Sumi Madhok

Thank you so much! 🙏🏼

47,512 cars, 2.84 million washing machines, 223 million bananas, or 386 million pairs of shoes Some big big boats, and some book and film recommendations

A good time to read @lalehkhalili.bsky.social's book 'Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula'.

Or if you don't have time to do that, how about the review-essay I wrote about the book on my Substack during a previous war-related shipping crisis:

As ever, important writing from Ratna Kapur.

From Necropolitics to Piety: TWAIL and the “Other” Subject of Human Rights

I was in Tehran this time last year. I want you to see how beautiful my city is. I want you to see the city the US/Israel is trying to wipe off the face of the earth

As ever, important writing from Ratna Kapur.

From Necropolitics to Piety: TWAIL and the “Other” Subject of Human Rights

“The questions of militarism and imperialism are at the central axis of political life today. In them…lies the key to the political situation…”

(Luxemburg, Rosa, ‘What Now?’ ( Die Gleichheit, February 5th, 1912).

True then, true now.

Happy Birthday, Rosa Luxemburg.

My Dad escaped the Nazis in 1939 on the Kindertransport.

He went to night school then University, trained as a physicist. Married my mum, brought up 3 kids, all work in public sector.

Under these proposed rules, he would have been deported.

100% 'performatively cruel' @stellacreasy.bsky.social

Really necessary set of essay about this moment:

www.jadaliyya.com/Details/47192

Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war.

Centre for Palestine Studies Annual Lecture: "History, Gaza, and the question of Genocide"

Dr. Ussama Makdisi, Professor of History and Chancellor’s Chair at the University of California Berkeley

2 March 2026, @soasuni.bsky.social
Register here: www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/...

We‘re delighted to announce our GPS student Mahnoor Omer has been recognized in TIME magazine’s Women of the Year list!

Congratulations from everyone at the department! 👏

LSE Gender students change the world!

Mahnoor Omer Is Challenging Pakistan’s ‘Period Tax’ The lawyer and activist sees this case as just the first of many

Our students are changing the world!

Named by Time Magazine as one of its ‘women of the year’.

Mahnoor Omer, MSc in Gender, Peace and Security.

So proud of you, Mahnoor! 👏🏽👏🏽
@lsegender.bsky.social

time.com/collections/...

Good morning! And, especially, to Gorton and Denton.

Yes. So important to say this in these times.

It hurt when the N-word was shouted out at the Baftas – but we are also hearing it so much outside | Nadine White I was disturbed, but I wasn’t shocked. It’s a bigger problem that in these toxic times, so many of us endure this and other slurs in our daily lives, says journalist and film-maker Nadine White

Nadine White: “We never want to hear that word, and right now, we are seeing and hearing it far too often. If you were shocked by hearing it said out loud at the Baftas, imagine some racist shouting it at you in the street”.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

More than 600 people have died trying to cross Mediterranean in 2026, UN says Deadliest start to a year in more than a decade, according to the International Organization for Migration

It’s only February www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

“Bot-bias stands to magnify many times over the endless hierarchies and discriminations that define it. But only a well-supported tradition of conscientious social science research will be able to track and highlight this”.

Political attacks on social science open the way to tech dystopia Authoritarian regimes from the US to China and India perceive many humanities and social sciences as both useless and dangerous. But while their truths might be inconvenient, they are vital to prevent...

Political attacks on social science open the way to tech dystopia.
www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/politi...

🤔 Interested in Gender Studies?

🧑‍🏫 Join our Taster Lecture this Friday with @aikoiiris.bsky.social

➡️ Register here: tinyurl.com/udmkmasy

Arundhati Roy quits Berlinale after jury chief’s ‘unconscionable’ Gaza remarks Booker winner says jury’s argument that art shouldn’t be political is ‘jaw-dropping’

Courage and integrity.

www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/a...

Impact of two decades of humanitarian and development assistance and the projected mortality consequences of current defunding to 2030: retrospective evaluation and forecasting analysis ODA funding has played a decisive role in reducing preventable mortality across LMICs over the past two decades, and the abrupt withdrawal of this support threatens to cause millions of avoidable deat...

Horrific cost of DOGE cuts:

If current projected US foreign aid cuts remain in place, by 2030 "the projected excess deaths would be 9.4 million (95% UI 6.2–12.6) overall and 2.5 million (1.8–3.2) among children younger than 5 years."

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Gender studies courses are shutting down across the US. The Epstein files reveal why | Joan Wallach Scott Texas A&M University is the latest school to end women’s and gender studies programs and teaching race. We know why

Joan W. Scott calling upon democrats everywhere👇🏽

“The suppression of gender studies is not only an attempt to suppress a critical analytical tool, but also knowledge itself.

“Defence of gender studies is… a vital stand (for)…democracy, one based on aspirations for equality and justice for all”.

The Home Secretary needs to apologise for silencing dissent, interfering in fundamental freedoms, and for the horrific misuse of terrorism powers against the hunger strikers.

UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule Protest group’s co-founder wins legal challenge against decision to proscribe it under anti-terrorism laws

‘The co-founder of Palestine Action has won a legal challenge to the home secretary’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws’!!

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

UK being ‘colonised by immigrants’, says Man United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe Britain’s seventh-richest man, who vocally backed Brexit then moved to Monaco, also hits out at people on benefits

To think that all this while, serious scholars of colonialism and decolonisation have been tearing their hair over the precise meanings of colonialism and imperialism including over who, when and what is the colonial/postcolonial/decolonial.

But, really, they could’ve asked him for their meanings.

Jules Verne’s dystopia was a world without humanities. Do... When arts education is dismissed as a waste of time it damages us as a society. The focus of learning is not just to enrich our economy but also to enrich our souls

'Cutting off funding for culture and knowledge has social and political consequences. If you want a healthy and harmonious civil society, invest in the humanities and the arts, for they foster understanding, knowledge and empathy.'

I was thirteen when I first read Wuthering Heights. I still have that copy. And, one of the most memorable words—in fact, I had to look it up- was the description of Heathcliff as ‘swarthy’.

Seeing James Howson as Heathcliff made complete sense to that thirteen year old reading Wuthering Heights.

A Literature Professor Weighs in On Wuthering Heights' 'Whitewashed' Heathcliff "Race is a huge preoccupation in the novel (and all the Brontës’ novels, for that matter)..."

In case you'd like to read on the current 'race' conversation re Wuthering Heights.
My claim to fame is that I had the privilege of having coffee w/ Prof Jo Macdonagh when she was invited to our uni. Just the two of us at Café de la Paix 😀
A great scholar.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jacob-...

I’m very excited to share that our edited volume Creative Critical Interventions for Social Justice is now out! 🧿

It is available open access and can be downloaded at: uclpress.co.uk/book/creativ...

Nor are we surprised that many male colleagues will continue to insist that sex, gender and race are irrelevant to politics