Akil N Awan's Avatar

Akil N Awan

@akilnawan.bsky.social

Academic at Royal Holloway, University of London. Director of the Conflict, Violence and Terrorism Research Centre (CVTRC) @cvtrc.bsky.social. Words in New Statesman, BBC History, National Interest, History Today, Jacobin, BylineTimes, Independent

2,491 Followers  |  1,242 Following  |  227 Posts  |  Joined: 18.11.2024  |  2.0041

Latest posts by akilnawan.bsky.social on Bluesky

Time to delete your academia,edu account πŸ‘‡

23.09.2025 08:56 β€” πŸ‘ 11    πŸ” 16    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Oh yeah :-) Thanks @akilnawan.bsky.social for this amazing volume of work. Looking forward to diving in!

15.07.2025 18:11 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image Post image

πŸ“£ The CVTRC is pleased to announce a 1-day Symposium on 'Popular Culture and World Politics: Portraying War, Conflict & Political Violence'.
Full Programme below

πŸ“† 24/07/25 at Stewart House, London.

If you would like to attend, please get in touch: akil.awan@rhul.ac.uk

14.07.2025 10:07 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Decades of mechanistic talk about university degrees as if they were bundles of 'skills' and 'prep' are about to be proved completely wrong (obviously). Want to get a real boost? Do History or English.

13.07.2025 10:19 β€” πŸ‘ 4031    πŸ” 1116    πŸ’¬ 209    πŸ“Œ 281

Congrats, John! Looking forward to catching up properly at STR - it's been a while!

24.06.2025 11:59 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Conceptualizing Extreme Beliefs and Behaviors: Definitions and Relations Abstract. This book explores challenging conceptual issues in defining, analyzing, conceptualizing, and operationalizing notions such as extremism, radical

The new book from @rikpeels.bsky.social and I comes out 19 August. The eager beavers among you can access it online now. More information, along with table of contents from our amazing contributors, available here:

academic.oup.com/book/60542?s...

23.06.2025 12:07 β€” πŸ‘ 16    πŸ” 11    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 2

In the world Labour is creating you can be as enthusiastic as you like about genocide but it will be a criminal offence to express support for Palestine Action's attempts to stop it.

23.06.2025 17:49 β€” πŸ‘ 606    πŸ” 194    πŸ’¬ 10    πŸ“Œ 1

πŸ“£ Deadline extendedπŸ“£

Due to popular request, the submission deadline for the Symposium on: 'Popular Culture and World Politics: Portraying War, Conflict, & Political Violence' has been extended to Wed 25 June.

πŸ“… The symposium will be held on 24/07/25 at Stewart House, London

23.06.2025 16:01 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
All the ways the Trump administration is going after colleges and universities In seeking to reshape elite universities, the Trump administration is using several tactics, including freezing federal grants and contracts, and threatening colleges' tax-exempt status.

All the ways the Trump administration is going after colleges and universities

www.npr.org/2025/06/10/n...

10.06.2025 13:19 β€” πŸ‘ 22    πŸ” 18    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Registration for the @socterres.bsky.social 17th Intl Conference closes a week today! Join us at @royalholloway.bsky.social's beautiful Egham Campus, near LHR ✈️ for two days of cutting edge research on terrorism and political violence. 7-8 July. πŸ”œ πŸ‘‡

@akilnawan.bsky.social @dasilvajr.bsky.social

30.05.2025 14:31 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
NgΕ©gΔ© wa Thiong’o, giant of African literature, dies aged 87 Kenyan writer’s death announced by his daughter, who wrote: β€˜He lived a full life, fought a good fight’

β€œLanguage as culture is the collective memory bank of a people’s experience in history”

NgΕ©gΔ© wa Thiong’o
1938 - 2025

29.05.2025 06:28 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 7    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image Post image

Better late than never.

1100+ Israeli academics urge Heads of Israeli universities to "mobilize the full weight of Israeli academia to stop the war in Gaza", acknowledging "a horrifying litany of war crimes and even crimes against humanity, all of our own doing."

drive.google.com/file/d/1BeAn...

29.05.2025 07:47 β€” πŸ‘ 32    πŸ” 13    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1
Post image

We are happy to announce that Professor Charlotte Heath-Kelly has been confirmed as a closing Keynote Speaker for the 17th Annual International Conference of the Society for Terrorism Research at the School of Law & Social Sciences and the @CVTRC.bsky.social at @RoyalHolloway.bsky.social.

🧡 1/2

27.05.2025 09:52 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Video thumbnail

RAMAPHOSA: I am sorry I don't have a plane to give you

TRUMP: I wish you did. I'd take it. If your country offered the US Air Force a plane, I would take it

RAMAPHOSA: Okay

21.05.2025 17:01 β€” πŸ‘ 3943    πŸ” 959    πŸ’¬ 581    πŸ“Œ 682
Video thumbnail

HASSAN: What is habeas corpus?

NOEM: Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country

HASSAN: That's incorrect

20.05.2025 14:16 β€” πŸ‘ 44177    πŸ” 12826    πŸ’¬ 4926    πŸ“Œ 5389
Pedro Pascal at #Cannes: "I want people to be safe and protected. I want to live on the right side of history. I am an immigrant. My parents are refugees from Chile. We fled a dictatorship and I was privileged enough to grow up in the United States after asylum in Denmark. I stand by those protections, always."

Pedro Pascal at #Cannes: "I want people to be safe and protected. I want to live on the right side of history. I am an immigrant. My parents are refugees from Chile. We fled a dictatorship and I was privileged enough to grow up in the United States after asylum in Denmark. I stand by those protections, always."

Pedro Pascal at Cannes on the Trump regime’s war on migrants: β€œI want people to be safe and protected. I want to live on the right side of history. I am an immigrant. My parents are refugees from Chile.”

17.05.2025 15:11 β€” πŸ‘ 2795    πŸ” 580    πŸ’¬ 16    πŸ“Œ 51
Post image

Israel's Finance Minister Smotrich: "We are destroying everything that remains in Gaza, the world isn't stopping us." www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

19.05.2025 14:10 β€” πŸ‘ 147    πŸ” 94    πŸ’¬ 18    πŸ“Œ 49
Preview
The Sociology of Violent Extremism: Theoretical and Sociological Approaches This book is an essential collection addressing key challenges in studying violent extremism. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, terrorism

🚨NEW🚨

@surajlakhani.bsky.social and my new edited collection is out! Hard copy available in a few months. academic.oup.com/book/60071

15.05.2025 13:43 β€” πŸ‘ 109    πŸ” 50    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 2
Post image

Grok has more self-awareness than its owner. 🀑

@cnbc.com
www.cnbc.com/2025/05/15/g...

15.05.2025 15:39 β€” πŸ‘ 5497    πŸ” 1407    πŸ’¬ 173    πŸ“Œ 116

Here is the grad speech that NYU is now withholding the student's diploma for:

"As I search my heart today in addressing you all…the only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine."

15.05.2025 14:45 β€” πŸ‘ 3231    πŸ” 1373    πŸ’¬ 121    πŸ“Œ 217
Post image

An X USER, to Grok: β€œWhy are you launching into conversations about white genocide, unprompted?” 🀑

14.05.2025 23:18 β€” πŸ‘ 3846    πŸ” 1187    πŸ’¬ 188    πŸ“Œ 284
Preview
Trump's sanctions on ICC prosecutor have halted tribunal's work Nearly three months ago, U.S. President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.

The ICC’s chief prosecutor has lost access to his email, and his bank accounts have been frozen.

American staffers at the court have been told that if they travel to the U.S. they risk arrest.

NGOs have stopped working with the ICC, the leader of one won’t even reply to ICC emails.

15.05.2025 07:34 β€” πŸ‘ 1932    πŸ” 1266    πŸ’¬ 72    πŸ“Œ 285

Justice Jackson nails where we are right now:

β€œYour argument turns our justice system into a catch me if you can kind of regime from the standpoint of the Executive where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights.”

🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯

15.05.2025 15:25 β€” πŸ‘ 17365    πŸ” 5225    πŸ’¬ 235    πŸ“Œ 231
Preview
Palestine before the Nakba, in 100 photos A glimpse into the places, people and daily life of Palestine before the 1948 Nakba.

Today marks Nakba Day (Palestinian Catastrophe) commemorating the destruction of Palestinian society & homeland in 1948 when Zionist militias expelled 750k Palestinians & captured 78% of historic Palestine.
A glimpse into Palestine before the Nakba, in 100 photos.
www.aljazeera.com/news/longfor...

15.05.2025 17:39 β€” πŸ‘ 14    πŸ” 11    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Mahmoud Khalil, who said, "Anti-Semitism and any form of racism has no place...in this movement [for Palestine]," and was specifically targeted for deportation, while a white Afrikaner and owner of a granite mine, who openly attacks Jews, has been given special refugee status.

15.05.2025 06:33 β€” πŸ‘ 342    πŸ” 147    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 3

Worth repeating that this woman AGREED TO LEAVE THE UNITED STATES.

She said she would go back to Europe, where she held a valid visa that would allow her to temporarily stay.

She just didn't want to go back to Russia, where she feared returning bc of her past persecution for political activities.

14.05.2025 22:44 β€” πŸ‘ 2561    πŸ” 758    πŸ’¬ 50    πŸ“Œ 16
Preview
The GOP's plan to defund Planned Parenthood would add $300 million to the deficit So much for cutting costs.

The plan to defund Planned Parenthood would cost taxpayers $300 million over the next decade, according to a leaked preliminary estimate compiled by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

14.05.2025 23:14 β€” πŸ‘ 5834    πŸ” 2492    πŸ’¬ 154    πŸ“Œ 125
Preview
Why Trump Suddenly Declared Victory Over the Houthi Militia

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/u...

14.05.2025 10:25 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

@akilnawan is following 20 prominent accounts