LSE: Public lectures and events

Speaker(s): Darran Anderson, Dr Matthew Beaumont, Professor Rachel Cooper | The Future City, as an idea that often relies upon Utopian thinking to sustain itself, can be as cruel as it is consoling. Even as it makes possible investment into urban space as a site of future fulfilment, it regularly fails to deliver upon this promise. This panel asks what futures such Utopian thinking makes available for the city and what present realities it denies? It will query more specifically the Utopias that have come to structure London’s own particular futures. What Utopian thinking is operative, for instance, in a city so firmly structured around the logic of speculation intrinsic to finance capital? And what futures might present citizens be imagining for themselves? Darran Anderson is author of Imaginary Cities (@Oniropolis). He has written on speculative urban themes for publications such as Dezeen, Citylab and Aeon, on cities directly from Paris to Phnom Penh, and has given talks on the intersection of architecture with video games, science fiction, literature, politics and futurology at the likes of the V&A, the London Festival of Architecture and the Bristol Festival of Ideas. Matthew Beaumont is is a Senior Lecturer in the English Department at UCL and a Co-Director of UCL's Urban Laboratory. He is the author of two books on nineteenth-century utopianism and, more recently, of Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London, Chaucer to Dickens. He is also the editor of Restless Cities, among other essay collections. Rachel Cooper OBE is Distinguished Professor of Design Management and Policy at Lancaster University. She is Director of ImaginationLancaster (@ImaginationLanc). Her publications include Designing Sustainable Cities, Constructing Futures and Handbook of Wellbeing and the Environment. She is a non-executive Director of the Future Cities Catapult, and a Lead Expert for the UK Government Foresight programme on the Future of Cities, and is on the Academy of Medical Sciences Working group addressing ‘the health of the public 2040’. Richard Sennett (@richardsennett) is Director of Theatrum Mundi, University Professor of the Humanities at New York University and Professor of Sociology at LSE. His research entails ethnography, history, and social theory. 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.

Speaker(s): Dr Elena Barabantseva, Anna Chen, Andy Lawrence, Dr Véronique Pin-Fat | Editor's note: The film screening has been removed from the podcast. British Born Chinese engages the everyday struggles of two boys, Dan (aged between 11-13) and Kevin (aged between 12-14), reconciling their Britishness with Chineseness through their experiences at school, as volunteers at a community centre, and at home. Filmed over the course of two years in an innovative participatory and reflexive style, this film is an example of how artistic practices of filmmaking can work as a primary research tool. Driven by dialogue and close involvement with the film’s subjects, the film challenges the dominant popular representations of British Chinese as a ‘model minority’, and argues for a different understanding of community based on a shared sense of vulnerability. Elena Barabantseva is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester and Co-Producer of British Born Chinese. She is a member of the Critical Global Politics research cluster, and British Inter-University China Centre (BICC) and author of Overseas Chinese, Ethnic Minorities and Nationalism: De-Centering China. Andy Lawrence is filmmaker in residence and lecturer in Visual Anthropology at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester. He is the founder of AllRitesReversed, a documentary film production company. He is Co-Producer of British Born Chinese. Anna Chen (@MadamMiaow) writes and presents programmes for BBC Radio 4 as a freelance, and writes, produces and presents her arts show, Madam Miaow’s Culture Lounge, at Resonance 104.4FM. Her blog, Madam Miaow Says, was shortlisted in the 2010 Orwell Prize for blogs, and long listed in 2012. Véronique Pin-Fat publishes on ethics in global politics and is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Manchester. William Callahan is Professor of International Relations at LSE. His toilet adventures (2015) film was shortlisted for a major award by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council. The International Relations Department (@LSEIRDept) at LSE is now in its 87th year, making it one of the oldest as well as largest in the world.

Speaker(s): Anna Pavord, Dan Pearson, Margaret Willes | This panel explores our fascination with landscapes, gardening and the control of nature throughout history - their prominence in the artistic and literary imagination, and their place in the hopes and dreams of the ordinary person. Anna Pavord is gardening columnist in the Independent. She writes and presents programmes for BBC Radio 3 and 4 and served for ten years on the Gardens Panel of the National Trust, the last five as Chairman. Her books include the bestseller, The Tulip, The Naming of Names, The Curious Gardener and most recently Landskipping: painters, ploughmen and places. Dan Pearson (@thedanpearson) is an award-winning garden designer and gardening columnist. Dan has designed five award-winning Chelsea Flower Show gardens, the most recent of which was awarded a Gold Medal and the award for Best In Show in 2015. His books include Spirit: Garden Inspiration and Home Ground: Sanctuary in the City. He is currently working on the planting of the proposed Garden Bridge over the Thames. Margaret Willes is an enthusiastic gardener and the former publisher at the National Trust. Her books include The Making of the English Gardener and The Gardens of the British Working Class. Richard Bronk is a Visiting Fellow at LSE and author of The Romantic Economist.

Speaker(s): Professor John Gray, Ros Schwartz, John Simenon | Georges Simenon is one of the 20th century’s most prolific authors. His prestigious output included 75 novels starring his most famous creation, Inspector Maigret, and his novels define post-WW1 France with themes that still resonate today. Professor John Gray is the author of a number of highly regarded books including False Dawn, Straw Dogs, The Silence of the Animals and The Soul of the Marionette. Ros Schwartz (@RosSchwartz) has been a translator from French since 1981, translating over 70 titles, including a number of Penguin Classics' new translations of Simenon. John Simenon (@johnsimenon) is Georges’ son and manages his father’s literary estate. Martin Conway is a Fellow and Tutor in History at Balliol College, University of Oxford.

Speaker(s): Miriam Halahmy, Philip Womack, M M Vaughan | In this discussion aimed at young adults (or adults who are young at heart), our panel of critically acclaimed YA authors will discuss how they recreate historical events or invent future ones in their writing. Where will your imagination take you? Miriam Halahmy (@MiriamHalahmy) is an author and a poet. She has published four novels and three collections of poetry, as well as short stories and education resources. Her young-adult novel, Hidden, was a Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week and nominated for the Carnegie Medal. It has recently been staged in a small Paris theatre. Her latest book The Emergency Zoo, inspired by real events during the Second World War, will be published in 2016. Philip Womack (@WomackPhilip) is the author of four critically acclaimed novels for children; his fifth, The Double Axe, a reimagining of the Minotaur myth, will be published by Alma books in February 2016. After a life-long passion for Classics, he teaches Latin and Greek, and has lectured on mythology for the How: To Academy. He is a Fellow of First Story, being writer in residence at St Augustine’s Kilburn. Monica Vaughan (@NoSleepNeeded) has spent the last eight years working in special needs, mostly with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. She is the author of The Ability, Mindscape about telekinetic preteens and the forthcoming Six. Kirsty Wadsley is Head of Widening Participation at LSE. LSE Widening Participation work with over 2400 students in London schools and colleges each year with the aim of raising their aspirations and awareness of university study. These schemes are not just aimed at increasing the number of applications to LSE, but are aimed at encouraging students to apply to fulfil their potential at the best university for them.

Speaker(s): Professor Sophie-Grace Chappell, Professor Heidi Mirza, Professor Jacqueline Rose, Zoe Williams | What is the future for feminism? How does feminism interact with concerns about other forms of oppression, such as those based on race and class? Is there one feminist movement or many? If there are many, how should they relate to one another? In this panel, our speakers will discuss these questions and ask what the future holds for feminism(s). Sophie-Grace Chappell is Professor of Philosophy at the Open University. Her recent book Intuition, Theory, and Anti-Theory in Ethics was published by OUP. Her current work focuses on the relation between theory and experience in ethics, and in particular about the transformative power of ‘epiphanies’, and their central role in the generation of our reasons and other motivations. Heidi Mirza (@HeidiMirza) is Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is known for her pioneering research on race, gender and identity in education and has an international reputation for championing equality and human rights for women and young people through educational reform. As one of the first female professors of colour in UK she was awarded the prestigious # Eight Women of Colour Awards in 2014. She is author of several best-selling books including, Young Female and Black, which was voted in the BERA top 40 most influential educational studies in Britain. Her other publications include Black British Feminism, and Race, Gender, and Educational Desire: Why black women succeed and fail and most recently, Respecting Difference: Race, Faith, and Culture for Teacher Educators. Jacqueline Rose is Professor of Humanities, Birkbeck, University of London. Her recent book Women in Dark Times has just been published by Bloomsbury. She has also authored Sexuality in the Field of Vision, The Haunting of Sylvia Plath, States of Fantasy, The Question of Zion, The Last Resistance, Proust Among the Nations – from Dreyfus to the Middle East and the novel Albertine. She is a regular writer for The London Review of Books and is a Fellow of the British Academy. Zoe Williams (@zoesqwilliams) is a writer and journalist, author of Get it Together: Why We Deserve Better Politics. She is best known as a Guardian columnist, but her work has also appeared in the Spectator, NOW magazine, the New Statesman and the Evening Standard. Danielle Sands is Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway and 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.

Speaker(s): David Aaronovitch | David Aaronovitch talks to Charlie Beckett about his new book Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists. A memoir of early life among communists, Party Animals first took David Aaronovitch back through his own memories of belief and action. But there was much more to it. He found himself studying the old secret service files, uncovering the unspoken shame and fears that provided the unconscious background to his own existence as a party animal. Only then did he begin to understand what had come before – both the obstinate heroism and the monstrous cowardice. And the elements that shape our fondest beliefs. David Aaronovitch (@DAaronovitch) is an award-winning journalist, who has worked in radio, television and newspapers in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. His first book, Paddling to Jerusalem, won the Madoc prize for travel literature in 2001 and his second, Voodoo Histories, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Charlie Beckett (@CharlieBeckett) is Director of Polis. Polis (@PolisLSE) is the LSE's journalism and society think-tank, a part of the Department of Media and Communications aimed at working journalists, media practitioners, people in public life and students in the UK and around the world.

Speaker(s): Professor Michèle Barrett, Duncan Barrett, Professor Barry Buzan, Professor Steven French | Celebrating Star Trek’s 50th anniversary, our panel will explore what this enduring science fiction series can tell us about attitudes to international relations, science and society. Michèle Barrett is Professor of Modern Literary and Cultural Theory at Queen Mary University, London and author, with her son Duncan Barrett of Star Trek: the Human Frontier. Her recent work has focused on the literature and art of the First World War period. Duncan Barrett (@WW1Stories) is a best-selling author. In 2010 he edited the First World War memoirs of pacifist saboteur Ronald Skirth, published as The Reluctant Tommy, and in 2014 his book Men of Letters: The Post Office Heroes Who Fought the Great War was nominated for the People’s Book Prize. His is author (with Nuala Calvi) of The Sugar Girls, G. I. Brides and The Girls Who Went to War. Barry Buzan is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the LSE (formerly Montague Burton Professor), Honorary Professor at Copenhagen Jilin, and China Foreign Affairs Universities, a Senior Fellow at LSE Ideas, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has written, co-authored or edited over twenty-five books. He is author of an article America in Space: The International Relations of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and his most recent book, with George Lawson, is The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations. Steven French is Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds. Steven is Co-Editor-in-Chief (with Michela Massimi of the University of Edinburgh) of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, one of the most highly regarded journals in the field. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Palgrave-Macmillan series, New Directions in Philosophy of Science. His books include The Structure of the World: Metaphysics and Representation. Bryan Roberts (@SoulPhysics) is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE.

Speaker(s): The Hon. Mr Justice Jay, Gráinne Mellon, Professor Gerry Simpson, Paul Clark, Natalie Samarasinghe, Dr Nazila Ghanea, Professor Francoise Hampson, Antony Loewenstein, Carne Ross | The Charter of the United Nations, drafted in 1945, pledged in the name of the peoples of the United Nations to save us from the scourge of war; to reaffirm faith in human rights and the dignity and worth of all; to promote social progress and better standards of life in conditions of freedom. One does not have to take a very long look at the world around us to realise that this utopia of cosmopolitan peace and prosperity has not been achieved. Wars still wage, new and old global political divisions still run deep, the disparities in the global distribution of wealth are staggering. Is this conclusive proof that the UN has failed? Is it politically toothless and manipulated by the world’s most powerful states, as some believe? Has it become a bureaucratic, inflexible, cumbersome mega- structure prone to inertia and even corruption? Might it even be the case that the UN has in fact actively contributed to disasters, which it should have prevented according to its remit? A little over 70 years since the Charter was signed by the founding 51 members states, we will be putting the United Nations on trial. It will be a tough call for the prosecution. How does one bring charges against an institution, which many criticise but in which so many people around the world have placed so much faith? Nevertheless, this is not to say that it will be a walk in the park for the defence. The United Nations set the bar very high and they must be able to prove that there are good reasons for having disappointed the expectations that they created. Sir Robert Maurice Jay started practice at the Bar in 1983 after completion of pupillage. His practice was based mainly on public law, general common law, group litigation and public inquiries. Paul Clark (@_Paul_Clark) is a barrister for Garden Court Chambers. Paul provides representation and advice in public, civil, and international law. Gráinne Mellon (@GrainneMellon) is a barrister for Garden Court Chambers and Guest Lecturer on the LLM in Employment Law and in International Human Rights Law at LSE Law. Natalie Samarasinghe (@Natalie_UNA) is Executive Director of the United Nations Association – UK (UNA-UK), where she has worked since 2006. She is the first woman to hold this role. Gerry Simpson holds the Kenneth Bailey Chair of Law at the University of Melbourne and is currently a Soros Fellow (based at the Tbilisi State University, Georgia). Nazila Ghanea is Associate Professor of International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford and serves is a member of the OSCE Advisory Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Francoise Hampson taught at the University of Dundee from 1975 to 1983 and has been at the University of Essex since then. Antony Loewenstein (@antloewenstein) is an Australian independent freelance journalist, author, documentarian and blogger. He is a columnist for The Guardian. Carne Ross (@carneross) is a former British diplomat who resigned in 2004 after giving then-secret evidence to a British inquiry into the war. After he quit, he founded the world's first non-profit diplomatic advisory group, Independent Diplomat (@IDiplomat), which advises marginalised countries and groups around the world. Emmanuel Melissaris is Associate Professor of Law in LSE Law with research interests in Legal Pluralism and in Social Justice and Criminal Law.

Speaker(s): Toby Litt, Patrick Parrinder, Samantha Shannon | Our panel of authors and experts discuss the history of the utopian genre in literature and its present state. Toby Litt (@tobylitt) is a bestselling and prize-winning writer, whose ten novels to date include Finding Myself and the science fiction Journey into Space, an innovative contribution to the utopian genre. His most recent book is Life-Like, which has been shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2015 and long listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He is also Lecturer in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College. Patrick Parrinder is Emeritus Professor at Reading University and a leading authority on the work of H G Wells, one of the historical founders of the utopian novel. He co-edited The Reception of H G Wells in Europe and was overall editor of the Penguin multi-volume series of H G Wells’s fiction. His most recent publication is Utopian Literature and Science: From the Scientific Revolution to Brave New World and Beyond. Samantha Shannon (@say_shannon) is author of The Bone Season, the internationally bestselling first instalment in a seven-book series of fantasy novels which is now to be filmed. Its first sequel, The Mime Order, was published in 2015, and she's currently working on edits for the third book in the series, The Song Rising. Her books represent examples of distopian fiction acclaimed for their originality. The LSE Language Centre (@lselangcentre) 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.

Speaker(s): Professor Robin Burgess, Professor Naila Kabeer, Lewis Temple | Editor's note: We apologise for the poor audio quality of this podcast. Tackling extreme poverty has proven to be one of the most intractable challenges facing policymakers today. This event will explore the impact of an innovative and proven approach for poverty alleviation, developed in Bangladesh by the international NGO BRAC, targeted at individuals defined as being extreme or ‘Ultra-Poor’. Speakers will discuss the impact of the original BRAC programme implemented in Bangladesh, based on a rigorous seven-year evaluation undertaken by IGC researchers. The term ‘extreme poor’ describes the subset of households living below the $1.25 a day poverty line. The ultra-poor represent the very bottom strata of the extreme poor and are perpetually on the brink of deprivation. Even relative to other poor households, the ultra-poor typically earn the least and endure a myriad of exclusions and vulnerabilities that trap them into extreme poverty. The majority of ultra-poor are women who lack both the skills and capital necessary to lift themselves out of poverty. Robin Burgess is a Professor of Economics at LSE, Director of the IGC, and Director of the Economic Organisation and Public Policy Programme at the LSE. He received a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences from Edinburgh University, a M.Sc. in Economics from the LSE and a D.Phil. in Economics from Oxford University. His areas of research interest include development economics, public economics, political economy, labor economics and environmental economics. He has published on a variety of topics – natural disasters, mass media, rural banks, land reform, labor regulation, industrial policy, taxation, poverty and growth. Naila Kabeer (@N_Kabeer) is Professor of Gender and Development at the Gender Institute, LSE. Her research interests include gender, poverty, social exclusion, labour markets and livelihoods, social protection and citizenship and much of her research is focused on South and South East Asia. Lewis Temple (@LewisETemple) is Chief Executive and Secretary to the Board of BRAC UK. Upaasna Kaul (@UpaasnaK) is Managing Editor of IGC. The International Growth Centre (@The_IGC) aims to promote sustainable growth in developing countries by providing demand-led policy advice based on frontier research. Based at LSE and in partnership with Oxford University, the IGC is initiated and funded by DFID.

Speaker(s): Professor Michael Cox, Professor Chandran Kukathas | Editor's note: We apologise for the poor audio quality of this podcast. A discussion of the competing utopian ideas of prominent LSE figures set in the context of the history of 20th century thought and literature, as well as in contemporary debates about politics across Europe. Friedrich Hayek, Karl Popper and Michael Oakeshott versus Harold Laski, RH Tawney and the founders of the School: the Webbs. What impact did their alternative visions have on British politics? Why did this debate have global significance? And who 'won' in the end? Michael Cox is Director of LSE IDEAS. Chandran Kukathas is Head of the Department of Government at LSE. Simon Glendinning (@lonanglo) is Professor of European Philosophy at LSE and Director of the Forum for European Philosophy. The Department of Government (@LSEGovernment) at LSE, is one of the largest political science departments in the UK. 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 Excellence Framework (REF 2014) the Institute was ranked first for research in its sector. LSE IDEAS (@LSEIDEAS) is a foreign policy think-tank within LSE's Institute for Global Affairs.

Speaker(s): Professor Jerry Brotton, Dr Peter Frankopan | In this event we explore the rich interaction between east and west with Jerry Brotton, whose forthcoming book This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World explores Elizabethan England's relations with the Muslim world, and Peter Frankopan, whose recent bookThe Silk Roads: A New History of the World looks at world history from the perspective of this trading route of culture and ideas. 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 books include The Sale of the Late King’s Goods (2006) shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction (2006), Great Maps (2014) and the bestselling A History of the World in Twelve Maps (2012), translated into eleven languages which won book of the year in Austria and was shortlisted for the Hessel Tiltman Prize. He is a regular broadcaster, critic and feature writer, presenting BBC4’s Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession (2010) and BBC Radio 3’s Courting the East (2007). He is Associate Director of the Queen Mary/Warwick University project Global Shakespeare and an Associate of the People’s Palace Projects. Peter Frankopan (@peterfrankopan) is Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, and Director of the Centre for Byzantine Research at Oxford University. He works on the history of the Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Russia and on relations between Christianity and Islam. He also specializes in medieval Greek literature, and translated The Alexiad for Penguin Classics (2009). Peter often writes for the international press, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, MoneyWeek and has contributed to many TV and Radio documentaries. His first book The First Crusade: The Call from the East, was published to wide acclaim in 2012. Gagan Sood is Assistant Professor in the Department of International History at LSE.

Speaker(s): Professor Ruth Levitas | Five hundred years ago Thomas More’s Utopia was published in Latin, thereby introducing the word Utopia into the English language. But what is its relevance today? There are elements of More’s text which still resonate, notably his critique of enclosures, which can be given a contemporary twist in relation to the social cleansing of central London. There are elements of his postulated alternative, such as the abolition of property, which have ongoing power. On the other hand his gender politics, his reliance on patriarchy, his use of slavery and his attitude to colonialism are less attractive. In this lecture, Ruth Levitas argues that what is important about More’s text is less the substance than the method of utopian speculation. Utopia should be regarded not as a plan, but as a provisional and reflexive method of exploring potential futures. In this sense, Utopia is an essential element in social transformation and a tool for the creation of a more equitable and sustainable society. Ruth Levitas is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Bristol, Co-Founder of the Utopian Studies Society- Europe and author of The Concept of Utopia and Utopia as Method. Mike Savage (@MikeSav47032563) is Martin White Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the LSE International Inequalities Institute. The new 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): Professor AC Grayling | What happened to the European mind between 1605, when an audience watching Macbeth at the Globe might believe that regicide was such an aberration of the natural order that ghosts could burst from the ground, and 1649, when a large crowd, perhaps including some who had seen Macbeth forty-four years earlier, could stand and watch the execution of a king? Or consider the difference between a magus casting a star chart and the day in 1639, when Jonathan Horrock and William Crabtree watched the transit of Venus across the face of the sun from their attic, successfully testing its course against Kepler's Tables of Planetary Motion, in a classic case of confirming a scientific theory by empirical testing. In this turbulent period, science moved from the alchemy and astrology of John Dee to the painstaking observation and astronomy of Galileo, from the classicism of Aristotle, still favoured by the Church, to the evidence-based, collegiate investigation of Francis Bacon. And if the old ways still lingered and affected the new mind set – Descartes's dualism an attempt to square the new philosophy with religious belief; Newton, the man who understood gravity and the laws of motion, still fascinated to the end of his life by alchemy – by the end of that tumultuous century 'the greatest ever change in the mental outlook of humanity' had irrevocably taken place. AC Grayling explains how and why this period became the crucible of modernity. AC Grayling (@acgrayling) is Master of the New College of the Humanities, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. Until 2011 he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy and other subjects, including The Good Book, Ideas That Matter, Liberty in the Age of Terror, The God Argument and the forthcoming The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind. He has been a columnist for the Guardian and the Times, and is a frequent contributor to the national press and radio. He is the Editor of Online Review London, and a Contributing Editor of Prospect magazine. In addition Anthony Grayling sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals, and for nearly ten years was the Honorary Secretary of the principal British philosophical association, the Aristotelian Society. He is a past chairman of June Fourth, a human rights group concerned with China, and is a representative to the UN Human Rights Council for the International Humanist and Ethical Union. He is a Vice President of the British Humanist Association, the Patron of the United Kingdom Armed Forces Humanist Association, a patron of Dignity in Dying, and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. He was a Fellow of the World Economic Forum for several years, and a member of its C-100 group on relations between the West and the Islamic world. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Danielle Sands is Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway and 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. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2016, taking place from Monday 22 - Saturday 27 February 2016, with the theme 'Utopias'.