Alf Gunvald Nilsen
@alfnilsen.bsky.social
“Revolutions are true as movements and false as regimes.”
The programme for CASA’s third annual symposium - “Engaging Stuart Hall in/from the global South” - is ready, and it is 🔥🔥🔥
Check it out below!
Check it out below!
October 21, 2025 at 3:10 PM
The programme for CASA’s third annual symposium - “Engaging Stuart Hall in/from the global South” - is ready, and it is 🔥🔥🔥
Check it out below!
Check it out below!
I had a great time at the University of Amsterdam this week, teaching a workshop on how to turn a PhD dissertation into a book, and giving a lecture about my new book Southern Interregnum — thanks to Tommy Tse and his team for hosting me :)
September 13, 2025 at 11:51 AM
I had a great time at the University of Amsterdam this week, teaching a workshop on how to turn a PhD dissertation into a book, and giving a lecture about my new book Southern Interregnum — thanks to Tommy Tse and his team for hosting me :)
Yay! I finally got my hands on @marcusrediker.bsky.social’s new book.
Diving into one of his texts is always a combined intellectual, literary, and emotional (because human!) experience ❤️
Now excuse me while I dig in 🤓
Diving into one of his texts is always a combined intellectual, literary, and emotional (because human!) experience ❤️
Now excuse me while I dig in 🤓
September 13, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Yay! I finally got my hands on @marcusrediker.bsky.social’s new book.
Diving into one of his texts is always a combined intellectual, literary, and emotional (because human!) experience ❤️
Now excuse me while I dig in 🤓
Diving into one of his texts is always a combined intellectual, literary, and emotional (because human!) experience ❤️
Now excuse me while I dig in 🤓
It's publication day for this beast today!
A comparative conjunctural analysis of hegemonic projects in a crisis-ridden global South.
Check it out here manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526179791/
A comparative conjunctural analysis of hegemonic projects in a crisis-ridden global South.
Check it out here manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526179791/
June 24, 2025 at 5:53 AM
It's publication day for this beast today!
A comparative conjunctural analysis of hegemonic projects in a crisis-ridden global South.
Check it out here manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526179791/
A comparative conjunctural analysis of hegemonic projects in a crisis-ridden global South.
Check it out here manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526179791/
Second academic skills session coming up this week - this one is focused on how to construct a valid argument in the social sciences.
Link to PPT here: www.academia.edu/128003064/AC...
Link to PPT here: www.academia.edu/128003064/AC...
March 4, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Second academic skills session coming up this week - this one is focused on how to construct a valid argument in the social sciences.
Link to PPT here: www.academia.edu/128003064/AC...
Link to PPT here: www.academia.edu/128003064/AC...
Getting ready …
February 25, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Getting ready …
Alright, alright, alright ... this is kicking off tomorrow, and I'm very excited!
Keynote by Achille Mbembe, presentations by fab scholars and legal practitioners, convos between fierce journalists, and super film screening 🔥
Keynote by Achille Mbembe, presentations by fab scholars and legal practitioners, convos between fierce journalists, and super film screening 🔥
February 25, 2025 at 6:28 AM
Alright, alright, alright ... this is kicking off tomorrow, and I'm very excited!
Keynote by Achille Mbembe, presentations by fab scholars and legal practitioners, convos between fierce journalists, and super film screening 🔥
Keynote by Achille Mbembe, presentations by fab scholars and legal practitioners, convos between fierce journalists, and super film screening 🔥
I've always really liked teaching academic skills, and this semester, I get to run a series of six skills sessions for our postgraduate students - starting this Friday, with the ABC of academic reading.
Happy to share the notes if they seem useful.
Happy to share the notes if they seem useful.
February 19, 2025 at 5:05 AM
I've always really liked teaching academic skills, and this semester, I get to run a series of six skills sessions for our postgraduate students - starting this Friday, with the ABC of academic reading.
Happy to share the notes if they seem useful.
Happy to share the notes if they seem useful.
This time next week, I'll be at Yale-NUS College to do some "interregnum talk" -- friends in Singapore, please come through!
February 6, 2025 at 7:10 AM
This time next week, I'll be at Yale-NUS College to do some "interregnum talk" -- friends in Singapore, please come through!
So, these two great scholar-activists actually shared a birthday (3 February).
Theirs was a complicated relationship - "... Thompson made it clear that he hated Cultural Studies" (Hall/FS) - but I'm in awe of how consistently their thinking enabled insurgent epistemic gain.
Theirs was a complicated relationship - "... Thompson made it clear that he hated Cultural Studies" (Hall/FS) - but I'm in awe of how consistently their thinking enabled insurgent epistemic gain.
February 4, 2025 at 6:58 AM
So, these two great scholar-activists actually shared a birthday (3 February).
Theirs was a complicated relationship - "... Thompson made it clear that he hated Cultural Studies" (Hall/FS) - but I'm in awe of how consistently their thinking enabled insurgent epistemic gain.
Theirs was a complicated relationship - "... Thompson made it clear that he hated Cultural Studies" (Hall/FS) - but I'm in awe of how consistently their thinking enabled insurgent epistemic gain.
I'm SO excited about CASA's second joint symposium with the Innovation Foundation for Democracy - "Making Democracy as a Community of Life: Transregional Dialogues across Asia and Africa" (26-28 February).
Check out our programme below, and RSVP here: tinyurl.com/yc2anc6c
Check out our programme below, and RSVP here: tinyurl.com/yc2anc6c
February 3, 2025 at 7:58 AM
I'm SO excited about CASA's second joint symposium with the Innovation Foundation for Democracy - "Making Democracy as a Community of Life: Transregional Dialogues across Asia and Africa" (26-28 February).
Check out our programme below, and RSVP here: tinyurl.com/yc2anc6c
Check out our programme below, and RSVP here: tinyurl.com/yc2anc6c
“Hey Siri, what is MAGA-Marxism?”
January 30, 2025 at 7:53 AM
“Hey Siri, what is MAGA-Marxism?”
Revised and appearing soon in Forum for Development Studies.
January 27, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Revised and appearing soon in Forum for Development Studies.
Halfway through this, and it’s vintage Jaffrelot - dense with empirical evidence sustaining clear, comprehensive arguments. No theoretical vanities, but rather an important story told well and right.
January 19, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Halfway through this, and it’s vintage Jaffrelot - dense with empirical evidence sustaining clear, comprehensive arguments. No theoretical vanities, but rather an important story told well and right.
Making notes from my Stuart Hall readings, and I’m struck by how prescient and relevant his take on Powellism, the shift in the political terrain of the early 1970s, and the making of a “popular authoritarianism” is in relation to the current conjuncture.
January 18, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Making notes from my Stuart Hall readings, and I’m struck by how prescient and relevant his take on Powellism, the shift in the political terrain of the early 1970s, and the making of a “popular authoritarianism” is in relation to the current conjuncture.
Nothing like starting a new notebook - this time on Stuart Hall’s writings on authoritarian populism, for a book project on his relevance for the political conjuncture in the early twenty-first century global South.
January 16, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Nothing like starting a new notebook - this time on Stuart Hall’s writings on authoritarian populism, for a book project on his relevance for the political conjuncture in the early twenty-first century global South.
The book "Marxism and Social Movements" which I co-edited with the late great Colin Barker, Laurence Cox, and John Krinsky about a decade ago is coming out in a Persian translation - and with a great cover too!
www.iranketab.ir/book/149764-...
www.iranketab.ir/book/149764-...
January 16, 2025 at 7:56 AM
The book "Marxism and Social Movements" which I co-edited with the late great Colin Barker, Laurence Cox, and John Krinsky about a decade ago is coming out in a Persian translation - and with a great cover too!
www.iranketab.ir/book/149764-...
www.iranketab.ir/book/149764-...
Fingers crossed this thing makes enough sense to make it out there ...
January 4, 2024 at 1:13 PM
Fingers crossed this thing makes enough sense to make it out there ...
Doing this later this week.
November 13, 2023 at 11:26 AM
Doing this later this week.
October 31, 2023 at 10:23 AM
If ever there was a testament to the genocidal DNA of the Zionist state, this is it.
Egged on, of course, by its western allies and a western media so cowardly it wouldn't recognize a spine if a spine came along and punched it in the front teeth.
Egged on, of course, by its western allies and a western media so cowardly it wouldn't recognize a spine if a spine came along and punched it in the front teeth.
October 17, 2023 at 6:17 PM
If ever there was a testament to the genocidal DNA of the Zionist state, this is it.
Egged on, of course, by its western allies and a western media so cowardly it wouldn't recognize a spine if a spine came along and punched it in the front teeth.
Egged on, of course, by its western allies and a western media so cowardly it wouldn't recognize a spine if a spine came along and punched it in the front teeth.
It really is the immediate post-9/11 world all over again - with strong overtones of colonial genocide, of course, as this is what the attack on Gaza effectively is.
October 17, 2023 at 4:34 PM
It really is the immediate post-9/11 world all over again - with strong overtones of colonial genocide, of course, as this is what the attack on Gaza effectively is.
Currently reading this most excellent piece of political sociology - an essential text for understanding some of the key dynamics around southern authoritarian populism (and its limits).
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
October 6, 2023 at 6:27 AM
Currently reading this most excellent piece of political sociology - an essential text for understanding some of the key dynamics around southern authoritarian populism (and its limits).
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...