The Stuart Hall Foundation welcomed cultural theorist, poet and teacher of performance studies, Fred Moten, as keynote speaker for the 9th Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversation. The event took place on Saturday 23rd May at Conway Hall in London and online via livestream broadcast as the first 2026 event in our In Search of Common Ground programme.

Moten’s keynote, drafted under the title ‘The Physics of Political Economy’ and delivered as ‘(Notes on Genocide:) Violence and the Physics of Political Economy’, used Stuart Hall’s critical engagement with Karl Marx as a point of departure to speak to the realities of practising the rejection of individuation.

The keynote was preceded by an address by Catherine Hall on the achievements of the Stuart Hall Essay Prize, and followed by a discussion between Moten and Angela McRobbie and an audience Q&A.

Following the event, attendees were invited to congregate in the hall for an informal reception with food catered by Goodness Gracious Feast and a DJ set from Anu Ambasna.

Skin Deep’s pop-up library of liberatory texts was set up in the hall throughout the day, offering attendees the opportunity to relax and flip through their back prints, works from collaborators and inspirations for their latest editions. Newham Bookshop hosted a stall with titles related to the programme available on sale throughout the event.

Supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Hollick Family Foundation, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Power of Pop Fund, in collaboration with Conway Hall.

For the 8th Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversation, the Stuart Hall Foundation welcomed political theorist, writer, activist, independent curator and political educator, Prof. Françoise Vergès as the keynote speaker. Taking place on Saturday 17th May at Conway Hall in London and online via livestream broadcast, the event inaugurated our 2025 programme, In Search of Common Ground.

Vergès’ keynote, titled ‘There Will Be No Future Without Seizing the Present’, considered how we might think across difference to construct a life-affirming politics in times of poly-crisis. The writer and activist posited that building common ground is building transnational solidarity, and urged against despair: “Let us think defeat as a chapter in the long fight for liberation and freedom.”

The keynote was preceded by a video excerpt from Stuart Hall’s Race, The Floating Signifier (1997) and an introductory address from SHF Executive Director Orsod Malik. After the keynote, Vergès was joined by Mohammed Elnaiem, Director of the Decolonial Centre, for a discussion and audience Q&A which further considered how we might understand Hall’s thinking on “a politics without guarantees”. A video recording of the keynote, discussion and audience Q&A will be published in the coming weeks.

The event also featured the premiere screening of ‘The Audacity of Our Skin’. Featuring poet and essayist Selina Nwulu reading her newly revisited version of the titular work to camera, the filmed performance was shot and edited by videographer Alice Kanako and commissioned by the Stuart Hall Foundation supported by Comic Relief.

Following the event, attendees were invited to congregate at an informal reception, where they discussed ideas with programme contributors and with each other. Plant-based South Asian food catered by Goodness Gracious Feast and drinks from the bar were made available, while Newham Bookshop held a stall with titles related to the programme on offer.

Skin Deep hosted a pop-up library at the back of the hall, continuing their efforts to make space for creative thinking in service of and beyond racial justice. The library of liberatory texts offered attendees the opportunity to relax and flip through back prints of the Skin Deep magazine, pick up their latest issue and delve into their sources of inspiration.

Supported by Comic Relief, the Hollick Family Foundation and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, in collaboration with Conway Hall, Words of Colour and Pluto Press.

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. Each conversation, chaired by Aasiya Lodhi, aims to form an online teach-in space dedicated to demonstrating how engaging in a conjunctural analysis can enrich artistic practice, deepen organising work, and academic study.

The first conversation took place on Wednesday 4th June 2025, with Brenna Bhandar and Hashem Abushama considering the state of contemporary discourse on Israel-Palestine through Hall’s open letter to Edward Said, titled ‘For Edward Said’ (2004).

Read a transcript of the event here:
https://www.stuarthallfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/RTC-2025-1-Transcript.pdf

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.

Reading the Crisis is part of the Stuart Hall Foundation’s In Search of Common Ground programme. Learn more about In Search of Common Ground by clicking here.

The Stuart Hall Foundation is pleased to be collaborating with Hackney Libraries to offer a reading list of books relating to the Reading the Crisis online conversation series. Feel free to access this list before, during or after the events to further explore some of the ideas that may be discussed:
https://www.lovehackney.uk/reading-lists/reading-the-crisis