Jo Littler

Senator Bernie Sanders

“Forget about the polls. Go into the last eight days of this election assuming you are five points behind.”

You heard the man: zohranfornyc.com/gotv

📅 Save the Date:

🎥 POWER, REPRESENTATION, RESISTANCE.
Feminist Media Studies at 50: A Workshop with Leading Scholars 
Hannah Curran-Troop, Rosalind Gill, @jolittler.bsky.social & @lennartspion.bsky.social

🗓 Nov 7, 2025 | 🕙 10:00–12:00
📍 JFKI, Room 203 

registration: https://f.mtr.cool/frmeigfsqh

We must act now: without a written constitution, Reform UK will have carte blanche to toxify our nation | Goerge Monbiot It means breaking with hundreds of years of tradition, but it can’t wait. As hard-right figures spread division and laud autocrats, a fail-safe is vital, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

We're facing a political emergency: a high likelihood of an shamelessly authoritarian government in 2029. So we urgently need this basic safeguard: a codified constitution.
This week's column explains what we're missing and why it's so important.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

[Interview] Politics of care as an antidote to divisions caused by meritocracy Asia Future Forum: Next Democracy | Jo Littler of The Care Collective discusses how merit has been used to sow fear and assault democracy

Here’s an interview I did for the S Korean newspaper @hankyoreh.bsky.social on meritocracy, authoritarianism etc in preparation for the event tomorrow on futures of democracy

english.hani.co.kr/arti/english...

Thrilled to see the announcement for our new journal, Feminism and Organization, I will be co-editing with @profalisonpullen.bsky.social, and a legion of superb feminists around the globe everyone would be honoured to work with: bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/new-journal-... @bupjournals.bsky.social

With my local MP Rachel Maskell now suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party, now is a great time to revisit her extraordinary speech from two weeks ago against the PIP cuts which she describes as Dickensian and cruelly immiserating the community she had sworn to protect.

What a wonderful degree show opening yesterday...!

It's on all weekend and open to all, so come and see the fantastic student work in film, documentary, sreen fiction, audio, animation, journalism, promotional media, scriptwriting, creative writing, photography...

www.goldsmithsmediashow.com

#quiltsky #juneteenth

Meritocracy from below: dreams, divisions, and the struggle for merit in a stigmatised neighbourhood The ideal of a meritocratic society continues to exert significant normative power in political and public discourse, including in discussions about marginalised spaces and neighbourhoods. However,...

My new article in @city-journal.bsky.social argues for a critical understanding of the meritocratic ideal among urban researchers. In particular, it explores the consequences of how this ideal is reproduced in stigmatised neighbourhoods:
doi.org/10.1080/1360.... @lsemethodology.bsky.social

Annual Lecture 2025: Resisting the rise of the radical right - Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust Join us on Wednesday 2 July 2025 with Costas Douzinas, Liz Fekete, Rob Topinka, Zarah Sultana MP and Kojo Koram. Chaired by Esther Leslie.

🚨Amiel & Melburn Lecture 2025

A special panel discussion on 'Resisting the rise of the Radical Right' with @zarahsultana.bsky.social, Costas Douzinas, Rob Topinka, @kojokoram.bsky.social, @irrnews.bsky.social, @afoggyplace.bsky.social

🗓️Wed 2 July
🕠17:30PM
📍Birkbeck University

INFO & REGISTER 👇

“Blue Labour rhetoric likes to imagine that everyone in the UK who isn’t a blue-haired postgraduate is a churchgoing industrial worker, desperate to turn back the clock on multiculturalism and trans rights.”

Opinion | I Worked for Harris and Biden. Here’s the Missing Link for Democrats.

Missed this last month: welcome evidence that somebody in the Democrats has a clue about digital politics (and recognition that in the US as in the UK liberal, progressive and left political groups are still about a decade behind. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/o...

Jo Littler gives a lecture about inequality; behind her is a slide featuring highlights from her book "Against Meritocracy"

Highlight of my day/week: Hearing @jolittler.bsky.social talk about inequality, including highlights from her 2017 book, "Against Meritocracy".
The talk was so provocative, thought-provoking and inspiring that I now have an immense amount of thinking and reading to do now. Wonderful feeling.

thank you so much! It was such a good event

We are the people who Wipe Your A**es! 🏥

@GaryYounge reflects on his Mother’s experience in the NHS as an Immigrant Worker… @nadinewrites1.bsky.social

🎧 Listen To The Full Episode - linktr.ee/overthetopun... (LINK IN BIO) 🔗

This episode is sponsored by @powertochange.org.uk

an excellent discussion with @jolittler.bsky.social about the myth of meritocracy, with hugely quotable pearls such as: "threads of truth within this
quilt blanket of mystification". I recently got Jo Litter's brilliant book Against meritocracy #openaccess here: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mon...

thank you!

Trying to get my head round how this could make it to print. Many warning signs for all of us

As people die from deliberately induced famine in Gaza, this food is likely to be destroyed

Care-stripping: Beyond the Pretence of Care Five years ago, we published The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence. It was a small volume that provided a large overview of what we described as the ‘structural carelessness’ of our worl...

5 yrs after the publication of The Care Manifesto, the Care Collective - incl Catherine Rottenberg + @jolittler.bsky.social, both @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social - reflect on post-pandemic systematic 'care-stripping' across the political stage:
@versobooks.bsky.social

www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/...

What does #sociology have to say about #gender and #class in 2025?
Is academic life any easier for working-class women than it was three decades ago?

📺 WATCH Bev Skeggs, @jolittler.bsky.social and @michaelacbenson.bsky.social in the first of our new Conversations series.

buff.ly/x6b6rzi

Instead of trying to outdo one another with more racist policymaking, we need a government with the courage to address the real problems of skyrocketing poverty and our crumbling national services.

Against culture? Class analysis, strategic essentialism and methodological nationalism after Beverley Skeggs’ Formations of Class and Gender - Simone Varriale, 2025 Beverley Skeggs’ first book (Formations of Class and Gender [FoC&G]) has been central to the study of class and culture, pushing it towards a more sustained con...

I wrote a thing about why 'cultural' class analysis is badly equipped for challenging the cosplaying of working class culture by the far right & why working class formations are best conceptualised as multi-status.

Part of a great SI on Beverley Skeggs' work: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Very cool: @miroborn.bsky.social made a comic narrating findings from his research on class, social mobility and stigmatized neighborhoods. You can find it here in English and German: www.anthonymiroborn.com/comic

Upcoming seminar ⬇️
Prof Jo Littler (Professor of Cultural, Media and Social Analysis @mediacomgold.bsky.social) will outline The Care Manifesto (co-written with members of the Care Collective) & explore corporate carewashing.
📅 4pm, 15 May
More: talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/eb8... @jolittler.bsky.social

Poster for Forum 2029. It lists speakers, as well as event topics and the launch event.

🚨 ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨 'Forum 2029: Building a living standards policy platform for the UK'

These seminars will congregate progressive actors - from across parties, trade unions and campaigns - to build a simple and bold policy platform for the months and years to come 📃
👇

autonomy.work/forum-2029/

Cuts to Winter Fuel Payments, slashing the welfare state and squeezing public spending.

These policies are all deeply unpopular and not what the Labour Party was founded to do.

If the Government doesn’t change course, more defeats like Runcorn could be on the horizon.

Radio 2 - Listen Live - BBC Sounds Listen live to BBC Radio 2 on BBC Sounds

I had a right old rant about Tony Blair's ignorant, self-interested statement on The Jeremy Vine Show today. I mentioned that he has worked as a lobbyist for PetroSaudi, earning Tony Blair Associates £41,000/month, plus 2% of any deal he brokered.
Starts 9 minutes in: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

YouTube video by Robert Reich What is Oligarchy? | Robert Reich

Democrats who think we should stop using the word "oligarchy" ought to watch this video.

Even a system that calls itself a democracy can become an oligarchy if power becomes concentrated in the hands of a few very wealthy people and corporations. www.youtube.com/watch?v=inBW...