Spring 2013 | Public lectures and events | Video

Contributor(s): Dr Gareth Jones, Juan Sebastian Lama, Gloria Morrison, Dr Austin Zeiderman | This panel event is a student-led initiative, full title 'Urban Controversies: how controversies shape our cities,' with speakers Dr Gareth Jones (Reader, LSE Urban Geography), Juan Sebastian Lama (architect, PUC Chile and MSc City Design student), Gloria Morrison (Campaigning Coordinator, JENGbA) and Dr Austin Zeiderman (LSE Cities Research Fellow), talking about natural and man-made disasters and their aftermath in Columbia, Chile and London.

Contributor(s): Baroness Williams | Shirley Williams is a former Labour cabinet minister and one of the Gang Of Four who left Labour to start the Social Democrats.

Contributor(s): Paul Collier | How to Harness Natural Resource Wealth for Accelerated Development.

Contributor(s): Pablo Fernandez, Carlos Lopez, Miguel Klingenberg | The recent expropriation of Repsol by the Argentine government raises important legal, diplomatic and policy issues that put into question the current system of international investment protection. This seminar invites to debate on this issues from the investor's perspective. Pablo Fernández is Professor of Finance at the IESE Business School, Madrid. Carlos López Jall is the Director of International Organizations and European Affairs of Repsol S.A. Miguel Klingenberg is the Deputy Secretary General of Repsol S.A. Jan Kleinheisterkamp is Senior Lecturer of Law at LSE.

Contributor(s): Dr Hazem Kandil | Cambridge University's Dr Hazem Kandil will help explain why Egypt's popular uprising has so far failed to overthrow the regime through exploring the positions of the main players in the revolt: the military, security, and the various political factions. Kandil's latest book, Soldiers, Spies and Statesmen: Egypt's Road to Revolt, (Verso, 2012) analyses Egypt’s transformation from military regime to police state, on the road to revolution. Hazem Kandil is the Cambridge University Lecturer in Political Sociology and Fellow of St Catharine’s College. His work examines military-security institutions and revolutionary movements. He has published on revolution, warfare, the sociology of intellectuals, and Islamism in various academic journals and periodicals. Kandil has taught political science at the American University of Cairo and social theory at UCLA before settling at the Sociology Department at Cambridge University.

Contributor(s): Hilary Lawson | Philosophers have pursued truth, and many have placed truth at the centre of their account of meaning. But might this be a mistake? Could error be at the heart of language, and adventure, rather than truth, be the matter in hand? In the first of three events on the theme, Hilary Lawson argues for a radical reappraisal of the importance of error. This lecture is the first of a three-part series entitled Error, Lies and Adventure, the second talk 'The Power of Lies' will take place on 21 March. Hilary Lawson is director of the Institute of Art and Ideas, a non-realist philosopher and the author of Closure.

Contributor(s): Alain Juppé | At this time of mistrust towards the European Union, Alain Juppé reiterates his strong beliefs and his faith in Europe's future. A plea by a French statesman who has always been committed to the European enterprise. Alain Juppé was President of the political party Union for a Popular Movement from 2002 to 2004. He served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2011 to 2012. He also served as Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997 under President Jacques Chirac and the Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs from 2010 to 2011. He had previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1993 to 1995, and as Minister of the Budget and Spokesman for the Government from 1986 to 1988.

Contributor(s): Baljit Bains | LSE London's 2013 Lent term seminar series begins on the 14th of January. Speakers from within and beyond academia will focus on many of the implications of the current economic and political environment for London, covering relevant issues such as the road pricing, UK trends in higher education, census data and localism. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields.

Contributor(s): Miranda Glover, Charles Leadbeater, Sam Riviere | Some people have been struck by the aphoristic potential of Twitter. Others see developments in new media as bringing the era of the literature to an end. This panel will explore the way new media impacts on traditional literary and philosophical forms of writing and reading. One question is about the *threat* of new media to classical literacy: fragmentation and overload in new media leading to the withering away of traditional literary, philosophical and poetic forms. Another question is about the *chance* that new media offers for new forms of cultural literacy: where everyone can become a reader and a writer. Miranda Glover is group account director for FMI Group, she specialises in brand positioning, strategic digital comms, film and social media marketing, heading up accounts including LG Mobile, Global and EHQ. She’s previously worked for international agencies with Motorola, Sony PlayStation, Lastminute.com, Unilever and others. She has published three novels with Random House, Meanwhile Street (2009) Soulmates (2007) and Masterpiece (2005), which was shortlisted for the Pendleton May first novel award and translated into seven languages. Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity, and author of We:think: the power of mass creativity, which charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning. Sam Riviere's poems have appeared in various publications and competitions since 2005. He co-edits the anthology series Stop Sharpening Your Knives and his debut collection 81 Austerities is published by Faber & Faber. He is currently working towards a PhD at the University of East Anglia. He was a recipient of a 2009 Eric Gregory Award. Simon Glendinning is director of the Forum for European Philosophy. This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival|, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Contributor(s): Dr Clémentine Deliss, Elke Krasny, Maria Lind, Justin McGuirk | In recent years arts practice has shifted towards new modes of collaborative production while digital platforms continually offer new ways to distribute and engage with the arts. As performing and visual arts organisations are transforming relationships with audiences, more varied roles have emerged for curators beyond exhibition making and collections management. Curating has evolved to embrace audience-generated content. Many curators see their role more and more as a cultural producer. The panel will examine an evolving definition of contemporary curation within their practices, and their relationships to the cities and people around them. Is an architect who arranges and designs spaces or the city a curator? Is a curator an architect of sorts producing spaces of exchange? What about the work a writer or researcher does in 'curating' arguments and ideas? Finally, how does the increasing importance of the everyday, of the street, and of shifting political geographies of art practice mark curation today? Clémentine Deliss is director of Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt am Main since April 2010. She studied contemporary art in Vienna, and social anthropology in Vienna, London, and Paris. She holds a PhD (1988) from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London on 1920s French museum anthropology and dissident surrealism. Elke Krasny is a cultural theorist, curator, urbanist and author, based in Vienna. She researches on the interrelations of architecture, urban space, issues of cultural identity and representation, engaged art practices, gender and world fairs, museums and exhibitions as cultural formations. She teaches Art and Public Space, Museum Pedagogy, Visual Didactics, Didactics of Architecture and Space and Cultural Education at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, "Garden as Community" at the Technical University of Vienna, Cultural Studies at the FH Joanneum Graz and is a visiting professor at the University of Bremen "Urban Transformation and its Narratives" 2006. Maria Lind is a curator and critic. She is director of Tensta Konsthall, a centre for contemporary art in Stockholm, Sweden. Between 2001 and 2004 she was director of the Munich Kunstverein. Previous to that she was curator at Moderna Museet in Stockholm (from 1997-2001) and in 1998 was co-curator of Manifesta 2 Europe’s nomadic biennale of contemporary art. Justin McGuirk is a writer, critic and curator. He is the director of Strelka Press, the publishing arm of the Strelka Institute in Moscow, and the design consultant to Domus. He has been the design columnist for The Guardian and the editor of Icon magazine. In 2012 he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture for an exhibition he curated with Urban Think Tank. He is currently working on a book about activist architecture and social housing in Latin America. Theatrum Mundi / The Global Street is a new urban forum based in London at LSE Cities. It seeks to understand what brings life to a city, particularly in its public places and asks how these might be better designed. Theatrum Mundi, focused on urban culture, brings architects and town planners together with performing and visual artists to reimagine the public spaces of twenty-first century cities – streets, squares, parks, and places for culture. We begin with theoretical conversations and move towards real projects, celebrating those which embody new thinking about public space. This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival|, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.