Autumn 2014 | Public lectures and events | Audio and pdf

Contributor(s): Professor Vincent Descombes, Alan Montefiore | What does it mean to speak of an individual’s very identity as a person? And what too of the ongoing identity of an institution or a group? And how is the sense of ‘identity’ as that which is identical related to ‘that which defines what and who we are’? Vincent Descombes will discuss some of the multiple complexities in what he has called Les embarras de l’identité. Vincent Descombes is a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago and Director of Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris. Alan Montefiore is Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College at the University of Oxford and President of the Forum for European Philosophy.

Contributor(s): Yiannis Boutaris | Amidst the economic crisis in Greece, something unusual emerged in Thessaloniki, the idiosyncratic “co-Capital” of the country. Under the mayorship of Yiannis Boutaris, the first non-political figure to be elected as Mayor in the city’s modern history, the city started to re-invent itself, beginning from its very own mode of governance. In this lecture, the Mayor of Thessaloniki will talk about the challenges of administrative modernisation and the necessary institutional changes Greece needs to accomplish at the level of local administration so as to accommodate the principle of subsidiarity.

Contributor(s): Professor Keller Easterling, Dr David Madden | Infrastructure is not only the underground pipes and cables controlling our cities. It also determines the hidden rules that structure the spaces all around us – free trade zones, smart cities, suburbs, and shopping malls. In this lecture Keller Easterling drew on her new book ‘Extrastatecraft’ to chart the emergent new powers controlling this space and showed how they extend beyond the reach of government. Easterling explored areas of infrastructure with the greatest impact on our world – examining everything from standards for the thinness of credit cards to the urbanism of mobile telephony, the world’s largest shared platform, to the “free zone,” the most virulent new world city paradigm. In conclusion, she proposed some unexpected techniques for resisting power in the modern world.

Contributor(s): Professor Angus Deaton | In lectures across three consecutive evenings (9 December, 10 December and 11 December) leading development economist Professor Deaton will discuss his work on health and poverty. Global poverty has been falling rapidly, even as income inequality has been inexorably rising in most of the world. Perhaps paradoxically, global income inequality has been falling. Or has it? Many claim not. Angus Deaton will discuss recent trends in poverty and inequality, nationally and internationally, and will ask why recent growth has brought such meagre reductions in poverty. He will also argue that measurement depends, not only on theory, but also on politics, and explain why and how the politics of poverty is so often disguised as science. The lectures will ask how we know what we know about poverty and inequality, discuss the many unresolved difficulties of measurement, and make proposals for improvement. Angus Deaton is Dwight D Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Economics Department at Princeton University. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).

Contributor(s): Lady Williams, Mark Bostridge | Shirley Williams and Mark Bostridge will be discussing the impact of the First World War on the life and work of her mother, Vera Brittain, author of Testament of Youth. Shirley Williams is a politician, academic and former leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords. Mark Bostridge is a British writer and critic. He is the author of Vera Brittain and the First World War: The Story of Testament of Youth and Vera Brittain: A Life. The Ralph Miliband Programme (@rmilibandlse) is one of LSE's most prestigious lecture series and seeks to advance Ralph Miliband's spirit of free social inquiry. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).