21st David M Smith Annual Lecture
Professor Pat Noxolo's research brings together the study of international culture and in/security, and uses postcolonial, discursive and literary approaches to explore the spatialities of a range of Caribbean and British cultural practices.
The School of Geography at Queen Mary, University of London is excited to announce the upcoming 21st David M Smith Annual Lecture, scheduled for February 11, 2025 (18:00-20:00 GMT).
The lecture series honours the legacy of our former colleague David M Smith (1936-2021) whose remarkable work on social justice and geography did much to shape the intellectual agenda and identity of both our School and university.
This year the lecture will be given by Professor Patricia Noxolo (University of Birmingham) on "In the teeth of the pressure": Black lives and environmental crisis in this more-than-human conjuncture.
Professor Noxolo's research - known widely and to many on this list - brings together the study of international culture and in/security, and uses postcolonial, discursive and literary approaches to explore the spatialities of a range of Caribbean and British cultural practices.
Abstract: 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 lecture briefly returns to Hall et al’s (2019) Policing the Crisis, links it with his comments on the urban uprisings 40 years ago, and applies it to a close reading of 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 the teeth of the pressure” (Hall, 1985).
The event will be held in-person at the School of Geography on Queen Mary's campus in Mile End, followed by a drinks reception. For those unable to be with us in London, the lecture will also be live-streamed online via Microsoft Teams. Please register via Eventbrite for more information.