Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Spring 2013 | Public lectures and events | Video

Contributor(s): Dr Ben S Bernanke, Olivier Blanchard, Professor Lawrence H. Summers, Axel A. Weber | Five years on, the global economy continues to come to terms with the impact of the financial crisis. This event examines the lessons that both economists and policymakers should learn in order to lessen the chance of future crises. Ben S. Bernanke was sworn in on February 1, 2006, as chairman and a member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System. Before his appointment as chairman, Dr. Bernanke was chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, from June 2005 to January 2006. Olivier Blanchard is economic counsellor and director, Research Department at the International Monetary Fund. After obtaining his Ph.D in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977, he taught at Harvard University, returning to MIT in 1982, where he has been since where he holds the post of Class of 1941 Professor of Economics. Lawrence H. Summers is President Emeritus of Harvard University. During the past two decades he has served in a series of senior policy positions, including vice president of development economics and chief economist of the World Bank, undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, director of the National Economic Council for the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011, and secretary of the treasury of the United States, from 1999 to 2001. He is currently the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University. Axel A. Weber is visiting professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, former president of the Deutsche Bundesbank and current chairman of the board of UBS. Professor Sir Mervyn King is governor of the Bank of England. Before joining the Bank he was professor of economics at the LSE, and a founder of the Financial Markets Group.

Contributor(s): Dr Steffen Hertog, Professor Giacomo Luciani, Dr Marc Valeri, Dr Khalid AlMezaini | Although most Arab countries remain authoritarian, many have undergone a restructuring of state-society relations. Lower and middle class interest groups have lost ground, while big business has benefited in terms of its integration into policy-making and the opening-up of economic sectors that used to be state-dominated. Arab businesses have also started taking on aspects of public service provision in health, media and education that used to be the domain of the state, while also becoming increasingly active in philanthropy. This launch for Business Politics in the Middle East (Hurst, 2013), a volume by LSE's Dr Steffen Hertog and edited by Professor Giacomo Luciani and Dr Marc Valeri, will cover the political role of regional capitalists during and after the Arab uprisings, prospects for the emergence of a more independent bourgeoisie, economic reform and new social contracts. Dr Steffen Hertog is Senior Lecture in Comparative Politics in LSE’s Department of Government. Hertog has been researching the comparative political economy of the Gulf and Middle East for more than a decade, working with a number of local and international institutions. Professor Giacomo Luciani is Scientific Director of the Master in International Energy of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences-Po and a Princeton University Global Scholar attached to the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Near Eastern Studies. He is also a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and co-director of the Executive Master in Oil and Gas Leadership. Dr Marc Valeri is Lecturer in Political Economy of the Middle East at the University of Exeter. After a Master's Degree in Comparative Politics, with speciality on Arab and Muslim worlds, he received a PhD in 2005 from Sciences Po Paris. His work dealt with nation-building and political legitimacy in the Sultanate of Oman since 1970. Dr Khalid Almezaini is an Assistant Professor at Qatar University and was previously a research fellow in the Kuwait Programme at LSE. He has taught International Relations at Cambridge, Edinburgh and Exeter universities. His research focuses on International Relations of the Middle East and the Gulf in particular.

Contributor(s): Professor Craig Calhoun | In this lecture LSE Director Professor Craig Calhoun, considers the threats, internal and external to global capitalism.

Contributor(s): Enrique García | What are the new challenges and opportunities faced by Latin American countries and the New Global South in the 21st Century? Enrique García has been president and CEO of CAF (Development Bank of Latin America) since December 1991. Dr Chris Alden is a Reader in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

Contributor(s): Matthew Oakley | LSE London's 2013 Lent term seminar series begins on the 14th of January. Speakers from within and beyond academia will focus on many of the implications of the current economic and political environment for London, covering relevant issues such as the road pricing, UK trends in higher education, census data and localism. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields.

Contributor(s): Phyllis Bennis | While US policy towards Israel remains unchanged, the long-standing assumption that most Americans – even most Jewish Americans – agree with that policy no longer holds. In the media, in popular culture, in universities and particularly within the Jewish community, there are signs of major shifts. In conversation with MEC Director Professor Fawaz Gerges, writer, analyst and activist Phyllis Bennis discusses these changes with reflection on her own political evolution from Zionist youth leader to anti-war internationalist and Palestinian human rights activist. Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at IPS. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She has been a writer, analyst, and activist on Middle East and UN issues for many years. In 2001 she helped found and remains on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation.

Contributor(s): Professor Sarah Coakley, Professor John Cottingham, Professor John Worrall | The idea that nature displays an inherent purpose, and more generally the hand of a wise designer, may have suffered a blow from Darwinian science, but it seems not to have been a death-blow. Indeed, from both academic and popular wings of theist opinion there is still considerable interest in arguments from design. The classic arguments contended that the natural world is so complex and suited to our survival that we cannot but credit it to the work of a wise designer. In this event we will explore attempts to revive design arguments in a time after Darwin. Sarah Coakley is Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity and fellow of Murray Edwards College at the University of Cambridge. John Cottingham is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Reading and an honorary fellow of St John’s College, Oxford. John Worrall is professor of philosophy of science at LSE. The Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science and the Forum for European Philosophy gratefully acknowledge the support of the LSE Annual Fund.

Contributor(s): Professor Neil Walker | The EU’s early success owed much to the law’s understated role as the motor of integration, but a more emphatic legal approach to the recent European crisis has been less successful. What does this mean for the future of European law, and the EU itself? Neil Walker holds the Regius Chair of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations at the University of Edinburgh.

Contributor(s): Megan MacInnes, Fred Pearce, Dr Subir Sinha | The theft of land is a global phenomenon. This event will provide an overview of global land grabbing, an analysis of its nature, and discussion of its impact on human rights. Megan MacInnes is the head of the Land Campaign at Global Witness. Fred Pearce is environment consultant at the New Scientist and author of The Land Grabbers: the new fight over who owns the Earth. Subir Sinha is senior lecturer in institutions and development at SOAS.

Contributor(s): Professor Donatella Della Porta | While liberal democracy is losing trust and legitimacy, social movements of different types are calling for alternatives. This lecture will discuss the potential of participatory and deliberative models of democracy. Donatella Della Porta is professor of sociology at the European University Institute.

Contributor(s): Professor Dominic Lieven | Dominic Lieven asks whether new trends in German and English language scholarship together with the opening of the Russian archives require a fundamental re-thinking of Russia’s role in the outbreak of the First World War. Dominic Lieven is senior research fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Contributor(s): Professor Valerie Bunce | Why do publics decide to challenge authoritarian rulers; why do they take different approaches to achieving these ends; and what explains the spread of such challenges across state boundaries? In this lecture, Professor Bunce will compare these three waves of popular challenges to authoritarian rulers providing insights into the MENA dynamic and important issues related to cross-national diffusion. Valerie Bunce is the Aaron Binenkorb Professor of International Studies and Professor of Government at Cornell University. Her research and teaching address comparative democratization, international democracy promotion (primarily by the U.S.); and inter-ethnic cooperation and conflict.

Contributor(s): Gerhard Weiss | LSE London's 2013 Lent term seminar series begins on the 14th of January. Speakers from within and beyond academia will focus on many of the implications of the current economic and political environment for London, covering relevant issues such as the road pricing, UK trends in higher education, census data and localism. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields.

Contributor(s): Professor Cécile Laborde, Professor Tariq Modood, Professor Anne Phillips | Under the combined criticisms of feminism, secularism and nationalism, multiculturalism is repeatedly being pronounced dead. Has it really reached the end of the road and what are the alternatives? Cécile Laborde is professor of political theory at University College London. Tariq Modood is the founding director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol. Anne Phillips is director of the Gender Institute and professor of political and gender theory in the LSE Gender Institute.

Contributor(s): Professor Tim Besley, Professor Francesco Caselli, Sir Richard Lambert, Rachel Lomax, Professor Lord Stern and Professor John van Reenen | Having sifted through the evidence throughout 2012, the distinguished group of LSE Growth Commissioners launch the report of their findings on the design of a strategy to support UK growth. Tim Besley is LSE professor of economics and political science; co-chair of the commission. Francesco Caselli is professor of economics at LSE. Richard Lambert is chancellor, University of Warwick and former director general of the Confederation of British Industry. Rachel Lomax is non-executive director of HSBC, former deputy governor of the Bank of England and permanent secretary of three government departments. Nicholas Stern is IG Patel chair and director, LSE Asia Research Centre. John van Reenen is director of CEP and professor of economics; co-chair of the commission.

Contributor(s): Heriberto Araujo, Juan Pablo Cardenal | Frustrated by the facile, pro-business commentary of so much writing on China and the evasions of Beijing's official pronouncements, two China-based journalists made a drastic decision to see for themselves just how rapidly China is spreading its influence around the world. Many thousands of miles and twenty-five countries later, China's Silent Army is the result: an unprecedented attempt to meet the many Chinese who, through hard work, ingenuity and ruthless business practices are rapidly moving much of the world into Beijing's orbit - from Peruvian mines to Siberian forests, Sudanese dams to Burmese jade mines. The implications of what they are doing - politically, ecologically and economically - are profoundly disturbing and particularly topical in light of the Eurozone crisis and the diminishing economical presence of the West. A disturbing and revealing piece of investigative journalism into the unknown extent of China's global power. Heriberto Araújo arrived to Beijing in early 2007, initially working for the AFP agency as Spanish correspondent in Beijing, and then as a freelance reporter for both French and Spanish media. Juan Pablo Cardenal has been reporting from and about China and the Asia-Pacific region since 2003 - first as Shanghai correspondent for El Mundo, and later from Singapore and Beijing for El Economista. He is currently based in Hong Kong.

Contributor(s): Lord Malloch-Brown | Ryszard Kapuscinski exposed the follies of Africa’s rulers and officials while showing an intense emotional identification with the continent’s people. Would he see the current state of Africa as a further triumph of the elites or the redemptive emergence of a more just continent? Mark Malloch-Brown is a former UN deputy secretary-general and was head of the UN Development Programme. He is the author of The Unfinished Global Revolution.

Contributor(s): Professor Craig Calhoun | Craig Calhoun took up his post as LSE Director on 1 September 2012, having left the United States where he was University Professor at New York University and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge and President of the Social Science Research Council. Professor Calhoun is a world-renowned social scientist whose work connects sociology to culture, communication, politics, philosophy and economics. Professor Calhoun is an American citizen but has deep connections with the United Kingdom. He took a D Phil in History and Sociology at Oxford University and a Master's in Social Anthropology at Manchester. He co-founded, with Richard Sennett, Professor of Sociology at LSE, the NYLON programme which brings together graduate students from New York and London for co-operative research programmes.

Contributor(s): Professor Hanspeter Kriesi | Professor Kriesi will explore the reactions of Europe’s citizens to the Great Recession, and how the political and economic context is shaping the aftermath of the crisis. Hanspeter Kriesi holds the Stein Rokkan Chair of Comparative Politics at the European University Institute.

Contributor(s): Dr Bonnie Ayodele, Professor Zhongying Pang | As Africa-China ties have grown tighter in the past few years, China’s engagement with the continent has evolved from being mostly economically focused to more sensitive socio-political fields. This talk provides in-depth discussion of African security issues in relation to China’s long-held non-interference policy. Bonnie Ayodele is lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Ado Ekiti, Nigeria. Zhongying Pang is professor of international and global affairs at Renmin University of China.

Contributor(s): Professor James Jasper | On those rare occasions when democracy has emerged in history, emotions have been used to define who is a full citizen. Can a new vision of emotions help us protect, repair, and extend democracy rather than curtailing it? James Jasper is professor of sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Contributor(s): Dr Rabah Aissaoui | In colonial Algeria, the social, ethnic and religious dividing lines of colonial society remained marked in the interwar period, and the political tensions that traditionally characterised the colonial relationship became particularly acute in the context of the rise of Algerian nationalism during the 1930s. The emergence of Algerian nationalist activism during that period coincided with the celebrations marking the apogee of the French colonial empire. This presentation seeks to examine some key developments in the political mobilisation of Algerians prior to the Second World War and how the French colonial authorities and more specifically the French security services responded to the political situation in Algeria by implementing a number of changes to the intelligence gathering process, changes that were marked by internal conflicts and tensions. Dr Rabah Assaoui is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Leicester.Dr Aissaoui’s research interests focus on immigration and racism in colonial and postcolonial France. He is particularly interested in the study of discourses on identity and exile, in the diasporic construction of nationalism and more specifically in expressions of ethnic, national and cultural belonging amongst Maghrebi migrants in France.

Contributor(s): Otto Dov Kulka, Sir Ian Kershaw | In this event Otto Dov Kulka will discuss his new book Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death: Reflections on Memory and Imagination in conversation with historian Sir Ian Kershaw. Auschwitz is for Otto Dov Kulka a vast repository of images, memories, and reveries: “the Metropolis of Death” over which rules the immutable Law of Death. Amidst so much death Kulka finds moments of haunting, almost unbearable beauty (for beauty, too, says Kulka, is an inescapable law). But what does it mean to find beauty in Auschwitz? For him, “the blue of the sky in this land is many times stronger than any blue one can see anywhere else.” Kulka here breaks years of silence, bringing together the personal and historical in a devastating, at times poetic, account of the concentration camps. Returning to the sites of his childhood, Kulka struggles to overcome the obfuscations of memory, unpick the euphemistic language of the camp, and interpret history as he experienced it. These haunting memories – of his mother, who doesn’t look back as she marches towards her death, the sounds of ‘Ode to Joy’ being sung by a children’s choir opposite the crematoria, and the “black stains” along the roadside during the winter death march - instigate forbidden, unanswerable questions. As the author maps his interior world, in a way reminiscent of W. G. Sebald, readers gain a new sense of what it was to experience the Shoah from inside the camps— both at the time, and long afterward. A renowned historian of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, Otto Dov Kulka is Rosenbloom Professor Emeritus in Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was born in Czechoslovakia in 1933. As a child, he was sent first to the ghetto of Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz. As one of the few survivors he has spent much of his life studying Nazism and the Holocaust, but always as a discipline requiring the greatest coldness and objectivity, with his personal story set to one side. Ian Kershaw is the author of Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris; Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis; Making Friends with Hitler; and Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-4. Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis received the Wolfson History Prize and the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for Political Book of the Year, and was joint winner of the inaugural British Academy Book Prize. Until his retirement in 2008, Ian Kershaw was professor of modern history at the University of Sheffield. For services to history he was given the German award of the Federal Cross of Merit in 1994. He was knighted in 2002 and awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2004. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and was the winner of the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2012.

Contributor(s): Dr Joseph Hanlon, Dr Jeanette Manjengwa, Teresa Smart | A discussion with the authors of the new book, Zimbabwe Takes Back its Land which offers a nuanced assessment of land reform, countering the dominant media narratives of oppression and economic stagnation in Zimbabwe. Joseph Hanlon is a visiting senior fellow at the LSE and an honorary research fellow at the University of Manchester. Jeanette Manjengwa is deputy director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Zimbabwe, Harare. Teresa Smart is a visiting fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London.

Contributor(s): Dr Isatou Touray | This talk discusses the efforts made by grassroots Gambian activists and community campaigns, as well as external forces, in building resistance to female genital mutilation in one of the few countries in the world where the practice remains not legally prohibited. Isatou Touray is founder and Executive Director of the Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (GAMCOTRAP), an organisation which has campaigned for women’s and girls’ rights since the 1980s, and which has been a leader in the struggle to eliminate Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). In addition to a prolific list of publications, Dr Touray has engaged extensively with other rights organisations in The Gambia and beyond. This has included membership of the Gender Action Team for the Ratification of the African Protocol on Women’s Rights, and the Technical Advisory Body for the Policy for the Advancement of Gambian Women, and acting as Secretary General for the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices. In recognition of her achievements, sacrifices and service to others, in 2008 Dr Touray was awarded the US Ambassadorial Prize for ‘International Woman of Courage’ and was voted ‘Gambian of the Year’, an honour bestowed previously on only two female nationals. This event is supported by the LSE Annual Fund.

Contributor(s): Alexander Jan | LSE London's 2013 Lent term seminar series begins on the 14th of January. Speakers from within and beyond academia will focus on many of the implications of the current economic and political environment for London, covering relevant issues such as the road pricing, UK trends in higher education, census data and localism. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields.

Contributor(s): Professor Eve Mitleton-Kelly, Professor Dr Paul Lukowicz, Nestor Alfonzo Santamaria | The scientists behind a crowd safety app, and the City of London Police who use the app in emergencies, will discuss the difference it can make to policy-makers and the emergency services. Eve Mitleton-Kelly is director of the Complexity Research Group at LSE and organised the trial of the app. Paul Lukowicz is scientific director at the Embedded Intelligence German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). Nestor Alfonzo Santamaria is the lead in business resilience for the City of London Corporation where he is part of the Security & Contingency Planning Group. The LSE Complexity Group has been working for over 16 years, with organisations in the private and public sectors, and several companies in the aerospace industry, to address practical complex problems. In the process it has developed a theory of complex social systems and an integrated methodology using both qualitative and quantitative tools and methods. 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.

Contributor(s): Professor Luis Garicano, Professor Wouter Denhaan, Professor Paul de Grauwe, Professor John Van Reenen | It is still possible to find a way out of the Eurozone crisis if policy-makers address two problems: dealing with the legacy costs of the initially flawed design of the Eurozone, and fixing the design itself. Luis Garicano is professor and head of the Managerial Economics and Strategy Group in the LSE’s Department of Management. Francesco Caselli is Norman Sosnow chair in economics at LSE. Wouter Denhaan is professor of economics. Paul de Grauwe is John Paulson chair in European Political Economy and head of European Institute. John Van Reenen is professor of economics and director of CEP.

Contributor(s): Dr Tariq Tell | Dr Tell will provide context to contemporary politics in Jordan by examining the history of the emergence and consolidation of the modern state in Jordan under Ottoman, British, and Hashemite rule. He will explorehow the sources of Hashemite social power in Jordon were forged and why they have proven more durable than those fashioned under more auspicious circumstances elsewhere in the Arab east. The talk will focus on the historical political economy of Trans-Jordan and the evolution of a militarized monarchical social pact that exchanged loyalty for economic security and bound the peasants and pastoralists of the East Bank to the throne. This is in contrast to much of what has been written on Hashemite rule in Jordan, which has concentrated on the statecraft of the Hashemite monarchs, or paid prime attention to the dynamics of their policies towards the Palestinian question. Dr Tariq Tell is a political economist currently teaching at the Centre for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut. He has previously taught at the American University in Cairo and the University of Manchester (UK). He has also held research posts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and in Amman at the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherche sur le Moyen Orient Contemporain (CERMOC) and the Royal Scientific Society. Tell has co-edited Village, Steppe and State: The Social Origins of Modern Jordan (I.B. Tauris, 1994) and edited The Resilience of Hashemite Rule: Politics and the State in Jordan before 1967 (Cahier de Cermoc, 2001). His book, The Social and Economic Origins of Monarchy in Jordan will be published by Palgrave in 2013. He has degrees from St. Antony’s College (Oxford University), the Institute of Development Studies (University of Sussex) and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His current research interests include the comparative history and politics of Arab monarchies and the relationship between imperialism, food security, and popular protest in the Middle East.

Contributor(s): Lucy Scott-Moncrieff | Lucy Scott-Moncrieff will reflect on the disappointing progress of human rights and anti-discrimination law, and consider whether the language we use may be part of the problem. Lucy Scott-Moncrieff is the president of the Law Society and managing partner of Scott-Moncrieff and Associates LLP.

Contributor(s): Professor John Coatsworth | John Coatsworth will talk about the major foreign policy challenges facing the second Obama administration: the decline of international norms and institutions; the drift toward deeper recession in Europe, the obstacles to demilitarization of Middle Eastern policy, the pressures toward militarization of the US “pivot” to East Asia, and the lack of coherent approaches to Africa and Latin America. John Coatsworth is provost and professor of international and public affairs and of history at Columbia University. Previously, he taught at the University of Chicago (1969-1992) and at Harvard, where he was Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs (1992-2007) and served as the founding director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (1994-2006). He also chaired the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies. Professor Coatsworth received his degree in History from Wesleyan University and his MA and Ph.D. degrees in Economic History from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Contributor(s): Professor Christopher Clark | Few episodes in the history of modern Europe have attracted such intense and lasting historical interest as the July Crisis of 1914. The chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War One still offers one of the most dramatic and intellectually enthralling narratives in modern history. Yet the size and sophistication of the existing secondary literature poses a challenge: how to generate fresh insights into a crisis that has preoccupied historians and generated controversy for nearly a century. This lecture revisits the crisis of 1914, reflects on trends in the recent and older writing on the outbreak of war and examines some new angles of approach. Christopher Clark is professor of modern European history at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. His principal publications include The Politics of Conversion. Missionary Protestantism and the Jews in Prussia, 1728-1941 (OUP: Oxford, 1995), Kaiser Wilhelm II. A Life in Power (Allen Lane: London, 2009) and (co-edited with Wolfram Kaiser) Culture Wars. Catholic-Secular Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe (CUP: Cambridge, 2003) and Iron Kingdom. The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 (Allen Lane: London, 2006).

Contributor(s): Laurie Penny | Taking in Pussy Riot and the 2011 uprisings, and stretching back to the Paris Commune, a contextual look at how the rage and pride of women is personal, political – and endlessly powerful. Laurie Penny is a journalist, blogger and author. She is currently a columnist and reporter for New Statesman.

Contributor(s): Ping Fu | We’ve spent the past 20 years capturing physical objects in the digital world. But in the coming decade, as the physical and digital worlds collide, their boundaries will blur in spectacular fashion. Ping will describe how the evolution of robots, sensors, 3D printers and other IT is making it possible to see, feel and make everything digital in a new (human) computer industry. This lecture is rich in lessons for entrepreneurs, creators, and innovators to instigate rather than follow, and to challenge the status quo. Ping will also talk about her personal story of resilience, a journey from the dogmatic anticapitalism of Mao’s China to the high-stakes, take-no-prisoners world of technology start-ups in the US. Her new book Bend, Not Break will be published in January by Portfolio Penguin. Ping Fu is the founder and CEO of Geomagic, a global company providing 3D technology for digital reality. Previously she worked at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, where she initiated and managed the NCSA Mosaic software project that led to Netscape and Internet Explorer. Fu is one of the few women CEOs in technology and was named the 2005 "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Inc. Magazine. She is a member of President Obama's National Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and sits on the board of the Long Now Foundation.

Contributor(s): Chrystia Freeland | There has always been some gap between rich and poor but it has never been wider - and now the rich are getting wealthier at such breakneck speed that the middle classes are being squeezed out. Acclaimed business journalist and global editor-at-large of Reuters, Chrystia Freeland has unprecedented access to the richest and most successful people on the planet, from Davos to Dubai. She offers a timely insight into the current state of capitalism and its most wealthy players. Forget the 1% - it's time to get to grips with the 0.1%. This event marks the publication of her latest book Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich. Chrystia Freeland is Editor of Thomson Reuters Digital, following years of service at the Financial Times both in New York and London. She was the deputy editor of Canada's Globe and Mail and has reported for the Financial Times, Economist, and Washington Post. Freeland's last book was Sale of a Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution. She lives in New York City.

Contributor(s): Professor Ali Ansari | Launching his latest book, The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran, Professor Ali Ansari will explore the idea of nationalism in the creation of modern Iran, considering the broader developments in national ideologies that took place following the emergence of the European Enlightenment and showing how these ideas were adopted by a non-European state. Ali Ansari is Professor in Modern History with reference to the Middle East at University of St Andrews, where he is also the founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies.

Contributor(s): Richard Brown | LSE London's 2013 Lent term seminar series begins on the 14th of January. Speakers from within and beyond academia will focus on many of the implications of the current economic and political environment for London, covering relevant issues such as the road pricing, UK trends in higher education, census data and localism. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields.

Contributor(s): Sanjeev Sanyal | The history of any country begins with its geography. Marking the launch of his new book, Sanjeev Sanyal looks at how India’s history was shaped by its rivers, mountains and cities. Sanjeev Sanyal is Deutsche Bank’s Global Strategist and was named “Young Global Leader 2010” by the World Economic Forum. This event is co-hosted by LSE Cities, the Asia Research Centre and the India Observatory.

Contributor(s): Professor Henry G. Overman, Alexandra Jones, Adam Marshall | Britain’s cities are facing profound challenges – both in the short run as a result of the recession and in the long run as a result of underlying structural change. In this lecture Henry Overman considers the nature of these challenges and considers what urban policy should do to help cities effectively respond to them. Henry Overman is Professor of Economic Geography at the LSE and Director of the Spatial Economics Research Centre. Alexandra Jones has been Chief Executive of the Centre for Cities since 2010. Prior to this, Alexandra led Ideopolis, the Cities team at The Work Foundation and worked in the former Department for Education and Employment. Adam Marshall was named Director of Policy and External Affairs at the British Chambers of Commerce in July 2009. In this role, he represents the accredited UK Chamber network - with 104,000 companies employing over 5 million people - in Whitehall, Westminster, Brussels and the media. He holds degrees from Yale University (BA) and the University of Cambridge (MPhil, PhD). The Spatial Economics Research Centre is based at the LSE and aims to provide high quality independent research to further understand why some regions, cities and communities prosper, whilst others do not. Research will focus on why there are disparities in economic prosperity at all spatial levels including regional, city-region, local and neighbourhood. 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.

Contributor(s): Baroness Afshar | Prominent Muslim feminist and peer Haleh Afshar will speak on the situation facing Iranian women in their country today. The BRISMES Annual Lecture will be given at LSE by Professor the Baroness Haleh Afshar. The annual BRISMES Award for Services to Middle Eastern Studies will be presented to Baroness Afshar at this event. Haleh Afshar (BA York, PhD University of Cambridge) teaches Politics and Women's Studies at the University of York and serves as a Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords. In 2005 she was awarded an OBE for services to equal opportunities. She is also the Visiting Professor of Islamic Law at the Faculté Internationale de Droit Comparée at Strasbourg. She was born and raised in Iran where she worked as a journalist and a civil servant. She has served as the Chair for the British Association of Middle Eastern Studies and Chair of United Nation Association's International Services. Alistair Newton is President of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies.

Contributor(s): Dr Daniel Stedman Jones, Professor Mark Pennington, Professor Lord Skidelsky | How did American and British policymakers become so enamoured with free markets, deregulation, and limited government? Based on archival research and interviews with leading participants in the movement, Daniel Stedman Jones has traced the ascendancy of neoliberalism from the academy of interwar Europe to supremacy under Reagan and Thatcher and in the decades since. He contends that there was nothing inevitable about the victory of free-market politics. Far from being the story of the simple triumph of right-wing ideas, the neoliberal breakthrough was contingent on the economic crises of the 1970s and the acceptance of the need for new policies by the political left. In his lecture he will describe neoliberalism's road to power, beginning in interwar Europe, then shifting its centre of gravity after 1945 to the United States, especially to Chicago and Virginia, where it was developed into an uncompromising political message, communicated through a transatlantic network of think tanks, businessmen, politicians, and journalists held together by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. A discussion for anyone who wants to understand the history behind the Anglo-American love affair with the free market, as well as the origins of the current economic crisis. Daniel Stedman Jones is a barrister in London. He was educated at the University of Oxford and at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a PhD in history. He has worked as a policy adviser for the New Opportunities Fund and as a researcher for Demos. His latest book is Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. Mark Pennington is Professor of Public Policy and Political Economy, King's College, University of London, prior to which he spent eleven years at Queen Mary, University of London. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics. Mark's work lies at the intersection of politics, philosophy and economics with a particular emphasis on the classical liberal tradition. His latest book, Robust Political Economy (2011: Cheltenham, Edward Elgar) examines challenges to classical liberalism derived from neo-classical economics, communitarian political theory and egalitarian ethics. From January 2013 Mark will be the European Editor of the Review of Austrian Economics. Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three-volume biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, and he recently published Keynes: The Return of the Master.

Contributor(s): Anders Borg | For the fifth year running Europe is preoccupied with financial turmoil, weak public finances, anemic growth and high unemployment. Progress has been made but with global growth weakening and downside risks on the rise fiscal consolidation remains challenging. The Swedish experience shows that prudent reforms can foster growth while maintaining social cohesion and an extensive welfare state. Twenty years ago, Sweden had large deficits and high debt and experienced a major economic crisis and the loss of investor confidence. Today, Sweden is lauded for its sustainable public finances, real wages have grown at a solid pace for twenty years and a fair income distribution has been maintained. What are the key priorities for growth? And how should policymakers strike a balance between strengthening public finances, sustaining demand and promoting growth? Anders Borg is Minister for Finance in Sweden and has chaired the ECOFIN Council during the 2009 Swedish EU Presidency. He has previously worked as an advisor on monetary policy issues at the Swedish Central Bank and as chief economist at several Swedish banks.

Contributor(s): Dr Joseph Mazor | In defending circumcision the speaker will consider bodily integrity, autonomy, reduction of sexual pleasure, the likelihood of the child choosing circumcision, and the possibility of religious alienation. Joseph Mazor is a fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE.

Contributor(s): Len McCluskey | The Labour movement has started to put itself once more at the heart of British politics but it also needs to link up with social protest to develop a new working-class politics. Len McCluskey is the general secretary of Unite.

Contributor(s): John Elkington | Drawing from his recent book The Zeronauts: Breaking the Sustainability Barrier, John Elkington will provide an account of his personal journey over 40 years on “the sustainability frontier” and his proposals on how to meet global challenges. John Elkington is co-founder and executive chairman of Volans. He is also the co-founder of SustainAbility, where he remains today as a a non-executive member of the board. Dr Mason is a senior lecturer in the department of Geography and Environment and an associate of the Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment.

Contributor(s): Professor Elizabeth A. Povinelli | Are all progressive politics inevitably acts of absolute extinguishment and emancipation, of the production and repression of life? If so why has a progressive imaginary been loathe to confront its own politics of extinguishment. Povinelli examines one strand of progressive political thought--the conversation among critical sexuality studies, immanent critique, and the biopolits--in order to open the problem of ethics and extinguishment beyond the safety of liberal adjudication and justification. Elizabeth A. Povinelli is Professor of Anthropology & Gender Studies at Columbia University. She has directed the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, co-directed the Center for the Study of Law and Culture, and currently Chair of the Department of Anthropology. Povinell’s research seeks to produce a critical theory of late liberalism. She is the author of four books (Labor’s Lot, Chicago, 1994; The Cunning of Recognition, Duke, 2002; The Empire of Love, Duke 2006; Economies of Abandonment, Duke, 2011). The Cunning of Recognition receiving a Bookforum Best Book of the Year. Karrabing-Low Tide Turning, a film she co-directed with Liza Johnson, was selected for the Berlinale Shorts Competition in 2012. She was the German Transatlantic Program Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Fall 2011; a Wyse Visiting Professorship at Cambridge University Spring 2012; and a Hallsworth Visiting Professorship at Manchester, Spring 2013.

Contributor(s): James Dawson, Kate Kingsley, Meg Rosoff | This event celebrates the culmination of the LSE/First Story creative writing competition for key stages 3, 4 and 5 and will include a prize-giving presentation, as well as a reception following the event. Trying new things can be daunting, but also inspiring. In our creative writing trying a new genre or subject, or exploring what new technology has to offer can be liberating. But is it sometimes best to stick to the classics? Find out what has inspired our panel of authors, and join in the discussion. James Dawson, author of dark teen thrillers Hollow Pike and Cruel Summer, grew up in West Yorkshire, writing imaginary episodes of Doctor Who. He later turned his talent to journalism, interviewing luminaries such as Steps and Atomic Kitten before writing a weekly serial in a Brighton newspaper. Until recently, James worked as a teacher, specialising in PSHCE and behaviour. He is most proud of his work surrounding bullying and family diversity. He now writes full time in London and is published by Indigo/Orion. Kate Kingsley is the author of Young, Loaded & Fabulous, a scandalous YA series about mean teens at British boarding school. After growing up between London and New York City, Kate started her writing career at GQ magazine. She has been published in places like The Sunday Times Magazine and the New York Times. This is her first year working with the wonderfully talented First Story students, an experience she is absolutely loving. She currently lives in East London, where she's writing her sixth book. Meg Rosoff was born in Boston, educated at Harvard and St Martin’s College of Art, and worked in New York City for ten years before moving to London permanently in 1989. She worked in publishing, politics, PR and advertising until 2004, when she wrote How I Live Now, which won the Guardian Children’s fiction prize (UK), Michael L Printz prize (US), the Die Zeit children’s book of the year (Germany) and was shortlisted for the Orange first novel award. Her second novel, Just in Case, won the 2007 Carnegie Medal. Meg’s other books include What I Was, The Bride's Farewell and There Is No Dog. This event is linked to LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival|, taking place from Tuesday 25 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Contributor(s): Tony Travers | LSE London's 2013 Lent term seminar series begins on the 14th of January. Speakers from within and beyond academia will focus on many of the implications of the current economic and political environment for London, covering relevant issues such as the road pricing, UK trends in higher education, census data and localism. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields.

Contributor(s): Michael Ward | LSE London's 2013 Lent term seminar series begins on the 14th of January. Speakers from within and beyond academia will focus on many of the implications of the current economic and political environment for London, covering relevant issues such as the road pricing, UK trends in higher education, census data and localism. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields. Each seminar is chaired by one of the members of LSE London, while speaker’s presentations, available podcasts and any other related documents are posted here regularly after each session.

Contributor(s): Professor Paul Preston, Dr Daniel Beer, Professor Helen Graham, Professor Dan Stone | A discussion of the atrocities against civilians in the Spanish Civil War, the political consequences in Spain today and the parallels with Nazi and Soviet experiences. Paul Preston is Director of the LSE’s Cañada Blanch Centre and author of numerous books on Spain of which the latest is The Spanish Holocaust. Daniel Beer is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Royal Holloway and the author of Renovating Russia: the Human Sciences and the Fate of Liberal Modernity (Cornell, 2008). Helen Graham is Professor of History at Royal Holloway. Her most recent book is The War and its Shadow. Spain’s Civil War in Europe’s Long Twentieth Century (2012). In 2010 she was Visiting Chair in Spanish Culture and Civilisation at the King Juan Carlos Centre, New York University. Dan Stone is Professor of Modern History at Royal Holloway, University of London. His books include Histories of the Holocaust (OUP, 2010); The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History (OUP, 2012) and The Holocaust, Fascism and Memory (Palgrave, 2013). The Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies is located within the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is the focus of a flourishing interest in contemporary Spain in Britain. 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.