Announcing SHF's 2024 programme, Catastrophe and Emergence

We are delighted to present the Stuart Hall Foundation’s first full-length annual programme, Catastrophe and Emergence.

Catastrophes signal a crisis of survival, knowledge, and power. They simultaneously herald destruction and renewal, political closures and openings, the demise of old ways of knowing and the emergence of new ways to relate to our ever-changing world. The Stuart Hall Foundation’s 2024 programme will draw from ideas pertaining to catastrophe and emergence to invite artists, academics and organisers to examine this conjuncture, trace the histories constituting it, and consider the political and creative possibilities that might emerge from what was. 

The 7th Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversation will inaugurate the Catastrophe and Emergence programme. We are pleased to welcome acclaimed filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien to deliver a keynote at the event at Conway Hall, London next month. Tickets are on sale now.

This will be followed by Reading the Crisis, a new series of online conversations inviting academics, authors and journalists to analyse a curated selection of Stuart Hall’s essays in relation to present-day political formations. Chaired by Aasiya Lodhi, events in this series will feature Ilan Pappé, Priyamvada Gopal, Aditya Chakrabortty, Moya Lothian-McLean, Gail Lewis and Roderick Ferguson in discussion.

Stuart Hall in Translation will consider how ideas move between borders, languages and political and historical contexts, first with a discussion between Bill Schwarz and Liv Sovik, then through a new series of written contributions. Translators have been invited to share their experiences translating Hall’s works into new contexts, and these writings will be published online as the year progresses.

Closing the Catastrophe and Emergence programme, we are thrilled to welcome internationally renowned intellectual and activist Robin D. G. Kelley for our third Autumn Keynote at Conway Hall, London, later this year.

“Throughout 2024, the Stuart Hall Foundation will convene a range of critical conversations about the present, how we arrived here, and where we might be headed. We are dedicating this year’s programme to nurturing a variety of online and in-person spaces for confronting the contemporary political and cultural landscape, sharing insights through free and open dialogue, and honing the discursive tools to imagine and articulate alternatives together.“

Orsod Malik, Director of the Stuart Hall Foundation

Read more about Catastrophe and Emergence on the project page.

The 7th Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversation with Isaac Julien is in partnership with Conway Hall supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a donor-advised fund held at the London Community Foundation.

Reading the Crisis is in partnership with Duke University Press supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Stuart Hall in Translation is in partnership with Cultural Studies Journal supported by Taylor & Francis Group and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Autumn Keynote with Robin D. G. Kelley is in partnership with Conway Hall supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a donor-advised fund held at the London Community Foundation.