Radical Antiracism Today: New books in abolitionist, anticolonial, internationalist antiracism

The Culture and Society discipline at my university, Western Sydney University is hosting an online seminar series, Radical Antiracism Today: New books in abolitionist, anticolonial, internationalist antiracism. The series is supported by the School of Humanities and Communication Arts and the Institute for Culture and Society. I am coordinating this together with my colleague, Quah Ee Ling. We have brought together an exciting group of authors-scholars-activists who have recently come out with thought provoking books. Each book will be discussed by a locally based scholar-writer-activist who will place the authors’ contributions in the context of ongoing colonial racial capitalism in this continent. Our guests are Michael Richmond and Alex Charnley in discussion with Debbie Bargallie, Charisse Burden-Stelly and Jodi Dean in conversation with Andrew Brooks, Mahdis Azarmandi and Garrick Cooper in conversations with Quah Ee Ling, Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice Octavia McBean in conversation with Maria Giannacopoulos, Ruth Wilson Gilmore in conversation with Tabitha Lean, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Robyn Maynard in conversation with Evelyn Araluen.

Please register here for our first seminar on April 19 on Michael Richmond and Alex Charnley’s book, Fractured: Race, Class, Gender and the Hatred of Identity Politics

Overview of the series

Intellectual activity on questions of coloniality, decolonisation, and anticolonialism, Indigenous self-determination, the Black Radical Tradition, the carceral state and abolitionism, political education and activism, Black feminism and identity politics is fertile and fervent. These are exciting times much as they are threatening times: amid climate catastrophe, wars, and pandemic(s), the global right-wing is fighting back and gaining ground. Radical and subversive scholarship faces attack, not only from these forces but also from institutions determined to tame it under ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and now ‘Indigenisation’ initiatives.

Beyond this two-sided coin, scholars and organisers are producing works that provoke us, not just to think but to act. The 2023 WSU Culture & Society Seminar series, Radical Antiracism Today: New books in abolitionist, anticolonial, internationalist antiracism, brings some of these writers of recently published books into dialogue with local thinkers, writers and activists to think collectively about their import for our own realities.

Programme Semester 1

19 April 7 pm AEST

Michael Richmond and Alex Charnley

Fractured: Race, Class, Gender and the Hatred of Identity Politics

In conversation with Debbie Bargallie

10 May 9 am AEST

Charisse Burden-Stelly and Jodi Dean

Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women’s Political Writing

In conversation with Andrew Brooks

14 June 7 pm AEST

Mahdis Azarmandi and Garrick Cooper

Towards a Grammar of Race In Aotearoa New Zealand