Contributor(s): Dr Kimberley Brownlee | When is it permissible to resort to civil disobedience? Do we sometimes have a moral duty to do so? Should we be punished for it? Kimberley Brownlee is Associate Professor of Legal and Moral Philosophy at the University of Warwick.

Contributor(s): Professor David J. Linden | Professor Linden will explore the biology of touch ranging from sex to pain to caress, paying particular attention to the role of emotional processes. David J. Linden (@david_j_linden) is a Professor of Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is the author of three books about brain function written for a general audience, most recently Touch (Viking, 2015).

Contributor(s): Jonathan Powell | Jonathan Powell was chief of staff to Tony Blair and the chief British negotiator on Northern Ireland. In his new book Talking to Terrorists How to End Armed Conflicts, Jonathan concludes that every time we meet a new terrorist group we say we will never talk to terrorists but in the end we almost always do. Jonathan Powell worked for the Foreign Office for fifteen years before becoming Tony Blair's Chief of Staff in 1994. Since leaving government he has...

Contributor(s): Professor Francesco Caselli | Professor Caselli will ask whether recent economic research could shed new light on the political and economic impact of natural resource windfalls. Francesco Caselli is the Norman Sosnow Professor of Economics in LSE’s Department of Economics and Centre For Macroeconomics. John Van Reenen is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE. The Department of Economics at LSE (@LSEEcon) is one of the largest...

Contributor(s): Professor Kaushik Basu, Professor Amartya Sen, Professor Lord Nicholas Stern | Kaushik Basu (@kaushikcbasu) is Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. He is the second World Bank Chief Economist from a developing country. He is on leave from Cornell University where he is Professor of Economics and the C. Marks Professor of International Studies. Prior to this he served as the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India at the Ministry of Finance. He...

Contributor(s): Professor Hugh White | Could it all happen again? Professor White will argue that imagining a new regional order to fit the fast-changing realities in Asia will make war less likely. Hugh White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University and author of The China Choice. Robin Archer is the Director of the Postgraduate Programme in Political Sociology at LSE. The Ralph Miliband Programme (@rmilibandlse) is one of LSE's most prestigious lecture series...

Contributor(s): Jeremy Leggett | A solar revolution is unfolding at a speed that is taking even the solar industry by surprise. But years of blindness to systemic risk threatens fresh global economic disaster. Jeremy Leggett (@JeremyLeggett) is the founder of Solarcentury and SolarAid. At this lecture, Jeremy Leggett will launch an innovative new project. Details to be revealed on the day.

Contributor(s): Professor John Dupré, Professor Gina Rippon | Are there ‘hardwired’ psychological differences between men and women? Do these alleged differences show that gender differences in society have a biological explanation? And what does talk of ‘hardwiring’ even mean? In this interdisciplinary dialogue, philosopher John Dupré and cognitive neuroscientist Gina Rippon will debate these and other issues concerning the science and philosophy of gender. John Dupré is Professor of...

Contributor(s): Neel Mukherjee, Elif Shafak | What are the foundations of society? Two award-winning writers look at the underpinnings of cultures and societies in their writings about the country of their origins, India and Turkey, in conversation with Bidisha. Neel Mukherjee’s second novel, The Lives of Others, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014. It has also been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award. His first novel, Past Continuous was joint winner of the Vodafone-Crossword...

Contributor(s): Dr Caroline Edwards, Professor Adam Roberts, Anders Sandberg | Utopian and dystopian visions of technologically manipulated and enhanced human beings have always been central characteristics of science fiction film and literature. Sometimes celebrated, sometimes feared, these depictions have articulated anxieties of the day and tackled philosophical, ethical and social questions about possible futures. Can we look to science fiction as a guide to navigating the challenges...

Contributor(s): Professor Peter Boxall, Jennie Erdal, Andrew O’Hagan | Is the 'novel of ideas' an outdated genre or are we witnessing its resurgence? What answers can it offer to twenty-first-century questions? In this panel three speakers will discuss examples of the 'novel of ideas' and assess the genre's contemporary relevance. Peter Boxall is Professor of English and Deputy Head of the School of English at the University of Sussex. His research has focused on the relationship between...

Contributor(s): Polly Coles, Jane Da Mosto, Liza Fior, Jonathan Keates | Venice has captivated artists and writers for hundreds of years, but in a city whose literal foundations are under threat from tourism, this discussion asks what is the value of heritage, is it worth saving at any cost? And is there a future for Venice’s unique community away from the museums and palaces? Polly Coles is a writer and broadcaster who spent several years living in Venice. Her book The Politics of Washing:...

Contributor(s): Dr Yasmin Gunaratnam, Dr Deborah Padfield, Jude Rosen | Pain is notoriously hard to communicate to others. Scholars have debated the relationship between pain and language: does pain require a shared language and common understanding to be explicable, or does hearing about the pain of others always entail doubt? What kinds of communication best enable us to express and hear about pain? On what foundations can we build understanding? This session will explore the capacities of...

Contributor(s): Ahmad Zakii Anwar, Nickson Fong, Yang-May Ooi | This year the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) becomes an integrated economic community. The year caps five decades of foundation and development since the region's formal independence from the West. What are the creative voices contending for the soul of a region where freedom, economic prosperity, civil society, and political maturity continue to evolve in unexpected ways? What forces of rebellion drive the soul...

Contributor(s): Luke Dormehl, Aleks Krotoski, Professor Sonia Livingstone, Professor Andrew Murray | What are the foundations of our identity in the digital age? As digital devices make and manage more and more decisions about our everyday lives how can we retain our sense of self? The panellists discuss how algorithms and intelligent devices are altering our sense of personhood and the ways in which we see ourselves and others. Luke Dormehl (@lukedormehl) is a technology author and...

Contributor(s): Professor Barbara Graziosi, Edith Hall, Tom Holland, Sir Peter Stothard | This panel explores the Classical wellsprings of Western literature, reflecting on the continuing value and relevance of the Greco-Roman Classics today. Barbara Graziosi (@BarbaraGraziosi) is Professor of Classics and Director for Arts and Humanities at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Durham University. She has published widely on the culture of the ancient world including Inventing Homer, After...

Contributor(s): Dr Matthew Griffiths, Gaia Vince, Dr Kathryn Yusoff | The controversial designation “Anthropocene” names a geological epoch in which the planet has been irrevocably changed by human activity. In this panel, three thinkers consider the ways in which the Anthropocene requires us to reconsider both human self-identity and the human capacity for creation and destruction. Is art a narcissistic reflection of human concerns and desires or might it provide a model for dynamic and...

Contributor(s): Lisa Appignanesi, Darian Leader, Owen Sheers | This panel explores our relationship with our sometimes traumatic past, and asks why we should remember and what happens when we can’t remember. The discussion considers the importance of place and landscape in memory, as well as the nature of collective memory and memorialisation, particularly in the context of war. Lisa Appignanesi (@LisaAppignanesi) is a writer, novelist and broadcaster. She is the former Chair of the Freud...

Contributor(s): Jonathan Gibbs | In this creative writing workshop we will be looking at the impulse to write, when they are so many reasons and excuses not to, in the hope that exposing the foundations of the creative act can inform the writer's practice in the here and now. But though in part we'll be looking at our personal histories of writing, the exercises will be geared towards producing new work, with a deeper understanding of what our goals actually are. Jonathan Gibbs's novel,...

Contributor(s): Professor Ian Bostridge, Dr Armand D’Angour, Professor Fiona Sampson | This discussion explores the links between music and poetry and how much each art form contributes to the other, as well as what common features these art forms share. Common foundations include public performance and private listening, abstract patterns, rhythm, register, tone, breathing and the emergence of tight form from apparently limitless possibility. But music and poetry are partially distinct in...

Contributor(s): Professor Francesca Klug | The Magna Carta, sealed in 1215, has come to stand for the rule of law, curbs on executive power and the freedom to enjoy basic liberties. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948, it was heralded as 'a Magna Carta for all human kind'. How has the Magna Carta, initially considered a failure, achieved such iconic status? And can how those who proudly commemorate its 800th year simultaneously pledge to...

Contributor(s): Professor Sarah Churchwell, Jonty Claypole, Maya Jaggi, Frederic Raphael | With the BBC having announced a remake of Kenneth Clark's TV series Civilisation, and Melvyn Bragg’s intellectual cornucopia on Radio 4, In Our Time, now in its 17th year, we will be asking whether the mission of Lord Reith 'to educate, inform and entertain' is alive and well. Can Matthew Arnold, TS Eliot and FR Leavis sleep well in their graves? Has the era of dumbing down to ' widen access ' run its...

Contributor(s): David Birch, Professor Nigel Dodd, Tom Hockenhull, Professor Nicky Marsh | As our money increasingly takes the form of plastic cards and mobile phones, rather than cash, new questions are being posed about the connections between money, self and identity. Is money becoming de-anonymised, and if so, should we care? Is the decline of cash a moment of renewal in our relationship with money, or a threat to the freedom that has been central to its use? This panel will discuss...

Contributor(s): Professor Alan Manning, Nicola Smith | The Centre for Economic Performance has played an important role in the development of the UK’s National Minimum Wage, which was voted the most successful government policy of the last 30 years. But the minimum wage seems to be stuck in something of a rut and there are many ideas for how to rejuvenate it. This lecture will show how evidence can be used to evaluate these proposals. Alan Manning is Professor of Economics and Director of...

Contributor(s): David Harsent, Jeremy Sams | Is a translation or adaptation bound always to be measured against the work on which it was founded, or can it take on an independent life of its own? In discussion David Harsent and Jeremy Sams reflect on the differing demands and opportunities presented by translation and adaptation. David Harsent (@DavidHarsent1) has published eleven collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Fire Songs. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the...