Contributor(s): Professor Justin Lin | As a result of the miraculous growth since the market-oriented reform in 1979, China’s status in the global economy has dramatically changed. This speech will reflect on China’s unprecedented growth in the past 32 years, examine the reasons of that growth, and discuss prospects and challenges for China to maintain an eight-percent annual growth rate in the coming decades. Justin Yifu Lin is the former World Bank chief economist and senior vice president,...

Contributor(s): Lina Khatib | Marking the publication of Lina Khatib's latest book Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle, this lecture focuses on the evolution of political expression and activism in the Middle East over the past decade, highlighting the visual dimension of power struggles between citizens and leaders in Arab countries undergoing transition. Lina Khatib is the co-founding head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford...

Contributor(s): Professor Chris Bertram | What can Rousseau’s recently reconstructed fragment Principles of the Right of War tell us about war and “humanitarian intervention” today? Are the principles of just war theory simply a fig leaf for power? Chris Bertram is professor of social and political philosophy at the University of Bristol.

Contributor(s): Andrew Marr | Andrew Marr is a journalist, broadcaster and author. He hosts the Sunday morning BBC1 programme The Andrew Marr Show as well as BBC Radio 4's Start the Week every Monday. He wrote and presented his own History of Modern Britain and The Making of Modern Britain for BBC2, which were hugely popular with viewers and won prestigious awards from the Royal Television Society, the Broadcasting Press Guild and BAFTA. More recent offerings include the Diamond Queen...

Contributor(s): Salil Shetty | The indivisibility of human rights is proclaimed as a goal, but the reality is different. Separating civil and political from economic, social and cultural rights could result in losing the battle for both. Salil Shetty joined Amnesty International as the organisation’s eighth Secretary General in July 2010. A long-term activist on poverty and justice, Salil Shetty leads the movement's worldwide work to end the abuse of human rights. He is the organisation’s...

Contributor(s): Dr Julian Baggini, Canon Dr Angus Ritchie, Dr Mark Vernon | Religious and secular philosophers have long debated whether ethics have an objective basis (moral realism) or a relative basis (moral relativism). But does theism or atheism offer a better basis for ‘moral realism’? A theist, an atheist, and an agnostic discuss. Julian Baggini is a writer, journalist and co-founder of The Philosophers’ Magazine. Angus Ritchie is director of the Contextual Theology Centre. Mark Vernon...

Contributor(s): Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Taleb believes that many of the best and most successful systems in the world (such as evolution) have antifragility at their heart. Conversely, those systems which reject antifragility and suppress volatility (such as modern politics and banking) become weaker and less able to withstand the inevitable shocks – the major tragedy of modernity, according to Taleb. But antifragility is not simply an antidote to “black swan events”. Taleb believes...

Contributor(s): Professor Sara B Hobolt | “Who is to blame?” has become a familiar question in response to the economic crisis that is sweeping Europe. Professor Hobolt discusses when and why citizens, the media, and national governments blame the European Union for policy failures, and considers the consequences for democracy in Europe. This event is part of the eurocrisis@lse series. Sara Hobolt is the Sutherland Chair in European Institutions at the European Institute, LSE.

Contributor(s): David Patrikarakos | Drawing on years of research and access to unique sources, David Patrikarakos will tell the history of Iran’s nuclear programme, from its beginnings under the Shah until the present day. He will argue that the nuclear programme is the exegesis of modern Iran, evolving alongside the modern state itself. Its history is a kind of tabula rasa (a blank slate) onto which modern Iran’s evolution has been and continues to be written; or, more simply, it is the...

Contributor(s): Professor David Nutt | David Nutt will reflect on his ten years’ experience on the government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until 2010, and present new analyses comparing the harms of drugs and alcohol using more sophisticated methodology. David Nutt is Edmond J Safra Professor of Neuropsychology at Imperial College London. He was chair of the ACMD until 2010 and is now chair of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs.

Contributor(s): Dr Jonathan Hill | In this lecture, Dr Hill seeks to make the case that Algeria has exerted a profound influence on the discipline of postcolonial studies. He will argue that the country’s legacy is at once political, intellectual and ideological. J.N.C. Hill is a senior lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. He has published widely on North African security issues. Some of his main publications include Nigeria since Independence: Forever Fragile?...

Contributor(s): Professor Christian List | Science, especially the idea that everything in the universe is physically determined, is often thought to challenge the notion that we, humans, have free will and are capable of choosing our own actions. The aim of this lecture is to argue that there is room for free will in a world governed by the laws of physics. Christian List is professor of political science and philosophy at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Gillian Hart | In the light of the conflicting forces that have unfolded in South Africa over the last decade, Gillian Hart takes a fresh look at the nation’s transition from apartheid. Based on Professor Hart’s forthcoming book, this lecture will explore the simultaneous processes of South African de-nationalization, re-nationalization and ‘elite pacting’, before examining how this fits within contemporary debates over passive revolution. Gillian Hart is Professor...

Contributor(s): Patrick Dunleavy, Chris Thong, Sir Adrian Smith, Nicola Dandridge, Simon Bastow, Victor Henning, Ziyad Marar, Jason Priem, Jane Tinkler, Julia Lane, Cameron Neylon, David Sweeney, Stephen Curry, Mark Thorley, Robert Kiley, Jude England | The Future of Academic Impacts was an all day conference hosted by the LSE’s Impact of Social Sciences project team held on Tuesday, 4th December at Beveridge Hall, Senate House, London. The event is to mark the end of the three-year Impact of...

Contributor(s): Patrick Dunleavy, Chris Thong, Sir Adrian Smith, Nicola Dandridge, Simon Bastow, Victor Henning, Ziyad Marar, Jason Priem, Jane Tinkler, Julia Lane, Cameron Neylon, David Sweeney, Stephen Curry, Mark Thorley, Robert Kiley, Jude England | The Future of Academic Impacts was an all day conference hosted by the LSE’s Impact of Social Sciences project team held on Tuesday, 4th December at Beveridge Hall, Senate House, London. The event is to mark the end of the three-year Impact of...

Contributor(s): Patrick Dunleavy, Chris Thong, Sir Adrian Smith, Nicola Dandridge, Simon Bastow, Victor Henning, Ziyad Marar, Jason Priem, Jane Tinkler, Julia Lane, Cameron Neylon, David Sweeney, Stephen Curry, Mark Thorley, Robert Kiley, Jude England | The Future of Academic Impacts was an all day conference hosted by the LSE’s Impact of Social Sciences project team held on Tuesday, 4th December at Beveridge Hall, Senate House, London. The event is to mark the end of the three-year Impact of...

Contributor(s): Patrick Dunleavy, Chris Thong, Sir Adrian Smith, Nicola Dandridge, Simon Bastow, Victor Henning, Ziyad Marar, Jason Priem, Jane Tinkler, Julia Lane, Cameron Neylon, David Sweeney, Stephen Curry, Mark Thorley, Robert Kiley, Jude England | The Future of Academic Impacts was an all day conference hosted by the LSE’s Impact of Social Sciences project team held on Tuesday, 4th December at Beveridge Hall, Senate House, London. The event is to mark the end of the three-year Impact of...

Contributor(s): Ulrike Guérot, Mark Leonard, Anthony Teasdale, José Ignacio Torreblanca | The euro crisis has dealt a powerful blow to the EU’s political system. Many European leaders have been ousted, more radical parties are becoming more powerful, and questions are increasingly being asked about the legitimacy of the European Union. European leaders find themselves trapped between the need for a more integrated Europe and the demands of voters: the necessity and impossibility of "more...

Contributor(s): Professor Paul de Grauwe | The eurozone experiences an existential crisis. What can we do about it? This event is part of the eurocrisis@lse series. Paul De Grauwe is John Paulson Chair in European Political Economy and head of the European Institute, LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Sir Roy Goode QC | An admired academic at the top of his field, Professor Goode discusses the reshaping of the law governing security and quasisecurity interests in personal property. Ask your question and join the debate @LSELaw. Roy Goode is emeritus professor of law at the University of Oxford. He is the founder of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary, University of London.

Contributor(s): Professor Craig Calhoun | Drawing on his decades of research on social protest, Professor Calhoun will explore the roots of radicalism and the relationship between social movements and social change. Professor Calhoun is a world-renowned social scientist whose work connects sociology to culture, communication, politics, philosophy and economics. He took up his post as LSE Director on 1 September 2012, having left the United States where he was University Professor at New York...

Contributor(s): Professor Margaret Boden, Professor Gregory Currie, Professor Nicholas Royle | Creativity is among the most treasured human traits, and many of us admire and strive for more creativity in our lives. But what exactly constitutes creativity, and how is it possible? Is creative thinking something that can be learned? Can it be modelled on computers? And if so, what can we learn from such modelling? This panel will discuss these and related questions from the perspectives of...

Contributor(s): Nir Rosen | Journalist Nir Rosen spent eight months in Syria during the current uprisings with unprecedented access to all parties to the conflict, from opposition leaders and activists on the ground, to insurgent leaders and fighters on the ground, to Syrian army, security and loyalist militias (leaders and fighters on the ground). He spent a lot of his time in cities and villages in Daraa, Damascus and its suburbs, Homs, Hama, Tartus, Latakia, Idlib and Aleppo city, talking...

Contributor(s): Victoria Glendinning | How the East India Company, a dysfunctional commercial entity too big to fail, elevated and then spat out the controversial reformist visionary who lost the Company money but founded a world city - Singapore. Victoria Glendinning is a prizewinning biographer, the author of Elizabeth Bowen, Vita, Edith Sitwell, Trollope and Leonard Woolf. She has also written three novels, The Grown-Ups, Electricity and Flight. She is a Vice-President of English PEN and...