Public Lectures and Events
Audio and Video recordings from LSE's programme of public lectures and events
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Literary Festival 2015: High Culture and the Western Canon: has the fightback begun? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Sarah Churchwell, Jonty Claypole, Maya Jaggi, Frederic Raphael ...
Speaker(s): Professor Sarah Churchwell, Jonty Claypole, Maya Jaggi, Frederic Raphael | With the BBC having announced a remake of Kenneth Clark's TV series Civilisation, and Melvyn Bragg’s intellectual cornucopia on Radio 4, In Our Time, now in its 17th year, we will be asking whether the mission of Lord Reith 'to educate, inform and entertain' is alive and well. Can Matthew Arnold, TS Eliot and FR Leavis sleep well in their graves? Has the era of dumbing down to ' widen access ' run its course? Why shouldn't ALL schoolchildren be asked to grapple with the 'difficult' texts, rich canvases or musical scores of our western inheritance? Why shouldn't everyone have the chance to join the 'elite'? Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at UEA. She is the author of Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and The Invention of The Great Gatsby, The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, and her literary journalism has appeared in the Guardian, New Statesman, TLS, New York Times Book Review, and the Spectator, among others. She comments regularly on arts, culture, and politics for UK television and radio, has judged many literary prizes, including the Bailey’s (Orange) Prize for Fiction and the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and she is the 2015 Eccles Centre Writer in Residence at the British Library. Jonty Claypole is Director of Arts at the BBC. He works across television, radio and online, ensuring the BBC succeeds in its mission of "Arts for Everyone". As a director then executive producer, he has made over 100 television documentaries for BBC Television, including landmark series like Seven Ages of Britain, A History of Art in Three Colours, A Very British Renaissance and Andrew Marr's Great Scotts. He has created strands like What Do Artists Do All Day, Secret Knowledge and In Their Own Words. He also runs BBC Television's in-house arts department with production teams right across the country. Maya Jaggi is a cultural journalist and critic who has reported from five continents, and was contracted as one of Guardian Review’s leading profile writers for a decade.She has also written for the FT, Independent, Sunday Times Culture, Daily Telegraph, Economist and Newsweek; and was writer-presenter of the BBC4 TV documentary Isabel Allende: The Art of Reinvention. Her conversations with cultural theorist Stuart Hall were made into a four-hour film by Mike Dibb. She has judged literary awards including the Dublin Impac and Orange, and chaired the jury of the Man Asian in Hong Kong. Educated at Oxford and LSE, she was described as “one of Britain’s most respected arts journalists” by the Open University, which awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2012. Frederic Raphael, a major scholar in classics at St John's College, Cambridge, has written over twenty-five novels and volumes of short stories, as well as essays, biographies, translations and many reviews. His most recent book on the ancient world is A Jew Among the Romans about Flavius Josephus. His second volume of autobiography, Going Up, will be published next year. So will his novel Private Views. Among his many film and television scripts are Darling, Two for the Road, the Glittering Prizes and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. His most recent script, This Man This Woman is due to be shot next year. The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) was established in 1991 as a dedicated centre for the interdisciplinary study of processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. In the most recent national Research Assessment Exercise, the Institute was ranked first for research in European Studies in the United Kingdom. The LSE European Institute has been a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence since 2009. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'.
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The Minimum Wage in the UK and Beyond [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Alan Manning, Nicola Smith | The Centre for ...
Speaker(s): Professor Alan Manning, Nicola Smith | The Centre for Economic Performance has played an important role in the development of the UK’s National Minimum Wage, which was voted the most successful government policy of the last 30 years. But the minimum wage seems to be stuck in something of a rut and there are many ideas for how to rejuvenate it. This lecture will show how evidence can be used to evaluate these proposals. Alan Manning is Professor of Economics and Director of the Community Programme at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at LSE. Nicola Smith (@nicolatuc) is Head of Economic and Social Affairs at the TUC. David Metcalf is Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations in the Department of Management and Associate in the Labour Markets Programme of the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE. The Centre for Economic Performance (@CEP_LSE) is an interdisciplinary research centre at the LSE Research Laboratory. It was established by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in 1990 and is now one of the leading economic research groups in Europe. LSE Works is a series of public lectures, that will showcase some of the latest research by LSE's academic departments and research centres. In each session, LSE academics will present key research findings, demonstrating where appropriate the implications of their studies for public policy. A list of all the LSE Works lectures can be viewed at LSE Works. To see more about the impact of this research, visit Designing a minimum wage to reduce poverty and wage inequality at LSE Research Impact.
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Literary Festival 2015: "My Purse, My Person": money and identity [Audio]
Speaker(s): David Birch, Professor Nigel Dodd, Tom Hockenhull, Professor Nicky ...
Speaker(s): David Birch, Professor Nigel Dodd, Tom Hockenhull, Professor Nicky Marsh | As our money increasingly takes the form of plastic cards and mobile phones, rather than cash, new questions are being posed about the connections between money, self and identity. Is money becoming de-anonymised, and if so, should we care? Is the decline of cash a moment of renewal in our relationship with money, or a threat to the freedom that has been central to its use? This panel will discuss changing attitudes towards money and the affect it can have, in its many different guises, on our identity. David Birch (@dgwbirch) is an internationally-recognised thought leader in digital money and digital identity. He is a Director of Consult Hyperion, the technical and strategic consultancy that specialises in electronic transactions. Here he provides consultancy support to clients around the world, including all of the leading payment brands, major telecommunications providers, governments bodies and international organisations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Nigel Dodd (@nigelbdodd) is Professor in the Sociology Department at the LSE. Nigel’s main interests are in the sociology of money, economic sociology and classical and contemporary social thought. He is author of The Sociology of Money and Social Theory and Modernity (both published by Polity Press). His new book, The Social Life of Money, was published by Princeton University Press in September 2014. Tom Hockenhull is a curator at the British Museum, responsible for the modern money collection and editor of Symbols of Power: Ten Coins that Changed the World. Nicky Marsh works in the English Department at the University of Southampton. She works on late 20th and 21st century British and American literatures, theories of gender, postmodernism, poetics and economics. Her published works include Money, Finance and Speculation in Contemporary British Fiction, Democracy in US Women’s Poetry and the edited collection Literature and Globalization. She is also the co-curator of the exhibition Show Me the Money: the Image of Finance, 1700 to the Present, which is touring through 2014-15. Izabella Kaminska (@izakaminska) is a reporter for FT Alphaville. The Department of Sociology at LSE (@LSEsociology) was established in 1904 and remains committed to top quality teaching and leading research and scholarship today. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'.
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Literary Festival 2015: The Soul of the Marionette: a short inquiry into human freedom [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor John Gray | John Gray draws together the ...
Speaker(s): Professor John Gray | John Gray draws together the religious, philosophic and fantastical traditions that question the very idea of human freedom. We flatter ourselves about the nature of free will and yet the most enormous forces - biological, physical, metaphysical - constrain our every action. Many writers and intellectuals have always understood this, but instead of embracing our condition we battle against it, with everyone from world conquerors to modern scientists dreaming of a 'human dominion' almost comically at odds with our true state. John Gray is the author of a number of highly regarded books including False Dawn, Straw Dogs and most recently The Silence of Animals. He has taught at Oxford, Harvard, Yale and LSE. This event marks the publication of The Soul of the Marionette. Danielle Sands is a Fellow at the Forum for European Philosophy. The Forum for European Philosophy (@LSEPhilosophy ) is an educational charity which organises and runs a full and varied programme of philosophy and interdisciplinary events in the UK. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'.
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Literary Festival 2015: Origins, Translations and Adaptation: from page to stage [Audio]
Speaker(s): David Harsent, Jeremy Sams | Is a translation or ...
Speaker(s): David Harsent, Jeremy Sams | Is a translation or adaptation bound always to be measured against the work on which it was founded, or can it take on an independent life of its own? In discussion David Harsent and Jeremy Sams reflect on the differing demands and opportunities presented by translation and adaptation. David Harsent (@DavidHarsent1) has published eleven collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Fire Songs. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Roehampton and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His work in music theatre has involved collaborations with a number of composers, but most often with Harrison Birtwistle, and has been performed at the Royal Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the Proms and on Channel 4. He was the librettist of two of the most significant British operas of recent years, Gawain and The Minotaur, and has in addition produced a significant body of English versions of the Greek poet Yannis Ritsos. Jeremy Sams is a theatre director, lyricist and translator of opera libretti as well as a composer, orchestrator and musical director. He is a translator of both straight theatre (Moliere, Botho Strauss) and libretti for numerous operas (most recently the ENO’s Marriage of Figaro), as well as, in his capacity as musician and composer, putting together the unique project The Enchanted Isle (Metropolitan Opera New York). Angus Wrenn is Co-ordinating Language Teacher (EAP) in the LSE Language Centre with special responsibilities for Literature Degree Options. The Language Centre (@lselangcentre) at LSE reflects the specialist nature of the School itself, namely, a world class institution where the quality of teaching and research is paramount. LSE is not just a multi-national university but also a multi-lingual one. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'.
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An urbanising world: triumph or tragedy? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Herbert Girardet | Prof. Herbert Girardet’s public lecture was ...
Speaker(s): Herbert Girardet | Prof. Herbert Girardet’s public lecture was based on his new book, Creating Regenerative Cities, published by Routledge in October 2014. Is an urbanising world a ‘triumph of the city’, or an environmental tragedy in the making? He argued for a fundamental conceptual shift in the way we organise our urban systems, and for thinking and acting beyond ‘sustainable development’. In Girardet’s view large modern cities have effectively tried to declare their independence from nature. We tend to see cities as centres of the universe rather than as appendages of ecosystems and climate systems. How can we assure that modern cities develop a regenerative relationship to the living world on whose health they ultimately depend? Girardet is a prolific author, speaker and consultant. His new book has been described by Huffington Post as one of the world’s three best green books of 2014.
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Literary Festival 2015: Perceptions of Madness: understanding mental illness through art, literature and drama [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr Sarah Carr, Paul Farmer, Nathan Filer, Dr John ...
Speaker(s): Dr Sarah Carr, Paul Farmer, Nathan Filer, Dr John McGowan | How mental illness is portrayed in art, literature and on TV can have a positive or negative effect on how the public perceives mental ill health. Representations of people with mental health problems can range from the mad psychotic criminal to people within their daily lives dealing with depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. This panel discussion explores how such presentations of mental illness can affect public understanding of mental ill health with insights from research and personal experiences. Sarah Carr (@SchrebersSister) has a background as a senior research and policy analyst in mental health and social care, with a focus on service user participation, personalisation and equality issues. She runs her own independent mental health and social care knowledge consultancy. Most recently she worked for the Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE) as a Senior Research Analyst and was seconded to the role of Joint Head of Participation. She is an Honorary Senior Lecturer, Institute for Applied Social Science, School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham; a Visiting Fellow, Social Policy and Social Work, University of York and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. As Co Vice-Chair of the National Survivor and User Network (NSUN) and a member of the editorial board of the journal Disability and Society, Sarah has a particular interest in mental health issues and is a long term user of services. Paul Farmer (@paulfarmermind) has been Chief Executive of Mind, the leading mental health charity working in England and Wales, since May 2006. Paul is Chair of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO), the leading voice of the UK’s charity and social enterprise sector. Paul is also a trustee at Lloyds Bank Foundation which invests in charities supporting people to break out of disadvantage at critical points in their lives. He is also Chair of the NHS England Mental Health Patient Safety Board. Paul received an honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of East London and was chosen as most admired charity Chief Executive in the Third Sector Most Admired Charities Awards 2013. Nathan Filer (@nathanfiler) is the author of The Shock of the Fall, winner of the Costa Book of the Year (2013), the Betty Trask Prize (2014), and Popular Fiction Book of the Year at the National Book Awards (2014). It has been translated into twenty-seven languages. He worked as a mental health nurse for many years and in 2014 was named as a Nursing Times’ Nursing Leader for “influencing the way the public thinks about mental illness”. He lectures in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. John McGowan (@cccuapppsy) is Clinical Psychologist. Following many years working in acute mental health wards in the NHS, he is now works on the Clinical Psychology Training scheme at the Salomons Centre for Applied Psychology in Kent. As well as conducting research into self-harm and suicide, he is currently editing a new British Psychological Society Report on Depression. He has written for The Guardian, the Health Service Journal and blogs regularly at Discursive of Tunbridge Wells. He will be speaking on 'Psychos, Cuckoo's Nests and Silver Linings: Madness in the Movies'. Martin Knapp is Director of PSSRU and a Professor of Social Policy at LSE. He is also Director of the NIHR School for Social Care Research. The Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) is one of the leading social care research groups, not just in the UK, but internationally. The LSE branch of PSSRU sits within LSE Health and Social Care (@LSEHSC) in the Department of Social Policy (@LSESocialPolicy). This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'.
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Literary Festival 2015: Thought Stories: philosophy for a young audience [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Luc Bovens, Anne Fine, Peter Worley | Literature ...
Speaker(s): Professor Luc Bovens, Anne Fine, Peter Worley | Literature is a successful medium to introduce philosophy to school children. Our panel features a children’s author whose books contain philosophical themes, a philosopher who has published extensively for the philosophy curriculum in schools, and a philosopher who is developing an ethics curriculum for schools based on short stories in world literature. Luc Bovens (@LucBovens) is Head of the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE. Luc Bovens joined LSE in 2004 from the University of Colorado at Boulder (1990-2003) having previously completed his PhD at the University of Minnesota (1990). He is coordinator of the MSc Philosophy and Public Policy. Anne Fine is one of Britain’s most distinguished writers for both adults and children. She has twice been voted Children’s Author of the Year. The BBC have screened adaptations of several of her books, and her novel Madame Doubtfire was transformed into a Hollywood film starring Robin Williams in 1993. Anne was Children’s Laureate from 2001-3, during which time she set up www.myhomelibrary.org, a website that continues to offer a host of freshly designed and freely downloadable modern bookplates to enthuse children to form their own home libraries from the second hand books around them. She also published three classic anthologies of poetry for different ages, called A Shame to Miss 1, 2 & 3. She has published eight highly acclaimed black comedies for adults, and her work has been translated into forty-five languages. In 2003 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and awarded an OBE. Peter Worley (@the_if_man) is Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of The Philosophy Foundation (@philosophyfound). He is President of SOPHIA, the European Foundation for the advancement of doing philosophy with children and a Visiting Research Associate at King's College London. He is a multi-award winning author for Bloomsbury Education and author and editor for Crown House Publishing on The Philosophy Foundation Series of books. A BBC series adapted from The If Machine was nominated for a Children’s BAFTA in 2013. Emma Worley (@rosiecoaching) is Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of The Philosophy Foundation. She has worked as an drama educator for schools and regularly works with children’s charity Scene and Heard as both an actor, director and dramaturg. The Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE (@LSEPhilosophy) is internationally renowned for a type of philosophy that is both continuous with the sciences and socially relevant. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'.
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Literary Festival 2015: Commemorating 1815: politics and the arts after Waterloo [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr Tim Hochstrasser, Dr Kirsten Schulze, Professor Alan Sked, ...
Speaker(s): Dr Tim Hochstrasser, Dr Kirsten Schulze, Professor Alan Sked, Dr Paul Stock | In the bicentenary anniversary of Waterloo, a panel of LSE historians reflect on the legacy of Napoleon's defeat. The panellists discuss the political and artistic aftermath of Waterloo as well as the consequences for European and global history. Tim Hochstrasser is Associate Professor in the Department of International History at LSE. Dr Hochstrasser's research focuses on the two-way relationship between intellectual life and political action in the history of early modern Europe, and above all on the use made of contemporary historical and philosophical writing to legitimate and defend changing concepts of sovereignty and political structure. Kirsten Schulze is Associate Professor in International History at LSE. She has been the head of the LSE Ideas Southeast Asia Program since 2012. From 2005-2012 she ran the Indonesia Seminar as part of the Chatham House Asia Program. Dr Schulze has conducted research on armed conflicts in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Alan Sked is Professor of International History. Professor Sked's main fields of interest are very wide-ranging. He is a world expert on the Habsburg Monarchy, with his books on it translated into German, Italian, Czech, Portuguese and Japanese. He is presently writing the Penguin History of Post-War (Western) Europe, which will also cover post-war Britain. Paul Stock is Assistant Professor in the Department of International History. Dr Stock specialises in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century intellectual history. His current research focuses on the history of the idea of Europe and on the history of spatial and geographical thought, particularly in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. Paul Keenan is Assistant Professor in the Department of International History at LSE, and LSE-PKU Programme Director. The Department of International History (@lsehistory) is one of the top five university history departments in the UK. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'.
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Literary Festival 2015: The China Dream [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor William A Callahan, Chan Koonchung, Isabel Hilton | ...
Speaker(s): Professor William A Callahan, Chan Koonchung, Isabel Hilton | The 'China Dream' is the keyword of contemporary propaganda discourse in the People's Republic. This panel discusses the immense variety of aspirations and dreams in contemporary Chinese society. .William A Callahan is Professor of International Relations at the LSE, and his recent publications include China Dreams: 20 Visions of the Future, and the documentary video, China Dreams: The Debate. Chan Koonchung is a Chinese writer and critic. His novel The Fat Years- China in 2013 presents a dystopian future in which the dream of a 'harmonious society' has been realized. His latest book is The Unbearable Dreamworld of Champa the Driver. Isabel Hilton (@isabelhilton) is a writer and broadcaster, and founding editor of Chinadialogue. She has worked with the BBC, the New Yorker, the Guardian, Granta, the Independent, among others. Her publications include Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar and The Search for the Panchen Lama. In 2009 she was awarded an OBE. Hans Steinmüller is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at LSE. On the basis of long-term fieldwork in rural China he has published Communities of Complicity. Everyday Ethics in Rural China. The International Relations Department at LSE (@LSEIRDept) is now in its 87th year, making it one of the oldest as well as largest in the world. LSE's Anthropology Department (@LSEAnthropology), with a long and distinguished history, remains a leading centre for innovative research and teaching. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme 'Foundations'. There is an opportunity to view William Callahan's film Toilet Adventures as part of the Festival Fringe 2015 on Wednesday 25 February.
