Spring 2012 | Public lectures and events | Video

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 and intelligence. But Pagel shows we've had it the wrong way round. Many of these things would not exist without our propensity for culture - our ability to co-operate in small tribal societies, to pass on beliefs and practices and to accumulate knowledge over generations - so that we prospered while others declined. Pagel's extraordinary history of the role of culture in natural selection shows how humans acquired a mind that is hardwired for culture. Our cultures – although an accident of birth - have outstripped our genes in determining who we are, how we think and speak, and who we love and kill. Weaving together evolutionary biology, anthropology, natural history, philosophy and Pagel's years of observing human behaviour around the globe, this book sheds light on everything from art, morality and affection to jealousy, self-interest and prejudice, and asks whether our cultural legacy equips us for the challenges of life in the modern world. Wired for Culture will change how we view ourselves, not just as individuals, but within the wider story of our species. Mark Pagel is head of the Evolution Laboratory in the Division of Zoology, School of Biological Sciences, at the University of Reading, and an External Professor at the renowned Santa Fe Institute. He has travelled the world studying evolution and the spread of cultures from the Chalbi Desert in Kenya to Tanzania and Zanzibar, and remote Oceania. He is the editor-in-chief of the award winning Oxford Encyclopaedia of Evolution and co-author of The Comparative Method in Evolutionary Biology, which is regarded as a classic, as well as the author of articles in Science, Nature, and other journals. Statistical methods that Pagel has developed are used by researchers all over the world to study evolutionary trends across species. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society. This event marks the publication of his latest book, Wired for Culture: The Natural History of Human Cooperation.

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 a PhD there. The fruits of that, a novel about the Young British Artists, is, as we speak, travelling via his agent to various publishers’ inboxes.

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 Cheers won the Whitbread Novel Award and The Promise of Happiness won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature in 2005. He has won other awards including a Commonwealth Writer's prize and the South African Sunday Times Award. His most recent novel is Other People’s Money, a subtle thriller and also an acutely delineated portrait of a world and a class. It won the Novel of the Year Award at the Spear’s Book Awards. John Sutherland is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor, UCL. He has taught at Edinburgh University, the California Institute of Education and UCL. His latest book, of many, is Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives. DJ Taylor is the author of two acclaimed biographies, Thackerary and Orwell: The Life, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize in 2003. He has written nine novels, the most recent being Derby Day. David is also well known as a critic and reviewer, and his other books include A Vain Conceit: British Fiction in the 1980s and After the War: the Novel and England since 1945. His journalism appears in the Independent and the Independent on Sunday, the Guardian, The Tablet, the Spectator, the New Statesman and, anonymously, in Private Eye. Aifric Campbell completed a linguistics degree and lectured in semantics in Sweden before spending thirteen years as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley in London where she was the first female MD. She left to study psychotherapy and creative writing, most recently at UEA . Aifric is currently teaching creative writing at Imperial College and her first two novels, The Semantics of Murder and The Loss Adjustor were published by Serpent’s Tail. Her latest book, published in March, is On The Floor, a novel set in the global financial markets.

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 University in 2005. He is currently working on a PhD in English at Cambridge University.

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 thousands before the invention of the microphone; a social reformer way ahead of his time; a sentimental lover; a cruel husband. He could be vivacious, charming and selfless, but also imperious, vindictive and egotistical. Claire Tomalin discusses his life and work with literary critic and cultural commentator John Carey. John Carey is Emeritus Merton Professor of English at Oxford University, a distinguished critic, reviewer and broadcaster, and the author of many books, including studies of Donne, Dickens and Thackeray. His celebrated polemic What Good are the Arts? provoked much debate and discussion in 2005. He has been a regular critic on BBC2's Newsnight Review, and is also the editor of the best-selling anthologies The Faber Book of Reportage, The Faber Book of Science and The Faber Book of Utopias. Biographer Claire Tomalin was born in London in 1933. After graduating from Newnham College, Cambridge, she worked in publishing for Heinemann, Hutchinson and Cape before switching to journalism, becoming literary editor of both the New Statesman magazine and the Sunday Times newspaper. She is a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Wordsworth Trust, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Vice-President of English PEN. She is the award-winning author of many books, including The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens, Samuel Pepys and Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man. This event is organised in association with the Royal Society of Literature.

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 censorship. Forty years on, as Index on Censorship celebrates its anniversary, this will be a rare opportunity to hear an illuminating discussion from two leading voices in the history of free speech. Michael Scammell is the author of The Indispensable Intellectual, the authorised biography of Arthur Koestler. Pavel Litvinov is a writer, physicist and human rights activist. Jo Glanville is editor of Index on Censorship.

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. The films bring together millions of people who would otherwise probably never have had contact with each other and therefore would never have seen how much they have in common. In this event, poetry readings, including film clips from the Poetry Unites project, will be followed by a discussion of the importance of poetry in people’s everyday lives. The event will conclude with a short prize-giving presentation for the LSESU Lit Soc Poetry Competition 2011/12 and the announcement and distribution of the second edition of the student led publication, Philosoverse which is supported by the LSE Annual Fund and the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE.

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 points to inhospitable elements in the current and future social environment that have to be confronted and challenged: growing inequality and corporate political power, the decline of trade unions, and the growing irrelevance of the nation state framework within which social democracy built its citizenship. Colin Crouch is professor of governance and public management at Warwick Business School.

Contributor(s): Professor Adam Kuper | Adam Kuper, who has written widely on the history and theory of anthropology, introduces the work of Charles Seligman, founder of LSE Anthropology, pioneer of fieldwork techniques, and medical doctor who devised means of treating servicemen for shell-shock. He gives insights into Seligman's journals and research notes housed in LSE Library, and provides commentary on Jonathan Miller's documentary about the 1898 Torres Straits expedition: 'Dr Miller and the Islanders', which reveals the problematic racist overtones of the views of late 19th century anthropology. The documentary will be shown after Adam Kuper's talk. Olivia Seligman, radio producer and member of the Seligman family, and students from LSE Anthropology will read extracts from Seligman’s journals and letters.

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 the only Indian musician to have performed twice at the prestigious London Jazz Festival and he has played in Beijing, Berlin, Lille, Brussels, Frankfurt, and at various venues in Britain - notably the Hay on Wye Festival, the Brecon Jazz Festival, the Big Sky Jazz Festival and the South Bank Centre. His second CD, ‘Found Music’, came out in October 2010 in the UK from Babel to great acclaim. Since 2005, Amit Chaudhuri, with The Amit Chaudhuri Band, has appeared at many world-wide venues.