Culture and media

Taking our cue from Raymond Williams’ ‘culture is ordinary’, we explore how politics works through old and new media, books, film, stage and screen, music and sport.

We cover a breadth of themes, from representations of class, race and gender in the arts, to progressive and reactionary uses of nostalgia, to the grassroots voices democratising the channels of communication.

Taking our cue from Raymond Williams’ ‘culture is ordinary’, we explore how politics works through old and new media, books, film, stage and screen, music and sport.

The Full Monty at 25

A quarter of a century after its release, The Full Monty still resonates today. Alex Green revisits a working-class story told with compassion and humour

28 February 2023
This Arab is Queer – review

Elias Jahshan’s anthology paints a vibrant picture of queer Arab life on its own terms, writes Aneesha Hussain

14 February 2023
Riot daze

In the current political climate, despair come easy. From Pussy Riot to queer cabaret, we must find hope in one another, argues Siobhan McGuirk

12 February 2023
Tapping technology in Nairobi’s informal settlements

Prince Guma reflects on how new digital technologies for water provision have been adapted – and subverted – in informal settlements in Nairobi

6 February 2023
Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia – review

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan’s book does not shy away from vital connections between Islamophobia and the forces of global capitalism, writes Farzana Khan

1 February 2023
Volt Rush – Review

Henry Sanderson’s account of capital’s increasing interest in green technology should be cause for alarm, not relief, argues Madoc Cairns

26 November 2022
Cinema on the move

Inventive films are helping shift migration narratives from suffering to empowerment while expanding the politics of possibility, argue Lily Parrott and Laura Stahnke

24 November 2022