LOCATING LEGACIES PODCAST
Date: July 2023
Location: Online
Curated by: Orsod Malik
Presented by: Stuart Hall Foundation x Pluto Press
Supported by: Pluto Press, Arts Council England
We are proud to present the Locating Legacies series – a fortnightly podcast created by the Stuart Hall Foundation and co-produced by Pluto Press. The series is dedicated to tracing the reverberations of history to contextualise present-day politics, deepen our understanding of some of the crucial issues of our time, and to draw connections between past struggles and our daily lives.
Hosted by writer and organiser, Gracie Mae Bradley, and produced by Chris Browne, the series explored some of the reoccurring themes in Stuart Hall’s thinking. Gracie, along with some of the most critical voices of our time, examine: the current state of right-wing politics, decolonisation, the co-option of ‘identity politics’, how the Cold War has shaped the world today, the relationship between queer radicalism and class struggle, and abolition in the UK context.
Over 12 weeks, we hosted contributions from Kojo Koram, Françoise Vèrges, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Vijay Prashad, Sita Balani and Ruth Wilson Gilmore.
SERIES TRAILER: Chris Browne sits down with Gracie Mae Bradley and Orsod Malik to discuss how this project came to be and what listeners can expect from the episodes to come.
EPISODE 3: Gracie Mae Bradley and Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò discuss how politics moves between the world of ideas and the material world, the process by which radical ideas are co-opted by elite interests, and the importance of organising across difference.
EPISODE 1: Gracie Mae Bradley and Kojo Koram discuss Stuart Hall’s contributions to radical thought and their relevance to present-day politics. Gracie and Kojo discuss some of the themes in Stuart Hall’s work pertaining to empire, neoliberalism and right-wing politics, and consider how Hall’s work might be utilised in the face of economic, ecological and political crises
EPISODE 6: Often dismissed or set aside as a US-based movement, Gracie and Ruth sit down together to explore how we can think about the histories, legacies and politics of abolition in the British context and beyond. They map how local instances of political organising express themselves globally, as well as interrogating how past struggles express themselves in the present.
EPISODE 5: Gracie Mae Bradley and Sita Balani explore the legacies of queer liberation struggles on contemporary class politics, and the ways in which queer radicalism has expanded notions of liberatory politics in the everyday. They also discuss the radical potential of the trade union movement, and unpack the material roots of an ongoing transphobic moral panic.
EPISODE 4: Gracie Mae Bradley and Vijay Prashad discuss the legacies of the Cold War from the vantage point of the Global South, to contextualise the global economic, ecological and political crises that we’re struggling through today. They also consider the liberatory potential of nationalism, what meaningful solidarity might look like for climate activists in the Global North, and the profound and lasting impact of taking collective action.
EPISODE 2: Gracie Mae Bradley and Françoise Vergès explore the connections and disparities between the anticolonial politics of the 1950s and 1960s in relation to today’s movements to decolonise educational, arts and heritage institutions.