I’ve got a couple of events coming up over the next two months. Here’s a quick post with all the info and links to tickets, etc.:
First up, I’ll be chatting to Bill Cashmore at Housman’s in London on 27th October to celebrate the launch of her new book, We Hear Only Ourselves.
We are delighted to welcome Bill Cashmore to Housmans to celebrate the publication of her exciting new book We Hear Only Ourselves. As Étienne Balibar says, this book is a “beautiful breakthrough by enormously gifted young philosopher.” We Hear Only Ourselves is a study of utopia and its contradictions. If a future beyond capitalism cannot be imagined, what is the place of utopia today? The answer, Cashmore argues, lies beyond either idle speculation or merely hopeful optimism. We Hear Only Ourselves seeks a concept of utopia which is strengthened, not undermined, by its contradictions. From the dialectics of the Frankfurt School to the energetics of resistance in the writings of the Black Panthers, this book draws on a wide range of thought to offer a new concept of utopia, one adequate for our present moment.
Bill will be in conversation with Matt Colquhoun, followed by an open discussion.
You can get tickets and more information here.
Next, I’ll be joining a panel on the opening night of this year’s Radical Book Fair in Edinburgh, the theme of which is “Revolutionary Feeling”, at the Assembly Roxy on 9th November.
What do we really see when we look at each other and at ourselves? What narratives and assumed truths do we bring into any meeting with others, about beauty, relationships, agency and the society that shapes us all?
Who better to lead us into a weekend of exploring the personal and political than three generous, bold thinkers and authors whose work untangles what it means to see ourselves? Join Sumaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Matt Colquhoun and Nathalie Olah as they plunge the mirrors we all hold up to each other.
The panel will be chaired by Noor Hemani.
Tickets and further information can be found here.
Finally, on 23rd November, I’ll be doing a home event here in Newcastle for this year’s Books on Tyne festival. At the City Library, I’ll do a reading and host a Q&A.
More information and tickets can be found here.
As a little bonus event teaser, the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea Condeduque has recently announced its “Pensamiento” programme for 2023/24: “Fuera de Carta: Para Desviarnos del Futuro Arruinado” [Off the Menu: To Deviate from the Ruined Future], which will “try to explore the shapes and spaces in which our future is at stake.”
It is about finding new ways of defining how we order and categorize our existence in relation to the world and deciding what sustains us in life, the ways to appropriately relate to ourselves, each other, and our environment. An “off-menu” menu where you can find a detour to the “ruined future” to leave behind the impossibility of thinking about a common future.
I’ll be taking part in a panel on the work of Mark Fisher in May 2024, exploring his increasingly international (albeit posthumous) reputation in the Spanish-speaking world.
In recent times, the British academic and cultural critic Mark Fisher (1968-2017) has gained prestige and popularity in the Spanish-speaking world. His work, which dialogues with that of contemporary writers, essayists, music critics and filmmakers, is now essential for thinking about our time, based on the analysis of the mass culture industry. By approaching this work from three readings – the British one with Matt Colquhoun, the Spanish one with Germán Cano and the Latin American one with Luciana Cadahia – we will try to continue Fisher’s efforts to understand what is happening (to us) and what are the possible ways of deviate from the “capitalist realism” in which we live, as well as its eventual future.
You can find all the information here.
This event is a way off yet, of course, and I’m hoping there’ll be other events organised around the same time in other parts of Spain. More on those next year.
If you ever want to know more about events I’ve been involved in — past and future — don’t forget to click the “Events” tab at the top of the blog.