What motivates people to start and support wars? How do humans think, feel and act during conflict? How do we make sense of the devastating conflicts that have shaped our world? Are humans psychologically hardwired towards war, or is true peace possible?
IWM's temporary exhibition War and the Mind explores war’s many psychological dimensions, from the First World War to the present day.
The IWM Institute is bringing together leading historians, psychologists, tech experts, policymakers, military leaders and more for War and the Mind Live, a day of discussion and debate on IWM London's Roof Terrace. Following the discussion the War and the Mind exhibition will be open for visitors to explore.
War and the Mind Live is a half-day event, running from 2pm to 6pm. Refreshments will be provided.
Part of the IWM Institute
Panel
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Charlie Winter
Charlie Winter is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), an academic research centre based at the Department of War Studies at King's College London.
His specialism is terrorism and insurgency, with a focus on online and offline strategic communication. He is the author of The Terrorist Image, which explores how the Islamic State shook the foundations of modern war photography.
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Jean Seaton
Jean Seaton is Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster, an Official Historian of the BBC and Director of the Orwell Foundation. She is the author of, among others, Carnage and the Media: the Making and Breaking of News about Violence, Power Without Responsibility: the Press and Broadcasting in Britain and Pinkoes and Traitors: the BBC and the Nation 1974-1987.
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Fergal Keane
Fergal Keane is a journalist for BBC News, who has covered conflict and brutality across the world for more than thirty years, from Rwanda, Sudan, South Africa, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and many more. He is the author of The Madness: A Memoir of War, Fear and PTSD.
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Simon Wessely
Simon Wessely is a Regius Professor of Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital and King’s College London. He founded the King’s Centre for Military Health Research, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2020, and has over 800 publications, discussing issues such as the health of the British Armed Forces past and present, combat stress, unit cohesion and morale, and physical and mental injury.
He has written extensively on historical issues, including co-authoring A History of Shell Shock.
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Suzanne Raine
Suzanne Raine is a Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies at King's College London and works at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University.
She served for 24 years in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office on foreign policy and national security issues, including postings in Poland, Iraq and Pakistan. She specialised in counter-terrorism, holding a number of senior domestic appointments including Head of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre from 2015 to 2017.
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Photo credit: Rose Lincoln / Harvard University
Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He conducts research on language, cognition, and social relations, and writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time and The Atlantic.
He is the author of thirteen books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, Enlightenment Now, Rationality, and When Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows...
Steven Pinker will be appearing at War and the Mind Live via video link.