London School of Economics: Public lectures and events

Speaker(s): Pat Barker | Moving from the Slade School of Art to Queen Mary's Hospital, where surgery and art intersect in the rebuilding of the shattered faces of the wounded, Pat Barker’s latest novel Toby's Room is a riveting drama of identity, damage, intimacy and loss. This event will explore art’s responsibility to war, and the links between art, literature, science and history.Pat Barker was born in Thornaby-on-Tees in 1943. She was educated at LSE and has been a teacher of history and politics. Her books include Union Street (1982), winner of the 1983 Fawcett Prize, which has been filmed as Stanley and Iris; Blow Your House Down (1984); Liza's England (1986), formerly The Century's Daughter, The Man Who Wasn't There (1989); the highly acclaimed Regeneration trilogy, comprising Regeneration,The Eye in The Door, winner of the 1993 Guardian Fiction Prize, and The Ghost Road, winner of the 1995 Booker Prize for Fiction and Another World. Her last novel was Life Class.Suzannah Biernoff is lecturer in modern and contemporary visual culture, Department of History of Art and Screen Media at Birkbeck College.This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Carola Luther, Michael McGregor, Dr Llewelyn Morgan | How well can political ideas and sentiments be expressed and illuminated in poetry? Are oblique references more successful than the overt? Is the formulation of political ideas in poetry intrinsically more difficult than other ideas? Does a poet’s expression of politics necessarily compromise her status as a poet, or are our views of these matters culturally specific, related to assumptions about and ideals of the poet that cannot be applied at all historical times.In this panel discussion speakers will read short passages of poetry to illustrate their points.Carola Luther is a former poet in residence at The Wordsworth Trust, now living in Yorkshire. She is the author of Arguing with Malarchy and Walking the Animals (Carcanet Press) and Herd (Wordsworth Trust). Carola will examine the topic from the perspective of contemporary poetry.Michael McGregor is The Robert Woof Director of The Wordsworth Trust – an organisation that not only curates the world’s most important collection of Wordsworth manuscripts, but also supports contemporary poetry through readings, workshops and a poetry residence. Michael’s remarks will centre on the treatment of political issues such as the French Revolution by Wordsworth and other Romantics.Llewelyn Morgan is lecturer in classical literature and language and tutorial fellow in classics at Brasenose College, Oxford, and author of Musa Pedestris: Metre and Meaning in Roman Verse, Oxford University Press. Llewelyn will focus on the Latin poets, Virgil and Horace, who wrote under the indirect patronage of the first Roman emperor.Richard Bronk is a visiting fellow at the European Institute, LSE, and author of The Romantic Economist (Cambridge University Press).This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Katy Darby | Editor's note: This podcast contains writing exercises, which may mean some periods of silence during the recording, but we would encourage you to join in. Bored of the same old viewpoint or genre? Want to inject new life into your prose? Katy Darby talks about experimenting and playing around with different approaches to writing fiction. We'll explore the genesis and development of ideas (and come up with some new ones of our own) - and discuss ways of telling a story which can refresh a dusty narrative and teach an old plot new tricks. Katy Darby is author of The Unpierced Heart, director of short story event Liars' League and writing tutor at City University. This is the second of three workshops, preceeded by Fast Fiction: creative writing and changing technology at 10am, and followed by Based on a True Story at 12noon. This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Dr Vayu Naidu, Michael Wood | Editor's note: We apologise for the poor audio quality of this recording. After a performance by the highly acclaimed story teller Vayu Naidu of a story from the Ramayana, this discussion will explore the oral tradition of storytelling, and fiction.Vayu Naidu is a story teller. She is founder and artistic director of the Vau Naidu company, which promotes storytelling as theatre, with a signature style combining text, music and dance. She has brought research and performance of oral traditions into British Academy, creating new works with composers and orchestras and for theatre and radio drama. Her debut novel is Sita's Ascent.Michael Wood is a British historian and filmmaker. He has made over 100 documentary films including In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great and The Story of India, which have been seen in most countries of the world; the latest was The Great British Story on BBC 2 this summer. Among his many books he is the author of The Story of India (BBC) and a contributor to Chidambaram the Home of Nataraja (Marg Mumbai); his South Indian Journey (Penguin) was praised by Rough Guides as ‘one of the most enlightening books ever written about South India’. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a governor of the RSC.Mukulika Banerjee is a reader in Social Anthropology at LSE.This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festivals, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Gabriella Ambrosio, Vered Cohen–Barzilay, Marina Nemat | Literature has a unique capacity to touch the hearts and minds and engage readers in a way that is distinctly different from political or academic texts. Can it play a role in exposing human rights violations? Should literature be ‘engaged’, and should authors take political or social stand?Gabriella Ambrosio’s first novel, Before we Say Goodbye, was inspired by the true story of a suicide bombing and is widely used as an educational tool.Vered Cohen–Barzilay is founder of Novel Rights, which encourages the literary community to take action.Marina Nemat’s memoir, Prisoner of Tehran, tells of growing up in Iran, being imprisoned for speaking out against the Iranian government and escaping a death sentence.Susan Marks joined the LSE in 2010 as Professor of International Law.This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Jonathan Gibbs | Editor's note: This podcast contains writing exercises, which may mean some periods of silence during the recording, but we would encourage you to join in. It’s a truism that technology is changing the way we live our lives – but should this fact change just what we write about, or should it change the way we write too? In this workshop we will look at – and try out – various ways that writers have tried to keep pace with the new dynamics of the digital age, including flash fiction and Twitter fiction, as well as seeing what happens when we try to incorporate these new ways of understanding the world, and dealing with the information overload, into more tradition prose styles and forms. Bring a pad and paper, and a Twitter-enabled communication device (phone or laptop) ready to tweet – set up an account if you don’t have one. Jonathan Gibbs is currently finishing a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia, where he was awarded a Malcolm Bradbury memorial bursary, and graduate teacher of the Year. His story, Tiny Camels is published by www.shortfirepress.com and his novel Randall, or The Painted Grape is currently on submission. This is the first of three workshops, followed by Trying New Positions: how to spice up your text life at 11am, and Based on a True Story at 12noon. This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Hugh Tomlinson QC, Karon Monaghan QC, Jamie Burton, Martin Howe QC, Richard Honey, Tim Frost, Will Hutton, Andrew Lilico, Ruth Porter, Magdalena Sepulveda, Polly Toynbee | Introduction: Conor Gearty (LSE Department of Law) and Aoife Nolan (Just Fair) Judge: Hugh Tomlinson QC (Matrix Chambers) Prosecution: led by Karon Monaghan QC (Matrix Chambers) with Jamie Burton (Doughty Street) Defence: led by Martin Howe QC (8 New Square) with Richard Honey (Francis Taylor Building) Expert Witnesses: Tim Frost (Cairn Capital Group), Will Hutton (Oxford University), Andrew Lilico (Europe Economics), Ruth Porter (Institute of Economic Affairs), Magdalena Sepúlveda(UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights) and Polly Toynbee (The Guardian)Does UK government policy on economic austerity breach international human rights law? In an innovative legal proceedings, the charges will be brought, and 'Austerity' defended, by a team of legal experts, backed by distinguished human rights and other specialist witnesses from the UK and around the world. Overseen by a leading barrister acting as judge, the trial will end with a verdict delivered by a jury of children and young people, as well as the audience. The jury is made up of members of Amplify (the Children's Commissioner for England's Advisory Group of children and young people) and members of the LSE Widening Participation Programme.For full speaker biographies, the prosecution indictment and the defence statement for the event, please click on Event posting.For additional information on the event, please click on the Just Fair - Austerity on Trial link in Related Links below.

Speaker(s): Professor Russell Goulbourne, Dr Tim Hochstrasser, Dr Paul Keenan | This discussion will explore the work and influence of the French Enlightenment philosopher, art critic and writer Denis Diderot, a key figure for the Festival in the 300th anniversary of the year of his birth. Probably best known for co-founding and editing the Encyclopedie, our panel of experts will discuss this and other less well-known areas of his life, including his association with Catherine the Great and his writings about Pacific discoveries.Russell Goulbourne is professor of early modern French literature at the University of Leeds and his books include a translation of Diderot’s The Nun.Tim Hochstrasser is senior lecturer in 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.Paul Keenan is lecturer in international history at LSE. Dr Keenan's research deals with Russia during the eighteenth century and, in particular, the role of St Petersburg in the relationship between Russia and other contemporary European states.Paul Stock is lecturer in early modern international history at LSE.This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Jenny Uglow | Jenny Uglow celebrates National Women’s History Month and its theme ‘women inspiring innovation through imagination’ with this talk about Sarah Losh, who built an extraordinary church in a village near Carlisle in the 1840s. As a woman innovator she broke all conventions in designing, supervising the building, and even carving the alabaster - sixty years before women architects were accepted into RIBA. She has been called ‘a Charlotte Bronte of wood and stone’, defying the gothic vogue, and creating a Romantic language of symbols, from the pinecone and lotus to fossils from local mines, incorporating new ideas from geology and science, and celebrating the buried past and resurrection of the earth.Jenny Uglow’s books include Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories, The Lunar Men: The Friends who Made the Future and, most recently, The Pinecone.Hermione Lee is well known as a writer, reviewer and broadcaster. Her books include biographies of Virginia Woolf and Edith Wharton.This event is organised in association with the Royal Society of Literature. Forthcoming RSL speakers include: Emma Donoghue, Jung Chang, Hermione Lee, Richard Mabey, Alice Oswald and Robin Robertson. Please visit www.rslit.org to book or for more information. Membership of the Royal Society of Literature is open to all. This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Professor David Abulafia | One great sea, a multitude of cultures and an embarrassment of riches: David Abulafia shares his intellectual odyssey from Alicante to Alexandria, from Salerno to Smyrna.David Abulafia is professor of Mediterranean History at Cambridge University and author of The Great Sea: a human history of the Mediterranean.Helen Moore is fellow and tutor at Corpus Christi College, Oxford and University lecturer in the Faculty of English.This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Professor John Gray | John Gray draws on an extraordinary array of memoirs, poems, fiction and philosophy to make us re-imagine our place in the world. Writers as varied as Ballard, Borges, Freud and Conrad are mesmerised by forms of human extremity - experiences on the outer edge of the possible, or which tip into fantasy and myth. What happens to us when we starve, when we fight, when we are imprisoned? And how do our imaginations leap into worlds way beyond our real experience?In this lecture, John Gray will explore the conundrum of our existence - an existence which we decorate with countless myths and ideas, where we twist and turn to avoid acknowledging that we too are animals, separated from the others perhaps only by our self-conceit. In the Babel we have created for ourselves, it is the silence of animals that both reproaches and bewitches us.John Gray is emeritus professor of european thought at LSE, and author of Straw Dogs, The Immortalization Commission and The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths.This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Leandro Carrera, Professor Patrick Dunleavy, Joe Grice, Edwin Lau, Barry Quirk | For many decades there has been little effective analysis and guidance on how to improve the organizational productivity of government bodies consistently over time. Yet unless this can be achieved, the relative price of public services is doomed to rise ineluctably (the 'Baumol disease' problem).Leandro Carrera and Patrick Dunleavy's new book Growing the Productivity of Government Services (published by Edward Elgar) provides the first in-depth empirical treatment of the organizational productivity of unique national government agencies, focusing on UK taxation, social security and regulatory agencies. In addition, they also show how productivity analysis for decentralized services can include salient and managerially useful variables, looking at how IT and management modernization help shape the productivity of NHS hospitals. The first rule of productivity growth in public services is to focus hard on consistently measuring and improving productivity performance. The second rule is to embrace IT modernization carried out in tandem with genuinely effective and well-considered business process reorganization.This lecture will discuss ideas for the improvement of public sector productivity from a local, national and international government perspective.Leandro Carrera is a senior researcher at the Pensions Policy Institute.Patrick Dunleavy is professor of political science and public policy at LSE.Joe Grice is chief economist at the Office for National Statistics.Edwin Lau is head of the Reform of the Public Sector Division in the OECD Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate.Barry Quirk is chief executive at the London Borough of Lewisham.Diane Coyle OBE is a freelance economist, and is a member of the UK Competition Commission and Vice Chairman of the BBC Trust. Previously she was an advisor to the UK Treasury and the Economics Editor of the Independent.LSE Public Policy Group (PPG) is an independent consultancy and research organisation.PPG provides thorough analysis and recommendations for a variety of clients; providing an interface between academia, the private, public and 'third' sector.LSE Works is a series of public lectures, that will showcase some of the latest research by LSE's 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 online.

Speaker(s): Professor Jerry Brotton, Mike Parker | Editor's note: Unfortunately the last few minutes of the lecture are missing from the recording. Throughout history maps have been fundamental in shaping our view of the world and our place in it. Our panel will discuss how maps both influence and reflect contemporary events and how, by reading them, we can better understand the worlds that produced them.Jerry Brotton is professor of renaissance studies at Queen Mary University of London, and a leading expert in the history of maps and Renaissance cartography. His last book, The Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I and his Art Collection (2006), was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize as well as the Hessell-Tiltman History Prize. In 2010, he was the presenter of the BBC4 series Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession. His latest book is A History of the World in Twelve Maps.Mike Parker is the author of the best-selling Map Addict and writer and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s On the Map. He is currently working on a book, The Story of Britain in Road Maps, to be published in autumn 2013.This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Ken Livingstone | Ken Livingstone has for almost 40 years been a controversial but highly effective politician who has dominated London politics. He championed low fares for public transport, fought the abolition of the GLC, defeated Labour to become mayor of London in 2000, re-joined Labour and then presided over eight years of pro-development, market-led policy in the capital. He has brought a distinctive point of view to many issues, always dividing opinion. He has continued his life in politics, having been elected to Labour’s NEC and maintaining a commentary on public policy.Ken Livingstone is author of You Can’t Say That: Memoirs, published by Faber.This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Speaker(s): Professor Miriam Bernard, Dr Kip Jones, Dr Gareth Morris | Academic communication is changing. New emphasis on impact and public engagement, combined with new technologies that allow high quality and easy to use production methods are increasing the possible range of outputs from academic research. This session will hear from three researchers that have used alternative forms for their research dissemination. We will ask what strengths these forms had in comparison to traditional books and articles, their value to research users and their credibility with funders and academic assessors. Miriam Bernard is professor at Keele and looks at representation of aging in drama through a partnership with the New Vic Theatre. Kip Jones is a reader in performative social sciences at Bournemouth University, and film-maker. Gareth Morris of Salford University has used graphic novels to disseminate research findings on homelessness. Amy Mollett is managing editor of LSE Review of Books, a blog providing daily academic book reviews from the social sciences.This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.