Contributor(s): Professor Keller Easterling, Dr David Madden | Infrastructure is not only the underground pipes and cables controlling our cities. It also determines the hidden rules that structure the spaces all around us – free trade zones, smart cities, suburbs, and shopping malls. In this lecture Keller Easterling drew on her new book ‘Extrastatecraft’ to chart the emergent new powers controlling this space and showed how they extend beyond the reach of government. Easterling explored...

Contributor(s): Yiannis Boutaris | Amidst the economic crisis in Greece, something unusual emerged in Thessaloniki, the idiosyncratic “co-Capital” of the country. Under the mayorship of Yiannis Boutaris, the first non-political figure to be elected as Mayor in the city’s modern history, the city started to re-invent itself, beginning from its very own mode of governance. In this lecture, the Mayor of Thessaloniki will talk about the challenges of administrative modernisation and the necessary...

Contributor(s): Professor Angus Deaton | In lectures across three consecutive evenings (9 December, 10 December and 11 December) leading development economist Professor Deaton will discuss his work on health and poverty. Global poverty has been falling rapidly, even as income inequality has been inexorably rising in most of the world. Perhaps paradoxically, global income inequality has been falling. Or has it? Many claim not. Angus Deaton will discuss recent trends in poverty and inequality,...

Contributor(s): Professor Vincent Descombes, Alan Montefiore | What does it mean to speak of an individual’s very identity as a person? And what too of the ongoing identity of an institution or a group? And how is the sense of ‘identity’ as that which is identical related to ‘that which defines what and who we are’? Vincent Descombes will discuss some of the multiple complexities in what he has called Les embarras de l’identité. Vincent Descombes is a Visiting Professor at the University of...

Contributor(s): Professor Angus Deaton | In lectures across three consecutive evenings (9 December, 10 December and 11 December) leading development economist Professor Deaton will discuss his work on health and poverty. Global poverty has been falling rapidly, even as income inequality has been inexorably rising in most of the world. Perhaps paradoxically, global income inequality has been falling. Or has it? Many claim not. Angus Deaton will discuss recent trends in poverty and inequality,...

Contributor(s): Lady Williams, Mark Bostridge | Shirley Williams and Mark Bostridge will be discussing the impact of the First World War on the life and work of her mother, Vera Brittain, author of Testament of Youth. Shirley Williams is a politician, academic and former leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords. Mark Bostridge is a British writer and critic. He is the author of Vera Brittain and the First World War: The Story of Testament of Youth and Vera Brittain: A Life. The...

Contributor(s): Professor Angus Deaton | In lectures across three consecutive evenings (9 December,10 December and 11 December) leading development economist Professor Deaton will discuss his work on health and poverty. Global poverty has been falling rapidly, even as income inequality has been inexorably rising in most of the world. Perhaps paradoxically, global income inequality has been falling. Or has it? Many claim not. Angus Deaton will discuss recent trends in poverty and inequality,...

Contributor(s): Costas Simitis | Costas Simitis will examine the European debt crisis with particular reference to the case of Greece. LSE alumnus Costas Simitis served as Prime Minister of Greece 1996-2004. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).

Contributor(s): Sophia Money-Coutts | Sophia Money-Coutts is a former LSE student and has been the features editor on Tatler for two years. Prior to that, she worked on various newspapers, including the the Daily Mail, the Evening Standard, and The National in Abu Dhabi.

Contributor(s): Dame Tessa Jowell | Dame Tessa Jowell will draw on her experiences at the heart of government to discuss the role of capacity building and social integration in cities. Tessa Jowell (@jowellt) has been an MP since 1992. She has served in a variety of ministerial and shadow ministerial roles including as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 2001-2007. Professor Craig Calhoun (@craigjcalhoun) is Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science....

Contributor(s): Mirza Waheed | Acclaimed novelist Mirza Waheed will be introducing his new novel The Book of Gold Leaves: a book of piercing lyricism, a story of the impossible choice between personal duty and romantic love. ‘Waheed writes about war with a devastating and unflinching calm, with the melancholy wisdom of someone attuned to but never hardened by its horrors’ The Guardian. ‘Like his great-grandfather's gold painting, Waheed's work will undoubtedly endure’ Financial Times. Mr...

Contributor(s): Professor William Easterly | The admirable fight against global poverty has a blind spot on democracy and human rights, which are both good in themselves and also the most well-proven and lasting path out of poverty. Experts in development have too often unintentionally provided a rationale for oppressive autocrats and unenlightened US foreign policy in poor countries. William Easterly (@bill_easterly) is Professor of Economics at New York University and Director of NYU’s...

Contributor(s): Dr Benjamin Noys | How can we imagine a way out of the stasis of a Europe mired in financial crisis? The proponents of ‘accelerationism’ argue the need to embrace forces of abstraction and technology that can escape ‘old’ Europe. In this talk, Benjamin Noys will critically explore these alternative geographical imaginaries as attempts to come to terms with the ‘uneven’ forms of capital within Europe. Benjamin Noys is Reader in English at the University of Chichester.

Contributor(s): Martha Acklesberg, Richard Cleminson, Terence Kissack | The panel brings together historians and political theorists of anarchism and sexuality to explore the importance of this relationship to how we conceive of sexual politics today. The panel will explore the history of sexual freedom as part of anarchist revolutionary practice, providing an alternative history to one focused exclusively on sexual rights. Martha Acklesberg is a leading authority on women and gender in the...

Contributor(s): Professor Matthew Connelly | The interwar years are vital to understanding the rise of the U.S. national security state and the government’s approach to official secrecy. World War I both revealed the dangers of secret diplomacy to the world, and rationalised its necessity to its leaders. The ensuing period was marked by intense struggles over the limits to official secrecy. Woodrow Wilson both advocated for the prosecution of anyone who revealed national defense information,...

Contributor(s): Dr Lina Khatib, Dr Dina Matar, Dr Atef Alshaer | In this talk, Dr Lina Khatib, Dr Dina Matar, and Dr Atef Alshaer will present their most recent book, 'The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication'. In this book, the authors address how Hizbullah uses image, language and its charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to legitimise its political aims and ideology and appeal to different target groups. Dr Lina Khatib is director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut...

Contributor(s): Marcelo Neri | Minister Neri will talk about the growth of social welfare in Brazil during the last twenty years, and its determinants. How have growth and distribution of incomes evolved in Brazil? What has been the role played by various public policies (such as income transfers, housing, technical education etc)? How have different groups (organized by gender, race, region etc) performed? Is Brazil becoming a middle class country? What about the middle income trap with...

Contributor(s): Professor John Broome | Climate change is a moral problem. Through our emissions, each of us causes harm to others - something that generally we should not do. Some people are already suffering great harm from climate change. What should we do to remedy the situation? A solution can be achieved only through the coordinated actions of governments, and difficult ethical analysis is required to choose the right actions. John Broome is the White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy and...

Contributor(s): Robin Renwick | Will Hillary Clinton make history and become the first female President of the United States? Robin Renwick provides an invaluable insight into one of the most divisive figures in recent US political history. This event marks the publication of Ready for Hillary? Portrait of a President in Waiting. Robin Renwick, Lord Renwick of Clifton, is a crossbench peer in the House of Lords. He was the British ambassador in Washington when the Clintons arrived in the...

Contributor(s): Mark Phillips | We are under attack by change. The marketplace and battle-space are increasingly populated by peer competitors and those who can achieve competitive advantage with limited resources. The value of traditional approaches is eroding. We can no longer gain and maintain our strategic position in an industry, market or contested area the way we used to. Cheap and abundant supply chains, the internet, easy user interfaces and the free flow of interpersonal connections...

Contributor(s): Professor Paul Anand, Catherine Audard, Professor Jonathan Wolff | What is progress and how do we measure it? What account of wellbeing could accommodate a concern for self-realization and self-development? May an approach based on quality of life provide a superior alternative to utilitarian cost-benefit analysis? And could such an approach inform policy and practice? Paul Anand, Catherine Audard and Jonathan Wolff will combine insights from welfare economics and moral...

Contributor(s): Professor Judy Wajcman, Genevieve Bell | Judy Wajcman explores why it is that we both blame technology for speeding up everyday life and yet turn to digital devices for the solution. The event marks the publication of Professor Judy Wajcman's new book Pressed for Time: the acceleration of life in digital capitalism. Judy Wajcman is the Anthony Giddens Professor of Sociology at LSE. Genevieve Bell (@feraldata) is Vice President of User Experience Research at Intel Labs. Anthony...

Contributor(s): Lord Clement-Jones | China's creative sector is a field in which Britain's creative industries can build a strong partnership if only we take the opportunity. Tim Clement-Jones is London Managing Partner of DLA Piper and Deputy Chair of the All Party Parliamentary China Group.

Contributor(s): Professor Mats Berdal | How can the UN’s mission to raise humanitarian standards find its way in a world dominated by security concerns and power competition? Mats Berdal is Professor of Security and Development at King’s College, London. The International Relations Department (@LSEIRDept) is now in its 87th year, making it one of the oldest as well as largest in the world. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).