liberation

Annual Bruce Jesson Lecture to be given by Prof Robert Wade

This year's Bruce Jesson Lecture will be given by Robert Wade (Professor of Political Economy at the London School of Economics) on "How to stop the money men from taking over the world (or, when will we face another September 2008)?" The publicity says the following about Wade and his talk: "Taking off from Bruce Jesson’s ‘Only Their Purpose is Mad: ‘The money men take over NZ’, Robert Wade discusses several reforms of the international monetary and financial system aimed at stabilising global financial markets and curbing the power of the financial sector. After considering the easy part -- ‘what should be done’ -- he goes on to discuss ‘what can be done’, nationally, regionally and globally. Professor Robert Wade is one of the world’s most prominent independent thinkers about the contemporary challenges facing the global economy. As professor of political economy at the London School of Economics, Wade espouses a heterdox approach to economics in contrast to the prevailing neoliberal / neoclassical paradigm. As an expatriate New Zealander he has continued to contribute to discussions on New Zealand’s economic direction, including in the context of the global economic crisis."

Wednesday 28 October, 6:30pm
Maidment Theatre, Alfred St
University of Auckland

Drinking liberally or problematically?

While it might sometimes appear that the Drinking Liberally political project has been hijacked in New Zealand by the Labour and Green parties for their own partisan purposes, it doesn’t have to be that way. In Dunedin we’re lucky enough to be starting our branch of the project (Tuesday 7pm, Velvet Underground), and hopefully we can be sure not to let its potential be siphoned off by politicians for their blatant permanent electioneering. If the project is to survive as a credible and useful project for the left, it needs to be protected from such partisan abuse and top down elitist speech making from MPs and party hacks. After all the Drinking Liberally project imported from the US is a potentially exciting development for politics in New Zealand – or at least for the small politerrati involved in activism, blogging, etc – as well as also for the search for new ways of ‘doing politics’. Yet there are a number of significant problems with the project – many relating to the highly contested definition of the term ‘liberal’. [Read more below]

Dunedin free film screening: The Hollow Men

Nicky Hager’s book the Hollow Men has been brilliantly converted into a stage production, and has now been turned into a documentary film. The director, Alister Barry, is in Dunedin for the Film Festival (where the documentary had it’s premier in the weekend) and has very kindly agreed to screen the film for free on campus for anyone who’s interested. [Read more below]