Contributor(s): Geoff Dyer, Robert Hudson, David Shields | Is the novel dead? Is art theft? Can you copyright reality? David Sheilds’s Reality Hunger questions every assumption we ever made about art, the novel, journalism, poetry, film, TV, rap, stand-up, graffiti, sampling, plagiarism, writing, and reading. The questions Shields addresses- the bending of form and genre, the lure and blur of the real- play out constantly around us, and Reality Hunger is a radical reframing of how we might think...
Feb 19, 2011•1 hr 28 min
Contributor(s): Ursula Chowaniec, Izabela Filipiak, Grazyna Plebanek | Three female Polish authors discuss migration in women's writing in Poland. Urszula Chowaniec is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Cultural Studies Andrzej Frycz-Modrzewski Cracow Academy in Poland. Izabela Filipiak is an author of several books of fiction and nonfiction who debuted after the fall of the iron curtain in Poland. Grazyna Plebanek – writer, author of best-selling novels Illegal Liaisons (WAB 2010) and ...
Feb 19, 2011•1 hr 31 min
Contributor(s): James Brabazon, Jill McGivering, Ed Vulliamy | Three of the best British conflict reporters describe three very different ways to tell the stories of three very different war-zones. Fiction, biography and reportage are used to tell gripping narratives of some of the most brutal places in the world. These are the deep, nasty, real stories of Mexico’s drug wars, an African coup, and the so-called war on terror in Afghanistan. One is a novel, another a personal biography and another...
Feb 18, 2011•1 hr 29 min
Contributor(s): Elif Shafak | Storytelling is an ancient and universal art at the heart of which lies the need to imagine and the ability to empathize with others. In a world beset with cultural clashes, misunderstandings and invisible ghettoes, stories keep connecting us across worlds, across words. Women have always been great storytellers in my country, and yet the written culture is still "a man's world". Why do fewer women write even though they compose the majority of fiction readers today...
Feb 18, 2011•1 hr 27 min
Contributor(s): Dr Shashi Tharoor | This lecture is part of India Week 2011. Dr Shashi Tharoor is an elected Member of Parliament and a former Minister of State for External Affairs in the Government of India. A prize-winning author of twelve books, both fiction and non-fiction, he is also a widely-published critic, commentator and columnist. In 2007 he concluded a nearly 29-year career with the United Nations, including working for refugees in South-East Asia at the peak of the "boat people" cr...
Feb 18, 2011•1 hr 27 min
Contributor(s): Steve Bell, Bryan Talbot | In an interconnected world where culture can transcend borders, the impact of a single drawn image can reverberate around the globe. And yet the humble comic strip, unless making headlines, is frequently overlooked as a source of social commentary. Led by two of Britain¹s most lauded practitioners, this discussion will explore the role of the cartoonist and graphic novelist in the public sphere. Is the comic strip a powerful means of communication illum...
Feb 18, 2011•1 hr 24 min
Contributor(s): Professor Timothy Garton Ash | The border between journalism and academic history is a minefield. Timothy Garton Ash has been crossing it stubbornly for the last thirty years, attempting to combine the crafts of journalist and historian, writing what he calls ‘history of the present’. Taking examples from his most recent book, Facts are Subversive, he talks about the delights and pitfalls of this mongrel craft. Timothy Garton Ash is the author of nine books of political writing o...
Feb 18, 2011•1 hr 26 min
Contributor(s): John Thompson, Andrew Franklin | The world of book publishing is going through turbulent times. For nearly five centuries the methods and practices of book publishing remained largely unchanged, but at the dawn of the 21st Century the industry finds itself faced with perhaps the greatest challenges since Gutenberg. A combination of economic pressures and technological change is forcing publishers to alter their practices and think hard about the future of the book. In his book, M...
Feb 17, 2011•1 hr 18 min
Contributor(s): Professor John Van Reenen, Professor Jonathan Haskel | Where will the sources of new growth come from in the wake of the financial crisis and recession? What is the role of education, labour markets and government policy in supporting this growth? John Van Reenen has been professor of economics at LSE and the director of the Centre for Economic Performance, since October 2003. Jonathan Haskel is a Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School based in the Healthcare ...
Feb 17, 2011•1 hr 28 min
Contributor(s): Dr Shakuntala Banaji, Professor Andrew Burn, Blake Morrison | This provocative panel centres on the range of adaptations practised in today’s diverse multimedia landscape. These include adaptations of format (book to screen, game to film, short-story to stage) and adaptations of place, time and culture (Shakespeare into Hindi film). The panel will ask: How and why do such adaptations retain the original flavour and appeal to wide audiences? Is something lost in the process? Shaku...
Feb 17, 2011•1 hr 9 min
Contributor(s): Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Paul McAuley, Ken McLeod | The study of popular culture has always been a feature of the social sciences as well as of the humanities – indeed, the social sciences have often been in advance of the humanities in this area, more willing to recognise the importance of genres that are frowned upon by the arts establishment. This event will bring together a number of writers of imaginative fiction and academics who have written in this field. Jon Courtney Grim...
Feb 17, 2011•1 hr 22 min
Contributor(s): David Davis MP, Professor Conor Gearty | For the past twenty weeks Conor Gearty has been writing a collaborative book online, at www.therightsfuture.com, with an essay appearing weekly alongside regular longer items and occasional brief remarks on current affairs, with each post being open for comment from the general public. Many have replied with dedication and commitment. The result is a series of essays, discussions and critical engagements addressing such issues as the meani...
Feb 17, 2011•1 hr 26 min
Contributor(s): Professor Lilie Chouliaraki, Professor Stjepan Mestrovic, Dr Irene Bruna Seu | Humanitarian campaigns create a 'politics of pity' that transforms the way we think about our moral responsibility for distant suffering. What is the impact on the relationship between knowing and acting? Lilie Chouliaraki is professor of media and communications at LSE. Stjepan Mestrovic is professor of sociology at Texas A&M University. Irene Bruna Seu is senior lecturer in the Department of Psyc...
Feb 16, 2011•1 hr 30 min
Contributor(s): Various speakers and artists - see the event listing on the LSE website for details | Celebrating Rabindranath Tagore's 150th anniversary, this production marks his seminal contribution to Indian fiction with his short stories. The presentation includes a reading of four short stories in English translations, live music and dance, and film clips. This project celebrates the art of storytelling and live reading, the beauty of Tagore’s little gems. The readings are punctuated with ...
Feb 16, 2011•1 hr 8 min
Contributor(s): Professor Bjørn Lomborg, Dimitri Zenghelis | Global warming is real, but it is often presented one-sided and in exaggerated form. This leads to bad policies that will do little to tackle the warming at extremely high cost, as evidenced by the Kyoto protocol and the new EU promises. The breakdown at Copenhagen shows that we need smarter solutions focused on getting long-term solutions like renewables that are cheaper than fossil fuels. And finally, we should remember, that if we r...
Feb 16, 2011•1 hr 33 min
Contributor(s): Professor Jan Pronk | The lectures honour the name of Kapuscinski, a Polish journalist and writer known as the Voice of the Poor, who died in 2007. The project is a joint initiative of the European Commission and the United Nations Development Programme. Present challenges (such as climate change and economic dualism) are structural. They are larger than before. They last longer, not only because they are mutually related and reinforce each other, but also because they are not ad...
Feb 16, 2011•1 hr 31 min
Contributor(s): Professor Nicholas Humphrey | How is consciousness possible? What biological purpose does it serve? Nicholas Humphrey has a radical new theory. Consciousness, he argues, is nothing less than a magical-mystery show that we stage inside our own heads – paving the way for spirituality, and allowing us to reap the rewards, and anxieties, of living in the 'soul niche'. Nicholas Humphrey is emeritus professor of psychology at LSE. His many books include A History of the Mind, Leaps of ...
Feb 15, 2011•1 hr 15 min
Contributor(s): Professor Christopher Pissarides | Christopher Pissarides was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Sciences in 2010 (jointly with Peter Diamond and Dale Mortensen) for their work on the economics of unemployment, especially job flows and the effect of being out of work. Christopher Pissarides is professor of economics at LSE and holder of the Norman Sosnow Chair in Economics.
Feb 15, 2011•1 hr 10 min
Contributor(s): Carlos Mesa | Having worked for the government from 2000, Carlos Mesa Gisbert was President of Bolivia from 2003 to 2005. His presidency focussed on constitutional reform to increase political representation and participation of citizen groups and indigenous people; Bolivian decentralization; and strengthening relations with other Latin American countries. As an academic and journalist Carlos Mesa has published extensively on the political process in Bolivia and Latin America mor...
Feb 15, 2011•1 hr 27 min
Contributor(s): Sergey Lavrov | Sergey Lavrov is Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Prior to this he served from 1994-2004 as Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation at the United Nations. He graduated from the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Moscow State Institute of International Relations, beginning his diplomatic career at the Soviet Embassy in Sri Lanka. This event is the opening lecture in Russian Business Week organised by the LSESU Russian Business Societ...
Feb 15, 2011•57 min
Contributor(s): Edward Hugh | A surprising feature of economic analysis of the current crisis has been the pivotal role played by a small number of bloggers, often positioned far from the academic mainstream. This event will feature one of the top bloggers on the Euro Crisis who will discuss the role the bloggers have played in our understanding of the current Euro Crisis, and in what ways having more data in our hard drive than the sum total of all previous economists changes our understanding ...
Feb 14, 2011•1 hr 5 min
Contributor(s): Professor Ephraim Kleiman | Ephraim Kleiman is Don Patinkin Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holds a PhD from the London School of Economics. After serving briefly with the Israel Finance Ministry, he joined the Economics Department of the Hebrew University in 1963. He has held visiting appointments at universities and research institutes in the U.S., the U.K, Sweden and Australia. He...
Feb 14, 2011•1 hr 25 min
Contributor(s): Dr Roman Frigg | Predicting how climate change will affect us is of paramount importance, yet it is beset with both practical and conceptual problems. This lecture explores the impact that chaos has on what we can reasonably assert on the basis of climate models. Roman Frigg is deputy director of the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences, LSE.
Feb 14, 2011•1 hr 21 min
Contributor(s): George Magnus | George Magnus will look at China and emerging markets from a post-financial crisis perspective, inviting us to reconsider how they will adapt to a new world economy. What reforms are needed to meet global goals? George Magnus is senior economic advisor at UBS Investment Bank, London. His latest book is Uprising: will emerging markets shapes or stoke the world economy.
Feb 09, 2011•1 hr 28 min
Contributor(s): Professor Paul Dolan | In Absolute Beginners by The Jam, Paul Weller sang "I need the strength to go and get what I want". The problem is that we often want things that do not improve our wellbeing. Or at least that is what we think the evidence is telling us. This lecture explores the sources of our mistakes and the robustness of the evidence. It considers the implications for public policy of us being absolute beginners about the sources of our wellbeing. Paul Dolan is a Profes...
Feb 08, 2011•1 hr 12 min
Contributor(s): Branko Milanovic | Inequality is a surprisingly slippery issue, involving not just straightforward comparisons of individuals, but also comparisons of price and consumption differences around the world – and over time. In this lecture Branko Milanovic, the lead economist at the World Bank's research division, will approach the issue in a new and innovative way, focusing on inequality in income and wealth in different time periods and contexts: from inequality in Roman times (and ...
Feb 08, 2011•1 hr 28 min
Contributor(s): Dr Tom Farrow, Professor Raimond Gaita | What role does forgiveness play in our private lives and in politics? And can neuroscience contribute to a more nuanced understanding of our ability to forgive? Tom Farrow is a senior lecturer in psychiatric neuroimaging in the Medical School at the University of Sheffield and a honorary NHS clinical scientist. Raimond Gaita is professor of moral philosophy at King's College London.
Feb 07, 2011•1 hr 33 min
Contributor(s): Harriet Harman MP | The three main political parties have committed to the target of spending 0.7 per cent of Britain's Gross National Income on overseas aid from 2013. But, at a time when the government are embarking on a programme of deficit reduction, that political consensus cannot be allowed to lead to complacency. Harriet Harman MP, Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, will set out the arguments for overseas aid and, in a changing economic and p...
Feb 03, 2011•59 min
Contributor(s): Patrick French | Award-winning historian Patrick French looks at the cultural roots of India's transformation: how a stagnant planned economy has become an entrepreneurial powerhouse, who gets super-rich and who remains super-poor - and why. Patrick French is the author of The World Is What It Is, Liberty or Death and Tibet, Tibet. This event marks the publication of his new book, India: A Portrait.
Feb 03, 2011•1 hr 26 min
Contributor(s): Anna Diamantopoulou | With the economic crisis in Greece, the government is embarking on an ambitious set of domestic reforms. What is the role of education in enhancing Greece's international competitiveness? Can Greece achieve the target of doubling R&D expenditure by 2020? Can the government realise its controversial reforms in the university sector and will they bring Greece closer to the rest of Europe? Anna Diamantopoulou is the minister for education, lifelong learning...
Feb 02, 2011•1 hr 24 min
