Luke de Noronha is joined by Chenchen Zhang, Associate Professor in International Relations at Durham University. Chenchen’s book Easting the West: Theorizing the Postliberal Conjuncture from China, was published by Oxford University Press in June 2026. The book examines how ideas of ‘the West’ and articulations of China-West difference are produced and mobilized in contemporary China, with a focus on reactionary political discourse in Chinese cyberspace. Chenchen situates the Chinese case study within a wider critique of the global far right and postcolonial nationalisms.

This podcast was recorded in June 2026.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A conversation about Rahul Rao’s book, ‘The Psychic Lives of Statues’. The conversation considers the agitation caused by attempts to remove celebratory statues of figures involved in the violence of the Atlantic Slave trade or of colonialism. Are statues made into ‘idols’ by people who want to defend these histories? How should we understand the sudden ‘coming alive’ of these previously forgotten and unnoticed representations of the human form? What can we learn from the distinctive erection of statues by corporate or state projects in our time and should we view these recent attempts to mark and control space through statues as a continuation of the spatial and representation tactics of European colonialism?

The conversation was recorded in July 2025.

Speakers: Gargi Bhattacharyya and Rahul Rao.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Luke de Noronha is joined by Gavan Titley, Professor in the Department of Media Studies at Maynooth University. Gavan has written several books on race, racism and multiculturalism, with a particular focus on the generative role of media and communication, including Is Free Speech Racist? with Polity Press in 2020. They discuss the question of free speech, which has become so central to questions of native entitlement and authoritarian populism in the present.

The conversation was recorded in November 2025.

Speakers: Luke de Noronha and Gavan Titley

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.