s part of our new #reconstructionwork programme, Stuart Hall Foundation is hosting a series of online one-to-one conversations. Bringing together writers, artists and activists, the conversations will consider how we can build a better society in response to the Covid-19 crisis and the Black Lives Matter protests worldwide. They will explore how the long histories of black cultural and political activism can help us construct just and equal futures, working across different generations and geographies.

For our third conversation in the series, you will meet SHF trustee Catherine Hall, Emerita Professor of History and Chair of the Centre of the Study of British Slave-ownership at UCL, and Ruth Ramsden-Karelse, founder and co-convener of the Oxford Queer Studies Network and Stuart Hall scholar at Merton College, Oxford University.

The most recent wave of Black Lives Matter protests has rejuvenated popular debate over the removal of statues of British slave owners from public spaces. The fall of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol and calls to remove statues of Winston Churchill, Lord Nelson and Cecil Rhodes has forced the British public to reconsider questions of history and colonial legacies.

Catherine and Ruth will explore the importance of new histories, Reparations, working to decolonise education and shifting collective memories in the effort to imagine new futures.