Spinning the telescope: More-than-human conjunctures, Black lives and urban space
Speaker: Pat Noxolo (University of Birmingham)
Discussant: Adam Elliott-Cooper (Queen Mary University of London)
Chair: David Madden (LSE)]
Organised by CITY: Analysis of urban change, theory, action
date and time: thursday, february 29 · 6:30 – 8pm gmt
As co-lead for University of Birmingham’s Stuart Hall Archive Project, Pat Noxolo has been reading papers in Stuart Hall’s archives and focusing on conjunctural analysis. How is it in use now (who is using conjunctural analysis and what for), and how is it responding to the “antagonisms and contradictions” (Gramsci, cited in Hall et al, 2019, p. 368) of the current conjuncture? Given Stuart Hall’s focus on crisis (in particular, through his early work with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, on the existential crises of his time) it is certainly time to deploy conjunctural analysis as a means of understanding the existential crisis of our time, climate catastrophe. So conjunctural analysis needs now to be understood as more-than- human, not just by bolting climate concerns on to cultural, economic, social and political ones, but with a clearer sense that every human activity happens in interaction with the materiality of the non-human, and that this understanding is much more widespread and explicit as society becomes more concerned about the environment (Soper, 2021).
in working towards a fleshing out of the more-than-human conjuncture, this paper briefly returns to hall et al’s (2019) policing the crisis, paying attention to its process of spinning the telescope round and round – reading the conjuncture as constituting black life in handsworth and reading black life as a lens for understanding the conjuncture. the paper applies such a reading to two recent novels by young black writers – natasha brown’s (2021) assembly, and caleb azumah nelson’s (2021) open water – each of which eloquently expresses aspects of black british life in urban space, as it is both constituted by and illustrative of classed and racialised crisis in the current conjuncture.
Date and time
Thursday, February 29 · 6:30 – 8pm GMT
Location
Alumni Theatre, Cheng Kin Ku Building
(formerly the New Academic Building)
London School of Economics
54 Lincoln’s Inn Fields
London WC2A 3LJ
united kingdom
the event will be hybrid, via Zoom and in person.
please reserve your tickets here on eventbrite
references
brown, n. (2021) assembly. london: hamish hamilton
hall, s., critcher, c., je_erson, t., clarke, j., and roberts, b. (2019) policing the crisis: preface to the 35th anniversary edition, in morley, d. (ed.) stuart hall: essential essays volume 1: foundations of cultural studies. durham: duke university press
nelson, c.a. (2021) open water. london: viking
soper, k. (2021) the environmental conjuncture, culture, power and politics: an open seminar. available at: https://culturepowerpolitics.org/2021/10/23/the-environmental-conjuncture/ . date last accessed: 26/01/24
