Contributor(s): Steven Rattner | Beginning with the subprime meltdown last summer, U.S. markets and the economy have been thrown into turmoil. Liquidity and default fears have created the worst conditions in financial markets in many years. These adverse developments have spilled over in the "real" economy, raised the specter of recession and worse. Steven Rattner is Managing Principal of Quadrangle Group LLC, a private investment firm with more than $6 billion of assets under management. Quadrangle invests in media and communications companies through separate private and public investment strategies and across all asset classes through its asset management business. Quadrangle has offices in New York, London and Silicon Valley and will be opening an office later this year in Hong Kong.

Contributor(s): Judy Cheng-Hopkins, Dr Chaloka Beyani, Dr Susan Breau | The return and reintegration of refugees and IDPs is one of the most pressing challenges faced by the international community today. Recently back from a visit to the Great Lakes region, UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Operations will discuss the local settlement of refugees in Tanzania and the return and reintegration of refugees in Burundi. Dr Chaloka Beyani, Legal Advisor to the Secretariat of the International Conference on the Great Lakes, will situate this problem within the Great Lakes Pact. The Pact sets out a holistic legal framework in which this problem is treated as just one component of establishing peace and security in the region. Dr Susan Breau, a Reader in public international law and expert in the field, will explore the interface between the 'responsibility to protect' doctrine and peacekeeping, including the facilitation of the voluntary return of refugees and IDPs.

Contributor(s): Professor Dan Ariely | Why do smart people make irrational decisions every day? Why do we repeatedly make the same mistakes when we make our selections? How do our expectations influence our actual opinions and decisions? The answers, as revealed by behavioural economist Professor Dan Ariely of MIT, will surprise you.

Contributor(s): Professor John Sidel | In this new series of lunchtime lectures, nine of LSE's most senior academics explain the latest thinking on how social scientists work to address the critical problems of the day. They survey the leading ideas and contributions made by their discipline, explain the types of problems that are addressed and the tools that are used, and explore the kinds of solutions proposed. John Sidel is Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics.

Contributor(s): Professor David Levering Lewis | Professor Lewis will argue that the 732CE Battle of Poitiers and the 778CE debacle at Roncevaux are pivotal moments in the creation of an economically retarded, balkanised, and fratricidal Europe, which, by defining itself in opposition to Islam in al-Andalus, made virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, persecutory religious intolerance, cultural particularism, and perpetual war.

Contributor(s): Senator Rick Santorum | The LSESU Tocqueville Society presents a public lecture by former United States Senator Rick Santorum on the challenges to the West posed by Islamic extremism and its alliances around the world. Mr. Santorum served as U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2007 and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 1995. As a Senator, he was a champion of efforts to counter the threat of radical Islam, to protect victims of religious persecution, and to promote democracy and religious liberty around the world. Mr. Santorum is currently Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Dr Alan Sked is a Senior Lecturer in International History at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Sir Bernard Crick, Professor Anne Phillips | As the composition of British society transforms with immigration and transnational identities, ideas about the notion of 'Britishness' are changing too. In the interest of a cohesive citizenry, must the UK return to 'core British values'? Or should Britain's identity change with its population? Should a British identity even exist? Sir Bernard Crick is emeritus professor of Birkbeck College and author of Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship, the basis for the UK citizenship exam. Anne Phillips is professor of Political and Gender Theory at LSE and author of Multiculturalism Without Culture.

Contributor(s): Frans Timmermans | Frans Timmermans will address issues of the changing political economy and the role the European Union can play in facing the challenges of today. The soft power of the EU is no longer limited to stabilisation and transformation of societies alone. Europe sets the standard in many fields. Yet, as Frans Timmermans will argue, pursuing the vision of Europe as a model power imposes a growing need for the Union's member states to start thinking and behaving in political terms. Less as a collection of different economies and more like a true economic union.

Contributor(s): Darian Leader, Professor Henrietta Moore, Professor Susie Orbach, Professor Renata Salecl | The demand that sexual relations should be at the basis both of self-understanding and self-realisation often puts our intimate lives under particular pressure. This talk will look at contemporary sexualities and their uneasy relationship to love, fantasy and intimacy. Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst. Henrietta Moore is professor of social anthropology at LSE. Susie Orbach is a psychoanalyst and visiting professor at LSE. Renata Salecl is centennial professor of law at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor David Kennedy | Winston Churchill said in 1945 that 'the United States stands at this moment at the summit of the world'. Yet just five years earlier America had been an economic catastrophe and an isolationist bastion. How that transformation came about, and its consequences, will be the subject of this lecture. David M Kennedy is Donald J McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University.

Contributor(s): Pierre Hassner | The world has changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War, but the transatlantic relationship has yet to be reviewed. The time has come to rethink it, along with the concept of the West. Pierre Hassner is an emeritus senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po.

Contributor(s): Professor Steve Reicher | This lecture critically addresses Hannah Arendt's hypothesis on the banality of evil arguing that those who commit extreme acts are not aware of the consequences of their actions: rather, they celebrate these consequences as moral. Steve Reicher is professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrew's, Scotland

Contributor(s): Professor Lord Nicholas Stern | The world must reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 with rich country cuts of at least 80 per cent. Power and transport must be essentially de-carbonised. How can the world rise to these challenges? Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Chair in Government and Economics at LSE and director of the Asia Research Centre at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Lilie Chouliaraki | Professor Lilie Chouliaraki will talk about suffering in the media, addressing the question of how far images and stories of suffering make a difference in our ways of engaging with distant sufferers. Lilie Chouliaraki is chair in media and communications at the Department of Media and Communications and research director of POLIS at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Paul Kennedy | All great empires have required a sophisticated logistical system, and a secure communications system to sustain themselves. In a world of endless challenges imperial ambitions soon collapse. This lecture will examine the hard, infrastructural underpinnings of the Roman, Spanish and British Empires, and reflect on how the USA compares in this regard.Paul Kennedy is J Richardson Dilworth Professor of History at Yale University and Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE.

Contributor(s): Fredrik Reinfeldt | Fredrik Reinfeldt is Prime Minister of Sweden, a position he has held since being elected in 2006. He has been leader of the Moderate Party since 2003. In the Swedish Parliament he served on the Advisory Council on Foreign Affairs. Prime Minister Reinfeldt studied at Stockholm University where he graduated with a BSc in Business Administration and Economics. In December 2005 David Cameron MP was elected leader of the Conservative Party. Prior to this he held the position of Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills.

Contributor(s): Ambassador Victoria Nuland | Bringing the transatlantic relationship into the 21st Century requires a stronger NATO, a stronger European Union and a stronger relationship between them. NATO continues to contribute to global security and peace in vital operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo and the Mediterranean, and to serve as a consultative forum for issues important to North American and European allies, while also transforming to meet the challenges of this century. Meeting these objectives requires closer cooperation with a strong and active European Union, as well as with other transatlantic and international actors. Ambassador Victoria Nuland is the US Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Contributor(s): David Willetts MP, David Cameron MP | There has been an extraordinary surge in the study of behaviour from evolutionary biologists, neurologists and game theorists, but this has been largely divorced from the political debate. David Willetts will draw on the latest research from these disciplines to explain what Government can and cannot do to influence our behaviour. David Willetts is shadow secretary of state for innovation, universities and skills and has been the MP for Havant since 1992. He was shadow secretary of state for work and pensions from 2001-2005 and has worked at HM Treasury and the Number 10 Policy Unit.

Contributor(s): Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou | Stelios Haji-Ioannou, LSE alumnus, is founder of the easyGroup companies and has given £2 million to LSE for the Stelios Scholars programme.

Contributor(s): Professor Damian Chalmers | The institution of EU citizenship is increasingly challenged yet the heterogeneity and intensity of membership rights enjoyed by non-nationals has increased. Would more differentiated forms of membership be more attractive and better capture the sense of place many non-nationals wish to create for themselves in their host societies? Damian Chalmers is professor in European Union law at the European Institute and Law Department, LSE.