Submitted by: Avanes Khachaturov
Date: 17 March 2021
Location: Red Lion Square, London

With physical lectures being cancelled and all classes moving online by December 2020, I found that I had much more time to explore lunch options around campus. Before, my typical day involved rushing from one lecture hall or classroom to another, with studying in the Library in between, and hence I was limited by how far from campus I could venture out.

Most of the fast causal restaurants dotting Kingsway that specialized in providing food were closed the previous year, with primarily coffee chains remaining open for take away, offering only small sandwiches and toasties as lunch options. On the other hand, Lamb's Conduit Passage and Red Lion Street, which runs parallel to Red Lion Square, offered many small and cheap eateries of various cuisines, from Korean to Malaysian to British classics, which I only found the time to try out now that all of my studies were online and not tied to campus.

The picture taken was during one such lunch time, a relatively warm day for the weather that month, with the benches lining the park offering excellent places to sit back, enjoy a warm meal, and either listen to music or a podcast, or to just take in the sounds around you.

Submitted by: Grammateia Kotsialou
Date: May 2020
Location: Gunnersbury Park, London

The lockdown period awakened a creative part of me, a passion for photography. During a lockdown 'exercise' walk with my husband, I saw this spot and tried to capture as much as possible of this beauty.

Submitted by: Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey
Date: May-August 2020

During Britain's first Covid lockdown in spring/early summer 2020, the Government Department launched a project to communicate some of the research that we were conducting on responses to Covid by various countries. Even as we were all working from home, we put together this film, which explores the emergency powers that governments were using to control the spread of coronavirus, and how the relationship between the people and their governments had fundamentally changed.

"CV-19: A Film by the Department of Government" highlights research being carried out into the impact and consequences of these changing relationships. The film explores the threat to liberal democratic norms, public support for an authoritarian government response, how governments are being held accountable, what the effects are on public transport and a new digital frontier for political campaigning.

As a measure of the interest in this film, the contributors held a roundtable discussion (over Zoom) in November 2020, and this is also available online. More broadly, the film has achieved remarkable success in film festival competitions. As of July 2021, and from international film festivals in 13 countries, the film has received 16 top awards (Best Short Documentary, Best Health Film, Best Edited Film, Best Web an New Media, etc), as well as 3 finalist positions, 2 semi-finalist positions, 13 official selections and 2 honorable mentions.

Submitted by: Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey
Date: Autumn 2019-January 2021

This book began in autumn 2019, and continued throughout the Covid pandemic. It is being published by Ubiquity Press, as an open-source book, with a publication date of about 1st October 2021. It was meant to be part of the School's 125th anniversary celebration and is the first ever history of the LSE Government Department.

The contributors include students at all levels (undergraduate, masters, doctoral), working together with Gordon Bannerman (a British historian who previously studied at LSE) and Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey as Head of the Department. Moreover, we wanted to ensure that different perspectives were heard and so along with archival research, we included dozens of interviews with current and former academics, PSS staff, students and alumni. We wanted the history to have many voices, and I think that we have achieved that.

Completing this during Covid posed many challenges. First, we had only two months to conduct the in-person archival work in the library before the first lockdown hit. This posed a major challenge as it made access to the historical archives impossible. Fortunately, the research that had been done, together with on-line research, allowed us to move forward.

A second challenge was that we were all working from various parts of the worldCanada, Kenya, Lebanon, Poland, and different parts of the UK! So, just keeping the focus and momentum going as the pandemic raged throughout the world was quite the task. Somehow, each of us managed to bring our contributions to the volume at different times, as we were each facing our own Covid-related disruptions along the way.

A third challenge was obtaining the interviews as the turmoil of Covid took hold. Here, Skype, Zoom and phone calls made the interviews possible, and in some cases, were more convenient than in-person interviews. The real difficulty was that in spring of 2020, many interviewees were difficult to contact, given the on-going turmoil in everyones lives. But the fact that so many interviewees were willing to take the time for us is a real testament to the strength of feeling that many have towards the Department and the School more generally.

The book itself traces the emergence and evolution of the LSE Government Department from 1895 to 2020, focusing on the personalities that guided the development of the Department, the social and political contexts the Department existed within, its research agenda and course structure, and the location of the Department in British politics. It also charts the evolution of the discipline of political science in Britain itself. The volume is divided chronologically into four chapters, each covering roughly similar time periods in the Departments history and focuses on the events that shaped it: personalities, events, and location. Key themes are the development of political science in Britain, the impact of location on the LSE Government Department, the professionalisation of academia in Britain, and the microcosm the Department presents of British political life during each time period. The conflicts between progressive and conservative forces are a recurring theme which helps link the internal dynamics of the Department with the wider social and political contexts that occurred from the beginning of the School to its 125th anniversary.

Submitted by: Megha Chand
Date: May 2020
Location: At home in Kathmandu, Nepal

The Himalayas have been a significant part of my parents lives. They are not mountain climbers or geologists; they were simply lucky enough to have seen the mountains in all their glory without even leaving Kathmandu. Before the early 2000s, any person in Kathmandu could peep out their window and see the Himalayan mountains: snow-peaked and awe-inspiring. However, in my lifetime, I do not remember ever witnessing such magnificence from my home - the mountains were never visible as they were constantly shrouded in smog.

Then, in May 2020, Nepal went into lockdown. My parents and I were unable to meet my grandparents, who required our support. We were all reckoning with the pandemic's impact on Nepal and the wider world.

Yet, as the pollution levels drastically decreased, I was finally able to experience the beauty etched into the minds of my parents. The mountains surrounded me with all their splendor. Needless to say, a photo cannot capture the grandeur of the Himalayas. However, this photo serves as a reminder of their beauty, which inspired me in times of adversity.

Submitted by: Qiuyan Chen
Date: 14 March 2021
Location: Gay village, Manchester

To celebrate my birthday, we went to Manchester during the pandemic. The first thing we did was to take photos in the gay village. There were so many rainbows, loved it! There were very few people and the shops weren't open. But as long as I can be with my girlfriend, I am the happiest person!

Submitted by: Beatriz Tiago Fernandes Marques Da Silva
Date: 31 March 2021
Location: LSE Library

Despite the academic year having been incredibly difficult for our student newspaper The Beaver, the features team still met every week to share our ideas for articles and enjoy some time venting about how busy our week had been so far. Our last meeting felt bittersweet as some of our friends in the team were graduating soon without us having properly hang out in person all together. I still could not be prouder of our team effort. We made memories over Zoom that won't be easily forgotten.

Submitted by: Deborah Challis
Date: January-April 2021

These posters are based on the responses to a survey of children at a Primary School as part of the LSE Festival 2021. The children were asked for their experiences and feelings around COVID-19 and related restrictions and then turned into infographics by artist Becci Kenning.

Submitted by: Richard Collings
Date: 2020-2021

We wanted to capture photos of our staff during the pandemic, both at work and play. The photos were taken of staff working in the library and at home. It also showed colleagues travelling, being on holiday and spending quality time with their families. We believed that bringing these photographs together could help to capture some of the significant changes in our daily lives and outlook during lock down. We also thought that putting these pictures together to make a typical day would make an interesting presentation. We had a enthusiastic response, lots of photos were sent in and we made sure we used them all. We then created some music that we thought would fit the style of the presentation.

This collection of multimedia objects was created as part of the LSE COVID-19 archive project. The material was received in response to a call-out made by LSE Library for members of the School community to submit images, videos or written testimonies that give an insight into the LSE community’s experiences of the COVID pandemic and lockdown.

As part of our 125th anniversary celebrations in the 2020/21 academic year, we asked the LSE community to get in touch and share their photos and memories.
Students, alumni and LSE staff members were all invited to make a permanent contribution to the history of the School, for our Digital Library.
This collection spans multiple decades and features photographs from our community, showcasing personal milestones as well as important cultural moments at LSE.

Personal author: Subramoni, Adithya

Description not submitted by sender

Personal author: de la Torre, Andres Gomez

MSc Regulation - Class 2002/03

Personal author: Grant, Andrew

Photograph from page 2 of the Sunday Times in 1989. We formed a campaign for degrees in order to bring an end to dispute dispute between the government and the Association of university teachers which threatened to disrupt the setting and marking of exams in that year. I am at the front in glasses. Also featured in the photograph in the background on the right is Michiel van Hulton he went on to become a Dutch MEP and leader of the Dutch Labour Party. I studied monetary economics between 1986 and 1999 and Chris Pissarides was my tutor.

Personal author: Icharia, Beatrice

1993 - graduation day

Personal author: Rocha, Carlos Alexandre

Econ Grad Students, end of course farewell (09/06/2000): Joao Nicolau, Michael Heningsen, Elisa Muzzini, Carlos Alexandre Rocha, Peter Rindfleisch, Athanassios Athanassopoulos, Federica Maiorano, Nicola Curci, Nicolas Leten, Nicolas Echevarria Vilchez and Giuliano De Rossi.

Personal author: Rocha, Carlos Alexandre

Econ grad students at LSE dining hall (10/12/1999): Claudia Quintela (Portuguese), Guilherme Fagundes (Brazilian), Alexandre Rocha (Brazilian), Alberto Salvo-Farre (Brazilian), Leonardo Cohen (Brazilian) and Sebastijan Hrovatin (Slovene).