The Malcolm Effect

#51 An Introduction to Gender Studies - Dr. Melyssa Haffaf

All things gender! Listen in as Dr. Haffaf takes us through an introduction to gender studies and an explanation of the current debates

 

Dr. Melyssa Haffaf is the Program Director of the Georgetown University Gender⁺ Justice Initiative, where she also teaches Women's and Gender Studies courses. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Sociology and Philosophy from the University of Paris IV – La Sorbonne, and a Doctorate in Literary, Cultural and Linguistic Studies with a focus on Gender from the University of Miami. Her dissertation entitled Shifting Masculinities from North Africa examined discourse and literary representations of masculinity in post-colonial Algeria, Egypt and Morocco.

 

Dr. Haffaf’s research interests include North African cultural productions, Islamic studies, gender studies, feminist theory and praxis, and decolonial and racial theory.

#50 An Introduction to Political Economy - Dr. Bikrum Gill

All things political economy! An introduction to Political Economy with Dr. Gill

 

This episode gives an introduction to political economy and Marxian economies, we define key terms that we often hear in our circles.

 

Dr. Gill is currently working on a book manuscript titled “Race, Nature, and Accumulation: A Decolonial Political Ecological Analysis of Land Grabbing.”  This book examines the motives and consequences of the post financial crisis phenomenon of large-scale agricultural land grabbing, with a particular focus on the “South-South” case of Indian agricultural companies expanding into the Gambella province of Ethiopia. Combining political ecology, political economy, and decolonial theory, this work situates the land grab within the longue duree of colonial-capitalist modernity, and advances the argument that the land grab, as a distinctive post-crisis phenomenon, signifies an attempt to re-constitute the racialized social-ecology of global capitalist development.

 Dr. Gill’s subsequent work will build off from some of the larger implications of the book project, and will seek to intervene in particular into the emergent “epoch” debates which are centered upon locating the social-ecological crisis of climate change within a distinctive geological epoch defined by the rise of the human as geological agent. Specifically, he is concerned with the Eurocentric premise of the major approaches, whether identified as Anthropocene or Capitalocene, as they are all united in granting historical priority to the generative agency of the European human. His approach aims to extend the debate beyond such Eurocentrism, by foregrounding instead how the structuring relations defining the epoch of the climate crisis are born out of the European settler/master’s racialized response to the social-ecological world-making knowledge and agency of non-European peoples. This project thus engages a deeper global history and broader geography of social-ecological co-constitution in order to emphasize first how non-Europeans have been involved in landscape formation for millennia prior to the colonial-capitalist era, and, second, how such knowledge and practice have been both appropriated and erased by colonizing forces.

 

I.G. @TheGambian

Twitter:

@MomodouTaal

@realDrcabbie

#49 Is Islam an anti black religion? - Mustafa Briggs

I believe that the discourse that Islam is an anti black religion, is a disingenuous engagement and routinely attempts to remove the revolutionary possibilities that have been found in Islam by figures such as Malcolm. Listen in as my bro Mustafa Briggs responds to the question.

 

Mustafa Briggs, is a graduate of Arabic and International Relations from the University of Westminster whose dissertation focused on Arabic Literature and Literacy in West Africa. Mustafa started an MA in Translation at SOAS, University of London with a specialisation in Arabic and Islamic Texts, before going onto al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt where he is currently doing another degree in Islamic Studies and Arabic.

Mustafa rose to international acclaim for his ‘Beyond Bilal: Black History in Islam’ lecture series which saw him explore and uncover the deep routed relationship between Islam and Black History; and the legacy of contemporary African Islamic Scholarship and its role in the International Relations of the Muslim World as well as the vital role Female Scholarship plays in the West African Islamic Tradition, which he presented at over 30 Universities across 3 continents, including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale.

Mustafa has also been featured on international media such as AlJazeera and Islam Channel to discuss themes such as Islamic History and Blackness and Islam and is currently working on forthcoming translations of Traditional West African Islamic Texts.

 

I.G. @TheGambian

@MustafaBriggs

Twitter:

@MomodouTaal

#48 Cuba, Revolution and The Act of Solidarity - Manolo De La Santos

In this episode, I speak to Manolo about the reality on the ground in Cuba, how we can truly be in solidarity with those who are victims of imperial violence amongst many other topics.

 

Manolo De Los Santos is Co-Executive Director of The People’s Forum and researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He co-edited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs Hybrid War (LeftWord 2020).

 

I.G. @TheGambian

Twitter:

@MomodouTaal

@manolo_realengo

#47 A Material Analysis of Race -Annie Teriba

What is material analysis? And why is it important to take a material analysis to race and understanding blackness? A masterclass on why we must take a material analysis when thinking about the dispossession of black people. 

 

Annie Olaloku-Teriba is an independent researcher based in London, working on legacies of empire and the complex histories of race.

I.G. @TheGambian

Twitter:

@MomodouTaal

@Annie_etc_

#46 Afghanistan; past and present - Justin Podur

I was joined by anti-imperialist author, Justin Podur, as he breaks down the situation in Afghanistan today whilst highlighting key historical events that have contributed to the present moment.

 

Justin Podur is the author (with Joe Emersberger) of Extraordinary Threat: The US Empire, the Media, and 20 Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela (Monthly Review 2021), of America’s Wars on Democracy in Rwanda and the DR Congo (Palgrave Macmillan 2020) and Haiti’s New Dictatorship (Pluto Press 2012). He has contributed chapters to Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan (University of Toronto Press 2013) and Real Utopia (AK Press 2008). He is an Associate Professor at York University’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change.

In fiction Justin is the author of three novels: The Path of the Unarmed (self-published on Wattpad 2020), Siegebreakers (Roseway 2019) and the Demands of the Dead (self-published 2014). 

A fellow of the Independent Media Institute’s Globetrotter project, he has previously reported from India (Kashmir, Chhattisgarh), Afghanistan, Pakistan, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico (Chiapas), and Israel/Palestine for ZNet, TeleSUR, rabble.ca, Ricochet, and other publications.

 

I.G. @TheGambian

Twitter:

@MomodouTaal

@JustinPodur

 

#45 "From Conservatism to Nkrumah" - Tristan Graham

An engaging conversation with Tristan, a thinker and activist from Jamaica as we speak about the things he is thinking through politically. 

 

Tristan Graham was born on January 15, 2001, in Kingston, Jamaica. He is a Revolutionary Pan-Africanist and young author who specializes in African/African Diaspora history, Philosophy, Gender Studies, and Political Science.

 

Tristan is a well-read young scholar who has an insatiable yearning for knowledge. He currently divides his time amongst, reading articles/books, university, and his love of sports.

The words of Malcolm X’s - You Can’t Hate The Roots of A Tree And Not Hate That Tree speech ignited a flame in his heart and mind at the age of 18. Since then, he has dedicated himself to rigid philosophical, historical, and political studies via his library of approximately 60 books.

Among his main influences are Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Julius Nyerere, Kwame Ture, Marcus Garvey, Thomas Sankara, Dr Yosef Ben Jochannan, Cheikh Anta Diop, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Clenora Hudson-Weems, Dr. Cornel West, Karl Marx, Socrates, and Lao Tzu.

 

I.G. @TheGambian

Twitter:

@MomodouTaal

@TristanG300

#44 The Global Imprint of Imperialism - Yara Shoufani

What is imperialism? Which countries are imperialist? Listen in as I discuss with all things imperialism with Yara

 

Yara Shoufani is an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement in Toronto. She holds a master's in political science, with a research focus on colonisation and gentrification in Occupied Palestine. 

 

I.G. @TheGambian

Twitter:

@MomodouTaal

@Yaraxsh

#43 An Intro to Claudia Jones - Zifeng Liu

Listen in as Zifeng eloquently and succinctly introduces us to the life of the revolutionary Claudia Jones.

 

Zifeng Liu is an intellectual historian of the 20th-century Africana world with specializations in Black internationalism, anticolonial thought, and Afro-Asian solidarity. His current project "Redrawing the Balance of Power: Black Left Feminists, Mao’s China, and the Making of an Afro-Asian Political Imaginary" explores how Black leftist women’s understandings of race, class, gender, sexuality, and empire evolved as they sought Afro-Chinese solidarity within often difficult geopolitical contexts. His research has been featured in The Economist and CGTN. And his essays and reviews in English and Chinese on Black radicalism and African American political culture have been published in the Journal of Intersectionality, Journal of African American History, Journal of Beihang University, The Paper, Initium Media, and SINA News. Zifeng Liu is currently a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies at Cornell University.

 

I.G. @TheGambian

Twitter:

@MomodouTaal

@Zifeng_Liu

#42 "The Clever Blacks" - Nkazimulo Moyeni

In this weeks episode, I am joined by Nkazi from South Africa in which we discuss the all too often familiar phenomena of the black bourgeoisie/middle class, with a particular focus on the South African post apartheid context. 

 

Nkazimulo Moyeni is a Zulu storyteller who has been blessed with the opportunity to use corporate law, photography and writing as mediums of expressing his narrative. A father and a husband to a loving wife, who ensured that the whole house was silent while we did the podcast, ( it’s important that your listeners know this, or else that will be the last silence I experience)

 

I.G. @TheGambian

Nkosi_nkazi

Twitter:

@MomodouTaal