Meet our speakers
John Lloyd
John Lloyd co-founded The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford in 2006, where he was Director of Journalism and a Senior Research Fellow. He is a Contributing editor at The Financial Times, and Chairman of the School of Civic Education (Russia). Lloyd was a freelance reporter in Belfast in the early 1970s. He was a reporter on LBC Radio, worked at London Weekend TV as a reporter on the London Programme and producer on Weekend World. At the Financial Times he has been Labour Editor,Labour and Industrial Editor, East Europe Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief; and founding editor of the FT Weekend Magazine. He has edited both Time Out and the New Statesman.
John Lotherington
John Lotherington is director of the 21st Century Trust in London, which in 2009 forged a long-term partnership with Salzburg Global Seminar where John also leads the health and health care innovation programs. He began his career in history education and maintains an interest in that area. His publications as editor and author include The Communications Revolution; Years of Renewal: European History 1470 to 1600; The Seven Ages of Life; The Tudor Years; and introductions to The Florentine Histories by Niccolò Machiavelli, The Book of the Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione, and the Divine Comedy by Dante. He is an associate board member, and former Chair, of the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, a trustee of Cumberland Lodge, and a governor of Goodenough College, London.
Professor Christopher Coker
Christopher Coker is Professor of International Relations, LSE and Director LSE IDEAS. His most recent book is The Rise of the Civilizational State. He is a former editor of the Atlantic Quarterly. His books include Twilight of the West, Future War and Barbarous Philosophers: reflections on the nature of war from Heraclitus to Heisenberg. His books have been translated into 8 languages, though not alas Romanian! He lectures extensively in Europe US and Asia.
ovidiu vanghele
Ovidiu Vanghele started his career in 2002 when, while studying journalism, at the end of his first university year, was hired by MEDIAFAX Agency. During his ten years in the press agency he gradually became interested in more detailed subjects, closer to investigative journalism. He then joined the Pro TV news team, but also contributed to the nertwork’s premium show România, te iubesc! Less than a year later, he chose to leave mainstream media, founding the Center for Investigative Media, the entity he heads ever since. In the last seven years, Ovidiu Vanghele published several press investigations tracing millions of euro spent pointlessly, illegally or simply stolen. His best known investigations focused on the abuses from mental health centers, the Romanian Academy monetary frauds, the National Railway Company’s contracts or the acquisitions made by the bosses of what is known as “Republica Constanța”. Most of these also became judiciary investigations. He has spent almost the entire 2016 documenting, together with Ana Poenariu (Rise Project), the series “Toți oamenii generalului”, tracking the personal and financial development of Gabriel Oprea, one of the biggest paradoxes of Romanian politics. In 2017, together with Vlad Stoicescu (dela0.ro), Ovidiu set up – and is now piloting – a journalism platform aimed to better understand the relationship between the Chuches in Romania and the state institutions, something that has never been under real public scrutiny for the last 30 years. Funded by its readers, the online project “Let there be light!” is, to many, an example of how journalism can survive in these tough times. Aside from investigative journalism, for the past four years Ovidiu is also an associate professor at the University of Bucharest, teaching journalism students the art of crafting investigative stories
Michael Burleigh
ADRIAN PABST
Adrian Pabst is Professor of Politics at the University of Kent. A New Statesman Contributing Writer, he is the author of several books, including The Politics of Virtue (2016), The Demons of Liberal Democracy (2019) and Liberal World Order and Its Critics (2019).
JIE (CHERRY) YU
Jie (Cherry) Yu is the China Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House. She was Head of China Foresight at LSE IDEAS. Her research focuses on the decision-making process of Chinese foreign policy as well as China’s economic diplomacy. She speaks and writes frequently at major media outlets, regularly briefs to senior policy practitioners, and also advises on China’s geopolitical landscape to multinational corporates. She was recognised as “a Leading Woman” of the LSE in 2018.
Eric Beckett Weaver
Eric Beckett Weaver is an associate professor teaching political science at the University of Debrecen. He received his doctorate in History from The University of Oxford in 2008. He is the author and editor of a variety of books and articles on nationalism, minorities, and politics in Southeastern Europe.
Dr. Slobodan G. Markovich
Dr. Slobodan G. Markovich, MBE is Full Professor at the School of Political Science of the University of Belgrade where he lectures Political Anthropology, Political History of South-East Europe and Image of European Other. He is also Full Professor at the Institute for European Studies in Belgrade. He has been Research Associate at LSEE/LSE since 2012, and at LSE IDEAS since 2018. He has been the head of the Centre for British Studies at the School of Political Science in Belgrade since 2017. His published monographs include a book on Freud’s pessimism: Pessimistic Anthropology of Sigmund Freud (Belgrade, 2012), on Serbian economist, politician and diplomat Chedomille Miyatovich. A Victorian among Serbs (Belgrade, 2006), and a monograph on British-(Balkan)Serbian relations: British Perceptions of Serbia and the Balkans 1903-1906 (Paris, 2000, in English). His (co-)edited collections of papers in English include: British-Serbian Relations from the 18th to the 21st Centuries (Belgrade, 2018), Problems of Identities in the Balkans (Belgrade, 2006), and Challenges to New Democracies in the Balkans (Belgrade, 2004). He has been the coordinator of annual meetings “Psychoanalysis and Culture” since 2016.His research interests include: Construction of Ethnic/National and Religious Identities in the Balkans, British-Balkan Relations, psychoanalytic anthropology, and History of European Pessimism.
