Reading the Crisis asks: what kinds of tools and strategies are needed to confront this conjuncture? The online conversation series returns for a third year in an expanded format featuring six in-depth engagements with economics, technology, democracy, migration, culture and climate respectively.

Hosted by senior lecturer and former BBC Radio senior producer Aasiya Lodhi and critic, media theorist and editor of Representology K Biswas, each conversation forms an online teach-in space dedicated to demonstrating how engaging in a conjunctural analysis can enrich artistic practice and deepen organising work and academic study.

The second conversation of this year’s series took place on Tuesday 14th July 2026 with host K Biswas joined by Wendy Liu, author of Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism (2020), for a discussion focusing on technology.

Read a transcript of the event here:
https://www.stuarthallfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/RTC-2026-2-transcript.pdf

Supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Hollick Family Foundation, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Power of Pop Fund.

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 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 third conversation took place on Tuesday 9th September 2025, with Gary Younge and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor considering the nature of political organising using a discussion between bell hooks and Stuart Hall, published in the book, Uncut Funk: A Contemplative Dialogue (2017).

Read a transcript of the event here:
https://www.stuarthallfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/RTC-2025-3-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

To coincide with the Annual Stuart Hall Public Conversations that take place each year, we invite members from our Scholars, Fellows and Artists Network to participate in an in-person event. These network events are dedicated to fostering critical engagement and collaboration among scholars, artists and practitioners. They embody the purpose of our regular network gatherings: to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue, nurture intellectual development and provide support for underrepresented practitioners.

On Friday 22nd March earlier this year, we hosted a workshop at Conway Hall in London. Led by Remi-Joseph Salisbury and Laura Connelly, authors of Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism (Manchester University Press, 2021), this dynamic forum explored anti-racist scholar activism amidst the confluence of crises scholars, artists and practitioners are navigating in their respective fields at this time.

We commissioned a member of our Scholars, Fellows and Artists Network, CJ Simon – currently a PhD scholar with the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership – to share his reflections following the event, included below:

“In a time where it can feel quite lonely to be a Black academic, I am forever grateful for the work of the Stuart Hall Foundation. On 22nd and 23rd March, the foundation took over Conway Hall to host two exciting events; the first was an ‘Anti-Racist Scholar Activist’ workshop run by Dr Remi Joseph-Salisbury and Dr Laura Connelly, the second a Public Conversation between the acclaimed installation artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien and the incomparable writer and curator Gilane Tawadros. Whilst very different in form and substance, both events promised to bring together a wide network of scholars, artists, practitioners, and members of the public invested in producing a more equitable world. Boy, did it deliver. Over those two days there was an electric pulse of conversation between attendees stretching out from Conway Hall to the pubs and cafés dotted around London, all centred around our lived experiences, struggles, hopes, and plans for carving some kind of path forward. Lonely no longer.

“As a theatre-maker and PhD researcher interested in understanding how communities can come together to shape political opinions and behaviours, there was something incredibly refreshing about a workshop so devoted to praxis: talking through how our theoretical work can and should lead to real-world practice. This conversation was perfectly contrasted with the screening of Isaac Julien’s ‘Once Again… (Statues Never Die)’, a film which very poignantly asks the audience to reflect on the colonial relationship between history, art, and intimacy. Vindicating the writing of Stuart Hall, Julien’s piece demonstrated to me just how crucial art is to the practical work of anti-racist activists. A lovely feeling for someone who came into academia through the world of poetry and theatre.

“Surprisingly, the most exciting – and probably most radical – thing to come from this weekend hasn’t actually happened yet. In finding new friends, new peers, and new mentors to talk with, disagree with, and learn from, I know that the work has only just begun. The community is growing and expanding and finding a way to sustainably fight for an equitable world.”

The Anti-Racist Scholar Activism Workshop was supported by the CoDE ECR Network