Podcasts and videos
Missed one of our events? Catch up here
Catch up with our latest highlights from events in the Department of Sociology.
Inequality in the 21st century
▶ Inequality in the 21st century
Born to rule: the making and remaking of the British elite
▶ Born to rule: the making and remaking of the British elite
▶ British Journal of Sociology Conference Highlights
See below for our archived events:
Inequality in the 21st century
We live in societies fractured from top to bottom by corrosive and scarring inequalities.This keynote panel brought together three eminent sociologists to reflect on how we can use the sociological imagination to make sense of contemporary challenges and illuminate our current lives. Watch the recording.
A new data infrastructure for the social sciences?
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? Watch the recording.
Critique is the critique of power
This event used a debate format to engage with the meanings of the concept of critique, which has been central to core traditions in the humanities and the social sciences. The event will bring together sociologists from a range of traditions to discuss whether critique can be equated with the critique of power in the analysis of the social world. Watch the recording.
Global dignity and seeing others: political and environmental recognition compared
Michèle Lamont discussed her book, Seeing Others: How Recognition Works and How it Can Heal a Divided World. Watch the recording.
On white normativity, racial habituation, and cracks in racial teams
In this year’s annual British Journal of Sociology lecture, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva reviewed the basics of his "racialized social system" with a focus on explaining how he has improved the theoretical apparatus over the years. Watch the recording.
The ecological face of the commune form
Professor Kristin Ross delivered our Annual Internationalism, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Solidarity lecture. The lecture was based on her new book, The Commune Form, which looks at the new frontal anti-capitalist antagonisms fuelling recent territorial struggles. Watch the recording.
Peak injustice: solving Britain's inequality crisis
Why has absolute deprivation continued to grow in the UK? What role does high inequality play in understanding how we have got to the point of peak injustice?Watch the recording.
Vulture Capitalism
At this talk UK commentator and economic thinker Grace Blakeley spoke about her latest book, Vulture Capitalism. Watch the recording.
Human rights through the eyes of my native land: South Africa in the World
This year's annual Human Rights Day lecture will explore South Africa's complex relationship with the idea of human rights. Drawing from the struggle to end apartheid, the lecture will explore the connections between the struggle for human rights and the idea of self-determination. While both ideas are local, the lecture will show that they are also global. South Africa remains a feature of the global world order, trying, as one of its most talented sons, Steve Bantu Biko once said "to give the world a more human face". Watch the recording.
Radically Legal: Berlin constitutes the future
Join us for the book launch of Radically Legal: Berlin Constitutes the Future, the Nine Dots Prize-winning book by Dr Joanna Kusiak which tells the story of a grassroots movement that convinced a million Berliners to pop the speculative housing bubble. Listen to the recording.
Born to rule: the making and remaking of the British elite
In Aaron Reeves and Sam Friedman’s new book, which they launched at this event, they provide a uniquely data-rich analysis of the British elite from the Victorian era to today: who gets in, how they get there, what they like and look like, where they go to school, and what politics they perpetuate. Watch the recording.
In Revolution of Things, Kusha Sefattells the story of political transformations in post-revolutionary Iran from the vantage point of the relationships between materiality and language. Listen to the recording.
Thinking with C.L.R. James about international socialism, popular democracy, and the good life
This talk was drawn from a larger project entitled "Recalling C.L.R. James, Reconsidering Black Marxism". It offered an overview of James’s distinctive critical and political orientation. Listen to the recording.
This panel brought together scholars, experts, practitioners, and organisers who have investigated how financial investments can be entangled with human rights abuses, the arms trade, and climate breakdown. Listen to the recording.
We thought it would be heaven: refugees in an unequal America
As Bourdieu has demonstrated, the "rules of the game" determine access to scarce resources. Yet, in studies of immigrants, there has been insufficient attention to how organisational rules across a wide range of institutions matter. Listen to the recording.
In this lecture, Professor Shamus Khan sought to change the unit of analysis, centring not individuals but families within the studies of the super-rich. Listen to the recording.
The States of Exception: Biopolitics, Human Rights, Utopia by Costas Douzinas assessed and critiqued the ways in which governments responded to three recent emergencies: the 2008 economic crisis, the large flows of refugees and migrants since the 2010s and the COVID-19 pandemic. This book launch discussed the theoretical and practical consequences of the state of exception. Listen to the recording.
Race and Education
In this lecture Kalwant Bhopal (Birmingham), Dr Suki Ali (LSE) and Dr Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa (LSE) explored how Black Lives Matter has made little if any difference to the experiences of ethnic minority students in schools and higher education. Listen to the recording.
Rights, virtues and humanity: re-thinking the ethics of human rights
Have human rights lost their power as an ethical discourse? In our annual Human Rights Day lecture, Professor Kimberly Hutchings explored the critical landscape of human rights thinking today and how we might re-think the concept of human rights in ways that will sustain its power as an ethical discourse into the future. Listen to the recording.
Except Palestine: law, humanity and politics
This event explored how and why international law and ideas of humanity attend to, and exceptionalise, the case of Palestine and Palestinians. İt brings together scholars of international law, media, culture, human rights and politics. Watch the recording.
Inspired by Nigel Dodd’s The Social Life of Money, this lecture proposed an analysis of entangled economic lives, that is, how meaning, structure and politics jointly shape the flow of monies within households. Watch the recording and an interview with Professor Nina Bandelj.
The golden passport: global mobility for millionaires
This event marks the publication of Kristin Surak’s new book, The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires, which offers the first on-the-ground investigation of the global market for citizenship by investment. Listen to the recording.
Can Russia be Remade?
With the war in Ukraine well into its second year, we were joined by Nina Khrushcheva to discuss the fault lines that the war has opened up in Russian society - and the potential of the Russia left to use these fractures to push for a more progressive Russia. Listen to the recording.
Smashing the Class Ceiling
LSE Festival 2023Professor Sam Friedman, Professor Lee Elliot Major, Professor Stephen Machin
The Changing Inequalities of Citizenship
LSE Festival 2023Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey, Dr Kristin Surak, Dr Eleanor Knott, Dr Armine Ishkanian
This is Not America: Why Black Lives in Britain Matter
LSE Festival 2023Tomiwa Owoladevis, Professor Mike Savage
What Would a Fairer Society Look Like?
LSE Festival 2023Daniel Chandler, Dr Ayça Çubukçu, Swatee Deepak, Lord Willetts, Professor Neil Lee
Spaces of Struggle: Rethinking Internationalism in an Age of War and Transition
Professor Sandro Mezzadra, Dr Ayça Çubukçu
Putting Bourdieu and Marx in Dialogue
Dr Gabriella Paolucci, Dr Poornima Paidipaty, Professor Bridget Fowler, Professor Mike Savage
Reflections on ‘The Quantified Scholar’
British Journal of Sociology Annual LectureDr Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra, Professor Sam Friedman, Professor Sarah de Rijcke, Professor John Holmwood, Professor Fran Tonkiss, Professor Gurminder K Bhambra, Dr Daniel Laurison
Irregular Rights: Abortion, Domestic Violence, and the uses of Illegality
Professor Poulami Roychowdhury, Professor Monika Krause
The Politics of the Turkey/Syria Earthquake: Responses and Aftermath
Dr Karabekir Akkoyunlu, Dr Hişyar Özsoy, Dr Rim Turkmani and Amberin Zaman, Dr Ayça Çubukçu
Everyone and No One: Moral Solicitude and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Professor Siba N'Zatioula Grovogui, Professor Shiera Malik
Highly Discriminating: Why the City isn't Fair and Why Diversity Doesn't Work
Dr Louise Ashley, David Goodhart, Professor Mark Williams, Professor Sam Friedman
Social Science is Explanation or it is Nothing
Professor Julian Go, Professor Noorjte Marres, Professor Melinda Mills, Professor Mike Savage, Professor Monika Krause
Defending Academic Autonomy in Turkey
Dr Elif Babul, Yigit Torun, Professor Mine Eder, Dr Nazan Ustundag, Hayri Ince, Dr Ayça Çubukçu
Watch the recording
Debating Capital and Ideology
Professor Gurminder Bhambra, Dr Jens Lerche, Dr Sanjay G. Reddy, Professor Diego Sánchez-Ancochea, Dr Nora Waitkus, Professor Thomas Piketty, Dr Poornima Paidipaty
Cosmopolitanisms: past, present, future?
Professor Etienne Balibar, Dr Ayça Çubukçu
On Jihad, Empire and Solidarity
Dr Catherine Baker, Professor Tarak Barkawi, Dr Darryl Li, Dr Mahvish Ahmad
Underwater: Loss, Flood Insurance, and the Moral Economy of Climate Change in the United States
Professor Eric Klinenberg, Professor Paula Jarzabkowski, Dr Daniel Aldana Cohen, Dr Rebecca Elliott, Dr Austin Zeiderman
A Polity Divided: empire, nation, and the construction of the British welfare state
British Journal of Sociology Annual LectureProfessor Gurminder K Bhambra
Have We Reached The End Of The 1951 Refugee Convention?
Annual Human Rights Day LectureProfessor Seyla Benhabib
The Human in Human Rights
Co-hosted with LSE Human RightsProfessor Craig Calhoun
Book Launch: Anticolonial Afterlives
Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper, Dr Dina Makram-Ebeid, Dr Adam Hanieh, Professor Laleh Khalili, Dr Sara Salem, Professor John Chalcraft
Watch the video
Set the Night on Fire: LA in the sixties
Professor Mike Davis, Professor Jon Wiener, Professor Robin D G Kelley, Dr Glyn Robbins
The Fate of Internationalism: talking solidarity in a pandemic
Dr Anthony Alessanddrini, Dr Ayça Çubukçu, Dr Noura Erakat, Dr Christina Heatherton
Watch the video
Radiographies of the Human and the Inhuman: victims and perpetrators of Mexico's drugs wars
Dr Ernesto Schwartz-Marin
Ordinal Citizenship
British Journal of Sociology Annual LectureProfessor Marion Fourcade
Rethinking Human Rights: a southern response to western critics
Dr Muthoni Wanyeki
Internationale Blues: revolutionary pessimism and the politics of solidarity
Professor Robin Kelley
Raquel Rolnik: Urban Warfare - housing under the empire of finance
Professor Raquel Rolnik, Dr Glyn Robbins, Dr David Madden
Racial Inequality in Britain: the Macpherson Report 20 years on
Professor Kalwant Bhopal, David Lammy MP, Dr Clive James Nwonka, Dr Faiza Shaheen
The Class Ceiling: why it pays to be privileged
Hosted with the International Inequalities InstituteDr Sam Friedman, Dr Daniel Laurison, Dr Louise Ashley, Dr Faiza Shaheen
From "having" to "being": self worth and the current crisis of American society
British Journal of Sociology Annual Lecture 2018Professor Michèle Lamont
Listen to the podcast
For the Love of Humanity: the World Tribunal on Iraq
Dr Ayça Çubukçu, Professor David Graeber, Haifa Zangana, Professor Kimberly Hutchings, Dr Tor Krever, Dr Lori Allen
Standing With (Polyamorists) and Speaking as Faith (in Indigenous Scientists): Making Good Relations Not Research
BSA Postgraduate Forum EventDr Kim TallBear
White Lines: young people, conviviality and conflict in peripheral places
Professor Anoop Nayak
Trouble at the Top: is Britain's leadership still fit for purpose?
Professor Aeron Davis, Polly Toynbee, Joe Earle
Migration and the City
Co-hosted with LSE CitiesProfessor Ash Amin, Dr Victoria Redclift
The Future of Ageing
Hosted by the LSE Festival: Beveridge 2.0Professor Michael Murphy, Dr Rebeca Aldunate, Nicci Gerrard, Jane Vass
The Challenge of Richness? Rethinking the Giant of Poverty
Hosted by the LSE Festival: Beveridge 2.0Dr Tania Burchardt, Amy Feneck, Dr Sam Friedman, Dr Luna Glucksberg
Is God Really Dead? Why Belief Matters
Professor Eileen Barker, Professor Conor Gearty
Cash: the future of money in the Bitcoin age
Hosted by LSE LawProfessor Nigel Dodd, Dr Tatiana Cutts, Dr Eva Micheler, Dr Philipp Paech
Strangers in Their Own Land: bridging a growing divide
Professor Arlie Russell Hochschild
The Social Life of DNA: racial reconciliation and institutional morality
British Journal of Sociology Annual LectureProfessor Alondra Nelson
What is Housing For?
Dr David Madden, Dr Alex Vasudevan, Anna Minton
Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution: history versus myth
Professor Andrew Walder
Do We Really Live in an Acceleration Society?
Professor Hartmut Rosa
British Journal of Sociology Annual Lecture – Sociology of WE Du Bois: why du Bois is the founder of American scientific sociology
Professor Aldon Morris
The Rotten Financial System (Rot $) is the Enemy. We are the Opposition, Part 1
Vivienne Westwood
The Life Project: the extraordinary story of 70,000 ordinary lives
Dr Helen Pearson
Social Media and Social Change: analysing debates over valuation
Professor Walter W Powell
Social Class in the 21st Century
Dr Niall Cunningham, Professor Fiona Devine, Dr Sam Friedman, Dr Daniel Laurison, Dr Lisa McKenzie, Professor Mike Savage, Dr Helene Snee, Dr Paul Wakeling
British Journal of Sociology Annual Lecture – Before Theory Comes Theorizing or How to Make Social Science More Interesting
Professor Richard Swedberg
Race and Class: challenging inequalities
Liz Fekete, Kiri Kankhwende, Professor James Nazroo, Dr Debbie Weekes-Bernard
Inequality in The 21st Century: A Day Long Engagement with Thomas Piketty
Professor David Soskice, Professor Wendy Carlin, Professor Bob Rowthorn, Professor Diane Perrons, Professor Stephanie Seguino, Dr Lisa McKenzie, Professor Naila Kabeer, Dr Laura Bear, Professor Gareth Jones, Professor Mike Savage, Sir John Hills, Sir Tony Atkinson, Professor Thomas Piketty
Divided Cities: urban inequalities in the 21st century
Professor Fran Tonkiss
"My Purse, My Person": money and identity
David Birch, Professor Nigel Dodd, Tom Hockenhull, Professor Nicky Marsh
Pressed for Time: the acceleration of life in digital capitalism
Professor Judy Wajcman, Genevieve Bell
British Journal of Sociology Annual Lecture – A Post-Genomic Surprise: the molecular reinscription of race in science, law, and medicine
Professor Troy Duster
New Forms of Cultural Capital
Professor Philippe Coulangeon, Dr Sam Friedman, Dr Laurie Hanquinet
The Social Life of Money
Professor Nigel Dodd, Professor Keith Hart
Inequality and the 1%: What goes wrong when the rich become too rich?
Professor Danny Dorling