News and events
News and information on Language Centre events past and present.
Past events and news items are listed below.
The action of theatre, like that of a plague causes the mask to fall’
Antonin Artaud
News and events
Inglorious revolutions or glorious compromises
LSE Language Centre, in collaboration with the LSESU Drama Society, presents an evening of theatre and discussion, featuring Paul Kelly, author of Conflict, War and Revolution.
Is Britain’s near 350 year old form of constitutional monarchy truly original and unique, or is democracy, as William F Buckley declared, ultimately no more than a ‘utilitarian’ means to a more important end? A discussion of the attractions or otherwise of different forms of government will be followed by a performance of Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III.
What is working when we talk about AI and teaching and in terms of language, where are we going when machines generate new discourse?
This is a one-day conference for all staff from King's Language Centre and LSE Language Centre and we welcome two speakers from the Berkeley Language Center (BLC).
Each year we offer a research internship for our undergraduate students returning from their year abroad. The research centres on topics such as humour, grief, leadership, populism, and public communication strategies. The scheme first ran in September 2022 and one of the articles produced that year has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Language and Intercultural Communication titled, Identity positioning work in conservative political discourse: a cross-cultural comparison.
Is History a Guide to Politics?
As part of LSE Festival 2024, LSE Language Centre, in collaboration with the LSESU Drama Society, presents an evening of theatre and discussion, featuring Prof. Gordon Barrass, CMG, a specialist on strategy assessment and perception, who developed his career in the British Diplomatic Service and served as Chief of the Assessments Staff in the Cabinet Office. A discussion focusing on such topics as the New Cold War, the dynamics of resistance and coercion, and its impact on the shifting power arrangements, will be followed by the performance of Vaclav Havel’s Leaving. One of the leaders of the Velvet Revolution and an acclaimed playwright, Havel wrote this play in 2007 having resigned from his position as the first President of the Czech Republic.
Dr Catherine Xiang has a new publication out. "Bridging the Gap – An Introduction to Intercultural Communication with China’. This essential guide unravels the nuances of effective communication in China. It introduces the basics of intercultural communication, highlighting cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic factors that shape how people in China communicate. Readers will learn how to navigate cultural differences, making their intercultural interactions more successful and rewarding.
Dr Olga Sobolev has a new publiction out Film Adaptations of Russian Classics Dialogism and Authorship. Edited by Alexandra Smith, Olga Sobolev. Edinburgh University Press, 2023.
LSE Language Centre, in collaboration with LSESU Drama Society, presents an evening of theatre and discussion, featuring Professor Sarah Ashwin, a leading expert in industrial relations.
A discussion focusing on post-pandemic reconstruction and a ‘gender new deal’, will be followed by the performance of Shaw’s play The Millionairess. The Nobel Prize-winning playwright Shaw was a lifelong supporter of feminism, and agitator for votes for women. In the 1930s, faced with worldwide economic disarray and record unemployment, which made him despair of the leading statesmen of the time, Shaw produced his play The Millionairess depicting an independent and economically empowered woman who transforms businesses and society with her unconventional, novel approach as an entrepreneur.
Not a Day Goes By, to Speak in the Old Style, Without Some Blessing
The LSE Festival (2021) is a week of virtual events free and open to all, taking place from 1 - 6 March 2021, about the direction the world could and should be taking after the COVID crisis and how social science research can shape it.
We are delighted that Dr Olga Sobolev and Dr Angus Wrenn, together with LSE SU Drama Society, present an evening of Absurdist drama, preceded by a discussion with Professor Paul Dolan, a leading expert on the application of positive psychology in the contemporary world.
Talk in English by Renata Ávila, Executive Director, Smart Citizenship Foundation
While the Web is 30 years old, the last decade has been the most challenging for our societies to preserve and advance freedom of speech. It started by celebrating the power of the Internet and social networks to transform democracy and open societies; it continued with a celebration of so-called "Internet Freedom", as the world witnessed the "Arab Spring" unfolding. It shifted power and revolutionised journalism with the courageous publications of WikiLeaks, the most radical institutional innovation for journalism, inspiring a global movement of digital whistleblowing. And then, freedom of speech moved backwards: sophisticated surveillance, censorship, increased controls and restrictions of content, and fake news. Citizens are blamed for either producing or believing, and even a genocide in Myanmar may have been triggered by social networks. Are our rights at risk? Can we reverse the trend? The talk will analyse key moments that shaped freedom of speech online during the last decade and a defining period ahead that can change everything.
LSE Festival: New World DisOrders (The New World Gives the Orders)
Politics and philosophy, discussion and performance: Orwell as prophet; Pinter as protester, and ‘Convenience’ as the new order of our virtual world. LSE Language Centre, in collaboration with the LSE Student Union Drama Society, presents an evening of dramas and discussion.
Since the end of the Cold War there has been continual speculation and discussion regarding the emergence of a New World Order in the apparent vacuum of power which was left. Noam Chomsky pessimistically concluded that New World Order simply meant ‘The New World’ (i.e. the USA) now gave the orders. Dr Kai Spiekermann, an expert on modern alternatives to democracy, and author with Robert Goodin of An Epistemic Theory of Democracy and Masha Karp, author of a new biography of Orwell, consider the extent to which a New World Order can be identified, and in what ways this affirms or contradicts Orwell’s pessimistic, dystopian vision of the future, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as it approaches its sixtieth anniversary
The latest videos from LSE Research in Mandarin are now available.
LSE Research in Mandarin aims to showcase LSE’s world class research and multilingual faculty, is being filmed at LSE’s new media studio. From media industries to social policy change and future economic development in China.