June 27, 2025 McMillan Memorial Library, Banda Street, Nairobi, Kenya.

The workshop is organised and facilitated by Koni Benson (Revolutionary Papers) and Wairimu Gathimba (Ukombozi Library), featuring fellow makers of the Ukombozi digital teaching tool Njoki Wamai (Ukombozi Library) & Kimani Waweru (Ukombozi Library). They will be joined by a panel featuring Hon. Yusuf Hassan, who was part of the MWAKENYA/UKENYA movements; Mwongela Kamencu of Ukombozi Review; and Mutanu Kyany’a of African Digital Heritage, all who have worked in different capacities as cultural workers and curators of counterhegemonic histories.

Facilitators and speakers:

Koni Benson is a historian, organiser, and educator. She is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape. Her research focuses on collective interventions in histories of contested development and the mobilisation, demobilisation, and remobilisation of struggle history in southern Africa’s past and present. This involves working with various archives and coproducing life histories of self-organisation and unfolding political struggles of collective resistance against displacement and for access to land and public services (such as water, housing, and education) in South Africa.

Wairimu Gathimba is a writer and researcher within Kenya’s social justice movement. She is a member of Ukombozi Library and it’s offshoot the Kenya Organic Intellectuals Network. She is currently working as a research assistant on the global corridor project, which seeks to challenge the high modernist ways infrastructural projects are conceptualized by showing how these visions are often complicated by unconsidered realities on the ground, highlighting the need for the development of more inclusive development visions.

Njoki Wamai PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Politics and International Relations at USIU-A in Nairobi and member of the Ukombozi Management Committee. Her work has mainly focused on power and citizenship in the context of international interventions like the ICC and transitional justice in Africa, African feminisms and decolonial research practices. Her PhD focused on politics of international intervention in Kenya during the ICC intervention and she continues to research and consult on ethnicity, conflict, reconciling divided societies, gender and Decolonising Knowledge by questioning Eurocentric paradigms through African realities.

Mwongela Kamencu “Monaja” is a young Kenyan performing/recording artist whose style of music mostly fuses the sounds of African instruments with contemporary styles of music. Trained as a historian and previously a history lecturer, his music addresses sociopolitical themes often with a touch of humour. He has worked closely with leftist movements in Kenya and Tanzania for more than a decade and has had artistic engagements with citizens of both countries over the same period. His recently released album – June 25th – highlights the 2024 uprising by the Kenyan youth against Kenya’s political elite and their benefactors.

Mutanu Kyany’a is a digital society scholar who works with African communities to identify how they can use technology to protect, preserve and promote their culture and heritage assets. She has extensive experience in designing holistic digital approaches that support research and innovation that centre the needs and realities of communities in the cultural heritage sector in Kenya.

Launch of the Pelican House’s first exhibition in collaboration with MayDay Rooms and Revolutionary Papers.

April 9, 2025 Pelican House, 144 Cambridge Heath Rd, Bethnal Green, London. E1 5QJ.

An Exhibit on Anti-colonial Print Culture exhibits fabric prints of the covers of anti-colonial periodicals and materials from the MayDay Rooms archives, and kicking the exhibit off with a discussion between archivists from around the world and contemporary organisers active in anti-imperialist solidarity movements today.

Speakers and chair:

Mahvish Ahmad works on anticolonial periodicals and movement materials, the intellectual and political labour of movements targeted in repression, documentary practices in sites of disappearance, fugitive organising under conditions of war, and other material legacies of anti-colonial and left movements, especially in Balochistan and Pakistan. She’s a cofounder of Revolutionary Papers (with C. Morgenstern, K. Benson), Archives of the Disappeared (with M. Qato, Y. Navaro, C. Morgenstern), and Tanqeed (with M. Tahir). She’s also a UK-based trustee of the South Asian Research and Resource Centre, founded by Ahmad Salim. She’s an Assistant Professor of Human Rights and Politics and a Co-Director of LSE Human Rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Koni Benson is a historian, organiser, and educator. She is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape. Her research focuses on collective interventions in histories of contested development and the mobilisation, demobilisation, and remobilisation of struggle history in southern Africa’s past and present. This involves working with various archives and coproducing life histories of self-organisation and unfolding political struggles of collective resistance against displacement and for access to land and public services (such as water, housing, and education) in South Africa.

Hana Morgenstern is a scholar, writer and translator of Middle Eastern literatures. She is an Associate Professor in Postcolonial and Middle Eastern Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at Newnham College. She currently co-convene the Revolutionary Papers and the Archives of the Disappeared research projects.

Shiraz Durrani is a British-Kenyan library science professional and author known for his contributions to the social and political dimensions of information and librarianship. His work often focuses on the intersection of information, politics, and liberation struggles, particularly in the context of Kenya and the broader anti-imperialist movement.

Tarun Gidwani is a research student in philosophy at King’s College London; specialising in the ethics of international trade. He is a part of the South Asia Solidarity Group in London and is engaged in political campaigns around climate justice, disability rights and healthcare

Ashraf Nabil of the Palestinian Youth Movement (“PYM”) a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and in exile worldwide as a result of the ongoing Zionist colonization and occupation of our homeland.

& A Speaker from MayDay Rooms

A Traveling Exhibition of Anticolonial Journals is an exhibition featuring reproductions of the covers of leftist anti-colonial and anti-imperial periodicals from the twentieth century. The exhibition forms part of a larger research and teaching project by Revolutionary Papers, a transnational and transdisciplinary collaborative research project whose aim is to resurrect the periodicals in the present by emphasizing the strength of the pedagogical properties of the journals, as well as their potential to complicate the historicity of Western ideas of linear time-space.

This exhibition was first created and curated by cultural scholar and Assistant Curator at Zeitz MoCAA, Dr. Phokeng Setai, at Community House in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2022. They entitled it Quiet Dog, Bite Hard, a reference to a monologue by legendary Afrobeats musician and anti-imperial political firebrand Fela Kuti, which opens the song of the same name by artist Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) emphasising that conditions of intense subjugation do not necessarily repress the oppressed; instead, they often make them fight back harder.

“One thing I want to assure them
If they think I’m gonna change or compromise
My attitude and my way of life or
In my expression or in my goal
Towards politics
They are making me stronger
And I am much stronger now…”

Click here for:
Setai Curatorial Statement and 2022 Exhibition Photos

This second installation at Historical Materialism 2024 is curated by artist, curator and producer, Seda Ergul, cofounder of Queer Art Projects and a founding member of the Istanbul Queer Art Collective.

For more information contact revolutionarypapers@gmail.com

Nov 8, 2024 Brunei Gallery, Lecture Theatre Foyer, Lower Ground Floor, Historical Materialism Conference, SOAS, London

In this presentation and discussion, Revolutionary Papers editors Mahvish Ahmad, Koni Benson and Hana Morgenstern will present our new RHR special issue on Anticolonial Periodicals of the Global South and our series on Radical Papers of the African Left. We will be joined in conversation with Chair Mezna Qato to discuss the place of periodicals and revolutionary archives at a historic moment of third world liberation and internationalism.

Speakers and chair:

Mahvish Ahmad works on anticolonial periodicals and movement materials, the intellectual and political labour of movements targeted in repression, documentary practices in sites of disappearance, fugitive organising under conditions of war, and other material legacies of anti-colonial and left movements, especially in Balochistan and Pakistan. She’s a cofounder of Revolutionary Papers (with C. Morgenstern, K. Benson), Archives of the Disappeared (with M. Qato, Y. Navaro, C. Morgenstern), and Tanqeed (with M. Tahir). She’s also a UK-based trustee of the South Asian Research and Resource Centre, founded by Ahmad Salim. She’s an Assistant Professor of Human Rights and Politics and a Co-Director of LSE Human Rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Koni Benson is a historian, organiser, and educator. She is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape. Her research focuses on collective interventions in histories of contested development and the mobilisation, demobilisation, and remobilisation of struggle history in southern Africa’s past and present. This involves working with various archives and coproducing life histories of self-organisation and unfolding political struggles of collective resistance against displacement and for access to land and public services (such as water, housing, and education) in South Africa.

Hana Morgenstern is a scholar, writer and translator of Middle Eastern literatures. She is an Associate Professor in Postcolonial and Middle Eastern Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at Newnham College. She currently co-convene the Revolutionary Papers and the Archives of the Disappeared research projects.

Mezna Qato is Director of the Margaret Anstee Centre for Global Studies at Newnham College, University of Cambridge. Dr Qato’s research and teaching interests centre on histories and theories of social, economic and political transformation amongst refugee and stateless communities, the politics and practice of archives, and global micro-histories of movements and collectivities in the Middle East. She is currently completing a book on the history of education for Palestinians.

For more information contact revolutionarypapers@gmail.com

Nov 13, CKK.1.07, Cheng Kin Ku Building, LSE, London.

In this roundtable discussion, contributors to Revolutionary Papers including Selma James, Asher Gamedze, Rafeef Ziadeh and Sara Marzagora join editors Mahvish Ahmad, Koni Benson and Hana Morgenstern in a discussion with chair Sara Salem about the place of periodicals and revolutionary media at a historic moment of third world liberation and internationalism.

We are proud to be discussing two new issues:

This November 2024, Revolutionary Papers released a curated issue with Radical History Review, a leading journal bringing rigorous historical scholarship together with active political engagement.

Throughout 2023-24, Revolutionary Papers joined forces with Africa Is A Country to feature a series on papers on left, anti-colonial revolt from Africa and the African diaspora.

Speakers and chair:

Mahvish Ahmad works on anticolonial periodicals and movement materials, the intellectual and political labour of movements targeted in repression, documentary practices in sites of disappearance, fugitive organising under conditions of war, and other material legacies of anti-colonial and left movements, especially in Balochistan and Pakistan. She’s a cofounder of Revolutionary Papers (with C. Morgenstern, K. Benson), Archives of the Disappeared (with M. Qato, Y. Navaro, C. Morgenstern), and Tanqeed (with M. Tahir). She’s also a UK-based trustee of the South Asian Research and Resource Centre, founded by Ahmad Salim. She’s an Assistant Professor of Human Rights and Politics and a Co-Director of LSE Human Rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Koni Benson is a historian, organiser, and educator. She is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape. Her research focuses on collective interventions in histories of contested development and the mobilisation, demobilisation, and remobilisation of struggle history in southern Africa’s past and present. This involves working with various archives and coproducing life histories of self-organisation and unfolding political struggles of collective resistance against displacement and for access to land and public services (such as water, housing, and education) in South Africa.

Asher Gamedze is a cultural worker based in Cape Town, South Africa. They are involved in a free-lance capacity in cultural work as a musician – primarily as a drummer and a bandleader, as well as a researcher and writer, an organiser and a popular educator. They are broadly interested in histories of revolutionary struggle, particularly in anti-colonial contexts, as well as thought and practices emerging from them and various other emancipatory struggles. Their engagement across all the various activities and forms of work in which they are involved, is informed by and attempts to extend these liberatory traditions. For Revolutionary Papers, Asher Gamedze co-authored a digital teaching tool on Namibian Review: A Journal of Comtemporary South West African Affairs with Koni Benson and Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja.

Chana Morgenstern is a scholar, writer and translator of Middle Eastern literatures. She is an Associate Professor in Postcolonial and Middle Eastern Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at Newnham College. She currently co-convene the Revolutionary Papers and the Archives of the Disappeared research projects.

Selma James is a women’s rights and anti-racist activist and writer for the Johnson-Forest Tendency with Raya Dunayevskaya & Grace Lee Boggs and led by the Trinidad socialist historian and activist, CLR James. Authoring pivotal works such as Sex, Race and Class (1974) and Marx and Feminism (1983) Selma James was also an editor in the Tendency’s newspaper, Correspondence, before co-founding the Women’s Centre which evolved into the Crossroads Women’s Centre a disability-accessible, multi-racial community resource in Kentish Town, London.

Sara Marzagora is a literary and intellectual historian of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Her research focuses on conceptualisations of the “global”, both in terms of its historical genealogies and as a set of methods to subvert Eurocentric and neocolonial epistemologies. She has written about the potential and limitations of the “transnational turn” in the humanities from the point of view of three interrelated disciplines: intellectual history, literature, and political thought. Her approach to cultural and intellectual production draws on Marxist and sociological methodologies. She is currenty a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at Kings College London. For Revolutionary Papers, Sara Marzagora co-authored a digital teaching tool entitled Teaching Lotus on the magazine first entitled Afro-Asian Writings before being renamed in 1970 to Lotus.

Rafeef Ziadah is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and Public Policy (Emerging Economies) at King’s College London. Her research focuses broadly on political economy, gender and race, with a particular focus on the Middle East and East Africa. For Revolutionary Papers, Rafeef Ziadah co-authored with Sara Marzagora a digital teaching tool entitled Teaching Lotus on the magazine first entitled Afro-Asian Writings before being renamed in 1970 to Lotus.

Sara Salem is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at LSE. Her main research interests include political sociology, postcolonial studies, Marxist theory, feminist theory, and global histories of empire and imperialism. She is an editor at the journals Sociological Review and Historical Materialism.

For more information contact revolutionarypapers@gmail.com

Nov 1, Graduate Seminar Room, South-West Engineering Building, East Campus, Wits University, Johannesburg.

RSVP: Antonette.Gouws@wits.ac.za

The event is hosted by the Wits History Workshop, and will include inputs by contributing authors, Noor Nieftagodien, Sa’eed Husaini, Nombuso Mathibela, Kebotlhale Motseothata, and Koni Benson, and a reflection by Will Shoki of Africa is a Country.

For more information contact revolutionarypapers@gmail.com

28 – 30 April 2022

DAY 1: Thursday, 28 April

9-9.30          Coffee/Tea  & Registration

9.30-10        Welcome & Opening Remarks

Revolutionary Papers Team: Mahvish Ahmad, Hana Morgenstern, Koni Benson, Sara Kazmi

Department of History, UWC, Head of Department: Paolo Israel

Center for Humanities Research, Director: Heidi Grunebaum

10-12            Introducing Revolutionary Periodicals

All participants take one minute each to introduce the journal they have brought to the conference.

12.00-1.00     Lunch

1.00-1.15       Framing the Counter-Political with Mahvish Ahmad (Sociology, London
School of Economics and Political Science)

1.15-3.00       PANEL 1: Third World Socialism(s) and Solidarities in Circulation

Speakers
Semeneh Ayalew (Ethiopian Studies, University of Addis Ababa)
Title/Journal: “Abyotawi Medrek/Revolutionary Forum: An Exercise in Free Expression in Revolutionary Ethiopia”
Abstract

Om Prasad (History, Gujrat Institute for Development Research)
Title/Journal: “Vijnan Karmee: Science and Solidarity: The Vigyan Karmee and the Quest for an ‘Afro- Asian Science’”
Abstract

Marral Shamshiri-Fard (International History, London School of Economics)
Title/Journal: Sawt al Thawra (Voice of the Revolution)
Abstract
Teaching Tool

Ruth Nyambura (Independent Scholar)
Title/Journal: Struggling for Land in the Shadow and Afterlife of the Mau Mau Anti-Colonial Movement: An Examination of the Selected Texts of Kenya’s Marxist Underground Movement (MWAKENYA – December Twelve Movement), 1974-2002
Abstract
Twitter Teaching Tool

Moderator
Patricia Hayes (Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape)

3.00-3.15       Coffee/Tea Break

3.15- 5.15      PANEL 2: Internationalism & Pan-Africanism in Print

Speakers
Przemyslaw Strozek (Polish Academy of Sciences/ Archiv der Avant-garden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden)
Title/Journal: “Casa de Las Americas, Souffles, AfricAsia: Casa de Las Americas and its transcontinental network in the years of 1965-1972”
Abstract

Thandi Gamedze (Center for Education Rights and Transformation, University of Johannesburg)
Title/Journal: “The Journal of Black Theology in South Africa and its Contribution to the Struggle for Liberation”
Abstract

Corinne Sandwith (English, University of Pretoria)
Title/Journal: “Umsebenzi / Umvikele-thebe: Reading Ethiopia in Radical South African Newspapers”
Abstract

Estefania Bournot (German Forum of Art History/ Free University of Berlin)
Title/Journal: “Front Brésilien D’information: Networks of (miss)information: fighting against ‘general understanding’”
Abstract

Khalid Shamis (Centre for Humanities Research & Department of History, University of the Western Cape)
Title/Journal: Al-Inqad
Abstract

Moderator
Mahvish Ahmad (Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science)

5.15-5.30       Reflection on Day 1 with Ruchi Chaturvedi (Other Universals/Sociology,
University of Cape Town)

5.30-6.00       Break w/ Revolutionary Music

6.00-9.00       Revolutionary Papers: A Traveling Exhibition of Anticolonial Journals

Opening Remarks
Revolutionary Papers Team
Bevil Lucas, Cissie Gool House
Suren Pillay, Center for Humanities Research, UWC
Monwabisi Ralarala, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, UWC

Phokeng Setai (Curator of Quiet Dog Bite Hard: Clandestine Networks of Revolutionary Papers)

Michael Bhatch (Sonic Lecture: Revolutionary Records & Vinyl Set: Projecting and Shaping Black Futures Through Sound and Album Art)

Nombuso Mathibela (Sonic Lecture & Vinyl Set: Continental Staffriders’ Liberation Bonfires and Dance)

Sara Kazmi (Songs of Protest from South Asia)

Soundz of the South (Songs of Protest from South Africa)

DAY 2: Friday, 29 April

10-10.30        Coffee/Tea & Arrival

10.30-10.45   Framing the Counter-Cultural with Hana Morgenstern (English, University
of Cambridge)

10.45-12.30   PANEL 3: Anticolonial Art Forms and Practices

Speakers
Nelson Mlambo (Language and Literature Studies, University of Namibia)
Title/Journal: “The Combatant: A Literary and Rhetorical Analysis of Selected Anti-Apartheid Discourses: Plan’s The Combatant, SWAPO’s Pre-independence Revolutionary Magazine”
Abstract

Sarah Jilani (English, City University of London)
Title/Journal: Genç Sinema / Yedinci Sanat
Abstract

Kebotlhale Motseothata (African Literature, University of the Witwatersrand)
Title/Journal: Dawn
Abstract

Michael Bhatch* (English, University of the Western Cape)
Title/Journal: “Sonic Lecture: Revolutionary Records: Vinyl Set: Projecting and Shaping Black Futures Through Sound & Album Art”
Abstract

Nombuso Mathibela* (Independent Cultural Worker and Writer)
Title/Journal: “Sonic Lecture: Continental Staffriders’ Liberation Bonfires and Dance”
Abstract

Chris Ouma (English Literary Studies/ African Studies, University of Cape Town
Title/Journal: “Small Magazines in Africa: Networks of Curation and Scalability”
Abstract
Project
Note: Chris Ouma will deliver a short lecture on their project at the event

*Nombuso Mathibela and Michael Bhatch will be part of the discussion to offer brief reflections on their performances/presentations from the night before.

Moderator
Itumeleng Wa-Lehulere (Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape)

12.30-1.30 Lunch

1.30-3.30     PANEL 4: Language Politics and the Revolutionary Periodical 

Speakers
Lifang Zhang (Art History, University Currently Known as Rhodes)
Title/Journal: “World Literature: The Chinese Translation and Introduction of African Literature in the Journal of World Literature (1953-1966)”
Abstract

Idriss Jebari (Middle East Studies, Trinity College Dublin)
Title/Journal: Perspectives Tunisiennes / al-‘āmil al-tūnsī
Abstract
Teaching Tool

Sara Kazmi (Postcolonial Literatures, LUMS, Lahore/University of Cambridge)
Title/Journal: Mazdoor Kissan Party Circular
Abstract
Teaching Tool

Sisanda Nkoala (Media, Cape Peninsula University of Technology)
Title/Journal: “Abantu-Batho and Umteteli wa Bantu: The Early Indigenous South African Black Press: A Model for Decoloniality and Multilingualism in Journalism Education”
Abstract
Teaching Tool

Mishca Peters (History, University of the Western Cape)
Title/Journal: “A Children’s Movement for Change: Izwi Labantwana/Die Kinderstem/ Voice of the Children”
Abstract

Moderator
Heidi Grunebaum (Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape)

3.30-3.45     Coffee/Tea Break

3.45-5.30     PANEL 5: Periodicals of Decolonization: Aesthetics and Consciousness
                    9.45am EST; 2.45pm BST

Speakers
Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann (Literatures, Cultures and Languages, University of Connecticut)
Title/Journal: Tropiques
Abstract

Hoda El Shakry (Comparative Literature, University of Chicago)
Title/Journal: “(Non-)Aligned in Print: Anti-Colonial Aesthetics in Souffles-Anfas (1966-1971)”
Abstract

Zaib un Nisa Aziz (History, Yale University)
Title/Journal: “The Masses of India: The Radical Underground: The Secret Circulation of Propaganda and the Rise of Global Anti-Imperial Consciousness 1919-1936”
Abstract

Zeina Maasri (School of Humanities, University of Brighton)
Title/Journal: “Al Hadaf: Militant Imprints: Palestine, Art and Revolution in al-Hadaf (1969–72)​”
Abstract

Moderator
Hana Morgenstern (English, University of Cambridge)

DAY 3: Saturday, April 30

9.30-10        Arrival/Coffee

10-10.15      Reflection on Day 2 with Bongani Kona (History, University of the Western
Cape)

10.15-10.30 Framing the Counter-Institutional with Koni Benson (History, University of
the Western Cape)

10.30-12.15 PANEL 6: The Newspaper as Organizer

Speakers
Sam Longford (Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape)
Title/Journal: Dawn
Abstract

Noor Nieftagodien (The History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand)
Title/Journal: “Congress Militant: The paper as a revolutionary organizer”
Abstract

Danah Abdulla (Graphic Design, Camberwell, Chelsea/ University of the Arts London)
Title/Journal: “Publications as a Form of Solidarity Building: PFLP Bulletin”
Abstract

David Johnson (English, The Open University)
Title/Journal: The Workers’ Herald
Abstract

Moderator
Kelly Gillespie (Anthropology, University of the Western Cape)

12.15-1.15   Lunch

1.15-3.15     PANEL 7: Political Education through Newspapers and Magazines 

Speakers
Ciraj Rassool (History, University of the Western Cape)
Title/Journal: “Schooling the Nation through Words: Reading and Writing in the Non-European Unity Movement, 1940s-50s”
Abstract

Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja (Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies, University of Cape Town) and Koni Benson (History, University of the Western Cape)
Title/Journal: “The Social Life of the Namibian Review
Abstract

Mahvish Ahmad (Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science)
Title/Journal: “On Underground Study Circles as Anticolonial Praxis”
Abstract
Teaching Tool

Leigh-Ann Naidoo (School of Education, University of Cape Town)
Title/Journal: “Publica[c]tion: Publishing, An Alternative and the Creative Process of Critique”
Abstract

Lorna Houston (Programme Coordinator at Brave Rock Girl)
Title/Journal: Pathways to Free Education
Abstract

Moderator
Sara Kazmi (Postcolonial Literatures, LUMS, Lahore/ University of Cambridge)

3.15-3.30     Coffee/Tea Break

3.30-3.45     Reflection on Day 3 with Noor Nieftagodien (The History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand)

3.45-4.45     Teaching Tools & Way Forward

Discussion/ Q&A on Radical Pedagogy with the Digital Teaching Tools Team: Hana Morgenstern, Ben Verghese, Sara Kazmi & Lizzie Malcolm.

Group Discussion on the future of Revolutionary Paper’s Teaching and Publishing Projects.

7.30           Conference Dinner

Revolutionary Papers: A traveling exhibition of anti-colonial journals.

A night of art, music, and conversations on anticolonial, anti-apartheid, left & liberation struggles.

Featuring:

• Phokeng Setai | Curator of Quiet Dog Bite Hard: Clandestine Networks of Revolutionary Papers
• Michael Bhatch | Sonic Lecture: Revolutionary Records & Vinyl Set: Projecting and Shaping Black Futures Through Sound and Album Art
• Nombuso Mathibela | Sonic Lecture & Vinyl Set: Continental Staffriders’ Liberation Bonfires and Dance
• Sara Kazmi | Songs of Protest from South Asia
• Soundz of the South | Protest music from South Africa

Venue: Community House, 41 Salt River Rd, Cape Town
Time: 6.00-9.00 PM

This event is free and open to the public, however due to Covid and catering RSVP is essential.

RSVP: centreforhumanitiesresearch@uwc.ac.za

1 Nov 2021, 1:30-3:15 PM (GMT + 1) via Zoom

Co-hosted by SARRC, Revolutionary Papers, Archives of the Disappeared, and LSE Sociology.

SARRC is an archive of Pakistan’s socialist and democratic movements based near Islamabad. RP is a transnational collaboration exploring 20th century periodicals as forums of Left and anti-colonial thought. Self-funded, volunteer-managed and compiled by political organiser and poet Ahmad Salim over a forty-year period, SARRC showcases magazines, newspapers, books and other materials produced by progressive struggles in Pakistan and South Asia. SARRC will launch a digital search catalogue and revamped physical library that makes its 45,000-strong collection available to scholars and organisers researching progressive histories in Pakistan and South Asia.

The cataloguing project is co-led by Ahmed Salim (SARRC) and Mahvish Ahmad (LSE, SARRC Trustee), and co-funded by the Modern Endangered Archives Program, UCLA and LSE Sociology.

RP explores how left periodicals developed alternative networks at times of imperial and sovereign repression, and articulated unique political vocabularies that addressed local concerns and tied them to global revolutionary politics. RP will launch its Digital Teaching Tools initiative, which provides educators and organisers with the means to teach radical periodicals in classroom and movement contexts.

It is co-founded by Koni Benson (UWC), Chana Morgenstern (Cambridge), and Mahvish Ahmad (LSE).

As part of the joint launch, we will share the first two RP Digital Teaching Tools, based on two 1970s left-wing publications from the SARRC collection:

1. Jabal, an underground bulletin of the Balochistan People’s Liberation Front | Presented by Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur & Mahvish Ahmad
2. Mazdoor Kissan Party Circular, the party organ of the Maoist Workers’ and Peasants Party | Presented by Sara Kazmi

Read more on www.sarrc.org.pk and www.revolutionarypapers.org. Note: New, redesigned websites will be available on both links closer to the launch date.

Schedule:

1:30–1:40 Welcome: On Revolutionary Papers from Pakistan, Mahvish Ahmad
1:40–2:10 Introducing the SARRC Archive, Ahmad Salim, Shahzad Abbas & Fahad Desmukh
2:00–2:40 Teaching Revolutionary Papers: Jabal and the MKP Circular, Chana Morgenstern, Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur & Mahvish Ahmad, Sara Kazmi, Koni Benson
2:40–3:15 Q&A and Closing

Speakers (in order):

Mahvish Ahmad | Assistant Professor, LSE Sociology; SARRC Trustee; RP Collective
Ahmad Salim | SARRC Founder and Custodian
Shahzad Abbas | SARRC Chief Librarian
Fahad Desmukh | SARRC Data Architect
Chana Morgenstern | Lecturer, Cambridge English; RP Collective
Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur | Political organiser with the Baloch struggle; public intellectual and writer on Balochistan
Sara Kazmi | LUMS, Lahore; SARRC Researcher; RP Collective
Koni Benson | Lecturer, UWC History; RP Collective

Chair: Mahvish Ahmad, LSE Sociology

1. How did periodicals help shape collective imaginaries of liberation?
2. How did periodicals shape the formation of local, anti-colonial literary and cultural scenes?
3. How did anticolonial aesthetics take shape through circulation between local, regional and international channels?
4. What role have periodicals played in processes of social change and collective self-definition?
5. How did anti-colonial cultural periodicals support endeavors such as literacy, education, and political mobilization?

The readings that were focal points for the discussion were:

1. Katerina Gonzales Seligmann’s “The Void, the Distance, Elsewhere: Literary Infrastructure and Empire in the Caribbean.”
2. Hala Halim, “Lotus, the Afro-Asian Nexus, and Global South Comparatism.”
3. Hana Morgenstern, “An Archive of Literary Reconstruction after the Nakba.”
4. Jane Rhodes, “Power to the People: The Black Panther and the Pre-Digital Age of Radical Media.”
5. Olivia Harrison, Transcolonial Maghreb, “Souffles-Anfas: Palestine and the Decolonization of Culture” (Section 1, Chapter 1).

After a round of introductions, Chana Morgenstern opened the discussion through a critical overview of the articles, noting how each author raises theoretical and methodological questions for the study of dissident publishing across several regions and disciplines. Drawing attention to the ways in which revolutionary periodicals across the globe can be analysed together, Chana began by discussing the shared material conditions of journals operating under conditions of colonialism, violence, and ruin. Bringing together the case of societal destruction in Palestine, with the “infrastructural blockages left in empire’s wake” in the Caribbean highlighted by Katerina, who was also one of the participants, she stressed how revolutionary journals saw themselves faced with a ‘cultural void’ lacking ‘literary infrastructures’ essential to any intellectual sphere. Chana identified how the lack of these material “conditions of possibility” was seldom discussed in studies of counter-institutional literary production.

Expanding this discussion on “literary infrastructures,” other participants contributed insights from their own regions and literary journals that they will be presenting at the main conference next year. Sara Kazmi spoke about the reliance on “infrastructures of orality” among revolutionary journals in Punjab, Pakistan, where dissemination through published copies went hand in hand with performative means of circulation. Further, Zeina Maasri and Zaib Aziz pointed out how radical publishing often subverted infrastructures of the dominant for their own ends. For instance, Zeina described how missionary printing presses were appropriated by anticolonial literary magazines in Beirut, and Zaib explained the importance of imperial shipping routes to the transnational transport of proscribed Communist papers to and from India. They were joined by Mahvish Ahmed and Alexandra Reza, who pushed the group to consider the kinds of infrastructures demanded by clandestine publications operating in underground conditions. Alexandra spoke about how dissident magazines were compelled to destroy their material to escape draconian repression under Portugese colonialism, while Mahvish highlighted how the Baloch nationalist magazine, Jabbal, survived precisely due to a “portable infrastructure” mandated by a situation of ongoing militant insurgency.

Thus, while the “infrastructural void” spotlighted by Katerina confronted radical publications in all these different regions, intellectuals were also able to respond creatively to the challenge, in ways that reflected the specific cultural and political contexts they were embedded in. Jane Rhodes further stressed the positionality of actors in a geopolitical setting, drawing on her study of the Black Panthers to point out how ideological shifts, changing personnel, and broader political currents are key to shaping revolutionary publishing, yet a narrow focus on literary content still dominates studies. Jane’s intervention facilitated a critical discussion around Hala Halim’s article on Lotus, the Soviet-funded Afro-Asian literary magazine based in Beirut. Michael Peddycoart spoke about how the Marxist-Leninist Palestinian organ, Al-Hadaf grappled with the tension between its financing imperatives and ideological commitment, a question that confronted many anticolonial, oppositional papers, as pointed out by David Johnson. However, questions of funding sources, particularly in the context of the cultural battles of the Cold War context, should not overdetermine our analysis of dissident publishing in the Global South. Layli Uddin for instance, spoke about the communities forged between peasants and urban intellectuals involved in the publication of Maoist magazines in 1970s Bangladesh, drawing attention to the social worlds and relations of revolutionary labour that made counter-political publishing possible.

Revolutionary Papers’ inaugural workshop contended with the cultural, material, and political conditions that shaped the form and content of liberatory imaginations found in twentieth century literary periodicals of the Global South. The role played by broader geopolitics, publishing infrastructures, ongoing regional struggles, and cultural institutions emerged as key considerations in the study of dissident papers produced under conditions of imperialism and neocolonialism. Participants will pick up the discussion next week, in a second workshop that will further explore these themes in relation to the “Counter-political”, which will focus on non-canonical political vocabularies of critique that addressed both regional and global struggles.