Advertise on podcast: UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre Podcast

Luke de Noronha is joined by Chenchen Zhang, Associate Professor in International Relations at Durham University. Chenchen’s book Easting the West: Theorizing the Postliberal Conjuncture from China, was published by Oxford University Press in June 2026. The book examines how ideas of ‘the West’ and articulations of China-West difference are produced and mobilized in contemporary China, with a focus on reactionary political discourse in Chinese cyberspace. Chenchen situates the Chinese case study within a wider critique of the global far right and postcolonial nationalisms.  This podcast was recorded in June 2026. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A conversation about Rahul Rao’s book, ‘The Psychic Lives of Statues’. The conversation considers the agitation caused by attempts to remove celebratory statues of figures involved in the violence of the Atlantic Slave trade or of colonialism. Are statues made into ‘idols’ by people who want to defend these histories? How should we understand the sudden ‘coming alive’ of these previously forgotten and unnoticed representations of the human form? What can we learn from the distinctive erection of statues by corporate or state projects in our time and should we view these recent attempts to mark and control space through statues as a continuation of the spatial and representation tactics of European colonialism? The conversation was recorded in July 2025. Speakers: Gargi Bhattacharyya and Rahul Rao. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Luke de Noronha is joined by Gavan Titley, Professor in the Department of Media Studies at Maynooth University. Gavan has written several books on race, racism and multiculturalism, with a particular focus on the generative role of media and communication, including Is Free Speech Racist? with Polity Press in 2020. They discuss the question of free speech, which has become so central to questions of native entitlement and authoritarian populism in the present.  The conversation was recorded in November 2025.  Speakers: Luke de Noronha and Gavan Titley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Luke de Noronha welcomes Sita Balani, Senior Lecturer in English at Queen Mary University of London and the author, most recently, of Deadly and Slick: the Sexual Life of Race in Britain (Verso Press, 2023). They discuss Sita’s recent writings on culture wars, melodrama as a mode of political communication, and the difference between the ordinary and normal.  This conversation was recorded in November 2025 Speakers: Luke de Noronha and Sita Balani Producer: Trisha Hart Editor: James Fox Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Radical Abundance – understanding the reconfiguration of the global economy and how we might survive it Keir Milburn and Kai Heron in conversation with Gargi Bhattacharyya. This conversation was recorded in the summer of 2025 and discusses the changing role and approach of the United States and the extreme hardships arising from climate catastrophe as triggers to re-imagine the global economy. The conversation was recorded before the publication of Kai and Keir’s excellent and celebrated book, ‘Radical Abundance’, but the themes of the conversation echo the preoccupations of the book. There was a lot to discuss here – as a result we have split the conversation into three sections for ease of listening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Radical Abundance – understanding the reconfiguration of the global economy and how we might survive it Keir Milburn and Kai Heron in conversation with Gargi Bhattacharyya. This conversation was recorded in the summer of 2025 and discusses the changing role and approach of the United States and the extreme hardships arising from climate catastrophe as triggers to re-imagine the global economy. The conversation was recorded before the publication of Kai and Keir’s excellent and celebrated book, ‘Radical Abundance’, but the themes of the conversation echo the preoccupations of the book. There was a lot to discuss here – as a result we have split the conversation into three sections for ease of listening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Radical Abundance – understanding the reconfiguration of the global economy and how we might survive it Keir Milburn and Kai Heron in conversation with Gargi Bhattacharyya. This conversation was recorded in the summer of 2025 and discusses the changing role and approach of the United States and the extreme hardships arising from climate catastrophe as triggers to re-imagine the global economy. The conversation was recorded before the publication of Kai and Keir’s excellent and celebrated book, ‘Radical Abundance’, but the themes of the conversation echo the preoccupations of the book. There was a lot to discuss here – as a result we have split the conversation into three sections for ease of listening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gala Rexer talks to Edna Bonhomme, culture writer, historian of science, journalist, and author of “A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to COVID-19” (2025). The conversation covers theoretical and methodological questions about the relationship between confinement and disease, Edna’s anti/inter-disciplinary approach to writing, health and illness in literature, and how the intersectional fight for prison abolition relates to struggles for health equality.  This conversation was recorded in June 2025 Speakers: Dr Gala Rexer, Leverhulme Fellow at the University of Warwick and Honorary Research Fellow at the SPRC // Dr Edna Bonhomme  Producer: Gala Rexer and Trisha Hart Editors: James Fox Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast, Subhadra Das answers ten questions on ten lies that make up Western Civilisation. The conversation covers looting, the value of art, the history of statistics, remaking public history, repatriating stolen objects, and what museums and institutions could be doing with their zombies. Subhadra Das is a writer, historian, broadcaster and comedian who looks at the relationship between science and society. She specialises in the history and philosophy of science, particularly the history of scientific racism and eugenics. For nine years she was Curator of the Science Collections at University College London. She has written and presented podcasts and stand-up comedy shows, curated museum exhibitions, and has appeared on radio and TV. She is now working on a book about the golden age of detective fiction and the history of eugenics. Lara Choksey is Lecturer in Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures at UCL English, and Associate Faculty at the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discussion of Gargi’s research and the new module designed to open conversations about how we might understand the interplay between global politics and the global economy in this moment of rapid realignment. Speakers: Gargi Bhattacharyya, Paige Patchin, Luke de Noronha Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discussion of Paige’s research on questions of health, racism and why we must learn to understand the languages of the biological and the pharmaceutical if we are to grasp emerging technologies of racialisation. Speakers: Paige Patchin, Luke de Noronha, Gargi Bhattacharyya Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discussion of Luke’s research and why thinking about movement and bordering allows us understand emerging machineries of (perhaps) racialised violence. Speakers: Luke de Noronha, Paige Patchin, Gargi Bhattacharyya Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this Short Takes, Luke reads the preface to the paperback edition of Deporting Black Britons: Portraits of Deportation to Jamaica, published with Manchester University Press in June 2025.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka is joined by Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey. Lola Young became one of the first Black Women members of the House of Lords in 2004. Raised in foster care in north London, she studied at the New College of Speech and Drama, then worked as an actress, before becoming Professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University. Later, she worked in arts administration before receiving an OBE in 2001 for services to Black British History, and becoming an independent crossbench member of the House of Lords. She is active in campaigns on modern slavery and ethical fashion. Her new book, Eight weeks: Looking Back, Moving Forwards, Defying the Odds (Penguin 2024) is a deeply moving memoir that tells the remarkable life story of Baroness Young from her childhood in foster care the House of Lords. Here, Clive and Lola they discuss her latest book, its themes and some of the ideas and experiences that have shaped Lola’s writing, scholarship, and public life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vron Ware and Jim Scown join Lara Choksey for a conversation about the histories that connect soil to colonialism and imperialism, and why these connections matter for agricultural production now and in the future. Vron and Jim reflect on links between militarism and the English countryside, online far-right content and the decline of rural mental health services, and what nineteenth-century soil science might tell us about national identity. Discussing Vron’s book, Return of a Native (Repeater 2022), and their shared interest in the organic chemist Justus von Liebig, the conversation addresses the many scales operating in our sense of the local, from the parochial to the planetary. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.