London School of Economics: Public lectures and events

Speaker(s): Usman Ahmed, Shaykh Nizam Yaquby | This event reflects on the current developments and initiatives in Islamic finance and explains how this faith based form of finance continues to enhance modern finance and law. Usman Ahmed is Citigroup CEO of Global Islamic Banking. Shaykh Nizam Yaquby is an Islamic Sharia scholar.

Speaker(s): Lord Brittan of Spennithorne | After 35 years Britain still seems to be struggling with its relationship with the EU. as a former Cabinet Minister, and then Britain's longest serving EU Commissioner, Leon Brittan looks at the underlying issues, relationships and institutional developments, and seeks answers to the question: what has changed over the past 35 years? Lord Brittan of Spennithorne was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in Mrs Thatcher's Government. He then became Britain's longest serving EU Commissioner.

Speaker(s): Professor Stuart Corbridge | In this new series of lunchtime lectures, nine of LSE's most senior academics explain the latest thinking on how social scientists work to address the critical problems of the day. They survey the leading ideas and contributions made by their discipline, explain the types of problems that are addressed and the tools that are used, and explore the kinds of solutions proposed.Stuart Corbridge is professor of human geography at LSE.

Speaker(s): Tim Harford | From teenage sex to the scourge of racism, Tim Harford explains why economics can provide the answers other disciplines cannot reach.Tim Harford is the author of The Undercover Economist, is a member of the Financial Times editorial board and writes a regular column for the FT magazine.

Speaker(s): Alex de Waal | This lecture asks if the global AIDS response has been good for human rights but bad for disease control? Alex de Waal is programme director at the Social Science Research Council and author of AIDS and Power: why there is no political crisis yet.

Speaker(s): Professor Paul Kennedy | The United States today is undoubtedly the 'number one' power in world affairs, but it also faces the challenges that our fast changing and fractured world throws up. This has caused enormous debate among scholars of international strategic affairs about how best to measure relative American power.

Speaker(s): John Hutton MP | Britain has long realised the best way to progress is to look outward rather than retreat inwards. In previous centuries, progressives responded to great social and economic change by moving to create an open society. In this lecture, Business and Enterprise Secretary, John Hutton will argue that the right progressive response to the scale and pace of global change facing Britain this century is to break down the remaining barriers that can hold people back by creating a truly open economy.

Speaker(s): Professor Bruno Latour | A rival of Durkheim, Gabriel Tarde was right to argue that the subject matter of sociology is not society but connections. The understanding of the social cannot be separated from the study of other associations.Bruno Latour is a philosopher and a sociologist and vice president for research at Sciences Po.

Speaker(s): Jonathan Steele | Jonathan Steele will argue that the occupation has failed, not because of a lack of pre-war planning, but because of a lack of informed political analysis by US decision-makers and the British Foreign Office. They failed to see that Islamists, Sunni and Shia, would fill the post-Saddam vacuum and that most Iraqis would quickly come to resent yet another Western intervention in the Middle East.

Speaker(s): Professor Saul Estrin | In this new series of lunchtime lectures, nine of LSE's most senior academics explain the latest thinking on how social scientists work to address the critical problems of the day. They survey the leading ideas and contributions made by their discipline, explain the types of problems that are addressed and the tools that are used, and explore the kinds of solutions proposed.Saul Estrin is head of the Department of Management at LSE.

Speaker(s): Professor Fred Halliday | The academic study of International Relations has, since since its emergence after World War I, sought to combine the development of theoretical frameworks with an engagement, of greater or lesser immediacy, with the changing course of international events. Empire, World War, Cold War and post-1991 US hegemony have all been objects of its concern. Today, oscillating at times uneasily between the enticements of abstraction, and the rush of actuality, the discipline faces a major opportunity, to provide an authoritative conceptualisation of, and normative orientation, within, international politics. In this, his valedictory lecture as Montague Burton Professor of International Relations, Fred Halliday will assess the state of IR today, and the challenges posed by the tensions of the twenty-first century.

Speaker(s): Lord Maurice Saatchi | Americans today may be perplexed and confused about the way America is perceived in the world. They may feel like Josef K in Kafka's 'The Trial': "Someone must have laid false accusations against Josef K because one morning he was arrested without having done anything wrong." Accusations against America have spread into a global phenomenon, crossing boarders, classes, religions, and generations. A Pew Trust research poll in 2005 concluded that anti-Americanism is deeper and broader than at any time in modern history. What to do?

Speaker(s): Clarence Mitchell, Justine McGuiness; Kelvin MacKenzie; Roy Greenslade; Roger Graef | The McCanns were the biggest media story of 2007. This event goes behind the headlines to ask why it became a media obsession, whether information or entertainment triumphed, and what impact the coverage has as the case continues.

Speaker(s): Professor Sevket Pamuk | The lecture will discuss the rise of export oriented industrial centres across Turkey in recent decades, how they have contributed to the electoral successes of the Justice and Development Party and their ongoing impact on Turkey's economic and political liberalisation.

Speaker(s): Guillermo Bettocchi | Guillermo Bettocchi is the Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Somalia. During his 19 years of service with the UNHCR, Mr. Bettocchi has occupied different positions in Central America, South West Asia, Africa, and, on two occasions, at the organisation's Headquarters in Geneva. A lawyer by profession, Mr Bettocchi's work has been focused on legal and practical issues related to refugee protection.