Social Theories of Risk and Economic Life [Audio]
Speaker(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.
Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for Christmas [Audio]
Speaker(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 extravagan
The End of Lawyers? [Audio]
Speaker(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.
The Financial Crisis: How Europe can save the world [Audio]
Speaker(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 fortune thr
Broke: voices from the edge [Audio]
Speaker(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 with peopl
Muslims in Modern Europe [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Gilles Kepel | This lecture will look at the complex character of the Muslim population in Europe and explain the many different ways in which they see the world around them. Gilles Kepel is the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS.
When China Rules the World [Audio]
Speaker(s): Martin Jacques | The years immediately following the end of the Cold War gave rise to the notion that the world was entering yet another American Century. But the next century will be decidedly Chinese and the rest of the world needs to adjust to this fact fast. Martin Jacques is a visiting senior fellow at LSE IDEAS. This event celebrates the publication of his book When China Rules the World: the rise of the middle kingdom and the end of the western world.
Getting fiscal consolidation right: Lessons from Sweden [Audio]
Speaker(s): Anders Borg | Faced with a record deficit and an accelerating debt, the UK will have to embark on a process of massive fiscal consolidation in order to bring public finances back to sustainability. How is this best done and what lessons can be learned from the Swedish experience of fiscal consolidation in the 1990s? Anders Borg is Minister for Finance in Sweden and has chaired the ECOFIN Council during the 2009 Swedish EU Presidency. He has previously worked as an advisor on monetary
Crisis as Motivation? The Challenges of Sustaining Growth in Southeast Asia [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Richard Doner | Can the dynamic, export-oriented economies of Southeast Asia sustain their growth in light of the global economic crisis? Professor Doner will consider the questions economists typically overlook. Richard Doner is professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia
Beyond the "Berlusconi Common Sense". A New Model of Politics for the 21st Century [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Paolo Mancini | Mostly outside Italy, there is a widespread common sense about Berlusconi and his political adventure: he has been able to enter successfully the political arena because of his television empire and because of his unclear links with illegal groups and business. This interpretation is undoubtedly true but it is also a limited one as it is not able to point out all the novelties that Berlusconi may represent. Indeed, the paper argues that the political adventu
Risk, ethics and public sensitivities [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor George Gaskell | 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.
2010: Marking a New Beginning - Bosnia & Herzegovina and South East Europe [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr Zlatko Lagumdzija | Dr Zlatko Lagumdzija is leader of the Social Democratic Party and a former Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
LSE Literary Festival - Literature and the Academic: Literature as a resource for other disciplines
Speaker(s): Richard Bronk, Professor Margot Finn, Dr Neil Vickers | The session examines how the reading of literature can expand the analytical imagination, provide alternative metaphors and supply vital empirical evidence. Three academics from very different disciplines discuss ways in which literature can be invaluable to the broader research community.
LSE Literary Festival - Sociology as Literature [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Richard Sennett | Richard Sennett's award winning Sociology of Literature explores the role of narrative in social research and in writing sociology.
LSE Literary Festival - Speaking of Love [Audio]
Speaker(s): AS Byatt, Ben Okri, Helen Simpson, Colin Thubron | Four very different writers consider four very different aspects of love: love as enchantment, and love as madness; passion in youth, and compassion in age. They read their favourite passages on love both from their own work, and from the work of others, and, on Valentine's eve, discuss Shakespeare's notion that 'The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact'.
This Sporting Planet: global sport and global capitalism [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor David Goldblatt | Globalisation has seen sport achieve a hitherto unequalled global cultural significance, but it has also left it in thrall to capitalism. Will economic forces continue to shape sport? David Goldblatt is a writer, broadcaster and teacher. He is author of The Ball is Round: a global history of football.
Does the Electric Car have the Juice? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Len Curran, Andrew Heiron | Fierce price competition, painstaking cost-cutting, and widespread volatility is making life in the auto industry incredibly challenging. How has Renault adapted, and where does it see the auto industry heading? As a fledgling technology (and one of the great hopes for reducing global carbon emissions) can any electric car concept overcome such an inhospitable environment? Renault Group Commercial Director Len Curran and Electric Vehicles chief Andrew Heir
Hamlet Without the Prince of Denmark: how development has disappeared from today's 'development' dis
Speaker(s): Professor Ha-Joon Chang | Ha-Joon Chang is a reader in the political economy of development at Cambridge University. This event is supported by the LSE Annual Fund.
Geopolitics and Imperialism: the British Empire and Halford Mackinder 1890-1940 [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr John Darwin | It was perhaps no coincidence that Halford Mackinder, the most famous exponent of geopolitical theory, wrote his seminal essay in 1904 when British world power seemed on the verge of a secular crisis. This lecture examines how far the insights contained in Mackinder's four major works explain the geopolitical fortunes of the British world system in its age of blood and iron.
Risk versus responsibility in the regulation of the company [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr David Kershaw | 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.
