LSE: Public lectures and events

Speaker(s): Fadumo Dayib, Nemata Majeks-Walker, Joice Mujuru | From Germany to Liberia, UK to Argentina, there has been a marked increase in the number of women leaders around the globe in recent years. This event will explore how women leaders are changing the world and the implications for women leaders in Africa. Our panellists will discuss the state of female political representation in their countries; the barriers they have tackled and broken down; as well the lessons to be drawn and implemented from global settings. Women Leaders on the Global stage is an event to celebrate International Womens Day. Fadumo Dayib is the first woman to run for President of Somalia, standing for the November 2016 election. Nemata Majeks-Walker is the Founder and first President of the 50/50 Group of Sierra Leone. Joice Mujuru served as Vice-President of Zimbabwe 2004-14 and is a Presidential candidate for the 2018 elections. Tina Fahm is CEO of a consulting firm which advises on corporate governance in sub-Saharan Africa. She is a governor of LSE, member of the governing Council and chair of the Audit Committee. Tina is also a commissioner of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) the independent body responsible for scrutiny of UK aid. From 2005-14 Tina served as a governor of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), the UK’s leading democracy building foundation working to strengthen parliaments and support greater democratic accountability in post conflict and fragile states. Based at LSE, the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa promotes independent academic research and teaching; open and issue-oriented debate; and evidence-based policy making.

Speaker(s): Professor Michael Sandel | Professor Sandel’s work discusses the big moral and political questions of our age. He will be in conversation with Professor Tim Besley. Michael Sandel is a best-selling author and teaches political philosophy at Harvard University. He has been described as “the most relevant living philosopher,” a “rock-star moralist”(Newsweek) and “currently the most popular professor in the world.”(Die Zeit). Sandel’s books, including What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets and Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? relate the big questions of political philosophy to the vexing issues of our time. Should we financially reward children for good marks? Is it ethical to pay people to donate organs? Is it always wrong to lie? Should there be limits to personal freedom? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for-profit prisons or selling citizenship? Tim Besley is School Professor of Economics and Political Science and W. Arthur Lewis Professor of Development Economics at LSE. Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship at LSE's core aim is to improve the impact and effectiveness of private contributions to the public good.

Speaker(s): Professor Chen Jian | Few historical figures and events are more influential yet controversial than Mao and the Chinese revolution. This lecture will examine their political and moral legacies. Chen Jian is Distinguished Global-Network Professor of History at New York University/NYUShanghai, and Hu Shih Professor Emeritus at Cornell University. Robin Archer is Director of the Ralph Miliband Programme at 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): Fabiana Barticioti, Canon Mandy Ford, Sally Hitchener | This event explores and celebrates the journey to women’s ordination – examining the wider implications for women’s current and future roles within the Anglican Church and beyond. Fabiana Barticioti is Assistant Archivist at LSE. Mandy Ford is Canon of Southwark Cathedral. Sally Hitchener is an English Anglican priest, coordinator of the Anglican Chaplain and Interfaith Adviser at Brunel University. Mary Evans is LSE Centennial Professor at the Gender Institute. LSE’s Gender Institute (@LSEGenderTweet) is the largest gender studies centre in Europe. With a global perspective, the Gender Institute’s research and teaching intersects with other categories of analysis such as race, ethnicity, class and sexuality; because gender relations work in all spheres of life, interdisciplinarity is key to our approach. The British Library of Political and Economic Science (@LSELibrary) was founded in 1896, a year after the London School of Economics and Political Science. It has been based in the Lionel Robbins Building since 1978 and houses many world class collections, including The Women's Library.

Speaker(s): Professor Laura Bear, Professor Deborah James, Dr Ryan Davey | In this talk, academics and activists will come together around the issues of debt and austerity. From the LSE’s Department of Anthropology, Laura Bear, Deborah James and Ryan Davey will present findings from their research on debt and its relation to austerity in different contexts and at different scales. Drawing on her fieldwork in India, Laura Bear will discuss the value placed on sovereign debt repayments in places governed in the name of austerity, and the inequalities this produces. Deborah James will discuss how changes in regulation and policy have combined with public/voluntary-sector institutional practices, such as debt advice, to shape the terrain of indebtedness in South Africa and the UK. Ryan Davey (ESRC-funded post-doc) will speak about the consequences of austerity policy for how free-to-client debt advice is done in the UK, which encompasses the effects of austerity on both ordinary people’s economic circumstances and on debt advice providers’ ability to secure funding. A common thread running through these three bodies of research is how policy-makers and public-sector workers respond when an identification of over-indebtedness is made, at either the level of households, or that of the nation-state, or both. Exploring the implications of their research for policy and practice, they will be joined by colleagues from the radical activist group, Debt Resistance UK, and the anti-poverty charity, Toynbee Hall. Debt Resistance UK have pioneered investigations in the UK into borrowing and debt repayment done by local authorities, thus bridging between the household and national scales, and will speak about the multiple ways in which they struggle against the oppressive aspects of debt – from citizens’ debt audits to a people’s jubilee. Toynbee Hall, which provides a debt advice service in East London, will address the controversial question of whether, in the UK’s current political and economic climate, debt advice providers could ever advocate for debt cancellation or debt non-payment. Together, the speakers will seek to identify some of the possible alternatives to today’s debt-based economy. Laura Bear is Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science and author of Navigating Austerity. Ryan Davey is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Deborah James is Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Fanny Malinen is a London-based independent journalist and social justice activist. She is part of the research and activist group Debt Resistance UK. Carl Packman is Research and Good Practice Manager at Toynbee Hall. Alpa Shah is Associate Professor (Reader) in the Department of Anthropology at at the London School of Economics and Political Science. LSE's Anthropology Department (@LSEAnthropology), with a long and distinguished history, remains a leading centre for innovative research and teaching. 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.

Speaker(s): Dean Atta, Neil Bartlett, Maureen Duffy | How has literature and performance engaged with changing attitudes since the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967? This panel talk about themes of gay identity, both in their own work and the work of other writers, over the last 50 years.

Speaker(s): Patrick Flanery, Professor Steve Reicher | Editor's note: The film screening has been omitted from the podcast. How do ordinary people engage with political change? The problem of how far ordinary people conform was first posed by Hannah Arendt and then pursued conceptually and experimentally by social psychologists exposed to the moral, cultural and psychological devastation that followed World War 2 in Europe. We do as we are told. Or do we? Exploring the psychological roots of obedience and rebellion, this event will present the feature documentary Shock Room and revisit Stanley Milgram's controversial experiments on the banality of evil, asking whether it is conformity rather than resistance and rebellion that guides everyday political behaviour. A film screening, followed by a discussion.Patrick Flanery (@PFlaneryAuthor) is an American writer based in London. His first novel, Absolution, was published in 2012; it won the Spear's/Laurent Perrier Best First Book Award and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the Author's Club Best First Novel Award, and the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger in France; it was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Desmond Elliott Prize. It has been translated into eleven languages. His second novel, Fallen Land, was published in 2013. His third novel, I Am No One, was published in 2016. Patrick has written for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, the Guardian, the Spectator, the Times Literary Supplement and the Daily Telegraph. He has held writing fellowships at the Santa Maddalena Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Reading.Stephen Reicher is Wardlaw Professor in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He has published some 300 books, chapters and articles in the general area of group processes and social identities. This includes work on crowds, on nationalism and national identities, on leadership and political rhetoric, on intergroup hatred and, latterly, on the psychology of obedience and tyranny.Sandra Jovchelovitch is a Professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science and Director of the Social and Cultural Psychology programme at LSE. In 2012 Sandra was made a Fellow of the British Psychological Society in recognition for her expertise and contribution to the field of social and cultural psychology.

Speaker(s): Rachel Coldicutt, Emma Gannon, Deana Puccio | Editor's note: There was a problem with the audio at the beginning of the event, so the Chair's introduction was not recorded. What are the benefits and risks for young people growing up in the digital space? Is now the time to learn lessons from the generation who came of age with the internet? And how can the internet work for everyone? Rachel Coldicutt (@rachelcoldicutt) is Chief Executive Officer of Doteveryone, a UK charity working to solve social and moral challenges that have arrived with the Internet. She has spent the last 20 years helping organisations adapt to the digital world. She has worked at the BBC, BT, V&A, Royal Opera House and as a consultant with large service organisations in finance, energy, healthcare and the third sector. She is also the founder of Culture Hack Day and co-founder of arts innovation agency Caper. Emma Gannon (@emmagannon) is a blogger, author and digital consultant. She has written for the likes of Stylist, Grazia, The Guardian, The Sunday Times and is the former social media editor at British GLAMOUR. Her debut book is CTRL ALT DELETE: How I Grew Up Online. Her podcast of the same name interviewing digital creatives hit number 16 in the iTunes charts on its first week of release. It has been recommended by The Times, ELLE UK, Marie Claire, The Pool and has hit half a million downloads to date. Emma has spoken on Sky News, hosted panels at Google HQ, is a regular guest lecturer at Condé Nast Fashion College and was a guest curator at Cheltenham Literary Festival in 2016. Deana Puccio is a former Senior Assistant District Attorney from New York City. She worked in the Sex Crimes/Special Victims Unit of the Kings County District Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn. In 2013, she Co-Founded The RAP Project (@rapprojectuk), Raising Awareness and Prevention, which aims to help teenagers minimize the risk of becoming a victim of sexual attack or vulnerable to excessive social media pressures. The RAP Project is now working in over 100 schools around the UK. Through her work with The RAP Project Deana has appeared as an expert commentator on Sky News and on the BBC. She is the co-author of Sex, Likes & Social Media, Talking To Our Teens In The Digital Age. Ellen Helsper (@EllenHel) is Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor in the Media and Communications Department at the LSE. Her current research interests include new media audiences; digital inclusion; mediated interpersonal communication; and quantitative and qualitative methodological developments in media research. The Department of Media and Communications (@MediaLSE) undertakes outstanding and innovative research and provides excellent research-based graduate programmes for the study of media and communications. The Department was established in 2003 and in 2014 their research was ranked number 1 in the most recent UK research evaluation, with 91% of research outputs ranked world-leading or internationally excellent.

Speaker(s): Joseph Bullman, Professor Mary Morgan, Sarah Wise | In the wake of the Centenary of the death of Charles Booth, whose poverty maps and surveys started a quiet revolution in the methodology of the social sciences, a group of writers will reflect on what we can learn from Booth’s work today in terms of the techniques available to write about, analyse and make present to the reader the realities of poverty and inequality. Booth’s maps can still teach us much, but many late Victorian classifications strike us today as highly moralistic, even disrespectful. Do classifications inevitably distort social reality, or are they an indispensable means to understanding and representing it? Can fictional writing or media such as documentaries achieve more, or different things, from social scientific or historical studies? Joseph Bullman is an award winning documentary filmmaker. He created BBC’s The Secret History of Our Streets, which took Charles Booth’s monumental survey of London as its departure point to tell histories of single streets, from Booth’s time to the present day. These microcosmic street-histories acted as portals into the larger forces which shaped a nation. The series was nominated for 14 awards and won a Royal Society of Television Award and two Griersons. His other work includes The Seven Sins of England, in which modern-day yobs perform the real-words of their binge-drinking ancestors; and The Secret History of Our Family, which forward-traced families from the Victorian slums down to the present day. He’s now working on a third Secret History series, this time focusing on the North of England. Mary Morgan is the Albert O. Hirschman Professor of History and Philosophy of Economics at the LSE. Her research has addressed the practical side of how economists do economics: how do models, measurements, observation, experiments, etc. actually work, and how have these changed over the last century? Her most recent books include The World in the Model and How Well Do Facts Travel? Sarah Wise (@MissSarahWise) has a Master's Degree in Victorian Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. She teaches 19th-century social history and literature to both undergraduates and adult learners. She is Visiting Professor at the University of California’s London Study Center and a guest lecturer at City University. Nicola Lacey is School Professor of Law, Gender and Social Policy at LSE. The International Inequalities Institute at LSE (@LSEInequalities) brings together experts from many LSE departments and centres to lead critical and cutting edge research to understand why inequalities are escalating in numerous arenas across the world, and to develop critical tools to address these challenges.

Speaker(s): Yasmine El Rashidi, Samar Samir Mezghanni, Nii Ayikwei Parkes | The Arab Spring was a revolutionary wave of demonstrations, protests, riots and civil wars that began on 17 December 2010 and dominated the news for most of 2011. In the five years since the people of Tunisia and other countries took to the streets to protest against their governments, a number of writers have shifted away from realism and turned to science fiction to describe the grim political realities faced by the region’s citizens. Although dystopian themes are not entirely new in Arabic fiction, these have become much more prominent in recent years as it gives writers the room to express the sense of despair they feel in the face of cyclical violence and repression. In addition, the futuristic settings gives the writers the freedom to cover political ideas without being labelled opposers of the state. This event explores the literary trajectory in North Africa since the Arab Spring from the initial outburst of optimism to grim dystopian narratives, from the more traditional literary form of poetry in the region to writers experimenting with other literary forms. It will also examine the impact of political realities in the fiction from sub-Saharan countries and how it compares to what has emerged in North Africa since the Arab Spring of 2011. Yasmine El Rashidi (@yasminerashidi) will participate in the discussion via skype. Yasmine is an Egyptian writer. She is the author of The Battle for Egypt, Dispatches from the Revolution (2011), and the novel, Chronicle of a Last Summer, A Novel of Egypt (2016). Samar Samir Mezghanni (@SamarSamirMEZ) is a Tunisian writer with two records in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest writer in the world in 2000 and the most prolific writer in the world in 2002. She has written over a hundred short stories for children and published 14 books. A 2007 recipient of Ghana’s ACRAG award, Nii Ayikwei Parkes (@BlueBirdTail) is the author of the hybrid novel, Tail of the Blue Bird, which is translated into Dutch, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan and Japanese. Originally shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Prize, the book has gone on to win the Prix Baudelaire, Prix Mahogany and Prix Laure Bataillon. Bola Mosuro (@bbcBola) is news presenter on the BBC World Service. She has a keen interest in the arts and in gender issues. Hailing from Nigeria, she was raised in both London and Lagos. Bola studied Peace and Conflict studies in Northern Ireland and is married with three children. Based at LSE, the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa (@AfricaAtLSE) promotes independent academic research and teaching; open and issue-oriented debate; and evidence-based policy making.

Speaker(s): Dr Rachel Aldred, Emily Chappell, Michael Hutchinson | All over the country, cycling is growing fast as a spectator sport and pastime. In London, it is also booming as a transport choice, spurred on by packed tubes and shiny new cycle lanes. What's the appeal? Physical thrill? Mindful flow? Simple practicality? Nonconformity? Our panel consider why cycling got this big and what its future is in London. Can it get too popular and are we headed for civil war on the roads? What would we need to make London a cycling utopia? Rachel Aldred (@RachelAldred)is Reader in Transport at the University of Westminster and one of the Progress 1000 Most Influential Londoners. One of her research projects (Near Miss Project) was awarded Cycling Initiative of the Year 2015 by Total Women’s Cycling. Since November 2012 she has twice been elected as a Trustee of the London Cycling Campaign and is Chair of its Policy Forum. Emily Chappell (@emilychappell) has worked as a cycle courier in London since 2008 and is author of What Goes Around. She has competed in the Transcontinental Race, one of the world's toughest ultra-endurance races. Emily's writing has featured in the Guardian and in 2012 she won Travel Blogger of the Year at the British Travel Press Awards, and a Jupiter's Traveller Award from the Ted Simon Foundation. Michael Hutchinson (@Doctor_Hutch) is a former professional cyclist. He has won multiple national titles in both Britain and Ireland, and represented both countries internationally. He is the principal columnist for Cycling Weekly, a regular broadcaster on the sport, and has written three books on cycling: The Hour: Sporting Immortality the Hard Way; Faster: the Obsession, Science and Luck behind the world's fastest cyclists; and Re:Cyclists: 200 Years on Two Wheels, to be published in March 2017. James Spackman (@blackpooltower) is a book publisher and cycling obsessive. Pursuit (@Pursuitbooks), the new cycling imprint which he is launching as part of Profile Books, publishes its first three titles in 2017, by The Velominati, Colin O'Brien and Paul Fournel. LSE Cities (@LSECities) is an international centre at LSE that carries out research, education and outreach activities in London and abroad. Its mission is to study how people and cities interact in a rapidly urbanising world, focussing on how the design of cities impacts on society, culture and the environment. The LSE Sustainability Team (@SustainableLSE) works to create a more environmentally sustainable university, through the responsible management of our estate, operations and resources, and by engaging with our students, staff and local community.

Speaker(s): Paul MM Cooper | As writers, we're often told to 'write what you know' - but is this the advice that's holding back your writing? In this session, Paul MM Cooper talks about what led him to dive into the world of ancient poetry and medieval Sri Lanka in order to write his novel River of Ink. The session is designed for those who want to take on the unfamiliar in their work, or who just want to discover the adventure that writing can be. Paul MM Cooper (@PaulMMCooper) was born in South London and grew up in Cardiff, Wales. He was educated at the University of Warwick and the UEA, and after graduating he left for Sri Lanka to work as an English teacher, where he took time to explore the ruins both ancient and modern. He has written for magazines, websites and also worked as an archivist, editor and journalist. River of Ink is his debut novel. Winnie M Li (@winniemli ) is a writer, activist, and PhD researcher at LSE. Her debut novel, Dark Chapter, will be published in the UK/Ireland in June and in the US/Canada in September, followed by Dutch and Swedish publications. She has an MA with Distinction in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths.

Speaker(s): Luke Dormehl, Laurie Penny, Nick Srnicek | What kind of future do we want to create and why? This panel explores the philosophical implications of scientific advancements like artificial intelligence and human enhancement, which have the potential to revolutionize our world. Is fear overriding optimism in our approach to the future? Luke Dormehl (@lukedormehl) is a technology author and journalist, with a background in documentary film. He regularly contributes to Digital Trends, and has written for Fast Company, the Guardian, Sunday Times and other publications. His previous books include The Apple Revolution, The Formula and most recently Thinking Machines: The inside story of Artificial Intelligence and our race to build the future. Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) is a journalist and author, most recently of the novella Everything Belongs to the Future. She is a contributing editor and columnist for the New Statesman and a frequent writer on social justice, pop culture, gender issues, and digital politics for the Guardian, the New Inquiry, Salon, the Nation, Vice, the New York Times and many other publications. Her blog Penny Red was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2010. In 2012, Britain’s Tatler magazine described her as one of the top “100 people who matter.” Her most recent nonfiction book is Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies, and Revolution. Nick Srnicek (@n_srnck) is a lecturer in International Political Economy at City, University of London. He is the author of Platform Capitalism and Inventing the Future (with Alex Williams). With Helen Hester he is currently writing After Work. Jason Alexander is Professor of Philosophy at LSE and the co-ordinator of the MSc Philosophy of the Social Sciences.

Speaker(s): Reshma Ruia, Kavita Jindal, CG Menon | Are two heads better than one? Writing is by definition a solitary and insular occupation, but this creative writing session explores the benefits of a collaborative approach to writing. We will draw upon our own experience in writing our anthology, ‘Love across a Broken Map’ to provide an interactive session that examines the process of putting together an anthology, from the inception of an idea to workshopping stories, to choosing titles and cover designs and finally the challenges of marketing and publicity.

Speaker(s): Luce Irigarary, Dr Mahon O’Brien, Dr Tanja Staehler | In this event, world-renowned philosopher Luce Irigaray will speak about her new book, which reflects upon the nature of human existence through an analysis of birth. Examining the mysteries of human origins, Irigaray will discuss the ways in which, despite the accidents of our birth, we can take responsibility for our own lives. Respondents Tanja Staehler and Mahon O'Brien will consider the philosophical, practical, and political implications of Irigaray's claims. Luce Irigarary is Director of Research in Philosophy (CNRS) and feminist, philosopher, and cultural theorist. Her latest book is To Be Born. Mahon O’Brien (@Mahon_O_Brien) is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sussex. Tanja Staehler is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Sussex. Danielle Sands (@DanielleCSands) is a lecturer in Comparative Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London and a Forum for European Philosophy Fellow. 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.