What is Wrong with Secularism of all Sorts? Priority for Democracy [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Veit Bader | The lecture presents a contextualised criticism of first and second order myths of secularisms and of the conflation of liberal-democratic institutions with secular ones, and argues for the priority of liberal democracy. Veit Bader holds chairs in sociology, and social and political philosophy, both at the Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Secularism and Shared Values [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Richard Norman | The global revival of religion has raised fundamental questions about its role in politics and its claim that it serves as a principle of identity, indispensable to the continuing survival of communities. This series brings together leading thinkers and scholars to encourage discussion and debate on this crucial contemporary theme.
Women's Status, Men's States [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Catharine Mackinnon | Analyzing the nature of the international in gendered terms, Professor MacKinnon provides a perspective on developments in women's human rights globally. Catharine A. MacKinnon, Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, is a teacher, lawyer, writer, and activist on sex equality domestically and internationally. She has taught at ten law schools including Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Osgoode Hall (Toronto), and Columbia, and
The Incompatibility of Science and Religion [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor John Worrall | Richard Dawkins and others claim that science and religion are incompatible. Others argue that on a more sophisticated view there is only the appearance of a clash. Who is right? John Worrall is professor of philosophy of science at LSE.
Many Voices: understanding the debate about preventing violent extremism [Audio]
Speaker(s): Hazel Blears MP | The tragic events of 7/7 illustrated the threat to our society posed by violent extremism. Preventing it is one of the defining challenges of our age. Hazel Blears will explore the tough choices government has to make - how to empower new voices to join the debate, how to support people standing up for shared values and how to equip communities with the skills, confidence, and resilience they need to be part of the solution. In June 2007, Hazel Blears became the Sec
What should the next G20 meeting do? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Michael Cox, Will Hutton; Professor Danny Quah | The upcoming meeting of the G20 in London in early April 2009 is crucial for the development of policies to stabilise the world economy and reform the international financial architecture. What will the G20 do and what should it do? Will Hutton, Danny Quah, Mick Cox and David Held debate the issues.
Consolidating Kosovo's European Future: tracing next steps [Audio]
Speaker(s): Peter Feith | A look at Kosovo's achievements and challenges over the past year, highlighting the current state of play and the priorities and vision of the Kosovo government and its international partners as the country prepares for European Union membership.
Human Security in an Age of Turbulence [Audio]
Speaker(s): Mary Kaldor | Mary Kaldor is a prolific author who has written widely on a range of key issues over the years ranging from the 'Baroque Arsenal' (1982) a study that challenged the logic of militarism and the belief that more weapons meant more security, through to her groundbreaking 'New Wars'(1999) a book that reveals the new forms that organized violence will take in the 21st century. Mary Kaldor today is one of the most influential and respected alternative voices in the field of
The Idea of Justice [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Amartya Sen | Amartya Sen explores the ways in which, and the degree to which, justice is a matter of reason, and of different kinds of reason. This event marks the launch of Professor Sen's new book The Idea of Justice. Amartya Sen is Lamont University Professor at Harvard and an honorary fellow of LSE. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge 1998-2004. His books include Development as Freedom (OUP), The Argumentative India
Terrorism: How to Respond [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Richard English | Drawing on a wide range of case studies, Richard English argues that we have as yet failed to understand terrorism properly, and that this is at the root of our disastrous failure to respond effectively to terrorism in the post-9/11 crisis.Richard English is professor of politics, director of research and chair of the Irish Studies International Research Initiative at Queens University Belfast. His latest book is entitled Terrorism: how to respond.
Building the Centre-right in Europe: impressions from a lifetime's experience [Audio]
Speaker(s): Wilfried Martens | Centre-right parties dominate at national and European levels. To what do they owe their success - even during this so-called 'crisis of capitalism'? Wilfried Martens is president of the European People's Party and former prime minister of Belgium. This lecture marks the release of his memoirs, I Struggle, I Overcome. Damian Chalmers is Professor of European Union Law based in the Law Department and the European Institute, LSE.
Human Rights in the 21st Century [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Noam Chomsky | Leading thinker Professor Noam Chomsky considers the state and future of human rights. Noam Chomsky is professor of linguistics at MIT.
In Conversation with Amartya Sen [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Amartya Sen; Professor Richard Sennett | Nobel Prize winner Professor Amartya Sen will discuss his latest book The Idea of Justice with LSE's Professor Richard Sennett. This major philosophical work by one of the world's leading public intellectuals constructs a new theory of justice, not from abstract ideals or notions of what perfect institutions and rules might be, but from what the results of a system are practically, in the world. It highlights the importance of public
Not By Reason Alone [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr Montek Ahluwalia, Mukesh Ambani, Shobhana Bhartia, Professor Lord Desai, Shekhar Gupta, Ed Luce, Lord Patten, Nand Kishore Singh, Professor Lord Stern | Not by Reason Alone, written by Nand Kishore Singh a member of parliament in the Upper House in India is a comment on the past and present politics of change. This insightful analysis of the political economy of reform is coupled with the understanding that we need to be compassionate, passionate, creative, hopeful, and more. This
LSE Literary Festival - Reading London [Audio]
Speaker(s): Will Alsop, Professor Rosemary Ashton, Leo Hollis, Hans Ulrich Obrist | How do we attempt to understand the sprawling "modern Babylon" that is London, with its layers of social, political and cultural history? Can art, architecture and literature help us to 'read' this complex city?
The Brahimi Panels: The Goldstone Report and the Peace Process [Audio]
Speaker(s): Ami Ayalon, Professor Christine Chinkin, Karma Nabulsi, Colonel Desmond Travers | This public discussion, chaired by the distinguished UN diplomat and envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, will discuss the findings of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict and the 'Goldstone Report' that it produced. Panellists will also examine the state of the peace process, and how this might unfold in the future.
The Realities And Relevance Of Japan's Great Recession [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr Adam S Posen | There is a battle for the future of our planet between profiteers who threaten to destroy natural resources for gain and backward-looking environmental romantics who thwart constructive development. Paul Collier uses his ground-breaking research to offer realistic and sustainable solutions that reconcile the immediate needs of the world's growing population without despoiling the planet for future generations.
The Career-Family Conundrum [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Claudia Goldin | The talk concerns the challenges facing highly-educated young men and women who wish to have families while pursuing careers such as those in business, medicine, law, and academia. The long history of the career and family quest among college graduate women is explored, and relationships between demands in the labor market for workplace flexibility and the response by occupations, firms, and institutions are addressed.
HIV/AIDS In Uganda: How Anti-Retrovirals Change People's Lives [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr Antonieta Medina Lara, Barbara Nyanzi-Wakholi | Until only a few years ago, an AIDS diagnosis in Africa was seen as the harbinger of an inevitable and lingering death. In rich countries, anti-retroviral therapy has made AIDS a manageable condition for most infected people. The challenge has been to provide such treatment in resource constrained settings, particularly in Africa. In a unique study combining sophisticated quantitative and qualitative analysis, Antonieta Medina Lara a
Cities Under Siege [Audio]
Speaker(s): Stephen Graham | Cities have become the new battleground of our increasingly urban world. From the slums of the global South to the wealthy financial centres of the West, Cities Under Siege traces how political violence now operates through the sites, spaces, infrastructures and symbols of the world's rapidly expanding metropolitan areas. Drawing on a wealth of original research, Graham shows how Western and Israeli militaries and security forces now perceive all urban terrain as a r
