A new book expounding the key ideas in the discourse of postcolonialism will be launched at the IHRC on 28 November.

“Conversations in Postcolonial Thought” by Katy Sian takes the form of conversational interviews with some of today’s leading scholars of race, ethnicity and gender to illuminate the politics of postcolonial societies.

Drawing on their personal reflections and intellectual journeys the book makes accessible to a broader audience how the experience of colonialism and empire remains highly relevant and continues to shape modern political and social processes and structures.

The authors discuss topics ranging from Bob Marley to the Black Panthers, Checkpoint Charlie to climate change and Wittgenstein to the War on Terror uncovering a set of thought provoking adventures about intellect, resistance and empowerment.

The interview with Heidi Mirza, Professor of Race, Faith & Culture at Goldsmiths College, University of London, shows readers the various ways in which racism and colonialism continue to regulate racialised and gendered bodies in contemporary society, using the field of education as the main site of her analysis.

American sociologist and race theorist Professor Howard Winant from the University of California, Santa Barbara, discusses the centrality of race in the formation of America and the continuation of global imperialisms in the contemporary context. Against a backdrop of where the Global South remains subject to the neoliberal capitalist enterprises of the Global North, he questions the degree to which societies are able to make valid claims for their postcoloniality.

Sian’s book, which has already been described as a “must read for contemporary post-colonial scholarship” and a “rare, engagingly powerful, and indispensable text, in peer reviews, will be formally launched at the IHRC on Friday 28 November.

Dr Katy P Sian is a research fellow at the University of Manchester and author of “Unsettling Sikh and Muslim Conflict: Mistaken Identities, Forced Conversions, and Postcolonial Formations” (2013) and co-author of “Racism, Governance, and Public Policy: Beyond Human Rights” (2013).

Notes to Editors:

“Conversations in Postcolonial Thought” will be launched at the IHRC Bookshop and Gallery, 202 Preston Road, Wembley, HA9 8PA Nearest tube: Preston Road (Metropolitan Line) on Friday 28 November at 6.45pm.

For media enquiries please call +4420 8904 4222 or 447958 522196[Ends]

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