Political consciousness is partly formed in the symbolic realm. Aesthetics & poetics paint a picture of the values that define a political vision. For the @artreview.bsky.social Asia Summer 2025 issue, I wrote on the example of the Black Panther Party: artreview.com/towards-an-a...

My online seminar last week on 'Cultural Production and the Crisis of Consiousness' was kindly recorded by the Polycrisis Network (Leeds) and can now be watched both on their YouTube channel and mine, here ➡️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L7k...

"Maybe it’s more accurate to speak of ‘the neo-colonised world’: a term that captures how historically extractive relationships persisted and mutated. Today’s extractive empires are corporate and financial, not just national or hemispheric..."

As the comedian Vidura Bandara Rajapaksa puts it: “People used to group us in Sri Lanka under the ‘Third World’. It was a little mean, but at least it showed how the world viewed us. Now there’s the nicer term ‘the Global South’, which makes it sound like it was geography that fucked us.” It wasn’t.

I recommend David Graeber & David Wengrow's 'The Dawn of Everything: A new history of Humanity' instead, which thoroughly disproves Diamond and his ilk

Join @sarahjilani.bsky.social and the Polycrisis Network for this seminar: Cultural Production and the Crisis of Consciousness - one week today!

📅 Thurs 29 May
🕛 12 noon - 1pm (GMT +1)
🗺️ Baines Wing 2.13, University of Leeds, or Online (Teams)

Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1348631405...

In the May issue of @artreview.bsky.social, I offer a little provocation: lets do away with 'global south' & 'global majority'. There is no shared hemispheric condition between exploiter & exploited, & the geographies of neocolonialism aren't natural or demographic. artreview.com/the-trap-of-...

After being harangued for years that I should, I finally started a #YouTube channel last month 🎦 Subscribe for weekly arts chat. So far, video topics have included empire in Bridgerton, artefact repatriation debates, Asian filmmakers, Indigenous protest art, & more! www.youtube.com/@TheGlobalGa...

After today's fascinating Polycrisis Network seminar, there will be another opportunity to attend the series on Thursday 29 May (12 - 1pm) where @sarahjilani.bsky.social will explore Cultural Production and the Crisis of Consciousness.

All welcome!

Register: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1348631405...

As the speakers noted, it was a book that attempted a philosophical as much as a comparative literary/film intervention, so it means a lot for incredibly smart & socially conscious people to think I managed it! Available from @edinburghup.bsky.social ➡️ edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-subject...

Such an invigorating, supportive environment at my book panel on Weds @citystgeorges.bsky.social ❤️ Lots of things structurally broken in academia, but you still find some of the best folks there, too. Special thank you to @drdomdavies.bsky.social & to Dr Anna Bernard for showing up for me [...]