Julian Go
@juliango.bsky.social
Professor of Sociology & Faculty Affiliate, Committee on International Relations & Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture, University of Chicago https://voices.uchicago.edu/juliango/
I'm looking forward to returning to Glasgow to deliver the 2nd Annual Racial Justice Lecture following Patricia Hill Collins inaugural lecture last year. It’s great that @glasgow.ac.uk is open to discussions of racial justice when in the US it has become a taboo topic.
January 12, 2026 at 2:36 AM
I'm looking forward to returning to Glasgow to deliver the 2nd Annual Racial Justice Lecture following Patricia Hill Collins inaugural lecture last year. It’s great that @glasgow.ac.uk is open to discussions of racial justice when in the US it has become a taboo topic.
US Border Agents Intentionally Stepped in Front of Moving Vehicles to Justify Shooting at Them
www.thenation.com
January 11, 2026 at 1:02 AM
The conditions for this have been set for a while: growing economic inequality within countries and growing economic multipolarity globally. And I fear Trump 2.0, without worrying about reelection and just interested in smashing and grabbing, is the final trigger. 7/7
January 7, 2026 at 6:37 PM
The conditions for this have been set for a while: growing economic inequality within countries and growing economic multipolarity globally. And I fear Trump 2.0, without worrying about reelection and just interested in smashing and grabbing, is the final trigger. 7/7
I have been fretting about this ever since I started researching and writing about the history of empires (culminating in my 2011 book, Patterns of Empire). And it is keeping me awake at night. Which sucks for me :) 6/7
January 7, 2026 at 6:37 PM
I have been fretting about this ever since I started researching and writing about the history of empires (culminating in my 2011 book, Patterns of Empire). And it is keeping me awake at night. Which sucks for me :) 6/7
This is not hyperbole. It is history. It is how the world wars of the 19th century erupted (the Napoleonic wars). It is how WWI and WWII happened (they were really just 1 long world war). And I fear what we have in our future. 5/7
January 7, 2026 at 6:37 PM
This is not hyperbole. It is history. It is how the world wars of the 19th century erupted (the Napoleonic wars). It is how WWI and WWII happened (they were really just 1 long world war). And I fear what we have in our future. 5/7
Rival regionalisms form; geopolitical blocs are created and hardened; mercantilist imperial networks replace global free trade. Then the only way the global field can withstand this instability is the final outcome: world war. 4/7
January 7, 2026 at 6:37 PM
Rival regionalisms form; geopolitical blocs are created and hardened; mercantilist imperial networks replace global free trade. Then the only way the global field can withstand this instability is the final outcome: world war. 4/7
This only serves to do one thing: anger and embolden geopolitical rivals to get more aggressive too. More imperialist machinations by all parties ensue, some subtle or covert, others more open and violent. 3/7
January 7, 2026 at 6:37 PM
This only serves to do one thing: anger and embolden geopolitical rivals to get more aggressive too. More imperialist machinations by all parties ensue, some subtle or covert, others more open and violent. 3/7
In the past, declining hegemonic powers (or rising ones) - like Britain or Germany - tend to enhance their imperialistic aggression. Desperate to regain ailing power & wealth, they turn away from market mechanisms/free trade & instead use their only hand: military might. 2/7
January 7, 2026 at 6:37 PM
In the past, declining hegemonic powers (or rising ones) - like Britain or Germany - tend to enhance their imperialistic aggression. Desperate to regain ailing power & wealth, they turn away from market mechanisms/free trade & instead use their only hand: military might. 2/7
No doubt about it: Trump's new imperialism re Venezuela & its unabashed discourse of aggression is exactly what desperate empires do as they fall, and it is exactly what has led to revived imperialism and world war in the past. It's all so predictable & and also so dangerous 1/7
January 7, 2026 at 6:37 PM
No doubt about it: Trump's new imperialism re Venezuela & its unabashed discourse of aggression is exactly what desperate empires do as they fall, and it is exactly what has led to revived imperialism and world war in the past. It's all so predictable & and also so dangerous 1/7
note too the photo from Trump's war room basically trying to imitate the pics of when Obama witnessed the mission on bin Laden. The attempt to copy is so sad. The unoriginality laughable 6/6
x.com/jgo34/status...
x.com/jgo34/status...
x.com
January 4, 2026 at 5:45 PM
note too the photo from Trump's war room basically trying to imitate the pics of when Obama witnessed the mission on bin Laden. The attempt to copy is so sad. The unoriginality laughable 6/6
x.com/jgo34/status...
x.com/jgo34/status...
Many other precedents to Trump's new imperialism (which he himself boasts about) incl the Monroe Doctrine. 5/6
January 4, 2026 at 5:45 PM
Many other precedents to Trump's new imperialism (which he himself boasts about) incl the Monroe Doctrine. 5/6
For more see my "American Decline and Performative War, or How to Do Things with Force" (2020) in Frederic Merand, ed., Coping with Geopolitical Decline. 4/6
January 4, 2026 at 5:45 PM
For more see my "American Decline and Performative War, or How to Do Things with Force" (2020) in Frederic Merand, ed., Coping with Geopolitical Decline. 4/6
In other words, while the attack was meant to demonstrate American greatness, it was little else than an admission o f American weakness, desperation and decline. 3/6
January 4, 2026 at 5:45 PM
In other words, while the attack was meant to demonstrate American greatness, it was little else than an admission o f American weakness, desperation and decline. 3/6
It was a "performative war" meant to ward off criticisms of the Reagan admin & deny American decline through spectacular feats of military power in the name of freedom and anticorruption. 2/6
January 4, 2026 at 5:45 PM
It was a "performative war" meant to ward off criticisms of the Reagan admin & deny American decline through spectacular feats of military power in the name of freedom and anticorruption. 2/6
One of the pathetic things about Trump's new imperialism is that it isn't even original. When Reagan invaded Grenada in 83 the admin boasted it meant America was back & had gotten over its "Vietnam syndrome." But this was an expression of weakness not strength 1/6
x.com/TrumpWarRoom...
x.com/TrumpWarRoom...
Trump War Room on X: "America is back 🇺🇸 https://t.co/clnZQXHxWF" / X
America is back 🇺🇸 https://t.co/clnZQXHxWF
x.com
January 4, 2026 at 5:45 PM
One of the pathetic things about Trump's new imperialism is that it isn't even original. When Reagan invaded Grenada in 83 the admin boasted it meant America was back & had gotten over its "Vietnam syndrome." But this was an expression of weakness not strength 1/6
x.com/TrumpWarRoom...
x.com/TrumpWarRoom...
Do those folks critical of dems and say Dems are the same as Trump actually believe that Harris would have also sent in the US military to Venezuela to capture Maduro? She might have used other means but this blatant empire-ing is surely more of a Trump/Repub thing.
January 4, 2026 at 1:47 PM
Do those folks critical of dems and say Dems are the same as Trump actually believe that Harris would have also sent in the US military to Venezuela to capture Maduro? She might have used other means but this blatant empire-ing is surely more of a Trump/Repub thing.
“For Fanon, anticolonial violence was never a celebration of bloodshed…It was a diagnostic category, a way of naming the fact that colonial domination had already made violence the organising principle of everyday life.” hate that we have to keep clarifying this to dolts
roape.net/2025/12/21/f...
roape.net/2025/12/21/f...
Fanon, Gaza and the anxieties of empire - ROAPE
This radical supplement to the editorial of ROAPE’s Fanon special issue raises awareness of how Fanon’s ideas, in the year of his centenary, continue to provoke fear and anxiety within the Western imp...
roape.net
December 21, 2025 at 10:41 PM
“For Fanon, anticolonial violence was never a celebration of bloodshed…It was a diagnostic category, a way of naming the fact that colonial domination had already made violence the organising principle of everyday life.” hate that we have to keep clarifying this to dolts
roape.net/2025/12/21/f...
roape.net/2025/12/21/f...
Wrote a thing on racial capitalism in the French journal Marronnages. Some commentators - Malcolm Ferdinand, Diamond Ashiagbor - commented. Then I wrote a comment on their comment.
marronnages.org/index.php/re...
marronnages.org/index.php/re...
Race, capital et colonialisme
| Marronnages: les questions raciales au crible des sciences sociales
marronnages.org
December 20, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Wrote a thing on racial capitalism in the French journal Marronnages. Some commentators - Malcolm Ferdinand, Diamond Ashiagbor - commented. Then I wrote a comment on their comment.
marronnages.org/index.php/re...
marronnages.org/index.php/re...
Reminder that 12/16 is the deadline to submit to @sasemeeting.bsky.social in Bordeaux 2026. Be sure to submit to our Network on Postcolonialism and Legacies of Empire:
sase.org/networks/u-p...
sase.org/networks/u-p...
Network U: Postcolonialism and Legacies of Empire | SASE Networks
Network U is devoted to engaging the connections between imperialism, colonialism, racism, slavery, and capitalist expansion and global socio-economic development.
sase.org
December 10, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Reminder that 12/16 is the deadline to submit to @sasemeeting.bsky.social in Bordeaux 2026. Be sure to submit to our Network on Postcolonialism and Legacies of Empire:
sase.org/networks/u-p...
sase.org/networks/u-p...
I’m glad you’re finding it worthwhile!
December 7, 2025 at 2:18 PM
I’m glad you’re finding it worthwhile!
Reposted by Julian Go
In Social Science History 49(1), “Vision and method in global historical sociology” by Julian Go and George Lawson has received significant attention. Check out the article: shorturl.at/ztego #history #sociology #Haiti #France #transboundary
Vision and method in global historical sociology | Social Science History | Cambridge Core
Vision and method in global historical sociology - Volume 49 Issue 1
shorturl.at
October 31, 2025 at 4:00 PM
In Social Science History 49(1), “Vision and method in global historical sociology” by Julian Go and George Lawson has received significant attention. Check out the article: shorturl.at/ztego #history #sociology #Haiti #France #transboundary
Reposted by Julian Go
Sign up below to hear @juliango.bsky.social giving the next Racial Justice lecture on January 21st, 2026. Prof. Go will be asking 'How and why have the police in liberal democracies become militarized?'. The answer, he will argue, is to be found in imperialism past and present.
Racial Justice Lecture: Policing Race
Professor Julian Go delivers the second University of Glasgow Racial Justice Lecture.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 7, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Sign up below to hear @juliango.bsky.social giving the next Racial Justice lecture on January 21st, 2026. Prof. Go will be asking 'How and why have the police in liberal democracies become militarized?'. The answer, he will argue, is to be found in imperialism past and present.
Reposted by Julian Go
Why are today’s police forces so militarized, and what does empire have to do with it?
Sociologist @juliango.bsky.social (University of Chicago) explored this in his AISSR Lecture on policing, imperialism & racialization
🎥 Full lecture & aftertalk with Rivke Jaffe ⬇️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXtO...
Sociologist @juliango.bsky.social (University of Chicago) explored this in his AISSR Lecture on policing, imperialism & racialization
🎥 Full lecture & aftertalk with Rivke Jaffe ⬇️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXtO...
October 28, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Why are today’s police forces so militarized, and what does empire have to do with it?
Sociologist @juliango.bsky.social (University of Chicago) explored this in his AISSR Lecture on policing, imperialism & racialization
🎥 Full lecture & aftertalk with Rivke Jaffe ⬇️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXtO...
Sociologist @juliango.bsky.social (University of Chicago) explored this in his AISSR Lecture on policing, imperialism & racialization
🎥 Full lecture & aftertalk with Rivke Jaffe ⬇️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXtO...
Reposted by Julian Go
Puff Daddy, the 1798 United Irishmen rebellion, knowledge hierarchies and the militarisation of policing... I am over the moon to see this essay published. Thank you so much to the Dublin Review of Books and to @juliango.bsky.social for writing such a thought-provoking book. drb.ie/articles/its...
It’s all ‘Mesearch’ - DRB
Imperial policing, extreme force and the supposed perils of ‘mesearch’
drb.ie
October 30, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Puff Daddy, the 1798 United Irishmen rebellion, knowledge hierarchies and the militarisation of policing... I am over the moon to see this essay published. Thank you so much to the Dublin Review of Books and to @juliango.bsky.social for writing such a thought-provoking book. drb.ie/articles/its...