This two-day symposium brings together a range of thinkers who knew or have been influenced by American writer, James Baldwin, to explore his connections and views on Britain and British culture, and to understand how an engagement with different aspects of his work might offer possibilities to trace the shifting priorities of Black British arts, activism and politics from the 1960s to now.

Where: BLOC Cinema, Arts One Building, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End, 1 Westfield Way, London, E1 4PD

When: Friday 21st & Saturday 22nd of March, 9:30am - 6pm

Information on travelling to Queen Mary's campus in Mile End

Access information for BLOC Cinema

Please note: due to space limitations all attendees must pre-register via Eventbrite.

Schedule for Day One: Friday the 21st of March (venue: BLOC Cinema, Arts One Building, Queen Mary University of London)

9:30am -10am: Arrival and welcome (Douglas Field, The University of Manchester) BLOC Cinema

Morning Sessions:

Panel A: 10am -11:45am: Baldwin and Political Activism

Moderator: Rob Waters (Queen Mary University of London)

Participants:

Leila Hassan Howe (Author, editor and activist)

Margaret Busby CBE, Hon. FRSL (Publisher, writer, editor and broadcaster)

Bill Schwarz (Professor Emeritus of English, Queen Mary University)

12pm -1pm: James Campbell: 'James Baldwin in Britain in Ten Objects’

A talk by James Campbell (author of 'Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin') followed by a Q&A.

1pm - 2pm: Lunch

Afternoon Sessions:

Panel B: 2pm - 3:30pm: Baldwin's relationship to the intersectional politics of race, gender and sexuality in literature

Moderator: Kennetta Hammond Perry (Northwestern University)

Participants:

Denise Noble (Cultural sociologist, writer and author of 'Decolonizing and Feminizing Freedom: a Caribbean Genealogy')

Jason Okundaye (Writer, editor and author of 'Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain')

3:30 - 4pm: Break

Panel C: 4pm - 5:30pm: Screening of 'Baldwin's N****r' (Dir: Sir Horace Ové, 1968, 44 minutes) followed by a panel discussion with Campbell X and Clive Nwonka.

Moderator: Rob Waters (Queen Mary University)

Participants:

Campbell X (Writer and director)

Clive Nwonka (Associate Professor in Film, Culture and Society, University College London)

Schedule for Day Two: Saturday the 22nd of March (Venue: BLOC Cinema, Arts One Building, Queen Mary University of London. However, please note that the last session of the day will take place in the Pinter Studio)

9:30am -10am: Arrival & welcome

Morning Sessions:

Panel D: 10am -11:45am: The impact of Baldwin’s artistry on artists and writers

Moderator: Douglas Field (The University of Manchester)

Participants:

Lydia Julien (Artist and archivist at Hackney Archives)

Kadija George Sesay, FRSA, Hon. FRSL (Scholar-Activist, writer and editor; co-editor of 'Encounters with James Baldwin: Celebrating 100 Years')

Topher Campbell (Artist, filmmaker, activist and co-founder of rukus! Federation archive)

Johny Pitts (Writer, photographer and author of 'Afropean: Notes from Black Europe' and 'Home is Not A Place')

12pm -1pm: Michael Raeburn in conversation with Douglas Field

Michael Raeburn (Writer, filmmaker and director. Collaborated with James Baldwin on a screenplay of 'Giovanni's Room') in conversation with Douglas Field (The University of Manchester).

1pm - 2pm: Lunch

Afternoon Sessions:

Panel E: 2pm - 3:30pm: Baldwin and Theatre

Moderator: Isabel Taube (The University of Manchester)

Participants:

Deirdre Osborne Hon. FRSL FRSA (Professor in English Literature and Drama and co-founder of the MA Black British Literature at Goldsmiths University, London)

Anton Phillips (Actor, producer and director. Produced and Directed James Baldwin's play 'The Amen Corner' at the Tricycle Theatre and the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, in 1987)

3:30pm - 4pm: Break

Panel F: 4pm - 5:30pm: Performance and discussion (Venue: Pinter Studio, Arts One Building, Queen Mary University of London, 1 Westfield Way, London, E1 4PD)

Moderator: Douglas Field (The University of Manchester)

Participants:

Sea Sharp (Award-winning poet, performer, and playwright). Author of ‘The Swagger of Dorothy Gale and Other Filthy Ways to Strut’ (Ice Cube Press, 2017) and ‘Black Cotton’ (Waterloo Press, 2019)

Burt Caesar (Actor/Director)

Neil Charles (Composer and bass player. His projects have included Zed U, with Shabaka Hutchings and Tom Skinner, and the more recent ensemble Dark Days, dealing with the work of James Baldwin)

Cleveland Watkiss MBE (Award-winning vocalist, actor and composer. Professor of Voice at Trinity Conservatoire, London)

5:30pm - 6pm: Concluding remarks and thanks

We are delighted to be collaborating with New Beacon Books, who will have a stand selling related literature and books on both days of the symposium.

More information on the project here: https://james-baldwin-and-britain.manchester.ac.uk/

With thanks to our funders: the Arts & Humanities Research Council.

About the Organisers:

Douglas Field

Douglas Field is Professor of American Literature at the University of Manchester. A co-founding editor of James Baldwin Review, he has published widely on the American author. He is the author of James Baldwin (Liverpool University Press, 2011), All Those Strangers: The Art and Lives of James Baldwin (Oxford University Press, 2015), and Walking in the Dark: James Baldwin, My Father, and Me (Manchester University Press, 2024). He is the editor of A Historical Guide to James Baldwin (Oxford University Press, 2009), and the co-editor of a special issue on Baldwin for African American Review (2013).

Kennetta Hammond Perry

Kennetta Hammond Perry is Associate Professor of Black Studies and History at Northwestern University. She is the author of London is the Place for Me: Black Britons, Citizenship and the Politics of Race (OUP, 2016). Currently she serves as a member of the editorial collective for History Workshop Journal and is on the editorial board for the American Historical Review. She is also completing a book manuscript, Living and Dying in David Oluwale’s Britain focused on histories of racialized state violence in Britain which is under contract with Cambridge University Press.

Rob Waters

Rob Waters is Senior Lecturer in Modern British History at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of Thinking Black: Britain, 1964–1985 (University of California Press, 2018), and Colonized by Humanity: Caribbean London and the Politics of Integration at the End of Empire (Oxford University Press, 2023). He currently holds an AHRC Research, Development and Engagement fellowship for his project titled The Rise of the Border: A New History of Immigration, Race, and Citizenship in Britain.

Isabel Taube

Isabel Taube is a Research Associate in the School of English, American Studies and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. She has recently completed her doctoral thesis at Manchester Metropolitan University on the commercial television company, Granada, where her research focused on the broadcaster’s reputation for innovative programming, and explored its relationship to themes of gender, ‘race’, the visual arts and representation of young people from the North of England. Her writing on the Belgian filmmaker, Chantal Akerman, was published in The Chantal Akerman Retrospective Handbook (A Nos Amours, 2019).

Image credit: James Baldwin speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival in 1985. Courtesy of photographer Fanny Dubes, with thanks.

Flyer design by Textbook Studio, with thanks.

James Baldwin and Britain Symposium, 21 - 22 March 2025

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