Here are some photos of Angelina Jolie leaving her hotel with son Maddox last night in London. They were leaving their hotel and heading to Buckingham Palace for a “private tour” apparently. I believe Angelina brought all six kids to London, and they’re probably already in Geneva now. Angelina was in London for a meeting with her friend William Hague at the Foreign Office, plus she was trying her hand at guest-lecturing at the London School of Economics. As many remember, last year Angelina was invited to take a “visiting professor” role for the 2017/18 university year and she accepted. She will be lecturing as part of LSE’s new Centre for Women, Peace and Security, which she helped found. On Tuesday, she got her feet wet in lecturing before students. She was apparently “a little nervous” and “feeling butterflies” beforehand. She didn’t need to worry – she was well-received and the students were very interested in what she had to say.
Angelina Jolie just got a first taste of the teaching life. The filmmaker and activist, 41, gave a lecture at the London School of Economics Tuesday morning at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security, PEOPLE confirms. It is the same place where Jolie, as a visiting professor, will start teaching a master’s course in September on the same subject.
Jolie’s lecture focused on women’s rights in the context of refugee camps, and how displacement and statelessness makes women and girls vulnerable to sexual violence and other crimes. The class also discussed the connection between the field and the policy work that is being done by governments, as well as the current state of women’s rights.
“Angelina Jolie spoke to a class of students taking the postgraduate course ‘Women, Peace and Security,’ as part of her role as visiting professor in practice in the Centre for Women, Peace and Security,” a spokesperson for LSE tells PEOPLE. “Miss Jolie spoke about her experience and what has motivated her work as UNHCR special envoy and as co-founder of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, and took questions from the class.”
The subject ties into with her work with the initiative, which she helped launch in 2012 with the help of then-British Foreign Office Chair William Hague. The two subsequently opened the Centre for Women, Peace and Security in 2015, with Jolie later signing on to teach a course.
Beginning in September and through May 2018, Jolie will teach 9-month course on the matter, focusing on “the ways in which women and gender are understood in relation to, and affected by, regional, national and global peace and security processes in conflict and post-conflict setting,” according to the school’s website.
Some people took issue with the whole “guest lecturer” or “visiting professor” titles, but wouldn’t you actually love to sit there for two hours and listen to what Angelina has to say about her UNHCR work? I’m asking the non-haters, of course.
Considering her upcoming role as a visiting professor starting this fall, many outlets have started in about that whole “Angelina is moving to London full time while Brad stares out into the ocean and cries.” First of all, they have not worked out their custody situation, so all of that is very premature. Secondly, sources tell People Mag that Jolie is not moving to London, not even temporarily during her professorship. A source says: “America is her home, it’s where her family lives. She has been traveling around the world for her work for 16 years. Nothing has changed.” I guess that means she’ll fly in to London when she can and give lectures every few weeks or something?
When Angelina Jolie is the guest lecturer at LSE 😍👏🏽 pic.twitter.com/oaCBsguor9
— Lina – سيرين (@Lina_Serene) March 14, 2017
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
I’d love to hear her lecture.
Good for her and she looks beautiful in those pics. What a good looking young man as well.
Damn her face in the first picture is perfection.
It is, but her forehead seems so frozen….
Yes; yes, I would love to sit and listen to her talk about this subject. Not only is the subject worthwhile on its own, you get to hear about it from someone who has done a lot of work in the field for quite awhile.
I had a friend, sadly now passed away, who was a UNHCR Amabssador, but the boots on the ground career sort. Listening to him, on what it’s like to actually put into place the capability to actually help these people, the frustrations of having to deal with the politics, local and UN, was at times heartbreaking. He was the guy who was ultimately responsible for all of the refugees for whichever country he was posted in. Insomniac. In his case, the buck stopped with him and although he probably saved 100’s of thousands of lives over his 40 year career, he was plagued by the question: “how do you measure how well you are going your job”? How do you know how many lives you’ve saved, how many is enough? 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000? It’s easy enough to measure the failures by those who don’t survive and he felt every one of them. And while Ms. Jolie is engaged to the degree that she is, people like my friend do this on a whole different level. Frankly, from a “what the students will get out of this” point of view, the insights she may have pale in comparison to the boots on the ground people.
What is the point of your comment? Other than using your friend’s wonderful services to subtle attack Angelina by comparing his life long career with hers. This is not a pissing contest at all, but people like you are desperately trying to make it so.
Both your dearly departed friend, the students in that class, and Angelina all come from different places, but the one thing they have in common is that they want to make other’s lives better who are in way worse situations than they have been, which is an amazing thing.
What purpose does it serve your dearly departed friend, the refugees, or anyone else in this situation to try to use his memory to go after Angelina, who is using her platform to try to advocate for change? Also, who says people like your friend won’t participate in this course over the time she is lecturing?
Good post. Boots on the ground is significant.
@ Aiobhan. Nobody attacks anybody, you’re the only one assuming that. F. is just making an observation which is very accurate. The field work is infinitely harder and more demanding so the insights are infinitely more complex. i don’t think she meant to diminish Jolie’s efforts. These are two very different efforts that are needed to be done, field work (getting the actual job done) and ambassadorship (drawing attention and funds and collaboration on solving issues).
me says:
You are either being disingenuous or naive . And Felicia’s comment was either a passive aggressive swipe at Angelina or some other bit of unconscious lack of self-awareness by her. Aiobhan Targaryen is exactly right to question Felicia’s peculiar statement. Felicia does not honour her friend’s work with her choice of words. Angelina is not Donald Trump and she is certainly not someone demeaning or trying to take anything away from Felicia’s friend. In fact Angelina has pointedly championed such people. The fact is people get frustrated in this challenging field but it is those people doing that hard work who have earned the right to gripe and complain, not someone else who hasn’t. Angie knows and appreciates that a lot more than you or Felicia does because at least she has seen those “trenches” up close and personal, even if she hasn’t given the same degree of sweat, blood and heartache that Felicia’s friend has. This isn’t a competition because if it is nothing will ever come of it either fromAngie’s dedication or Felicia’s friend’s work.
@Aiobhan:
Let me put that into the proper context. In regards to the celebrities who bring visibility, his comments were that the UN needs donations in order to do their job, particularly when a large scale humanitarian crisis occurs. And the participation of these people can help that happen, but their roles pretty much start and end there. He had nothing but good things to say about those who took the time to do this. But that those people were not involved in any way with the actual nitty gritty. Everyone knows the roles they are being asked to fulfill and everybody does them. Directly from the mouth of a person who had met a lot of them, take that for what it is worth.
Second comment he made was that the UN had become a place for dilettantes and he was not referring to the celebrities, he was referring to those who chose to join as career people. In part because it can’t afford to hire the best and the brightest, the salaries can’t compete with the private sector. And so they end up with the trust fund kids who don’t need the money but who also don’t join out of the deep need to help others, but far more so out of the “glamour factor”. Many of these people spend their careers doing their very best to stay in places like Geneva, New York etc and never setting foot in the field.
Presumably, this program is in part, an attempt at interesting some of the best and the brightest towards a career with the UN. At least that’s how I interpret it. And there is nothing bad about that. However, attracting and keeping the kind of people who will be of the deeply committed boots on the ground sort requires giving a very clear picture of the nitty gritty because that is what their jobs would be, or should be. It’s not glamourous. It’s living in, very often, horrible places (with your family if you have one), trying to navigate the politics of the local government who often doesn’t want to help those people (think Rwanda) and aren’t very inclined to allow aid supplies in. Literally knowing that lives depend on your decisions and missteps might result in the deaths of people you could have saved. And getting paid far far less than these same people could earn working in the private sector. At least that was the case at the time he made those comments.
I am quite sure that Jolie has attracted millions of dollars in donations towards these sorts of things over her time working with the UN, and good for her. That’s absolutely nothing to denigrate. However, if the assumption that is program is, in part, an attempt at attracting the best and the brightest towards a career with the UN, then yes… the insights from someone who has been a boots on the ground person would be of a great deal more value to those considering it, simply because that is what they would be signing up for. That was the gist of my comment.
Felicia -Angelina is doing much more than just fund raising though. One doesn’t have to speak before the council to raise money. She’s trying to change laws and make conditions better for those refugees.
Your friend was admirable, and should be honoured for his work.
For one second I thought that’s James Haven in a wig.
Genetics, huh? Go figure.
I saw this story yesterday and I found the pictures of ‘Miss Jolie’ walking to class, as a teacher for the first time, very touching. It reminded me of the feeling I had when I started a new career in my early 40s…truly an ideal time to branch out, for anyone considering it! Meanwhile, doesn’t Maddox look so handsome in these pics? That shaggy hairstyle really suits him.
Good for her. I bet it was interesting
Wish I could be there to hear her speak
No doubt she has spent many years in the field. But in real life becoming a Master’s level lecturer does not only require extensive field experience, you also have to be formally trained at Master’s level or above. I feel like LSE is just using her celebrity to get more students on seats especially since Brexit is already turning people away from British education institutions.
I side eye this the same way I look at those honorary doctorates given out more for publicity than anything else, although I doubt the celeb thinks it that way.
Same as her Damehood. Her pal William Hague got it for her. Despite the many British subjects more deserving than her. It’s a total pop culture street cred grab by Hague.
She is lecturing on a Course of Study that she helped to create. I think that makes her highly qualified to do so. She is not taking a position from anyone. No more than any Guest Lecturer that visits any University or Classroom to share their experiences or knowledge.
I don’t get why anyone is getting upset over something that is not that drastic. She gave lecture. She isn’t taking over the school.
Exactly this. This woman isn’t “stealing” anyone’s position or taking over this school’s board. I don’t know why some people are so worked up over this.
My husband teaches a class at the local university where we live. It isn’t related to his college major but it is related to what he does for a living. And he is very good at it.
A lot of people in academia that teach classes have very little real world knowledge of what they teach.
I am not one of the people here that worship ever little thing she does… But I don’t see why people think this is a big deal. She has first hand knowledge about what she is talking about. And it sounds like it is supplemental info… She’s not actually teaching the class or running a dept.
@Ophelia…On the other side, her experience allows her to be a rational voice for the refugees. A voice desperately needed given the anti-refugee stance flooding across Europe. In spite of her lack of formal training, she has the undeniable gift of drawing attention to whatever cause she focusses on. Her speeches have shown her to be cautionary, moderate and logical in the solutions she profers. This to me far outweighs the rhetoric of dismissal turned against her. She is actually out there trying to make a difference, and we need every voice raised against the insanity raging around the world . JMO.
“Her speeches have shown her to be cautionary, moderate and logical in the solutions she profers. This to me far outweighs the rhetoric of dismissal turned against her. She is actually out there trying to make a difference, and we need every voice raised against the insanity raging around the world . JMO. ”
+10000000000
She hasn’t become a Masters level lecturer. She is a guest speaker on a taught Masters course. Two different things. It’s just a grandiose title for guest speakers providing contextual and/or illuminating information relating to a course. I’m sure US taught postgrad courses include similar speakers.
As I posted on the other threads about this, from the LSE website:
“The Visiting Professor in Practice title is for those who have appropriate distinction within their area of practice without having sufficient academic distinction. It includes individuals who may have achieved prominence in public life, or who have attained distinction in their profession.”
If I were a student on this course, I am sure it would be helpful to listen to Jolie. It’s just context. It’s not as if she is actually teaching or lecturing on how to achieve public policy or even potential policy mechanisms or developments. It’s just a little qualititative bonus for the students on the course.
@Sixer,
I understand that she is a guest speaker for yesterday’s lecture, which I have no beef with especially with her background, which I fully acknowledge in my post.
If she were to go on a lecture circuit or a speaking tour tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind. She is a Special Envoy to a legitimate UN outfit, therefore she has some wisdom to impart.
But in the same sentence it is said:
“…will start teaching a master’s course in September on the same subject.”
Which implies full time teaching, which involves a lot more than just field experience–pedagogy for one, and a host other that sets apart full time teaching and guest speaker. It is a full time job for someone who has never held a full time job in her life. In addition, teaching to students at whatever age is a huge undertaking and responsibility.
Therefore I read yesterday’s lecture as a trial run for the real teaching job at the beginning of the new semester in September, which is not the same as guest speaker.
I would love to listen to her speak – but I have to agree with @Sixer and others, she is NOT a guest lecturer or a visiting professor. To give her those titles willy nilly is to diminish the hard work and achievement of actual lecturers and professors who have dedicated years of their lives receiving a formal education to obtain those titles. And I completely agree with @Sixer’s comment that Jolie’s course is likely a “qualitative bonus” for students. I highly doubt it will count towards a degree curriculum (other than being considered an elective course).
I’m a student at LSE and my TA was at her lecture. My TA confirmed that she won’t be teaching full-time but is committed to guest lecturing at least once a year. She exactly fits the description of Visiting Professor in Practice.
question answered
Wrong spot
Thank you Ophelia. As someone who put in years of study and spent a ton of money on advanced degrees, this burns me. Sure, she can come guest lecture about her experiences in the camps – I’m sure she has a very interesting perspective to share. Come talk to a few classes here and there, no big deal. But to allow her the title of visiting professor diminishes the work of myself and others who’ve spent their lives dedicated to research and academia. Just NO.
“The Visiting Professor in Practice title is for those who have appropriate distinction within their area of practice without having sufficient academic distinction. It includes individuals who may have achieved prominence in public life, or who have attained distinction in their profession.”
So basically she is doing exactly what you just described.
Why are you taking this personally? She did not take a job away from you, nor does it diminish your accomplishments at all.
Many people who took offence with the title visiting professor only did it because it was Angelina Jolie. Angelina Jolie, the woman who people loves to hate. These people would attack even if she found the cure for cancer.
I am glad that Angelina was nervous because that shows just how much this means to her. Not only will she help by talking about her experiences but she will also learn from the next generation.
She is going to be in Geneva today to give a speech and ab update on the initiate she created with Hague few years ago. Cannot wait to hear her speech as she is one of the most intelligent and articulate people in show business.
On the shallow side – she looks amazing with glowing skin and weight gain.
PS: she just refused to act in a movie directed by Ridley Scott. Not bad for a woman who is supposedly hated by Hollywood.
On the shallow side – she looks amazing with glowing skin and weight gain.
PS: she just refused to act in a movie directed by Ridley Scott. Not bad for a woman who is supposedly hated by Hollywood.
Maya, she looks so damn gorgeous and yes she has added weight i am glad shes doing well and continuing to move on with her life in spite of the vile things been said about her by the media in recent weeks. This woman takes a lot of crap being thrown her way and always comes back on top and never even engages in the back and forth about her.
And yes so much for being the most hated woman in hollywood…. This woman does hold her own. Lmao at people who said she is finished in hollywood.
That’s just it, she is never going to cure cancer if she were in that field of work. For one, she’s not a full time anything–she’s not a full time diplomat, nor is she a full time actress, not a full time director, not a full time producer.
Please don’t get me wrong. I do respect her work and she’s been at it for longer and more dedicated to it than most celeb du jour, which is why I don’t shade her Hollywood Jean Hershholt award at such a young age. But outside her Hollywood sphere, her work pales pales in comparison.
Some of her fans act like she works full time in these lines of work, which she doesn’t and it’s insulting to those who do work full time especially when it comes to humanitarian work. I have read her fans disparaging Amal Clooney for wanting to be like her, which is an ass backwards view considering there’s one lady who works full time in her job and that’s not Angelina.
Outside of high profilers, the comparison becomes even starker. She visits and stays at camps longer than most publicity celebs, but neither is she living on the camp or tending to the camp full time like the UN aid workers or volunteers for other aid organizations. But you talk like she single-handedly run a whole camp.
At best she is an enthusiastic part timer. To be honest, she doesn’t strike me as someone who can work a job full time, thus her many caps/hats. She is a jack of all trades and master of none. She can afford to be, so more power to her.
Omg, so much thought every day devoted to a person that irritates you so much! Amazing!
@SaraR.
+10000000
@Ophelia: so you are basically saying that people can’t or shouldn’t multitask because they won’t be able to give their full time towards the tasks?
I think Jolie stans are reading a lot more shade in @Opehlia’s post than is actually there. She commends Jolie for her contributions to society, but she makes a valid point: Jolie has never and will never work full-time at any job/volunteer work, because she has that luxury. To imply that she does, or to give her the title of Visiting Professor when she has no formal education, is to diminish the work and achievements of those who have dedicated their lives to volunteer work or higher education (Note: @Ophelia only made the volunteer point, the Visiting Professor qualm is my own). That she chooses to spend her time doing any of this at all, when she clearly has the means to spend the rest of her live on a yacht in St. Tropez, is applaudable.
All of that being said: she seems like a very caring person and I would love to hear her speak.
Lmao. So, Amal Clooney who was basically a nobody (can you name a cause or a case she has won? – The only thing people like to brag about her past is that Assange case where she was the 16 or 15th lawyer out of his 17 lawyers) before marrying Clooney and basically just got her high profile UN jobs now after marrying Clooney deserves to be called a full time worker? She works on and off too, jet setting the world wanting to become a celebrity fashion icon. While Jolie, who’s been on and off working with UN for 15 years is just a part time humanitarian so her knowledge and experience doesn’t matter? But Amal’s what, a year or two’s UN experience is more valuable and that makes her a full time worker? Lol. I swear, some people.
Amal Clooney has a Law Degree. That’s her full time work. I’m so confused by @twocents statement
@Lilian,
Perhaps it was in part my fault that @twocents was confused. I should probably put another sentence in after “humanitarian” and before jumping into Amal as an example of a full timer. It might be that @Twocents is questioning whether law degree equals humanitarian, which is an understandable question.
However, I stand by my other statements, which you have summarized so succintly (thank you). Amal has a law career (of which we can be certain that it was and is still her full time job) and prior to that a full time education to get her law degree and pass her bar.
Angelina is good for and in many things but to diminish other people’s lifetime work and achievements, or to dismiss the idea that perhaps what she brought to the table isn’t as big as they imagined it to be, or that other people might be better suited than her for the position she is given by virtue of her celebrity, is disingenuous. I frankly expected better of her fans and this combative attitude does Angelina no good.
Anyway, sorry for being so verbose and coming across as dismissive of her work, which I am not at all. Tegteg, Lilian, Felicia and others say it better than I can.
Ophelia
You make it sound like she shouldn’t get any credit for the humanitarian work she has done for sixteen years because doesn’t work full time. She deserves all the praise she gets for her hard work and I think it’s ridiculous to discredit her work.
I’m with Twocents. I find Angelina to be sincerely present with and passionate about humanitarian issues. Her regal, fashionable bearing is something she wears casually and is always clearly secondary to the cause; in fact most of the time it looks as if she’d rather not be photographed at all. She doesn’t look for the camera or mug or pose like the annoying Amal, whose thirst and try-hard–ness on every level reallly detracts from whatever it is she’s espousing. Angelina may not have all the bought-and-paid for credentials in the world, either by diploma or marriage, but to me she seems much more effective and sincere than Mrs. Look-at-me Klooney.
If I had to decide who to go listen to, I would pick Jolie over Amal. I know, I hate comparing women but Jolie, even without a formal higher education, seems much more committed and serious about her role in the world. Amal is always mugging for the camera and seems to be given a whole heck of a lot more credit than she deserves for the work she does and has done. She is basically a junior lawyer who married a very rich and famous man and is reaping the benefits of it now. Jolie has seen the things she talks about in person.
Jolie also isn’t a full time humanitarian because she has 6 kids, and makes movies about things like Cambodia and the horrendous war there. Honestly, I never liked Jolie at all, even a few years ago when she was doing her leg-sticking-out-thing. But she has won my admiration. She seems very, very committed to humanitarian work, her family and film making. If there were more rich and famous people like AJ, the world would be a heck of a lot better place.
As an academic, I think the title “Visiting Professor in Practice” is silly, and I would think that no matter who they gave it to. If they called her a guest lecturer, which is what she is, there would not have been any problem.
Anjelina Jolie is not a professor. That is a very prestigious rank and title given to those that have earned it with years of extensive academic studies and responsibilities.
Perhaps she is capable of sharing her personal knowledge and experience and will be an informative guest lecturer.
Exactly. It’s a ridiculous title. She’s a guest lecturer. Like many very accomplished people before her. There’s no need to pretend being a guest lecturer is on par with being a professor, they’re two very different things.
She wouldn’t be able to take her kids out of state without permission from the court and Brad forget about international trips. So at the very least they’ve compromised on this.
I don’t mind her lecturing – no, I don’t think she’s qualified but if LSE wants her, it’s their business. But I’m worried that the kids are dragged constantly from one country to another. I don’t think they even had the time to recover from the Cambodia trip, now back to London and Geneva. Will she be taking them with her every time she has a lecture? They’re not babies, so jet lag is a real issue, not to mention proper education. They should be in school and socializing with their peers or they’ll face many issues growing up. I don’t know any other celebrity who travels with school-age kids during school year. Vacations are one thing but kids need grounding and predictability to feel safe, especially when going through a traumatic experience like divorce. I have a feeling that if this was any other celebrity mom, she’d get a lot of flak for poor parenting. Their dad is in LA, they can stay there when their mom is traveling and vice-versa.
Well, this is little different from what they’ve known their whole lives. Proper schooling takes time, focus, and a disciplined schedule–it’s hard to imagine them progressing academically when they move around so much. But Jolie tends to stress creative and/or humanitarian pursuits for them, so that is likely where their futures lie. And doesn’t necessarily require formal schooling. That would not be my choice for my kids, but money/fame can lead to different choices.
Maybe if their dad didn’t turn out to be such a failure she’d have left the kids with him. Unfortunately, the therapist who’s worked with Brad and the children for the last 4 or 5 months still must think he’s not the right person to take care of them. Otherwise, at least some of them wouldn’t be making the journey. But of course, Angelina is the bad parent dragging the kids from country to country as you put it. (For the record, she flew to Geneva alone today. The children stayed in London, probably with someone she trusts enough to look after them for a few hours.)
The kids are home schooled and used to travelling, they visit museums and historical places, meet people form other cultures, probably read a lot, judging from the number of books they always buy when visiting bookshops, and what’s more they seem to be really well-behaved. So what’s the problem? It looks like a proper education. Sitting in a school desk doesn’t guarantee being well-educated. There are children who spend whole days at school and unfortunately learn close to nothing. I bet in a few years time some of the Jolie-Pitt kids will surprise you with how well rounded they are.
If things were back to normal I think she would’ve left some of the kids behind in LA like she did in the past. I think a lot of people thought Pitt would win the custody battle but obviously the new therapist agreed with the other 6.
I think she has the kids because he didn’t want to take care of all 6 by himself. Yes I know they have nannies.
Wait a minute.. is the custody battle over and Pitt didn’t get joint custody? I wasn’t aware of that.
When UCL turn you down for lectures so you have to go to LSE instead 😛
LSE is the 3rd best university in U.K. after Cambridge & Oxford.
College professor here. Visiting professors come from all walks of life, and don’t have to be degreed in the field. If the students learn something, I really don’t care how the person got her expertise. Also, for heaven’s sake, we all know there are fabulously degreed professors who are TERRIBLE at teaching.
Thanks a lot for your insight.
: )
Bee- I agree with your post but I have an honest question. Do they literally just give out the title of Professor to anyone giving a lecture? No college level of education in any field whatsoever required? “Professor” does not imply an earned academic rank? My question has nothing to do with Jolie- I’m just questioning the definition of Professor.
One of the reasons I’m giving LSE some side-eye is because the title Professor is usually reserved for eminent people in the UK. If you are a university lecturer (US = assistant professor), senior lecturer (US = associate professor) or reader (not really a US equivalent, kind of an interim rank), that’s what you call yourself, not “professor.”
This is different from the US, where “professor” is a general title that you call yourself from the time that you are an assistant professor. In the UK, the title Professor is reserved for people who have reached the top of the academic tree.
Exactly. My school had people at the very top of their industries regularly guest lecture. Former CEO’s of the biggest companies in the world, world renowned doctors, founders of NGO’s, Nobel winners, Pulitzer winners, brilliant authors etc. They were all given the title of guest lecturer, because that’s what they were. Not professors.
@Tina to be picky the title of Professor here at most US academic institutions is reserved for full Professors, those who’ve already risen thru the ranks of ‘Assistant prof’ to ‘Associate Prof’ and are at the top of their career ladder. Most people who work in academia are careful to use the ‘Assistant’ and ‘Associate’ qualifiers because they do describe a certain level of professional rank/status.
‘Professors’ can gain a bit more career recognition by obtaining the ‘Distinguished Professor’ rank for very high achievement or ‘Professor Emeritus’ if retired and held in high regard but use of these vary from school to school.
Agree with those here that Jolie is appropriately a ‘Guest Lecturer’.
@TheOtherSam, that’s interesting. I had understood Bee’s post above, where she refers to herself as a “College professor,” to be used in the more US colloquial sense rather than as a full Professor.
I was there! The reviews are…generous at best. There was a general consensus that while she clearly has passion for the subject, what she said wasn;t anything we haven’t already heard from people much more qualified to speak. Take away the stardust, and there’s not much going on underneath. Just reporting back!
This doesn’t surprise me, if only because this has not been her full-time job. As a student,. I would prefer to hear from people who are on the ground day in and day out, doing the hard nuts and bolts work. Her job is basically PT public advocacy. She’s committed, and that’s great–raising awareness is incredibly important–but I’m not sure what really substantive stuff students could learn from her that they couldn’t learn from others who spend more time doing it.
@Fakala..So what I am hearing you say is that her account jives with other authoritative voices? What else were you expecting? Your summary is pretty vague. Give some exact details about the presentation. If you are going to dismiss someone in such a cavalier manner be precise. Could you also explain what you mean by …”there’s not much going on underneath.” This wordage in North America often alludes to a not so bright person. Please explain. I really am curious.
I honestly wouldn’t necessarily conclude that she isn’t bright. Its just that LSE is one of the top schools in the UK (and the world). The calibre of teaching that is normally on offer is just in a different league. That said i didn’t find her recent talk on the BBC that interesting. I watched Amal Clooney the other day on BBC and I know she is less liked here, but i would honestly rather listen to her on world news and human rights. Angelina has great empathy and her conversation is very emotionally connected but i don’t see her as this great intellectual force.
(Sorry wrong place)
Is Angelina really ‘teaching’ however in the traditional sense? I keep seeing that said here and think its causing confusion. Is she making study plans, setting up course syllabus, rounding up readings and assigning grades?
I think what she’ll be doing is more akin to lecturing, whereby she discusses her hard-won experiences in the field and her humanitarian work, takes questions and possibly even works with small groups of students. Very valuable contribution but not the same as ‘teaching’.
You were obviously not there. Real witnesses are always more detailed and vivid than conclusive. The dismissal of Jolie’s “qualifications to speak” seems to be the only purpose of your “reporting”.
Go Angie!! That lecture series, not just hers but the whole program, sounds so interesting.
“but wouldn’t you actually love to sit there for two hours and listen to what Angelina has to say about her UNHCR work?”
No offense to Angelina, I admire how much she cares and wants to do good. But if I was at the prestigious london school of economics, I would rather listen to one of the regular professors there who are leading specialist in their fields.
I so would love to sit there and listen to her. 😍
I am probably sounding mean-spirited but her 16 year old son Maddox was recently named a producer on one of her recent movie, and is now seen accompanying her to Buckingham Palace wearing a loose outfit topped off with sneakers, and basically that is OK because he is her son? He is still a very lucky and privileged young person who has never had to go to a real school …or live in the real world for that matter and it just makes me wonder if this was part of the argument Pitt and Jolie were having about how to raise their kids. Time will tell…but it just makes me feel badly that normalcy is just out of the question for these kids. Its not so bad..just to be a kid, is it?
I would have no interest in hearing Ms Jolie. I am a marketing specialist and basically what she has accomplished is finding a niche that makes her feel good about herself on many different levels. It is certainly very nice what she does and I applaud her on her work.
If I was studying at the LSE I would want to hear from specialists in their field.
On a much more important note Trump plans to slash its’ UN budget by 50%.
People are so envious of this Great Lady and the works she does in this society. Perhaps Its the lack of their contribution to this global world they do not want to be reminded of.
I think it is true we wish we could contribute more to the world…but the way that an international diplomat travels the world is very costly and is rarified place. for all the good she may do, there are also stately dinners, a way of life that is a throwback to colonial times when it comes to the homes or estates the high ranking diplomats live in..yes they go to camps and she travels with a contingent like Jeffrey Sachs formerly of Harvard and global greats..but it is still a contribution that I am reminded it is a very exclusive club. I have a former classmate who works for refugees at the UN and has just written a book Melissa Fleming … she stood up for refugees too..and is equally great. just not famous.