arts-culture-media

Culture

Talking down on speaking up

Beyond the social media firestorm over journalist Trish Lorenz’s book about #EndSARS, it is worth engaging in the debate about wider representation in movement building and protest.

Panthers in Congo

The film 'Congo Oyé,' pulled from the archives of a New York City library a decade ago, explores different interpretations of revolution, Black sovereignty and liberation.

The skeleton in the closet

The novelist Nadifa Mohamed complicates Britain’s troubled, racist legal history through the personal tale of one otherwise insignificant person, a Somali immigrant to Cardiff in Wales.

Punks of the Witwatersrand

The Rise and Fall of National Wake, South Africa’s first multiracial punk band at the height of apartheid, that sang about state violence and political freedoms.

Navigating queer utopia

A new book presents an empirical challenge to the myth of South Africa as the “pink capital” of Africa and contributes to building an archive of queer, African, and religious narratives.

When Egypt was Black

Pharaonism, a mode of national identification linking people living in Egypt today with ancient pharaohs. It emerged partly as an alternative to colonial British efforts to racialize Egyptians as people of color.