In times of growing inequality, political upheaval, and climate crisis, how do we imagine a different future, one that breaks free from the cycles of crisis and oppression?
This question will be explored in depth at UC Santa Cruz's Critical Imagination in Crisis Times conference from 2 to 6:30 pm at the Cultural Center at Merrill College on Tuesday, March 11. There will also be a Zoom link for remote attendance, which will be available on the event webpage.
This conference, which is presented by Moving Image Lab, The Humanities Institute, and the Center for Cultural Studies, and co-sponsored by the History of Consciousness Department, will bring together some of the most prominent scholars in the humanities to discuss the importance of critical imagination in understanding and responding to crises.
“The university’s long-standing commitment to social justice, equity, and environmental sustainability aligns with the conference's central theme: that critical imagination is essential not only for understanding crises but for actively shaping a more just and sustainable world,” Humanities Dean Jasmine Alinder said.
The featured speakers include:
Paul Gilroy, a sociologist and historian and one of the leading scholars on race and racism. He has written seminal works, including There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack (1987), The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993), Against Race (2000), Postcolonial Melancholia (2005), and Darker Than Blue (2010), along with many articles, essays, and critical interventions.
Born in the East End of London in 1956, Gilroy is Emeritus Professor of Humanities at University College London, where he was the founding director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the study of racism and racialisation.
Gilroy has also held academic positions at King's College London, the London School of Economics, Yale University, and Goldsmiths College London. He is an honorary Fellow of Sussex University and King’s College London. In 2014, he was made a Fellow of the British Academy and, in 2018, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received Norway’s Holberg Prize in 2019. Gilroy writes on art, music, literature, and politics. His other publications include Black Britain: A Pictorial History (2007) and After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture? (2005)
Iain Chambers, a sociologist, historian, and cultural studies scholar. He is Professor of the Sociology of Cultural Processes at University of Naples "L'Orientale", where he also directs the doctoral program in Cultural and Postcolonial Studies in the Anglophone world.
Chambers has served on the editorial boards of Cultural Studies, Media & Philosophy, and Postcolonial Studies. He has taught cultural, postcolonial, and Mediterranean studies at the University of Naples and is now an independent researcher. His recent publications include Postcolonial Interruptions, Unauthorised Modernities(2017) and, with Marta Cariello, The Mediterranean Question (2025). In 2022, he was part of the artistic collective Jimmie Durham & A Stick in the Forest by the Side of the Road at documenta 15. He regularly writes for the Italian daily il Manifesto.
Vron Ware, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Kingston University in England. A writer and photographer, Ware is known internationally for her work on race, gender, peace, militarism, and ecology. Ware has taught geography, sociology, and gender studies at universities in the UK and US. She has authored several books on the politics of gender and race, colonial history, national identity, ecological thought, and the cultural heritage of war. Her first book talk for Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History was at UC Santa Cruz in 1992. More recently, she published Return of a Native: Learning from the Land (2022) and co-authored England’s Military Heartland: Preparing for War on Salisbury Plain(2025).
Humanities faculty participants include: Jim Clifford (Emeritus Professor, History of Consciousness; Chris Connery (Professor, Literature); Vilashini Cooppan (Professor, Literature and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies); Isaac Julien (acclaimed artist and Distinguished Professor, Arts and History of Consciousness), Mark Nash (Professor, Arts and History of Consciousness); and María Puig de la Bellacasa (Professor, History of Consciousness).
Register here for this conference, which is free and open to the public.
