LSE: Public lectures and events

Speaker(s): David Miliband | This year’s Maurice Fraser annual lecture will take the form of a conversation between David Miliband and Professor Kevin Featherstone, followed by questions from the audience. The discussion will assess the state of play of the UK’s attempt to find a parliamentary majority for leaving the EU, and put into geopolitical context the choices and the stakes in the negotiations about our future relations with our European neighbours. David Miliband (@DMiliband) is the President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee and former British Foreign Secretary. He oversees the agency’s relief and development operations in over 30 countries, its refugee resettlement and assistance programs throughout the United States and the IRC’s advocacy efforts in Washington and other capitals on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable people. From 2007 to 2010, he served as the youngest Foreign Secretary in the United Kingdom, in three decades. In 2016 David was named one of the World’s Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine and in 2018 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. David Miliband is also the author of the upcoming book, Rescue: Refugees and the Political Crisis of Our Time. Kevin Featherstone is Eleftherios Venizelos Professor in Contemporary Greek Studies and Professor in European Politics. He is the Director of the Hellenic Observatory and Co-Chair of LSEE: Research on South-East Europe within the European Institute The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) is a centre for research and graduate teaching on the processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. In the most recent national Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) the Institute was ranked first for research in its sector.

Speaker(s): Professor Sudhir Anand, Professor Amartya Sen | To ensure that people live long and healthy lives it is important to know what kills different groups of people in different places. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) based on the Disability-Adjusted Life Year has been developed to do this. This lecture shows how this measure leads to various anomalies and biases, in particular it underestimates the health problems experienced by women and children. Sudhir Anand is Research Director of Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University and Centennial Professor at the International Inequalities Institute, LSE. Amartya Sen is Thomas W Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University and an LSE Honorary Fellow. Mike Savage (@MikeSav47032563) is Director of the International Inequalities Institute and Martin White Professor of Sociology at LSE. The International Inequalities Institute (@LSEInequalities) at LSE brings together experts from many LSE departments and centres to lead cutting-edge research focused on understanding why inequalities are escalating in numerous arenas across the world, and to develop critical tools to address these challenges. The Eva Colorni Memorial Trust was established by Amartya Sen to commemorate the life and work of Eva Colorni and to reflect and further her belief in the possibility of social justice. Eva was an excellent teacher and writer whose work and passion were concerned with analysing and redressing inequality. The main activities of the Trust are to award bursaries to undergraduate students of economics who are experiencing hardship at London Metropolitan University, where Eva taught for many years, and to hold lectures on the theme of social justice. The first five lectures were published in a book, called Living As Equals and includes an essay by Amartya Sen on "Social Commitment and Democracy”. There is more information about the Trust and past lectures on the Eva Colorni Memorial Trust website. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEEvaColorni

Speaker(s): Valerie Jarrett | Join Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama in conversation with LSE's Peter Trubowitz about her new book. When Valerie Jarrett interviewed a promising young lawyer named Michelle Robinson in July 1991 for a job in Chicago city government, neither knew that it was the first step on a path that would end in the White House. Jarrett soon became Michelle and Barack Obama’s trusted personal adviser and family confidante; in the White House, she was known as the one who “got” him and helped him engage his public life. Jarrett joined the White House team on January 20, 2009 and departed with the First Family on January 20, 2017, and she was in the room–in the Oval Office, on Air Force One, and everywhere else–when it all happened. No one has as intimate a view of the Obama Years, nor one that reaches back as many decades, as Jarrett shares in Finding My Voice. Valerie Jarrett (@ValerieJarrett) was the Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama for his eight years in office. She now serves as a Senior Advisor to both the Obama Foundation and Attn:, Senior Distinguished Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School, and President of the Board of When We All Vote. Her book, Finding My Voice, debuted on the New York Times Bestsellers list this year. Peter Trubowitz (@ptrubowitz) is Department Head of International Relations and Director of the US Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs. The LSE's United States Centre (@LSE_US) is a hub for global expertise, analysis and commentary on America. Our mission is to promote policy-relevant and internationally-oriented scholarship to meet the growing demand for fresh analysis and critical debate on the United States. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEJarrett

Speaker(s): Amit Chaudhuri | How might the modern, rather than the human, be recovered as a way of looking at a common inheritance? And why is modernity resistant to being recovered? Amit Chaudhuri (@AmitChaudhuri) is an essayist, literary critic and the author of seven novels. Robin Archer is the Director of the Ralph Miliband Programme, LSE. The Ralph Miliband Programme (@RMilibandLSE) is one of LSE's most prestigious lecture series and seeks to advance Ralph Miliband's spirit of free social inquiry.

Speaker(s): Professor Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg | The Annual Economica Coase lecture is jointly sponsored by the journal Economica and the Department of Economics. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg is Elihu Professor of Economics at Yale University and Chief Economist of the World Bank Group. She is former Vice-President of the American Economic Association and President elect of the Econometric Society (for 2021). She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a recipient of both Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Sloan Research Fellowships, and recipient of the Bodossaki Prize in Social Sciences. She is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research (NBER – currently on leave) and board member of the Bureau of Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). From 2011-2017 she was Editor-in-Chief of the American Economic Review. She has published widely in the areas of applied microeconomics, international trade, development, and industrial organization. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and a Diplom from the University of Freiburg, Germany. Oriana Bandiera (@orianabandiera) is a Professor of Economics, Sir Anthony Atkinson Chair in Economics and Director of STICERD. The Department of Economics (@LSEEcon) at the LSE is one of the leading economics departments in the world. We are a large department, ensuring all mainstream areas of economics are strongly represented in research and teaching. Economica (@EconomicaLSE) is an international peer-reviewed academic journal, covering research in all branches of economics. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSECoase

Speaker(s): Dr Marjolein Degenaar, Barry Ginley, Dr Brian Glenney | William Molyneux posed the following question: Consider a person who has been born blind and who has learnt to distinguish a globe and a cube by touch. If this person could suddenly see, would they be able to distinguish these objects by sight alone? This seventeenth-century thought experiment, known as ‘Molyneux’s problem’, received attention from some of philosophy’s greatest minds. We discuss how thinkers like Locke and Leibniz, as well as artists with visual impairments, responded to Molyneux’s challenge. Marjolein Degenaar is the author of Molyneux’s Problem: Three Centuries of Discussion on the Perception of Form. Barry Ginley is Equality and Access Adviser, Victoria & Albert Museum. Brian Glenney is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Norwich University. Clare Moriarty (@quiteclare) is a Fellow, Forum for Philosophy and a Teaching Fellow in Philosophy, UCD The Forum for European Philosophy (@ForumPhilosophy) is an educational charity that organises a full and varied programme of philosophy and interdisciplinary events in the UK. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEForum

Speaker(s): Dr Jonathan Hopkin | At this year’s Annual Lecture, which marks the 10th anniversary of LEQS and follows just days after this year’s European parliamentary elections, Jonathan Hopkin will discuss the recent ruptures in the politics of the rich democracies, signalled by electoral instability across Europe, as well as dramatic events like the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency and the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union. Dr Hopkin argues that these tumultuous political developments are a consequence of a longer-term crisis of market liberalism, resulting from the abandonment of the post-war model of egalitarian capitalism in the 1970s. This shift in politics entailed weakening the democratic process in favor of an opaque, technocratic form of governance that allows voters little opportunity to influence policy. With the financial crisis of the late 2000s, these arrangements became unsustainable, as incumbent politicians were unable to provide solutions to economic hardship. Electorates demanded change, and it had to come from outside the system. Jonathan Hopkin (@jrhopkin) is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Government at LSE. Miriam Sorace (@MiriamSorace) is an LSE Fellow in EU Politics at LSE’s European Institute. The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) is a centre for research and graduate teaching on the processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. In the most recent national Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) the Institute was ranked first for research in its sector. The LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series (@leqsLSE) was established in May 2009 to publish high quality research on Europe and the European Union from scholars across LSE and beyond. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEEurope

Speaker(s): Professor Alexander Bird, Dr Laura Fortunato, Professor Marcus Munafò | The hallmark of good science is often supposed to be experiments that produce the same results when repeated. But over the last number of years, scientists have replicated a number of established, high-profile experiments and produced different results. Does it point to serious flaws and biases in the sciences? Or is it evidence of the power of science to self-correct? And what can be done to make science more replicable? We explore whether the replication crisis undermines our trust in science. Alexander Bird is Peter Sowerby Professor of Philosophy and Medicine, KCL. Laura Fortunato is Associate Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford. Marcus Munafò is Professor of Biological Psychology, University of Bristol. Jonathan Birch is a Fellow at the Forum for Philosophy and Associate Professor of Philosophy, LSE. The Forum for European Philosophy (@ForumPhilosophy) is an educational charity that organises a full and varied programme of philosophy and interdisciplinary events in the UK. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEForum

Speaker(s): Dr Judith Scheele | This lecture argues for a return to the study of political institutions in so-called “stateless societies”. Judith Scheele is Directrice d’études, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, France. Deborah James (@djameslse) is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at LSE. This event is the Malinowski Memorial Lecture 2019. Anthropology (@LSEAnthropology) is the comparative study of culture and society. We ask big questions about what we have in common, and what makes us different. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEMalinowski

Speaker(s): Muthoni Wanyeki | In this lecture, Muthoni Wanyeki will draw on three decades of human rights activism with Kenyan, African and international organisations to push back against the western critique of human rights and to formulate her own assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the human rights movement in Africa and the global south. Muthoni Wanyeki is Regional Director of Open Society’s Africa Regional Office. Bronwen Manby (@BronwenManby) is a Visiting Fellow with LSE Human Rights and is an independent consultant in the field of human rights, democracy and good governance, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Bronwen is also a Principal Investigator at the LSE Middle East Centre. Based in the Department of Sociology (@LSEsociology), LSE Human Rights @LSEHumanRights) is a trans-disciplinary centre of excellence for international academic research, teaching and critical scholarship on human rights. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEHumanRights

Speaker(s): Professor John Van Reenen | John Van Reenen will discuss the impact of new technologies on jobs, wages and skills, and will assess how this impact will depend on the choices we make now as citizens, managers and voters. John Van Reenen (@johnvanreenen) is Gordon Y. Billiard Professor of Management and Economics at MIT, and BP Professor of Economics at the LSE. Steve Pischke is Head of the Department of Economics at LSE. The Department of Economics (@LSEEcon) at the LSE is one of the leading economics departments in the world. We are a large department, ensuring all mainstream areas of economics are strongly represented in research and teaching. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEFutureJobs

Speaker(s): Sophie Pedder | Two years after Emmanuel Macron came from nowhere to seize the French presidency, Sophie Pedder, The Economist’s Paris bureau chief, tells the story of his remarkable rise and time in office so far. In this updated edition, published with a new foreword, Pedder revisits her analysis of Macron’s troubles and triumphs in the light of the gilets jaunes protests. Sophie Pedder (@PedderSophie) is an award-winning journalist and the Paris Bureau Chief of The Economist since 2003. Iain Begg (@IainBeggLSE) is Professorial Research Fellow at the European Institute and Co-Director of the Dahrendorf Forum, LSE. The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) is a centre for research and graduate teaching on the processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. In the most recent national Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) the Institute was ranked first for research in its sector. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEFrance

Speaker(s): Professor Robin D G Kelley | In the context of Afro-pessimism, this lecture will imagine "the Internationale," that great song of international solidarity and revolution transcending the nation, as a blues. Robin D G Kelley is Gary B Nash Endowed Chair in US History, University of California, Los Angeles. Ayça Çubukçu (@ayca_cu) is Associate Professor in Human Rights, Department of Sociology, LSE, and Co-Director of LSE Human Rights. This event is the annual lecture of the Internationalism, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Solidarity (ICPS) research group at LSE. LSE Human Rights (@LSEHumanRights) is a trans-disciplinary centre of excellence for international academic research, teaching and critical scholarship on human rights Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSESolidarity

Speaker(s): Professor Matthew Goodwin, Dr Sara Hagemann, Professor Sara Hobolt | In this especially timely occasion, the panel will consider the impact of the upcoming European elections on the EU as a negotiating actor of Brexit and the future relationship with the UK. Will the balance of power change in the EU institutions? Is this the next stop for the populist wave, after Brexit? Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) is Professor of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent. Sara Hagemann (@sarahagemann) is Associate Professor in European Politics, European Institute, LSE. Sara Hobolt (@sarahobolt) is Sutherland Chair in European Institutions and Professor in the Department of Government, LSE. Andrés Velasco (@AndresVelasco) is the inaugural Dean of LSE's School of Public Policy. The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) is a centre for research and graduate teaching on the processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. In the most recent national Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) the Institute was ranked first for research in its sector. The School of Public Policy (@LSEPublicPolicy) equips you with the skills and ideas to transform people and societies. We are an international community where ideas and practice meet. Our approach creates professionals with the ability to analyse, understand and resolve the challenges of contemporary governance.

Speaker(s): Dr Jo Grady, Dr Martin O'Neill, Dr Waseem Yaqoob | Workers of the world, unite! We discuss the history, politics, and ethics of strikes, and their place in the labour movement. Why do they happen and what makes for a successful strike? What justifies workers in withdrawing their labour to push bosses for improved pay and conditions? And will this event be cancelled due to strike action?! Jo Grady is a Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations, University of Sheffield. Martin O'Neill is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of York. Waseem Yaqoob is a Lecturer in the History of Modern Political Thought, University of Cambridge. Sarah Fine is a Fellow at the Forum for Philosophy and a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at KCL. The Forum for European Philosophy (@ForumPhilosophy) is an educational charity that organises a full and varied programme of philosophy and interdisciplinary events in the UK.