Previous Events
LSE Arts public discussion
Lady Chatterley's lover: fifty years on
Date: Monday, 1 November 2010
Time: 6.30-8:00pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Lord Hutchinson QC, Helena Kennedy QC, Geoffrey Robertson QC
Chair: Professor Christine Chinkin
On 2 November 1960 the jury at the Old Bailey acquitted Penguin Books of obscenity for publishing an uncensored version of D.H. Lawrence's controversial novel. Geoffrey Robertson QC and a panel explore the impact of the trial on our current laws and assumptions on freedom of expression.
Lord Hutchinson QC was Called to the Bar, Middle Temple in 1939 and served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1961, a Bencher, Recorder of Bath and of the Crown Court between 1963 and 1988. Hutchinson was a member of the Committee on Immigration Appeals and of the Committee on Identification Procedures.
He was vice-chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain and a Professor of Law at the Royal Academy of Arts. For the Tate Gallery, he was first trustee and then chairman. On 16 May 1978 he was created a life peer with the title Baron Hutchinson of Lullington in the County of East Sussex.
Helena Kennedy QC is a leading barrister and an expert in human rights law, civil liberties and constitutional issues. She is a member of the House of Lords and chair of Justice – the British arm of the International Commission of Jurists. She is a bencher of Gray's Inn and President of the School of Oriental and African studies, University of London. She was the chair of Charter 88 from 1992 to 1997, the Human Genetics Commission from 1998 to 2007 and the British Council from 1998 to 2004.
She also chaired the Power Inquiry, which reported on the state of British democracy and produced the Power Report in 2006. She has received honours for her work on human rights from the governments of France and Italy and has been awarded more than thirty honorary doctorates. She is currently acting in cases connected to the recent wave of terrorism – including the conspiracy to bomb Transatlantic Airlines and Operation Crevice.
Geoffrey Robertson QC is founder and head of Doughty Street Chambers, the largest human rights practice in the UK. He has appeared in the courts of many countries as counsel in leading cases in constitutional, criminal and international law and served as the first President of the UN War Crimes Court in Sierra Leone, where he authored a landmark decision on the illegality of recruiting child soldiers.
He sits as a recorder, and is a master of Middle Temple and a visiting Professor of Human Rights Law at Queen Mary College, London. In 2008, he was appointed as a distinguished jurist member of the UN's Justice Council.
This event was in association with Doughty Street Chambers and English PEN.
LSE arts public poetry reading and discussion
I was not an untouchable then
Date: Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Time: 5:00-6:00pm
Venue: Shaw Library, Old Building
Speakers: S. Anand, Meena Kandasamy
Chair: Dr Priyamvada Gopal
A Dalit poetry reading and discussion on the arts as resistance to caste oppression.
A reading of Dalit poetry will be followed by a panel discussion about the potential of the arts as a vehicle of resistance to caste oppression in India. Meena Kandasamy will read from her own collection, Touch, published in 2006 to widespread critical acclaim, and from her forthcoming Ms Militancy. S. Anand will read the work of Namdeo Dhasal and N.D. Rajkumar. The discussion will be chaired by Dr Priyamvada Gopal, Faculty of English, Cambridge University.