Contributor(s): Evelyn Fox Keller | A substantial literature on risk perception demonstrates the limits of human rationality, especially in the face of catastrophic risks. Human judgment, it seems, is flawed by the tendency to overestimate the magnitude of rare but evocative risks, while underestimating risks associated with commonplace dangers. Such findings are particularly relevant to the problem of crafting responsible public policy in the face of the kinds of threat posed by climate...

Contributor(s): Alistair Darling MP | Alistair Darling is MP for Edinburgh South West and former Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Contributor(s): Professor Kathleen Thelen | Do economic crisis and the emergence of service economies make established ideas about "liberal" and "coordinated" capitalism obsolete? Kathleen Thelen is the Ford Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Contributor(s): Professor Lord Layard | CEP founder Richard Layard will close this series of lectures with a discussion on the economic and social costs of mental illness. Richard Layard is Emeritus Professor of Economics at LSE. He is the head of the Centre for Economic Performance's Programme on Well-Being.

Contributor(s): Dr Ramachandra Guha | In India, cricketers are even more famous than its film stars; they are venerated and worshipped as gods. This lecture will explain how this sport became an Indian obsession. Ramachandra Guha is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2011-2012.

Contributor(s): Rolando Bompadre, Matías Néspolo | As tense as a thriller, as vivid as an undercover documentary, Matías Néspolo’s first novel, Seven Ways to Kill a Cat, examines a place of crime and deprivation. Set in Buenos Aires at the time of Argentina’s financial crash, and seen through the eyes of twenty-year-old Gringo, it tells the story of two boys on the cusp of adulthood who have no choice but to join the gang warfare that rules their community. While its depiction of Buenos Aires...

Contributor(s): Elif Shafak | Elif Shafak is an award winning novelist and the most widely read female writer in Turkey. She was born in 1971 in Strasbourg and is the author of 11 books, eight of which are novels, including The Bastard of Istanbul (which was long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2008) and The Forty Rules of Love (nominated for 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award). Her new novel, Honour, set partly in London about a half-Kurdish half-Turkish immigrant...

Contributor(s): John Lanchester | In his latest state-of-the-nation novel, Capital, John Lanchester tells the story of an ordinary street in the capital, but also of a global crisis. In this conversation with Hay Festival chair Revel Guest, he will discuss the power of a fictional handling of the financial crisis in comparison to non-fictional accounts. John Lanchester is the author of The Debt to Pleasure (winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award), Mr Phillips and Fragrant Harbour, a Sunday...

Contributor(s): Michael Rosen, Emma-Louise Williams, Lasse Johansson, Andrea Luka Zimmerman | Emma-Louise William’s film, Under the Cranes (2011), is based on the documentary play for voices, Hackney Streets, by poet and former Children's Laureate, Michael Rosen. Blending rare archive footage and dreamlike sequences of present-day Hackney, Williams links the everyday with the social and literary history of this dynamic and culturally diverse East London borough. Following the screening, a...

Contributor(s): Richard Holloway, Alex Preston | The former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway's memoir, Leaving Alexandria, recounts a life defined by the struggle between public faith and private doubt. Alex Preston’s latest novel, The Revelations, portrays the power of a religious movement amongst a group of young people, exploring why people still need faith in a secular era, and the battle between belief and doubt. Together they will discuss the place of faith, doubt and certainty...

Contributor(s): Horatio Clare, Dr Alex Gillespie, Abigail King | This panel will discuss the relationship between perceptions and realities of travel, and the influence of travel literature and photography on tourist experiences. Horatio Clare is an award-winning author, broadcaster, novelist and journalist. In 2008 he journeyed from South Africa to South Wales following migrating swallows, a journey he wrote about in A Single Swallow. His latest expedition took him from Felixstowe to Los...

Contributor(s): Lord Hurd, Sam Leith, Ian Leslie, Jonathan Powell | This distinguished panel will discuss the importance of rhetoric, that famous art of persuasion, as well as the centrality of lying and self-deception to human society and politics. Lord Hurd retired as Foreign Secretary in July 1995, after a distinguished career in Government spanning sixteen years. He served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1984 - 85, Home Secretary from 1985 - 89 and Foreign Secretary 1989...

Contributor(s): Marina Lewycka, Jeremy Sams, George Szirtes | A panel of experts discuss translation and storytelling in novels, poetry and opera. Are there fundamental elements to storytelling that are shared across cultures, languages and genres? What is lost, and what is created, in translation? Followed by a reading of the winning entry in the LSE micro-fiction student competition and a performance by students of a classic one act play. Marina Lewycka was born in a refugee camp in Germany...

Contributor(s): Sarah Salway | Using social media means it has never been easier to get your words out there, but how can you be sure you are being read? Sarah Salway uses personal experience and practical examples to show how you can make the internet work best for you, including getting an audience and writing for personal websites, blogs, podcasts, Facebook pages, and Twitter streams. Canterbury Laureate and Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the LSE, Sarah Salway has been blogging successfully...

Contributor(s): Dr Llewelyn Morgan | Dr Llewelyn Morgan explores historical and contemporary approaches to one of Afghanistan's most famous monuments, the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Their location's strategic position, controlling passage through the Hindu Kush, has seen a fascinatingly diverse array of visitors and commentators- from Muslims and Christians, to 19th Century classicists on the trail of Alexander the Great and, more recently, UN mine-clearers. Llewelyn Morgan is a classicist, normally...

Contributor(s): Reshma Ruia | Reshma Ruia was born in India and grew up in Rome, Italy. After an undergraduate degree in International Relations and post graduate degree in Economic History from LSE, she moved back to Rome where she worked as a development economist with the United Nations and subsequently with the OECD in Paris. She is now based in Manchester, where she obtained an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester University. She is the author of Something Black in the Lentil Soup,...

Contributor(s): Professor Mark Pagel | Since humans left Africa less than a hundred thousand years ago there has been a staggering explosion of cultures. What caused this blooming of diversity? Why are there so many mutually incomprehensible languages, even within small territories? Why do we rejoice in rituals, wrap ourselves in flags, or define ourselves in opposition to others? Humans are usually seen as differing from other animals because of our inherent traits of consciousness, language...

Contributor(s): Jonathan Gibbs | The introductory session to the day’s workshops will be looking at ways of getting started, or restarted, in writing fiction. What approaches can you take to plot and character when you do find time to write, and how can you use your time away from your desk to make sure that, when you’re there, you get the most out of it. Jonathan Gibbs has worked as a books journalist for 10 years. He took an MA in Creative Writing at UEA, and is currently nearing the end of...

Contributor(s): Justin Cartwright, Professor John Sutherland, DJ Taylor | Recent literary responses to the financial crisis take their place in a rich tradition of novelistic portrayals of the city and finance. What do these tell us of our changing attitude towards, and understanding of, money? Justin Cartwright was born in South Africa and educated in the US and at Oxford University. His work has won numerous awards. In Every Face I Meet was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Leading the...

Contributor(s): Ben Masters | Ben Masters' debut novel Noughties examines the highs and lows of modern student life, which reach a climax for his characters on the last night of university. In this conversation with LSE student Aleona Krechetova, he will discuss whether there is such a thing as a ‘standard’ student experience, and how he approached the question of 'relatability' when writing the book. Ben Masters is twenty-five years old. He was born in Northampton and went to Oxford...

Contributor(s): John Carey, Claire Tomalin | Claire Tomalin’s biography of Charles Dickens, published to mark the bicentenary of his birth this spring, has been acclaimed by critics. It is, as A.N. Wilson wrote in the New Statesman, ‘a book that goes to the heart of the mystery of Dickens as a writer’, and it conjures up a man with as many different selves as a Russian doll. ‘The inimitable’, as Dickens called himself, was a performer or rock-star charisma, who mesmerised audiences of...

Contributor(s): Pavel Litvinov, Michael Scammell | Acclaimed writer and founding editor of Index on Censorship. Michael Scammell and former Russian dissident Pavel Litvinov discuss the nature of censorship and the future of freedom of speech. It was Pavel Litvinov’s courageous public appeal to the West for help, during a Soviet show trial in 1968, that inspired the creation of Index on Censorship magazine, a forum for banned writers, artists and intellectuals in the struggle against...

Contributor(s): Phillip Gross, Sarah Salway, Ewa Zadrzynska | The Poetry Unites project consists of a series of five-minute films shown on TV, the Internet and in cinemas, in which a poetry lover speaks about his or her life in the context of presenting a favourite poem. This project with a literary dimension reveals both similarities and differences between people. By offering intimate insights into the mind of another person, it contributes to mutual understanding among European citizens....

Contributor(s): Professor Colin Crouch | Reflection on a century of European social democracy reveals its finest triumphs to have been when it has ensured a pluralism and political inclusiveness more extensive than anything that could otherwise be provided in capitalist societies. This essentially liberal achievement, rather than state control, should therefore be seen as its hallmark. This perspective provides the basis for an optimistic appraisal of social democracy’s future, but also...

Contributor(s): Amit Chaudhuri, Ian Jack | A conversation between award-winning Indian wrtier and musician Amit Chaudhuri and former Granta and Independent on Sunday editor Ian Jack, will be followed by a performance by the five-piece Amit Chaudhuri Band. Amit Chaudhuri's first CD ‘This Is Not Fusion’ (Times Music) was released in Britain on the award-winning independent jazz label Babel, and received excellent reviews from some of the most considerable music publications in the UK. He is...