the American housing market. But as Philip Coggan shows in this new book, Paper Promises: Money, Debt and the new World Order which he will talk about in this lecture, the crisis is part of an age-old battle between creditors and borrowers. And that battle has been fought over the nature of money. Creditors always want sound money to ensure that they are paid back in full; borrowers want easy money to reduce the burden of repaying their debts. Money was once linked to gold, a commodity in limited supply; now central banks can create it with the click of a computer mouse. Time and again, this cycle has resulted in financial and economic crises. In the 1930s, countries abandoned the gold standard in the face of the Great Depression. In the 1970s, they abandoned the system of fixed exchange rates and ushered in a period of paper money. The results have been a long series of asset bubbles, from dotcom stocks to housing, and the elevation of the financial sector to economic dominance. The current crisis not only pits creditors against debtors, but taxpayers against public sector workers, young against old and the western world against Asia. As in the 1930s and 1970s, a new monetary system will emerge; the rules for which will likely be set by the world's rising economic power, China. Philip Coggan was a Financial Times journalist for over twenty years, including spells as a Lex columnist, personal finance editor and investment editor, and is now the Buttonwood columnist of The Economist. In 2009, he was awarded the title of Senior Financial Journalist in the Harold Wincott awards and was voted Best Communicator at the Business Journalist of the Year Awards. Philip Coggan is the author of the business classic, The Money Machine.
Contributor(s): Professor Atila Eralp, Professor Richard Gillespie, Dr Sharon Pardo | This roundtable on 'EU Foreign Policy after Lisbon: The View from the Mediterranean' looks at how the EU is perceived as a foreign policy actor in its southern neighbourhood. Professor Atila Eralp is from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara; Professor Richard Gillespie is from the University of Liverpool and Dr Sharon Pardo is from Ben Gurion University. Professor Karen E Smith is from LSE.
Contributor(s): Bronwyn Curtis, Dr Jon Danielsson, Professor Robert Wade | LSE Arts are pleased to host a very special screening of the highly anticipated film Margin Call| based on the financial crash – starring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany and Stanley Tucci and released in UK cinemas on 13 January. Reviewed by The New York Times as "an extraordinary feat of filmmaking", Margin Call is a thriller that revolves around the key people at an investment bank over a 24-hour period during the early stages of the financial crisis. When entry-level analyst Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) unlocks information that could prove to be the downfall of an investment firm, a roller-coaster ride ensues as decisions both financial and moral catapult the lives of all involved to the brink of disaster. This podcast comprises the introduction and panel discussion that followed the screening. Bronwyn Curtis is Executive Editor and Senior Advisor at HSBC and is co-sponsor of the Balance group. She is also Chairman of the Society of Business Economists, a board member of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the Council at the London School of Economics and the Advisory Board at Imperial College Business School, as well as a member of The Times newspaper's Shadow Monetary Policy Committee. Previously, Bronwyn was Head of European Broadcasting and Managing Editor at Bloomberg. Her other senior roles include Global Head of Currency and Fixed Income Strategy at Deutsche Bank and Chief Economist at Nomura International. She has also worked for the World Bank and the United Nations on commodity based projects in Africa, LATAM and Asia. Dr Jon Danielsson is a Reader in the Finance Department at LSE. Professor Robert Wade is a Professor in the International Development department at LSE.
Contributor(s): Dr Lino Cardarelli | After the Arab Spring, lasting political change in North Africa will require sustained regional cooperation to promote economic integration and efficient and accountable governance. What should a bold plan of action look like? Lino Cardarelli is Senior Deputy Secretary General for Project Funding Coordination and Business Development SMEs in the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean, a position he has held since 2010. From March to June 2011 has also covered the position of Acting Secretary General in the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean. Since his return from Baghdad mid-2005, Lino Cardarelli is serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as expert and coordinator of the Italian economic initiatives in the Middle East and Gulf Countries. Before that, during 2004, he had the position as deputy Senior Advisor in Government Authority of Iraq (in Baghdad) where he had also the position at the PMO (Program Management Office) and IRMO (Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office) as coordinator of Donors Countries project, Special Assistant and deputy to the Executive Director Dave Nash. With more than 30 years of International experience working in Africa, Middle East, Latin America, USA and European Countries, he was involved in the management of companies producing and marketing in heavy and specialty chemicals, pharmaceutical, engineering constructions, textiles, machine tools and in the financing of significant projects and the acquisition of companies. Prior to that, he was Chief Financial Officer, General Manager and Managing Director of Montedison Group, one of the leaders in world in chemicals and pharmaceuticals. While in this position he acted as Executive President in the related companies Incas Bonna Spa and Cedar Trading S.A. and as Executive Director of Erbamont and Ausimont. Lino Cardarelli graduated in Economics at the University of Parma (Italy) and attended a semester at the London School of Economics and Political Science (London), at the La Sorbonne (Paris) and at the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies (Salzburg, Austria). He holds a specialization at the Harvard Business School (Boston) in Strategic Finance and has a degree in Business Development at the IMEDE University in Lausanne (Switzerland).
Contributor(s): Mario Monti | Mario Monti is Italian Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy and Finance, positions he has held since 16 November 2011. He was President of Bocconi University, Milan, from 1994 to November 2011, when, upon his request, he was suspended from his functions as President of Bocconi for the duration of his mandate as President of the Council of Ministers. He was also European chairman of the Trilateral Commission and honorary president of Bruegel, the European think-tank he launched in 2005. He is the author of the report to the President of the European Commission on "A new strategy for the single market" (May 2010). As the EU-appointed coordinator for the electricity interconnection between France and Spain, he brokered an agreement between the two heads of governments in June 2008. He was a member of the Attali Committee on economic growth in France, set up by President Sarkozy (2007-2008). He was for ten years a member of the European Commission, in charge of the Internal market, Financial services and Tax policy (1995-1999), then of Competition policy (1999-2004). In addition to a number of high-profile cases (e.g. GE/Honeywell, Microsoft, the German Landesbanken), he introduced radical modernisation reforms of EU antitrust and merger control and led, with the US authorities, the creation of the International Competition Network (ICN). Born in Varese, Italy, in 1943, he graduated from Bocconi University and did graduate studies at Yale University. Prior to joining the European Commission, he had been professor of economics and rector at Bocconi University.
Contributor(s): Dr Guy Dammann | Everyone admits that there is no fact of the matter about aesthetic judgements. Nonetheless, constantly referring to artistic taste as 'relative' limits the power of art to change us. Guy Dammann is the music critic of the Times Literary Supplement, and a critic and commentator for the Guardian.
Contributor(s): Wadah Khanfar | The recent elections in Tunisia and Egypt have brought Islamist parties to power, a pattern that may very well repeat itself as uprisings turn to elections across the Arab world. In the west, this phenomenon has led to a debate about the 'problem' of the rise of political Islam. In the Arab world, too, there has been mounting tension between Islamists and secularists. As the Arab uprisings began, Wadah Khanfar, a former foreign correspondent in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, was the top executive at Al Jazeera, arguably the leading media source as the protests have unfolded, until he resigned in September 2011. As a former newsman and now CEO of Integral Media Strategies, Khanfar is in touch with some of the greatest thinkers and influential leaders and activists in the Middle East today and will reflect on what he sees as a necessary and long overdue debate about the rise of political Islam and where, politically and economically, he sees the region shifting as the rise continues. Wadah Khanfar is CEO of Integral Media Strategies and the former director general of the Al Jazeera Network. He began his career with the network in 1997, covering some of the world's key political zones, including South Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq. He was appointed the chief of the Baghdad bureau, and later as the network's managing director. In 2006, he became Al Jazeera's director general. During his 8-year tenure at the helm, the network transformed from a single channel into a media network including Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Documentary and the Al Jazeera Center for Studies. During this period, the Arab world witnessed historic transformation including Arab Awakening. Khanfar, who resigned from the network in September 2011, has been named as one of Foreign Policy's Top 100 global thinkers of 2011 as well as one of Fast Company's 'Most Creative People in Business' of the year. Khanfar has a diverse academic background with post-graduate studies in Philosophy, African Studies, and International Politics. Charlie Beckett is director of POLIS.
Contributor(s): Professor Michael Kimmel | We hear, occasionally, that women's studies discriminates against men. More often, it's that women's studies doesn't include men. In this lecture, Kimmel will suggest that women's studies provides an essential framework for understanding men's lives, and that framework actually will enable men to experience richer and fuller lives. By addressing several key thematic areas -- work, family life, sexuality -- he will show that the insights generated by women's studies are both available to men and, indeed, necessary for men to live the lives we say we want to live. Michael Kimmel is among the world's leading researchers on men and masculinities. The University Distinguished Professor of Sociology at State University of New York, Stony Brook, he is the author of the best-seller, Guyland: The perilous World Where Boys Become Men as well as The Gendered Society, Manhood In America, Men's Lives, A Gay's Guide to Feminism, and many other works. He is the founding editor for the scholarly journal Men and Masculinities.
Contributor(s): Bernard Hogan-Howe | The current commissioner of the Met and former chief constable of Merseyside Police will speak about his hopes and aspirations in relation to the future of policing in the capital. Bernard Hogan-Howe is the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service.
Contributor(s): Eric Ries | Most new businesses fail. But most of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach to business that's being adopted around the world. It is changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. The Lean Startup is about learning what your customers really want. It's about testing your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before it's too late. Now is the time to think Lean. This event marks the publication of Eric Ries new book The Lean Startup. Eric Ries is an entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup and the popular entrepreneurship blog Startup Lessons Learned.He co-founded and served as CTO of IMVU, his third startup. In 2007, BusinessWeek named him one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech. In 2009, he was honoured with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has consulted to new and established companies as well as venture capital firms. He is currently serving as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School and a Fellow for IDEO, the design consulting firm. His Lean Startup methodology has been written about in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, the Huffington Post, and many blogs.
Contributor(s): Professor Philip McCann | The special adviser to the European Commissioner for Regional Policy will discuss one of the great policy-making challenges of recent times. Professor Philip McCann is special adviser to Johannes Hahn and the University of Groningen Endowed Chair of Economic Geography.
Contributor(s): Professor Owen Flanagan | Can Buddhism be re-discovered as a naturalistic and comprehensive philosophy that is compatible with the rest of knowledge, yet capable of pointing us to a path of human flourishing? Owen Flanagan is James B Duke Professor of Philosophy at Duke University.
Contributor(s): Professor Juliet Schor, Professor Lord Skidelsky, Professor Tim Jackson | As the economic crisis deepens, this is the moment to consider moving towards much shorter, more flexible paid working hours – sharing out jobs and unpaid time more fairly across the population. The new economics foundation (nef) set out the case in its report 21 Hours: Why a shorter working week can help us all to flourish in the 21st century. Now, in partnership with CASE (Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion) at the London School of Economics, this event brings together a panel of experts to examine the social, environmental and economic implications. They will consider how far a shorter working week can help to address a range of urgent social, economic and environmental problems: unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being and entrenched inequalities. Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College, and author of Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth, and The Overworked American. Professor Lord Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick and biographer of J. M. Keynes. He is the co-author, with Dr Edward Skidelsky, of the forthcoming book, How Much is Enough? Economics and the Good Life. Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development at Surrey University, and author of Prosperity without Growth.
Contributor(s): Masaaki Shirakawa | Until a few years ago, the long stagnation of the Japanese economy after the bursting of a credit-fuelled asset bubble in the late 1980s was regarded as an episode that would never be replicated elsewhere in the world. Quite a few commentators argued that the recovery became unnecessarily drawn-out and painful because policy responses were ill-timed and inadequate. Many experts believed that prompt and massive policy responses would save any other economy from the same fate as Japan. Three years after the global economy had nearly suffered a meltdown in late 2008, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, growth, especially in the developed economies, remains anemic, in spite of the huge fiscal stimulus and decisive monetary easing quickly introduced by governments and central banks. Economists are drawing graphs of current GDP, inflation, property prices and interest rates superimposed with Japanese data from the 1990s, revealing eerily similar patterns. Now, there is a growing fear among the general public of a prolonged period of weak growth in the developed economies, expressed in one word as "Japanization." TMasaaki Shirakawa is the Governor of the Bank of Japan, he will reflect on the experience of Japan leading to and following the bursting of the Japanese bubble, drawing particular attention to the fragility of the recovery under economy-wide deleveraging. There will be a discussion on the similarities and dissimilarities between Japan in the 1990s and the current state of developed economies, with an added emphasis on factors behind the credit and asset-price cycles, including demography, the structure of the labor market and the sectoral distribution of debt. Another issue to be examined is the increasing concerns over the sustainability of government finances after massive fiscal stimuli. The speech will conclude by exploring the role of policy in sustaining and strengthening the recovery under the dual constraint of fiscal sustainability and the zero-bound on nominal interest rates. TMasaaki Shirakawa was born in Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan on September 27, 1949. Governor, Bank of Japan since April 9, 2008; Chair of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Asian Consultative Council since October 2010, and Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the BIS since January 2011; Member of the Group of Thirty since August 2009. Graduated from the University of Tokyo with a B.A. in Economics and hired by the Bank of Japan in 1972, he completed his advanced training at the University of Chicago (M.A. in 1977). At the Bank of Japan, his career encompassed both monetary policy and financial stability, and held key positions, including Executive Director (2002 - 2006), responsible for laying the groundwork of Japanese monetary policy decisions. He also had extensive international experience, as the General Manager for the Americas and as the Advisor to the Governor for International Capital Markets. Leaving the Bank in July 2006, he assumed Professorship at the Kyoto University School of Government until March 2008, when he rejoined the Bank.
Contributor(s): Daniel Sieberg | At the start of the new year, Daniel Sieberg, author of The Digital Diet: The Four-step Plan to Break your Tech Addiction and Regain Balance in your Life offers timely advice for technology gluttons everywhere, explaining how best to ditch the digital dependency, take back control of your life, restore real relationships, and use technology in a healthier way. Daniel Sieberg works with Google marketing in New York. An Emmy-nominated journalist he is a former technology correspondent for CBS and CNN, and previously hosted science and technology programmes for online channel ABC News NOW.
Contributor(s): Angus Roxburgh | Former BBC correspondent Angus Roxburgh talks about his new book on the Putin years and Russia's relationship with the West. Drawing on exclusive interviews conducted for a new BBC documentary series, he describes Putin's descent into authoritarianism, and also argues that the West threw away chances to bring Russia in from the cold, by failing to understand its fears and aspirations following the collapse of communism. This event marks the publication of Angus Roxburgh's latest book The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the struggle for Russia. Angus Roxburgh is one of Britain's most distinguished foreign correspondents. An author and renowned journalist, he was the Sunday Times Moscow Correspondent in the mid-1980s and the BBC's Moscow correspondent during the Yeltsin years. He is the author of The Second Russian Revolution and Pravda: Inside the Soviet Press Machine.
Contributor(s): Professor Roger Owen | Professor Owen will look at Egypt's Tahrir Square revolution in the light of the revolutions of 1919 and 1952, drawing on them to indicate some of the problems and possibilities ahead. Roger Owen is A J Meyer Professor of Middle East History at Harvard University.