LSE: Public lectures and events

Contributor(s): Professor Andrea Cornwall, Professor Naomi Hossain, Professor Naila Kabeer, Dr Erin Lentz | 30 years ago, Naila Kabeer published Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought, which became a landmark study in the scholarship on gender and development. It is widely regarded as a (if not the) key text in the field of Feminist Development Studies. It provided path-breaking perspectives on the politics of development knowledge production, specifically about how excluding feminist knowledge shaped development practice and unequal outcomes. Several leading thinkers will join us in the fields of feminist economics and development studies to reflect on the legacies of this groundbreaking text and what has changed 30 years on.

Contributor(s): Professor Tarun Khaitan, Professor Lea Ypi | Liberal constitutional theory rests on a fundamental division between duty-bearing public institutions and the rights-wielding private persons. This inaugural lecture will explore the implications of this division on the constitutional regulation of news and social media corporations. It will argue that constitutional theory needs to acknowledge the essentially public purpose of news media corporations. even when privately owned. It will further argue that the liberal free speech framework (even in its ‘positive’, pluralism-seeking, conception) cannot justify regulation of echo chambers and polarising content on social media. Democratic constitutions, therefore, need to explicitly recognise truth (or ‘verity’) as an independent fundamental constitutional value. The key implications for constitutional regulation that would follow from this recognition will be explored.

Contributor(s): Professor Bruce J. Caldwell | 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the Nobel Prize won by liberal political economist F.A. Hayek. This lecture will review some of Hayek’s key ideas and especially his contributions to the methodology of the social sciences. It will feature Bruce Caldwell, a leading historian of economic thought, author of a recently released book Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950. 

Contributor(s): Kate Aronoff, Stephen Castle, Professor Inderjeet Parmar, Richard Seymour | What does the outcome of the US presidential election mean for democrats and progressives? What is its significance both in the United States and around the world?

Contributor(s): Dr Helen Sharman, Dr Jill Stuart, Dr Dimitrios Stroikos | What kind of possibilities does this new space age bring—and what dangers should we be worried about? Can any nation seize possession of the moon? Could it be mined? Is there junk in space? And whatever happened to that flag that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted on the moon fifty five years ago? To find out more, Maayan Arad speaks to Dr Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut in space who flew aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-12 in 1991. He also talks to Dr Jill Stuart, an expert in the politics, ethics and law of outer space exploration and exploitation and Visiting Fellow in LSE’s Department of Government, and Dr Dimitrios Stroikos, LSE Fellow in the Department of International Relations and Head of the Space Policy Programme at LSE IDEAS.   Contributors Dr Helen Sharman, first British astronaut Dr Jill Stuart, Visiting Fellow at LSE’s Department of Government Dr Dimitrios Stroikos, LSE Fellow in the Department of International Relations at LSE and Head of the Space Policy Programme at LSE IDEAS.