LSE: Public lectures and events

London School of Economics and Political Science

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The London School of Economics and Political Science public events podcast series is a platform for thought, ideas and lively debate where you can hear from some of the world's leading thinkers. Listen to more than 200 new episodes every year.

11 JUN

Beliefism: how to stop hating the people we disagree with

Contributor(s): Professor Paul Dolan | Join us for this talk by LSE's Paul Dolan in which he will talk about his new book, Beliefism. Do you avoid people who are strongly against immigration? Or strongly for trans rights? Against abortion? For drug legalisation? We might like to think that we're tolerant, but many of us struggle to engage with people whose opinions differ strongly from our own-even if they might have something useful to contribute to the debate. That means we're falling victim to what behavioural scientist Paul Dolan defines as Beliefism: discrimination against those with different beliefs to us. Drawing on the evidence from across the social sciences, Dolan shows how easy it is for us to divide ourselves into opposing camps - and how harmful that can be.This recording contains strong language.

1h 11m
10 JUN

Amartya Sen and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in conversation with Nick Stern: building sustainability in a turbulent world

Contributor(s): Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Professor Amartya Sen, Professor Lord Stern | Join us for this special event celebrating LSE's new Global School of Sustainability at which our speakers will discuss fostering sustainability amidst global uncertainty

1h 28m
9 JUN

Economic nationalism and global (dis)order

Contributor(s): Professor Robert Falkner | Join us for this year's Martin Wight Memorial Lecture which will be delivered by Robert Falkner who will explore the rise of economic nationalism amidst growing geopolitical rivalry. The lecture will be based on his new co-authored book, The Market in Global International Society: An English School Perspective on International Political Economy.

1h 24m
5 JUN

Feminism, anti-feminism and affective economies of rage

Contributor(s): Professor Sarah Banet-Weiser, Professor Angela McRobbie | In this event Sarah Banet-Weiser will theorize “mirror worlds” as an apt metaphor for the contemporary political and cultural feminist landscape. The concept of mirror worlds captures the ways in which reactionary digital politics seeks to mimic feminist politics - but also how it distorts and distracts, with the aim of confusing, splintering and weakening feminism. Within digital media culture in recent years, we have seen the rise of diverse reactionary formations which mirror feminist language, concepts and analyses, marshalling them for anti-feminist ends; these include popular misogynists, ‘manfluencers’, and ‘red-pilled’ manosphere groups such as incels, pick-up artists and male separatists. More recently, a diverse range of female-centric groups and influencers, from tradwives to ‘dark feminine’ influencers to so-called ‘reactionary feminists’ have begun to mirror the reactionary and bio-essentialist logics of the manosphere: a reflection of a reflection.

1h 29m
4 JUN

A new data infrastructure for the social sciences?

Contributor(s): Professor David B Grusky | The social sciences rely heavily on legacy data systems conceived to meet challenges of the 20th century (and earlier!). Is this the moment to build a new data system that meets new challenges and exploits new types of technology and data? The purpose of this talk is to sketch out this radical vision, how it might be realized, and the risks that it would entail.Featured image (used in source code with watermark added): Photo by Google DeepMind via Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/an-artist-s-illustration-of-artificial-intelligence-ai-this-image-was-inspired-neural-networks-used-in-deep-learning-it-was-created-by-novoto-studio-as-part-of-the-visualising-ai-proje-17483873/

1h 27m
3 JUN

Fixing education for the AI age

Contributor(s): Conrad Wolfram | The recent prominence of AI has exposed major deficiencies in education. Not only how much improvement can be made in the pedagogical process with modern technology, but also how the subject-matter has diverged from what's needed in the real world. Maths education has been at the epicentre of this mismatch: required of all, seen as central to the future, yet without reformation for the technology revolution that has elevated it to such importance in society. Conrad Wolfram will explain what the problem is, how we fix it and his group's pioneering work to rebuild the curriculum to achieve "computational literacy for all". He will go further: explaining how failures in maths education should forewarn us of actions needed across the curriculum as we enter the AI age, and technology transforms our world.Featured image (used in source code with watermark added): Photo by MART PRODUCTION via Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-person-with-curly-hair-using-vr-headset-8471958/

1h 27m
2 JUN

Tolerance and freedom of expression

Contributor(s): Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith | Join us for the Sir Karl Popper Memorial Lecture which will be delivered by Peter Godfrey-Smith who will speak about tolerance and the freedom of expression. Karl Popper suggested that tolerance in political contexts can be self-defeating. “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance,” he said, because it allows intolerance to flourish and take over. He called this the “paradox of tolerance.” One important kind of tolerance relates to the expression of controversial ideas. Using a framework for understanding tolerance developed with Ben Kerr, Peter Godfrey-Smith will discuss problems raised by toleration of the intolerant, especially around questions of speech and expression. The framework itself doesn't dictate policies, but combined with other arguments it can provide support for a "classic liberal" treatment of free expression, where some protection is afforded to the expression of unpopular views. The framework eliminates the appearance of tension or "paradox" in some liberal combinations of attitudes.Featured image (used in source code with watermark added): Photo by Lara Jameson via Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-white-and-black-megaphone-8898633/

1h 29m
29 MAY

Elite conflict, colonialism and democracy in the Middle East

Contributor(s): Dr Mohamed Saleh | Why has democracy struggled to thrive in the Global South? In this British Academy-funded research project, Mohamed Saleh develops a new economic history of the Middle East that explains the economic roots of authoritarianism in the region. He theoretically and empirically investigates how demands for democratisation emerge from intra-elite conflicts in an agrarian economy, despite the lack of an industrial bourgeoisie that was crucial in the Global North, and how elite politics shift with colonialism, the intrusion of industrial capital, and postcolonial nationalist military coups.Featured image (used in source code with watermark added): Photo by Ali Aliakbari via Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/red-plastic-container-lot-on-brown-wooden-table-7msDHQrs0s8

1h 28m

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The London School of Economics and Political Science public events podcast series is a platform for thought, ideas and lively debate where you can hear from some of the world's leading thinkers. Listen to more than 200 new episodes every year.