Spring 2009 | Public lectures and events | Video

Contributor(s): Professor Conor Gearty, Ivan Hare, Kenan Malik | A year after the repeal of blasphemy from English law, religious defamation laws are tightening their grip on the world, with the apparent support of the United Nations. Whatever happened to freedom of speech? A discussion of the nature of blasphemy in the twenty-first century.

Contributor(s): Dr. Laura Bear, David Lan, Tim Parks | A reading from Tim Parks' latest novel Dreams of Rivers and Seas followed by a discussion on the anthropological themes explored within it.

Contributor(s): Jane Duran, John Mole, Robert Minhinnick, Jo Shapcott | A high profile poetry event reflecting on the choices that we all make in our lives, whether social, economic, moral or spiritual, featuring a great line-up of some of the UK's finest poets.

Contributor(s): Kapka Kassabova, Mustafa Kör, Naema Tahir | The migrant intellectual, writes Edward Said, has 'double perspective'. He or she is in a constant dialogue with his or her old and new home. Their writings often convey both a sense of loss and yearning but also display a richness wrought by the integration of multiple cultural identities, unique experiences and diverse modes of expression. These authors will explore what is it like to be migrant writers in their respective societies: what are the points of divergence, what are the commonalities? The authors will be invited to start off the evening by reading short excerpts from their work that typifies their own experiences as migrant authors. We will then explore some of the following questions in a roundtable discussion.

Contributor(s): Professor Lord Anthony Giddens | Political action and intervention, on local, national and international levels, is going to have a decisive effect on whether or not we can limit global warming, as well as how we adapt to that already occurring. At the moment, however, Anthony Giddens argues controversially, we do not have a systematic politics of climate change.

Contributor(s): Alistair Beaton, Martin Rowson | Alistair Beaton is Britain's leading writer of political satire. Martin Rowson is an award-winning political cartoonist whose work appears regularly in The Guardian, The Times, The Independent on Sunday, the Daily Mirror, the Scotsman, Tribune, Index on Censorship and Granta.

Contributor(s): Iain Sinclair, Jerry White, Patrick Wright | Iain Sinclair is a writer, poet and film-maker and widely regarded as one of London's greatest chroniclers. Jerry White has been writing about London for thirty years. His London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People won the Wolfson History Prize 2001. Patrick Wright is a writer with an interest in the cultural and political dimensions of modern history. He is the author of a number of highly acclaimed and sometimes also reviled books, including The Village that Died for England (1995), Tank: the Progress of a Monstrous War Machine and Iron Curtain: from Stage to Cold War (2007).

Contributor(s): Ben Okri | Poet in the City and LSE are honoured to be holding a special showcase event with the world famous poet and writer Ben Okri. Born in 1959 in Minna, northern Nigeria, he became world famous as a writer in 1991 when he won the Booker prize for his novel The Famished Road. Set in a Nigerian village, this was the first in a trilogy of successful novels about Azaro, a spirit child. In all he has published eight novels, and won countless awards and honours for his writing. His latest novel, Starbook, was published in 2007.

Contributor(s): Antony Gormley, Professor Richard Sennett, Neven Sidor | By exploring the experiential and social impacts of creating spaces for public engagement, contemplation and education - including the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square and the LSE's New Academic Building - an artist, an architect and a sociologist discuss the intellectual practice of 'designing spaces for thought'.

Contributor(s): Hans Ulrich Obrist, Adrian Searle | Hans Ulrich Obrist was born in Zurich in May 1968. He joined the Serpentine Gallery as Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects in April 2006. Prior to this he was Curator of the Musie d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris since 2000, as well as curator of museum in progress, Vienna, from 1993-2000.