“How can we organise these huge, randomly varied, and diverse things we call human subjects into positions where they can recognise one another for long enough to act together, and thus to take up a position that one of these days might live out and act through as an identity? Identity is at the end, not the beginning, of the paradigm. Identity is what is at stake in political organisation. It isn’t that subjects are there and we just can’t get to them. It is that they don’t know yet that they are subjects of a possible discourse. And that always in every political struggle, since every political struggle is always open, is possible either to win their identification or lose it.”
Stuart Hall, Subjects in History: Making Diasporic Identities (1998)
Marking the Stuart Hall Foundation’s 10th anniversary, our programme theme is titled In Search of Common Ground. Throughout this year, we invite you to collectively consider the role of difference in broadening the intellectual and creative scope of social justice movements working today.
Professor Stuart Hall argued for a conception of identity which is always in process, perpetually changing in relation with our surroundings. Rather than identities being fixed or inherent, they are subject to the interplay between politics and power, to the ways in which “we are positioned, and position ourselves, within the narratives of the past”1. This way of thinking opens up the possibility to build solidarities with peoples we may not directly encounter, to recognise one another’s political struggles, to stretch our political horizons beyond our personal experiences.
In Search of Common Ground will consider Hall’s notion of identity as a profoundly creative proposition, challenging us to come together and build a politics that speaks to the specific moment in which we are working. It invites us to take stock of our situation and find the intersections where our histories and political interests meet. It dares us to build a collective politics that is flexible enough to hold – even if momentarily – the sum of our individual concerns.
Today, right-wing forces are building international solidarities, uniting through common commercial and imperial interests, mainstreaming fascistic politics and consolidating their influence across the globe. How are social justice movements building solidarities today? Throughout this year, we will engage with a range of Stuart Hall texts to explore the following questions: How can difference broaden the scope of progressive movements working today? Where are the intersections at which solidarities are being formed in this moment? And what kinds of historical reference points, political traditions, and ideas are being called upon to confront the present?
Our 2025 programme will feature public events, workshops, community film screenings, and conversations dedicated to deepening our understanding of solidarities, how they form across differences, the creative possibilities they hold, and the work needed to build a collective politics capable of bringing a more just world to bear.
1 S. Hall, Cultural Identity and Diaspora (1990)
In Search of Common Ground is supported by Conway Hall, Comic Relief, the Hollick Family Foundation, and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, with programme partners Black Southwest Network, Brixton Community Cinema, CoDE, MAIA, Pluto Press, Routledge, Taylor & Francis, Soundings, and Words of Colour.
8th Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversation with Françoise Vergès
Saturday 17th May 2025, 3pm – 7.30pm BST
Doors open at 2.30pm
Conway Hall, London & Online
We are delighted to welcome political theorist, writer, activist, independent curator and political educator, Prof. Françoise Vergès to Conway Hall as the keynote speaker for the 8th Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversation.
In Vergés’ keynote, ‘There Will Be No Future Without Seizing the Present’, she will consider how we might think across difference to construct a life-affirming politics in times of poly-crisis, with a presentation organised around possibilities for reappropriating the present:
Imagining a post-racist and post-capitalist future seems impossible when the present is plagued with genocide and imperialist wars; when catastrophic floods, hurricanes and fires engulf our planet; when murderous migration policies and increased poverty further entrenches racism, xenophobia, and misogyny into the fabric of our societies.
Liberating the present from colonisation, racial neoliberal capitalism, and the forces which make our planet uninhabitable for human and nonhuman species alike necessitates orienting our political imaginations towards wholesale revolutionary change; towards the possibility of forging a future in which all life can flourish, in which all life is protected.
Stuart Hall called upon us to embrace “a politics without guarantees”, by which he suggests that we cannot construct a politics simply through denunciation and condemnation. Instead, we ought to produce “new dimensions of meaning which have not been foreclosed by the systems of power which are in operation.”
This is a call for radical imagining and action, for thinking beyond the imperialist post-World War II order.
– Françoise Vergès
Françoise Vergès’ keynote speech will be followed by a conversation with Mohammed Elnaiem, Director of the Decolonial Centre who will also be chairing the audience Q&A. Guests are warmly invited to gather together in Conway Hall afterwards for an informal reception where complimentary food and drink will be available for all ticket holders.
Book tickets for the 8th Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversation with Françoise Vergès here.
Supported by Comic Relief, the Hollick Family Foundation and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, in collaboration with Conway Hall, Words of Colour and Pluto Press.
Reading the Crisis
June – September 2025
Online
The Reading the Crisis series asks: what kinds of tools and strategies are needed to confront this conjuncture? This online conversation series seeks to advance Stuart Hall’s thinking by analysing a curated selection of three texts in relation to present-day political formations.
In alignment with our 2025 programme theme, In Search of Common Ground, we have chosen three Stuart Hall texts where Hall is in dialogue with Edward Said, CLR James and bell hooks.
The first conversation, between Brenna Bhandar and Hashem Abushama, will consider the state of contemporary discourse on Israel-Palestine through Hall’s open letter to Edward Said titled For Edward Said (2004). The second conversation, between Houria Bouteldja and Lola Olufemi, will focus on themes relating to anticolonial thought and action through a 1986 exchange between Stuart Hall and CLR James. Finally, the third conversation, between Gary Younge and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, will think through the relationship between love and political organising using a discussion between bell hooks and Stuart Hall, published in the book, Uncut Funk: A Contemplative Dialogue (2017).
Each text will be made fully or partially available a few weeks before each corresponding conversation. Sign up to our newsletter for updates.
Brenna Bhandar & Hashem Abushama
Wednesday 4th June, 5.30pm – 7pm BST
For Edward Said (2004)
Houria Bouteldja & Lola Olufemi
Monday 28th July, 5.30pm – 7pm BST
CLR James Speaks with Stuart Hall (1986)
Gary Younge & Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Tuesday 9th September, 5.30pm – 7pm BST
Uncut Funk: A Contemplative Dialogue by bell hooks and Stuart Hall (2017)
The online events are chaired by Senior Lecturer and former BBC Radio Senior Producer, Aasiya Lodhi. Each event forms an online teach-in space dedicated to demonstrating how engaging in a conjunctural analysis can enrich artistic practice, deepen organising work, and academic study.
Registration to attend the Reading the Crisis online conversation series will open in Spring 2025.
Supported by Comic Relief, the Hollick Family Foundation and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, in collaboration with Words of Colour, Pluto Press, Soundings, and Taylor & Francis.
Further activities as part of In Search of Common Ground are to be announced. Additionally, the programme will continue our commitment to fostering critical dialogue through closed workshops and screenings for the SHF Peer Network of scholars, fellows, artists, and community partners.
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Graphics designed by Reuxn Yao
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