Spring 2016 | Public lectures and events | Video

Contributor(s): Ben Crystal, Andrew Dickson, Dr Varsha Panjwani | Shakespeare has been translated into virtually all the world’s most commonly spoken languages. His plays are performed in a rich variety of theatrical traditions. How did he become the global phenomenon he is today? And how is his work received and interpreted across the world? Ben Crystal (@bencrystal) is an actor, writer and producer. He is the artistic director of Passion in Practice and its Shakespeare Ensemble. Andrew Dickson (@andydickson) is a writer and critic. He has a double first in English literature and an MPhil in Renaissance literature from Cambridge, and has contributed to The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Varsha Panjwani (@EarlyModernDoc) is a lecturer at Boston University (London) and is an honorary Research Associate at the University of York. Sheila T Cavanagh is serving as the Fulbright/Global Shakespeare Distinguished Chair in London and Warwick in 2015-2016.

Contributor(s): Tom Holland, Margaret MacMillan | This discussion explores the ways in which history has been re-written to serve the purposes of political leaders or regimes, from Ancient Greece to Communist Russia. Tom Holland (@holland_tom) is the award-winning and bestselling author of Rubicon, Persian Fire, Millennium, In the Shadow of the Sword and most recentlyDynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar. Margaret MacMillan is the Warden of St Antony’s College and a Professor of International History at the University of Oxford. Her books include Nixon in China, The War that Ended Peace and most recently History’s People: Personalities and the Past. Peter Stothard is Editor of the Times Literary Supplement (@TheTLS) and author of three volumes of diaries, Thirty Days, On the Spartacus Road andAlexandria, which won the 2014 Criticos Prize for literature on a theme from ancient Greece. This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2016, taking place from Monday 22 - Saturday 27 February 2016, with the theme 'Utopias'.

Contributor(s): Darran Anderson, Dr Matthew Beaumont, Professor Rachel Cooper | The Future City, as an idea that often relies upon Utopian thinking to sustain itself, can be as cruel as it is consoling. Even as it makes possible investment into urban space as a site of future fulfilment, it regularly fails to deliver upon this promise. This panel asks what futures such Utopian thinking makes available for the city and what present realities it denies? It will query more specifically the Utopias that have come to structure London’s own particular futures. What Utopian thinking is operative, for instance, in a city so firmly structured around the logic of speculation intrinsic to finance capital? And what futures might present citizens be imagining for themselves? Darran Anderson is author of Imaginary Cities (@Oniropolis). He has written on speculative urban themes for publications such as Dezeen, Citylab and Aeon, on cities directly from Paris to Phnom Penh, and has given talks on the intersection of architecture with video games, science fiction, literature, politics and futurology at the likes of the V&A, the London Festival of Architecture and the Bristol Festival of Ideas. Matthew Beaumont is is a Senior Lecturer in the English Department at UCL and a Co-Director of UCL's Urban Laboratory. He is the author of two books on nineteenth-century utopianism and, more recently, of Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London, Chaucer to Dickens. He is also the editor of Restless Cities, among other essay collections. Rachel Cooper OBE is Distinguished Professor of Design Management and Policy at Lancaster University. She is Director of ImaginationLancaster (@ImaginationLanc). Her publications include Designing Sustainable Cities, Constructing Futures and Handbook of Wellbeing and the Environment. She is a non-executive Director of the Future Cities Catapult, and a Lead Expert for the UK Government Foresight programme on the Future of Cities, and is on the Academy of Medical Sciences Working group addressing ‘the health of the public 2040’. Richard Sennett (@richardsennett) is Director of Theatrum Mundi, University Professor of the Humanities at New York University and Professor of Sociology at LSE. His research entails ethnography, history, and social theory. LSE Cities (@LSECities) is an international centre at LSE that carries out research, education and outreach activities in London and abroad. Its mission is to study how people and cities interact in a rapidly urbanising world, focussing on how the design of cities impacts on society, culture and the environment.

Contributor(s): Dr Elena Barabantseva, Anna Chen, Andy Lawrence, Dr Véronique Pin-Fat | British Born Chinese engages the everyday struggles of two boys, Dan (aged between 11-13) and Kevin (aged between 12-14), reconciling their Britishness with Chineseness through their experiences at school, as volunteers at a community centre, and at home. Filmed over the course of two years in an innovative participatory and reflexive style, this film is an example of how artistic practices of filmmaking can work as a primary research tool. Driven by dialogue and close involvement with the film’s subjects, the film challenges the dominant popular representations of British Chinese as a ‘model minority’, and argues for a different understanding of community based on a shared sense of vulnerability. Elena Barabantseva is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester and Co-Producer of British Born Chinese. She is a member of the Critical Global Politics research cluster, and British Inter-University China Centre (BICC) and author of Overseas Chinese, Ethnic Minorities and Nationalism: De-Centering China. Andy Lawrence is filmmaker in residence and lecturer in Visual Anthropology at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester. He is the founder of AllRitesReversed, a documentary film production company. He is Co-Producer of British Born Chinese. Anna Chen (@MadamMiaow) writes and presents programmes for BBC Radio 4 as a freelance, and writes, produces and presents her arts show, Madam Miaow’s Culture Lounge, at Resonance 104.4FM. Her blog, Madam Miaow Says, was shortlisted in the 2010 Orwell Prize for blogs, and long listed in 2012. Véronique Pin-Fat publishes on ethics in global politics and is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Manchester. William Callahan is Professor of International Relations at LSE. His toilet adventures (2015) film was shortlisted for a major award by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council. The International Relations Department (@LSEIRDept) at LSE is now in its 87th year, making it one of the oldest as well as largest in the world.

Contributor(s): Anna Pavord, Dan Pearson, Margaret Willes | This panel explores our fascination with landscapes, gardening and the control of nature throughout history - their prominence in the artistic and literary imagination, and their place in the hopes and dreams of the ordinary person. Anna Pavord is gardening columnist in the Independent. She writes and presents programmes for BBC Radio 3 and 4 and served for ten years on the Gardens Panel of the National Trust, the last five as Chairman. Her books include the bestseller, The Tulip, The Naming of Names, The Curious Gardener and most recently Landskipping: painters, ploughmen and places. Dan Pearson (@thedanpearson) is an award-winning garden designer and gardening columnist. Dan has designed five award-winning Chelsea Flower Show gardens, the most recent of which was awarded a Gold Medal and the award for Best In Show in 2015. His books include Spirit: Garden Inspiration and Home Ground: Sanctuary in the City. He is currently working on the planting of the proposed Garden Bridge over the Thames. Margaret Willes is an enthusiastic gardener and the former publisher at the National Trust. Her books include The Making of the English Gardener and The Gardens of the British Working Class. Richard Bronk is a Visiting Fellow at LSE and author of The Romantic Economist.

Contributor(s): Professor John Gray, Ros Schwartz, John Simenon | Georges Simenon is one of the 20th century’s most prolific authors. His prestigious output included 75 novels starring his most famous creation, Inspector Maigret, and his novels define post-WW1 France with themes that still resonate today. Professor John Gray is the author of a number of highly regarded books including False Dawn, Straw Dogs, The Silence of the Animals and The Soul of the Marionette. Ros Schwartz (@RosSchwartz) has been a translator from French since 1981, translating over 70 titles, including a number of Penguin Classics' new translations of Simenon. John Simenon (@johnsimenon) is Georges’ son and manages his father’s literary estate. Martin Conway is a Fellow and Tutor in History at Balliol College, University of Oxford.

Contributor(s): Miriam Halahmy, Philip Womack, M M Vaughan | In this discussion aimed at young adults (or adults who are young at heart), our panel of critically acclaimed YA authors will discuss how they recreate historical events or invent future ones in their writing. Where will your imagination take you? Miriam Halahmy (@MiriamHalahmy) is an author and a poet. She has published four novels and three collections of poetry, as well as short stories and education resources. Her young-adult novel, Hidden, was a Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week and nominated for the Carnegie Medal. It has recently been staged in a small Paris theatre. Her latest book The Emergency Zoo, inspired by real events during the Second World War, will be published in 2016. Philip Womack (@WomackPhilip) is the author of four critically acclaimed novels for children; his fifth, The Double Axe, a reimagining of the Minotaur myth, will be published by Alma books in February 2016. After a life-long passion for Classics, he teaches Latin and Greek, and has lectured on mythology for the How: To Academy. He is a Fellow of First Story, being writer in residence at St Augustine’s Kilburn. Monica Vaughan (@NoSleepNeeded) has spent the last eight years working in special needs, mostly with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. She is the author of The Ability, Mindscape about telekinetic preteens and the forthcoming Six. Kirsty Wadsley is Head of Widening Participation at LSE. LSE Widening Participation work with over 2400 students in London schools and colleges each year with the aim of raising their aspirations and awareness of university study. These schemes are not just aimed at increasing the number of applications to LSE, but are aimed at encouraging students to apply to fulfil their potential at the best university for them.

Contributor(s): Professor Sophie-Grace Chappell, Professor Heidi Mirza, Professor Jacqueline Rose, Zoe Williams | What is the future for feminism? How does feminism interact with concerns about other forms of oppression, such as those based on race and class? Is there one feminist movement or many? If there are many, how should they relate to one another? In this panel, our speakers will discuss these questions and ask what the future holds for feminism(s). Sophie-Grace Chappell is Professor of Philosophy at the Open University. Her recent book Intuition, Theory, and Anti-Theory in Ethics was published by OUP. Her current work focuses on the relation between theory and experience in ethics, and in particular about the transformative power of ‘epiphanies’, and their central role in the generation of our reasons and other motivations. Heidi Mirza (@HeidiMirza) is Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is known for her pioneering research on race, gender and identity in education and has an international reputation for championing equality and human rights for women and young people through educational reform. As one of the first female professors of colour in UK she was awarded the prestigious # Eight Women of Colour Awards in 2014. She is author of several best-selling books including, Young Female and Black, which was voted in the BERA top 40 most influential educational studies in Britain. Her other publications include Black British Feminism, and Race, Gender, and Educational Desire: Why black women succeed and fail and most recently, Respecting Difference: Race, Faith, and Culture for Teacher Educators. Jacqueline Rose is Professor of Humanities, Birkbeck, University of London. Her recent book Women in Dark Times has just been published by Bloomsbury. She has also authored Sexuality in the Field of Vision, The Haunting of Sylvia Plath, States of Fantasy, The Question of Zion, The Last Resistance, Proust Among the Nations – from Dreyfus to the Middle East and the novel Albertine. She is a regular writer for The London Review of Books and is a Fellow of the British Academy. Zoe Williams (@zoesqwilliams) is a writer and journalist, author of Get it Together: Why We Deserve Better Politics. She is best known as a Guardian columnist, but her work has also appeared in the Spectator, NOW magazine, the New Statesman and the Evening Standard. Danielle Sands is Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway and Forum for European Philosophy Fellow. The Forum for European Philosophy (@ForumPhilosophy) is an educational charity that organises a full and varied programme of philosophy and interdisciplinary events in the UK.

Contributor(s): David Aaronovitch | David Aaronovitch talks to Charlie Beckett about his new book Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists. A memoir of early life among communists, Party Animals first took David Aaronovitch back through his own memories of belief and action. But there was much more to it. He found himself studying the old secret service files, uncovering the unspoken shame and fears that provided the unconscious background to his own existence as a party animal. Only then did he begin to understand what had come before – both the obstinate heroism and the monstrous cowardice. And the elements that shape our fondest beliefs. David Aaronovitch (@DAaronovitch) is an award-winning journalist, who has worked in radio, television and newspapers in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. His first book, Paddling to Jerusalem, won the Madoc prize for travel literature in 2001 and his second, Voodoo Histories, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Charlie Beckett (@CharlieBeckett) is Director of Polis. Polis (@PolisLSE) is the LSE's journalism and society think-tank, a part of the Department of Media and Communications aimed at working journalists, media practitioners, people in public life and students in the UK and around the world.

Contributor(s): Professor Michèle Barrett, Duncan Barrett, Professor Barry Buzan, Professor Steven French | Celebrating Star Trek’s 50th anniversary, our panel will explore what this enduring science fiction series can tell us about attitudes to international relations, science and society. Michèle Barrett is Professor of Modern Literary and Cultural Theory at Queen Mary University, London and author, with her son Duncan Barrett of Star Trek: the Human Frontier. Her recent work has focused on the literature and art of the First World War period. Duncan Barrett (@WW1Stories) is a best-selling author. In 2010 he edited the First World War memoirs of pacifist saboteur Ronald Skirth, published as The Reluctant Tommy, and in 2014 his book Men of Letters: The Post Office Heroes Who Fought the Great War was nominated for the People’s Book Prize. His is author (with Nuala Calvi) of The Sugar Girls, G. I. Brides and The Girls Who Went to War. Barry Buzan is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the LSE (formerly Montague Burton Professor), Honorary Professor at Copenhagen Jilin, and China Foreign Affairs Universities, a Senior Fellow at LSE Ideas, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has written, co-authored or edited over twenty-five books. He is author of an article America in Space: The International Relations of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and his most recent book, with George Lawson, is The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations. Steven French is Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds. Steven is Co-Editor-in-Chief (with Michela Massimi of the University of Edinburgh) of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, one of the most highly regarded journals in the field. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Palgrave-Macmillan series, New Directions in Philosophy of Science. His books include The Structure of the World: Metaphysics and Representation. Bryan Roberts (@SoulPhysics) is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE.