Contributor(s): Various Speakers | Throughout his long life Professor Peter Townsend - a great friend of the Centre, advocate of human rights, and emeritus professor at LSE - worked hard first to prove the existence of poverty in Britain and then to persuade our society not to take such deprivation for granted. Peter Townsend died in June this year and this performance of 'Broke' by Ice and Fire, Actors for Human Rights, is dedicated to his memory. Using dialogue from real-life interviews...

Contributor(s): George Soros, Guy Verhofstadt | This public discussion marks the publication of Guy Verhofstadt's latest book The Financial Crisis: How Europe can Save the World. George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management, LLC. He was born in Budapest in 1930. He survived the Nazi occupation and fled communist Hungary in 1947 for England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He then settled in the United States, where he accumulated a large...

Contributor(s): Richard Susskind | Public figures who were once lawyers or law students will speak about how, if at all, their experience of studying, teaching or practising law has been of value to them in their other careers. Richard Susskind is an independent adviser on information technology.

Contributor(s): Mehmet Ali Talat | Mehmet Ali Talat is the Turkish Cypriot Leader. Mehmet Ali Talat was born in Kyrenia on July 6, 1952. Completing his primary and secondary education in Cyprus, Talat graduated from the Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey with an M.Sc.degree in Electrical Engineering.

Contributor(s): Professor Joel Waldfogel | Christmas is a time of seasonal cheer, family get-togethers, holiday parties, and-gift giving. BUT - How many of us get gifts we like? How many of us give gifts not knowing what recipients want? Waldfogel illustrates how our consumer spending generates vast amounts of economic waste - over £50 billion each winter. He provides solid explanations to show us why it's time to stop the madness and think twice before we start on our Christmas shopping...

Contributor(s): Professor Carol Graham | The determinants of happiness are remarkably similar around the world, in countries as different as Afghanistan, the U.S, and Chile. Income matters to happiness but only so much; friends, freedom, and employment are good for happiness, while crime, poor health, and divorce are bad. Paradoxically, however, people in places like Afghanistan can be as happy as those in much wealthier and safer ones like Chile. One explanation is the remarkable human...

Contributor(s): Dr Nigel Dodd | In this lunchtime series of lectures, a selection of LSE's academics from across the spectrum of the social sciences explain the latest thinking on how social scientists work to address the critical problems of the day. They survey the leading ideas and contributions made by their discipline, explain the types of problems that are addressed and the tools that are used, and explore the kinds of solutions proposed.

Contributor(s): David Willetts | Demographic change, migration and the fiscal crisis threaten a perfect storm. What are the indicators telling us about the choices we need to make? Can we see gain as well as pain ahead? David Willetts is Conservative MP for Havant and shadow minister for universities and skills.

Contributor(s): Madam Fu Ying | What is China doing to combat climate change? What challenges are China confronted with in addressing climate change? How China is tackling climate change through international cooperation? Chinese Ambassador Mme FU Ying will share with us China's perspectives on climate change.

Contributor(s): Professor Michael Cox, Martin Jacques, Professor Robert Wade | This event brings together Martin Jacques, Professor Michael Cox, and Professor Robert Wade to debate the changing nature and form of modern capitalism and to explore some of the challenges that will confront capitalism in the years ahead. Martin Jacques is the author of When China Rules the World: the Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World, and a Senior Visiting Fellow at LSE IDEAS. Michael...

Contributor(s): Amitav Ghosh | Amitav Ghosh is one of India's most acclaimed authors and cultural commentators. His novels include 'The Glass Palace', 'The Hungry Tide' and his most recent 'Sea of Poppies', the first volume of the Ibis Trilogy. He is also a celebrated travel and non-fiction writer, including such works as 'In an Antique Land' and 'Incendiary Circumstances'.

Contributor(s): Professor Lord Stern | Nick Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at LSE and chairman of LSE's new Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. He also directs the Asia Research Centre and the India Observatory at LSE. He was Chief Economist of the World Bank (2000-2003), then Head of the UK Government Economic Service and led a Review of the Economics of Climate Change which was published in October 2006. In October 2007 he was...

Contributor(s): Raj Patel | "Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." Credit has crunched, debt has turned toxic, the gears of the world economy have ground to a halt. It's now clear that the market doesn't only get it wrong about sub-prime mortgages; it gets it wrong about everything. We need to ask again one of the most fundamental questions a society ever addresses: why do things cost what they do?

Contributor(s): Vladimir Gligorov, Laza Kekic, Peter Sanfey | Vladimir Gligorov is Senior Economist at the Vienna Institute of International Economic Studies. Laza Kekic is Regional Director of Central & Eastern Europe & Director of Country Forecasting Services at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Peter Sanfey is Lead Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist, EBRD.

Contributor(s): Alain de Botton | This talk will raise a host of questions about the meaning and purpose of work - in particular investigating the effects of industrialisation and modernisation on the individual worker. Alain de Botton is a philosopher, author and entrepreneur.

Contributor(s): Dr Phillip Campbell, Professor Paul Freemont, Professor Richard Kitney, Professor Nikolas Rose, Hugh Whittall, Dr James Wilsdon | Bioengineers are trying to create synthetic organisms that do not occur naturally. Is this an amazing scientific feat or something we should be worried about? Phillip Campbell is editor in chief of Nature. Paul Freemont and Richard Kitney are co-directors of the EPSRC Centre for Synthetic Biology, Imperial College. Nikolas Rose is director of the...

Contributor(s): Professor Bridget Hutter | In this lunchtime series of lectures, a selection of LSE's academics from across the spectrum of the social sciences explain the latest thinking on how social scientists work to address the critical problems of the day. They survey the leading ideas and contributions made by their discipline, explain the types of problems that are addressed and the tools that are used, and explore the kinds of solutions proposed.

Contributor(s): Professor Julia Black, Professor Charles Goodhart, Professor Michael Power, Dr Paul Woolley | The consequences of banks' risk taking behaviour will be felt by the public finances of many countries for at least another generation. Risk taking behaviour is the lifeblood of financial markets. How can, and should, it be managed? Julia Black is professor of law at LSE. Charles Goodhart is professor emeritus of banking and finance at LSE. Michael Power is professor of accounting at...

Contributor(s): Professor Michel Wieviorka | Sociologists have published very little on the present economic crisis. But sociology is not lacking in ways and means to study the crisis in a more general framework of a global mutation over the past 35 years. Michel Wieviorka is professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

Contributor(s): Slavoj Zizek | Slavoj Zizek argues that the neoliberalism died twice: first as a political doctrine in the tragedy of the attacks of 9/11; then its farcical collapse as an economic theory when the meltdown at the end of 2008 brought an end to the utopia of global market capitalism. Has this crisis now offered a vital opening for the left to seize the reins of politics and the state?

Contributor(s): Professor Jan Paulsson | The rise of international arbitration for commercial and investment related disputes has spurred the emergence of a new body of transnational rules that cut across the traditional concepts of legal regulation. Jan Paulsson is centennial professor of law at LSE and co-head of Freshfields' international arbitration and public international law groups.

Contributor(s): Professor Gilles Kepel | Political Islam has emerged as one of the great ideologies of the modern world. How did this occur? Will it inevitably lead to conflict with the West? Is a clash of civilizations avoidable? And where is Political Islam heading? Gilles Kepel is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs for 2009-10. Professor Kepel is best known for his books on the Middle East and North Africa, and for his work on Islamism, including Islamism in Europe.

Contributor(s): Professor David Buckingham, Ranjana Das, Dr Chris Davies, Professor Sonia Livingstone, Dr Rebecca Willet | Enabling media literacy for 'digital natives' - a contradiction in terms? - Professor Sonia Livingstone, Department of Media and Communications, LSE. Talking about their generation: constructions of the digital learner - Professor David Buckingham, Institute of Education. -Q and A- Teenagers using the internet: riders, drivers, dabblers and outsiders - Dr Chris Davies,...

Contributor(s): Ed Gillespie, Jo Confino | What strategies can individuals within organisations use to make their organisation more successful and sustainable? Ed Gillespie is the co-founder and creative director of Futerra Sustainability Communications. Futerra arose from the frustration of its co-founders, in the late 1990's, with the unsophisticated communications around sustainable development, and the dull and worthy messaging of corporate social responsibility. Supported by a grant from...

Contributor(s): John Cassidy | What caused the recent global financial crisis? Some analysts blame greed, others stupidity, yet others myopia. The real problem is more fundamental, and it relates to the inner logic of a financially driven economy that generates perverse incentives and rewards damaging behaviour.