Contributor(s): Professor Gilles Kepel | Far from the misconceptions of the "Arab Spring" or the "Islamist Autumn", the upheavals of the Arab world over the last three years unfolded along a number of lines of understanding - some local, others regional or global - that were intricately mixed. Professor Gilles Kepel, who has extensively travelled the Middle East since Spring 2011 and met with many of the conflicting actors of the crisis, from Tunisia to Syria and the Arabian peninsula, introduces a contextual analysis of the events rationale, based on his award-winning travelogue Passion arabe [the Arab Passion].

Contributor(s): Dr Julian Baggini, Professor Paul Dolan, Professor Barbara J Sahakian | Is the idea of being able to improve yourself just a myth or can we really change ourselves for the better? This panel will discuss how behavioural science, neurological science, the arts and philosophy can change your life. Julian Baggini(@microphilosophy) is the author of several books, including Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind, The Ego Trick and, most recently, The Virtues of the Table. He has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, including the Guardian, the Financial Times, Prospect and the New Statesman, as well as for the think tanks The Institute of Public Policy Research and Demos. He is founding editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine . He has been writer-in-residence for the National Trust at the White Cliffs of Dover and philosopher-in-residence at the Cheltenham Literature Festival and Wellington College. He has also appeared as a cameo in two Alexander McCall-Smith novels. Paul Dolan is professor of behavioural science in the Department of Social Policy at LSE and an internationally renowned expert on happiness, behaviour and public policy. Paul has published in top economics, psychology, health and social science journals and has won research grants from a range of funding bodies, including the ESRC, AHRC and the British Academy. He was a seconded member of the Behavioural Insights Team in the Cabinet Office, and he is currently chief academic adviser on economic appraisal for the Government Economic Service. He is on the National Wellbeing Advisory Forum in the UK and a member of a National Academy of Sciences Panel on wellbeing in the US. Barbara J Sahakian (@BJSahakian) is professor of clinical neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge Department of Psychiatry and MRC / Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute. She is also an honorary clinical psychologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK. She is president of the British Association for Psychopharmacology. She is a founder member and on the Executive Board of the International Neuroethics Society (INS). She has just become president-elect of the INS. She is co-author of Bad Moves. How decision making goes wrong and the ethics of smart drugs (Oxford University Press, 2013) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics (Oxford University Press, 2011). Ilina Singh is professor of ccience, ethics and society in the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at King's College London and is cross-appointed to the Institute of Psychiatry. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2014, taking place from Monday 24 February - Saturday 1 March 2014, with the theme 'Reflections'.

Contributor(s): Professor Fiona Sampson | Fiona Sampson has published more than twenty-five books of poetry, criticism and philosophy of language, and received the Newdigate Prize, a Cholmondeley Award and Writer’s Awards from the Arts Councils of England and of Wales as well as prizes in Macedonia and the US. She has twice been shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes. Published in more than thirty languages, she is the editor of Poem and professor of poetry at the University of Roehampton. She will be reading from her own poetry. This reading follows a panel discussion featuring Fiona Sampson at 6pm on Tacit Knowledge in the Arts, Science and Business. This event forms part of LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2014, taking place from Monday 24 February - Saturday 1 March 2014, with the theme 'Reflections'.

Contributor(s): Dr Adam Hanieh | The lecture will draw on Adam Hanieh's new book, Lineages of Revolt, and recent fieldwork in the West Bank, to examine the political economy of Palestinian neoliberalism in the most recent period. The talk will discuss the essential contours of Palestinian Authority development strategy, its links to donor-led imperatives and the Israeli occupation, as well as the wider regional political economy. In addition to addressing the differential outcomes of this development model, the talk will look at the political implications and potential points of resistance to neoliberalism in the Palestinian context. Adam Hanieh is a senior lecturer in development studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. His latest book, Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East, was published by Haymarket Press in November 2013.

Contributor(s): Richard Daniels, Michael Leader | A screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 anti-war film Paths of Glory (88 minutes), set during the First World War starring Kirk Douglas, will be followed by a panel discussion. Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory is among the most powerful anti-war films ever made. A fiery Kirk Douglas stars as a First World War French colonel who goes head-to-head with the army’s ruthless top brass when his men are accused of cowardice after being unable to carry out an impossible mission. This haunting, exquisitely photographed dissection of the military machine in all its absurdity and capacity for dehumanization (a theme Kubrick would continue to explore throughout his career) is assembled with its legendary director’s customary precision, from its tense trench warfare sequences to its gripping courtroom climax to its ravaging final scene. The film was originally banned in both France and Germany for its incendiary indictment of hegemonic military authority during WWI. It was also Kubrick’s first critical and commercial success and effectively opened the floodgates for his future classics. Richard Daniels has been the senior archivist at the University of the Arts London’s Archives and Special Collections Centre since October 2007. He is specifically responsible for the Stanley Kubrick Archive. Before University of the Arts he has worked in local government archive services and at the School of Oriental and African Studies Archives and Special Collections Centre. As the Stanley Kubrick Archivist he has given papers at various academic conferences the most recent being at the Melancholia: Imagining the End of the World conference at Phillips University Marburg. He has also written a chapter for the upcoming book Mythologizing the Vietnam War and is writing a chapter and co-editing another forthcoming publication entitled Stanley Kubrick, New Perspectives. Michael Leader (@Nevskyp) is site editor of Film4.com. He has written for Little White Lies, Empire, the New Statesman and Sight & Sound, and previously worked for BAFTA. James Hughes is director of the Conflict Research Group at LSE. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2014, taking place from Monday 24 February - Saturday 1 March 2014, with the theme 'Reflections'.

Contributor(s): Professor Harry Collins, Professor Roger Kneebone, Professor Fiona Sampson | The modern paradigm of knowledge is explicit knowledge that something is the case; but much knowledge is practical knowledge of how to do things – how to ride a bicycle, play a violin, write poetry or remove an appendix– and such knowledge is often neither de facto explicit in text books nor even in theory fully explicable and transferable in pure conceptual terms. Tacit know-how may be muscular (or somatic) knowledge gained by practice and example; or it may be knowledge that we can only acquire through participation in shared linguistic and (often local) social contexts. This panel discussion will help elucidate the nature of tacit knowledge in art, science and the economy. The following are some of the philosophical and practical questions likely to be covered: if we allow non-conceptual and unconscious know-how to count as knowledge, can migratory birds with their astonishing navigational ability be said to have knowledge quite as much as trained surgeons and experienced cyclists? If the tacit know-how involved in creative writing, or in finding a surgical incision point, can only be learnt by socializing with experienced practitioners, what is the role for remote Internet learning or computer simulations? Do robots solve the problem of tacit knowledge by encoding know-how digitally? And to what extent do market prices reflect knowledge that can neither be codified nor shared through electronic information feeds? Harry Collins is Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology and director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge, Expertise and Science at Cardiff University. He has worked for many years on the sociology of scientific knowledge, and is author of Tacit and Explicit Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 2010). He is a fellow of the British Academy. Roger Kneebone (@ProfKneebone) trained as a trauma surgeon and has experience as a GP, but has since 2003 worked on innovative training and simulation techniques for surgery. His recent research has focused on the synergies between science and the arts, and on the role of tacit knowledge in surgery and medicine. He is a professor in the Department of Surgery and Medicine at Imperial College London and Engagement Fellow of the Wellcome Trust. Fiona Sampson trained as a concert violinist and is now an acclaimed poet. She has published more than twenty-five books of poetry, criticism and philosophy of language, and received the Newdigate Prize, a Cholmondeley Award and Writer’s Awards from the Arts Councils of England and of Wales as well as prizes in Macedonia and the US. She has twice been shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes. Published in more than thirty languages, she the editor of Poem and professor of poetry at the University of Roehampton. Richard Bronk is a Visiting Fellow at LSE and author of The Romantic Economist. This event is supported by The Wellcome Trust. This event forms part of LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2014, taking place from Monday 24 February - Saturday 1 March 2014, with the theme 'Reflections'.

Contributor(s): Zoran Milanović | In July 2013, Croatia became the EU’s 28th member state after a decade of negotiations. Will reality meet the expectations? Croatia’s Prime Minister Zoran Milanović will discuss. Stabilising the economy, fostering an entrepreneurial-friendly environment, increasing the protection of human rights and accelerating the country’s learning curve as a member state are key issues among Croatia’s domestic priorities. In the international arena, Croatia will strive to keep NATO and EU enlargement realistic and viable, engage in international and regional cooperation and try to carve out strategic interest positions within the EU. Strengthening political relations with the United Kingdom, furthering investment opportunities and opening up the country to an even bigger influx of British guests will be the focus of Croatia-UK bilateral relations. Zoran Milanović has been the prime minister of Croatia since 2011. Before this, he served as chairman of the Social Democratic Party parliamentary group in the Croatian parliament, and as a member of the Committee for the Constitution, Rules of Procedure and Political System. He graduated from the Zagreb Law School in 1986 and completed his master's degree in European Union law at the Flemish University in Brussels.

Contributor(s): Alex Fenton, Amanda Fitzgerald-Arque | LSE London's 2014 Lent term seminar series begins on the 20th of January. Speakers from within and beyond LSE will focus on London's current economic and political environment London, covering relevant issues such as the private rented sector, the distribution of poverty and the densification effects of international migrants. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields. Each seminar is chaired by one of the members of LSE London, while speaker’s presentations, available podcasts and any other related documents are posted here regularly after each session.

Contributor(s): Dr. James Ker-Lindsay, George C. Lordos, Symeon Matsis, Glafkos Constantinides, Layik Topcan, Robert Cowley, Dr Rebecca Bryant, Mustafa Öngün, Dr. Ceren Boğac, Dr. Wendy A. Pullan, Dr. Gabriel Koureas, Dr Christala Yakinthou | A half-day conference organised by the Hellenic Observatory, LSE and Contemporary Turkish Studies, LSE. Recent citizens' initiatives in Cyprus have proposed the opening of the ghost town of Varosha and have imagined the revitalisation of the Famagusta area. This conference brings together town planners, architects, and economists to discuss the anticipated social, economic, and ecological consequences of a potential opening.

Contributor(s): Professor Hillel Steiner, Dr Nicholas Vrousalis | Child labour, sweatshops and low wages: there are many market exchanges that strike us as morally problematic because they are exploitative. But what exactly is exploitation? And how could a voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange be morally wrong? Hillel Steiner is professor of political philosophy at the University of Manchester. Nicholas Vrousalis is assistant professor in political philosophy at Leiden University, Netherlands.