Organised by the IR Research Cluster Coordinators.

Since 1947 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has maintained a 'Doomsday Clock', in which the time until midnight represents the likelihood of a human-generated global catastrophe. As of January, the clock has been set at two minutes to midnight, its closest position since 1984, and second time at its closest since records began.

This year's LSE IR Department Annual Roundtable, founded last year as a medium for leading and rising scholars to reflect on the latest developments in the discipline, calls for a coming to terms with this sense of urgency and crisis felt in world affairs, in so many domains. Would we be amiss in sensing that a great power war has rarely, in many of our lifetimes, felt so imminent? Is nuclear annihilation back on the table? Is environmental catastrophe inevitable? Are there no more visions of the world's political future with economic interdependence left intact that do not involve looking back on nationalist, racist, or imperialist pasts? The LSE IR Roundtable hopes to provide a forum for discussion and debate on the politics of the Doomsday Clock from a variety of innovative perspectives.

Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer is Associate Professor at the University of Oslo.

Axel Marx is the Deputy-director of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies at the University of Leuven.

Kathleen McNamara is Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Lauren Wilcox is Lecturer and Deputy Director of the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge.

This event is open to LSE staff and students only. A ticket or pre-registration is not required. For any queries email s.wise3@lse.ac.uk or call 020 7955 6821.

Suggested hashtag for this lecture: #LSEIR