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Jo Littler

@jolittler.bsky.social

2.4K followers 910 following 43 posts

Social / cultural / political / media analysis Prof @Goldsmiths @MediaComGold.bsky.social 📕📗: Left Feminisms, Care Manifesto, Against Meritocracy, Politics of Heritage #firstgen All views socially & culturally constructed.

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Jo Littler @jolittler.bsky.social · Jan 27

Out now: my new article ‘Model Minority Authoritarianism: Social Mobility and the New Anti-Equality Agenda’ in South Atlantic Quarterly @dukepress.bsky.social (1/9) read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlant...

Model Minority Authoritarianism: Social Mobility and the New Anti-equality Agenda

This article puts forward a cultural‐political formation it terms “model minority authoritarianism.” The idea of the model minority has both been venerated as the virtuous face of immigration and/or n...

read.dukeupress.edu

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Nela Smolovic Jones @nela-smolovic.bsky.social · Jul 21

Thrilled to see the announcement for our new journal, Feminism and Organization, I will be co-editing with @profalisonpullen.bsky.social, and a legion of superb feminists around the globe everyone would be honoured to work with: bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/new-journal-... @bupjournals.bsky.social

Bristol University Press

bristoluniversitypress.co.uk

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Sam Wetherell @samwetherell.bsky.social · Jul 16

With my local MP Rachel Maskell now suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party, now is a great time to revisit her extraordinary speech from two weeks ago against the PIP cuts which she describes as Dickensian and cruelly immiserating the community she had sworn to protect.

Peter Stefanovic @peterstefanovic.bsky.social · Jul 1

Labour MP Rachael Maskell close to tears as she 'pleads' with the government to abandon planned welfare cuts

'These Dickensian cuts belong to a different era and a different party', she said

How on earth has it come to this?

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Media, Communications & Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths @mediacomgold.bsky.social · Jun 20

What a wonderful degree show opening yesterday...!

It's on all weekend and open to all, so come and see the fantastic student work in film, documentary, sreen fiction, audio, animation, journalism, promotional media, scriptwriting, creative writing, photography...

www.goldsmithsmediashow.com

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ProfKFH @profkfh.bsky.social · Jun 19

#quiltsky #juneteenth

ProfKFH @profkfh.bsky.social · Jun 19

Harriet Tubman #quilt by my Mom, Vera P. Hall, who makes quilts celebrating Black people who fought for their own freedom. This seems to be the crowd favorite of the “We Didn’t Wait for Freedom” series. Happy #Juneteenth #quilting

Colorful quilt of a nighttime scene with Harriet Tubman in an orange jacket and purple dress carrying a rifle. She is leading other figures who walk behind her.

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Miro Born @miroborn.bsky.social · Jun 18

My new article in @city-journal.bsky.social argues for a critical understanding of the meritocratic ideal among urban researchers. In particular, it explores the consequences of how this ideal is reproduced in stigmatised neighbourhoods:
doi.org/10.1080/1360.... @lsemethodology.bsky.social

Meritocracy from below: dreams, divisions, and the struggle for merit in a stigmatised neighbourhood

The ideal of a meritocratic society continues to exert significant normative power in political and public discourse, including in discussions about marginalised spaces and neighbourhoods. However,...

doi.org

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Cllr Liam Shrivastava @liamshrivastava.bsky.social · May 28

🚨Amiel & Melburn Lecture 2025

A special panel discussion on 'Resisting the rise of the Radical Right' with @zarahsultana.bsky.social, Costas Douzinas, Rob Topinka, @kojokoram.bsky.social, @irrnews.bsky.social, @afoggyplace.bsky.social

🗓️Wed 2 July
🕠17:30PM
📍Birkbeck University

INFO & REGISTER 👇

Annual Lecture 2025: Resisting the rise of the radical right - Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust

Join us on Wednesday 2 July 2025 with Costas Douzinas, Liz Fekete, Rob Topinka, Zarah Sultana MP and Kojo Koram. Chaired by Esther Leslie.

amielandmelburn.org.uk

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Jo Littler @jolittler.bsky.social · May 24

“Blue Labour rhetoric likes to imagine that everyone in the UK who isn’t a blue-haired postgraduate is a churchgoing industrial worker, desperate to turn back the clock on multiculturalism and trans rights.”

Jeremy Gilbert @jemgilbert.bsky.social · May 24

labourlist.org/2025/05/blue...

'Progressivism or bust: Why Blue Labour is the wrong answer to Reform surge' - LabourList

Callaghan lost the support of his own base while losing the 1979 election to Thatcher. Any Labour government that tries to follow the Blue Labour formula is likely to end the same way.

labourlist.org

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ProfAFinlayson @profafinlayson.bsky.social · May 22

Missed this last month: welcome evidence that somebody in the Democrats has a clue about digital politics (and recognition that in the US as in the UK liberal, progressive and left political groups are still about a decade behind. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/o...

Opinion | I Worked for Harris and Biden. Here’s the Missing Link for Democrats.

www.nytimes.com

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Simon Gray @protexblue.bsky.social · May 21

Highlight of my day/week: Hearing @jolittler.bsky.social talk about inequality, including highlights from her 2017 book, "Against Meritocracy".
The talk was so provocative, thought-provoking and inspiring that I now have an immense amount of thinking and reading to do now. Wonderful feeling.

Jo Littler gives a lecture about inequality; behind her is a slide featuring highlights from her book "Against Meritocracy"

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Jo Littler @jolittler.bsky.social · May 21

thank you so much! It was such a good event

Reposted by Jo Littler

Over The Top Under The Radar @overunderpod.bsky.social · May 16

We are the people who Wipe Your A**es! 🏥

@GaryYounge reflects on his Mother’s experience in the NHS as an Immigrant Worker… @nadinewrites1.bsky.social

🎧 Listen To The Full Episode - linktr.ee/overthetopun... (LINK IN BIO) 🔗

This episode is sponsored by @powertochange.org.uk

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Anna Marchi 🌈 @journolinguist.bsky.social · May 20

an excellent discussion with @jolittler.bsky.social about the myth of meritocracy, with hugely quotable pearls such as: "threads of truth within this
quilt blanket of mystification". I recently got Jo Litter's brilliant book Against meritocracy #openaccess here: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mon...

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Jo Littler @jolittler.bsky.social · May 20

thank you!

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Hari Kunzru @harikunzru.bsky.social · May 20

Trying to get my head round how this could make it to print. Many warning signs for all of us

Rachael King @rachaelking70.bsky.social · May 20

This was just posted by @tbretc.bsky.social on another platform. The Chicago Sun-Times obviously gets ChatGPT to write a ‘summer reads’ feature almost entirely made up of real authors but completely fake books. What are we coming to?

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Hari Kunzru @harikunzru.bsky.social · May 17

As people die from deliberately induced famine in Gaza, this food is likely to be destroyed

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · May 16

(Reuters) - Food rations that could supply 3.5 million people for a month are mouldering in warehouses around the world because of U.S. aid cuts and risk becoming unusable, according to five people familiar with the situation.

www.reuters.com/world/us-aid...

Exclusive: US aid cuts leave food for millions mouldering in storage

The food stocks have been stuck inside four U.S. government warehouses since the Trump administration's decision in January to cut global aid programs.

www.reuters.com

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Media, Communications & Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths @mediacomgold.bsky.social · May 20

5 yrs after the publication of The Care Manifesto, the Care Collective - incl Catherine Rottenberg + @jolittler.bsky.social, both @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social - reflect on post-pandemic systematic 'care-stripping' across the political stage:
@versobooks.bsky.social

www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/...

Care-stripping: Beyond the Pretence of Care

Five years ago, we published The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence. It was a small volume that provided a large overview of what we described as the ‘structural carelessness’ of our worl...

www.versobooks.com

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The Sociological Review Foundation @thesociologicalreview.org · May 20

What does #sociology have to say about #gender and #class in 2025?
Is academic life any easier for working-class women than it was three decades ago?

📺 WATCH Bev Skeggs, @jolittler.bsky.social and @michaelacbenson.bsky.social in the first of our new Conversations series.

buff.ly/x6b6rzi

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Runnymede Trust @runnymedetrust.bsky.social · May 12

Instead of trying to outdo one another with more racist policymaking, we need a government with the courage to address the real problems of skyrocketing poverty and our crumbling national services.

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Simone Varriale @simov.bsky.social · Mar 4

I wrote a thing about why 'cultural' class analysis is badly equipped for challenging the cosplaying of working class culture by the far right & why working class formations are best conceptualised as multi-status.

Part of a great SI on Beverley Skeggs' work: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Against culture? Class analysis, strategic essentialism and methodological nationalism after Beverley Skeggs’ Formations of Class and Gender - Simone Varriale, 2025

Beverley Skeggs’ first book (Formations of Class and Gender [FoC&G]) has been central to the study of class and culture, pushing it towards a more sustained con...

journals.sagepub.com

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Linus Westheuser @lwestheuser.bsky.social · May 7

Very cool: @miroborn.bsky.social made a comic narrating findings from his research on class, social mobility and stigmatized neighborhoods. You can find it here in English and German: www.anthonymiroborn.com/comic

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Oxford Social Policy and Intervention @dspi-oxford.bsky.social · May 13

Upcoming seminar ⬇️
Prof Jo Littler (Professor of Cultural, Media and Social Analysis @mediacomgold.bsky.social) will outline The Care Manifesto (co-written with members of the Care Collective) & explore corporate carewashing.
📅 4pm, 15 May
More: talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/eb8... @jolittler.bsky.social

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The Autonomy Institute @autonomy-institute.bsky.social · Apr 28

🚨 ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨 'Forum 2029: Building a living standards policy platform for the UK'

These seminars will congregate progressive actors - from across parties, trade unions and campaigns - to build a simple and bold policy platform for the months and years to come 📃
👇

autonomy.work/forum-2029/

Poster for Forum 2029. It lists speakers, as well as event topics and the launch event.

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Momentum @peoplesmomentum.bsky.social · May 2

Cuts to Winter Fuel Payments, slashing the welfare state and squeezing public spending.

These policies are all deeply unpopular and not what the Labour Party was founded to do.

If the Government doesn’t change course, more defeats like Runcorn could be on the horizon.

LBC @lbc.co.uk · May 2

'That is a serious, serious defeat for Labour.'

'If the polls continue like this, we are on course for a hung parliament.'

After Reform's big by-election wins, @natashaclark.bsky.social analyses the 'teal tidal wave' that has become 'a headache for both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch.'

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · Apr 30

I had a right old rant about Tony Blair's ignorant, self-interested statement on The Jeremy Vine Show today. I mentioned that he has worked as a lobbyist for PetroSaudi, earning Tony Blair Associates £41,000/month, plus 2% of any deal he brokered.
Starts 9 minutes in: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Radio 2 - Listen Live - BBC Sounds

Listen live to BBC Radio 2 on BBC Sounds

www.bbc.co.uk

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