LSE: Public lectures and events London School of Economics and Political Science

Contributor(s): Madhumita Murgia | On the surface a British poet, an UberEats courier in Pittsburgh, an Indian doctor, and a Chinese activist in exile have nothing in common. But they are in fact linked by a profound common experience—unexpected encounters with artificial intelligence.

Contributor(s): Priyanka Kotamraju, Professor Tarun Khaitan, Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, Professor Alpa Shah | In her latest book, The Incarcerations. Professor Alpa Shah finds a shocking case of cyber warfare - hacked emails, mobile phones and implantation of electronic evidence used to make the arrests of the 16 human rights defenders (the BK-16). Delving into the lives of the BK-16, The Incarcerations shows how the case is a bellwether for the collapse of democracy and why these events matter to all of us.

Contributor(s): Professor Anna Mahtani | In deciding whether to carry out a particular healthcare policy for example, the process for reaching a decision will almost certainly involve a calculation of credences. Drawing from the Philosophy of Language, Anna Mahtani argues that objects of credence are "opaque". It matters then how the relevant object is described or designated.

Contributor(s): Gary Stevenson, Rebecca Gowland | Whilst studying at LSE, Gary won a competition run by a bank: "The Trading Game". The prize: a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family. But what happens when winning starts to feel like losing? Would you stick, or quit? Even if it meant risking everything? Gary's book is an outrageous, unvarnished, white-knuckle journey to the dark heart of an intoxicating world - from someone who survived the game and then blew it all wide open.

Contributor(s): Professor Judith Butler | Judith Butler confronts the attacks on gender which have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed "anti-gender ideology movements" dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous threat to families, local cultures, civilisation – and even "man" himself. 

Contributor(s): Professor Christopher Coker | For the late Professor Christopher Coker the answer lay in the rise of a new political entity, the civilizational state. In an episode of LSE iQ which explored China’s position in the world in the coming century, Professor Coker talked about this, the potential for war between the United States and China and what that might look like.
 
Christopher Coker, was Professor of International Relations at LSE for almost four decades, and co-Director of LSE IDEAS, LSE’s foreign policy think tank. He was a scholar of war and warfare. This episode of LSE iQ is a lightly edited version of our 2019 interview recorded before the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is dedicated to his memory.
 
 
Contributors
 
Professor Christopher Coker
 
Research

The Rise of the Civilizational State by Christopher Coker
 
The Improbable War, China, the United States and the Logic of Great Power Conflict by Christopher Coker