Sonali Dhanpal
@sonalidhanpal.bsky.social
Historian of modern architecture and urbanism and a fellow at the Buell and SOF Heyman at Columbia
Pinned
This is such a huge compliment to get from of the best urban historians of Britain
My article is the first from my second project on race, empire and post war housing in Britain! It’s in a Special Issue on State Effects in Grey Room edited by Zeynep Celik Alexander with Lucia Allais.
My article is the first from my second project on race, empire and post war housing in Britain! It’s in a Special Issue on State Effects in Grey Room edited by Zeynep Celik Alexander with Lucia Allais.
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
Latest update from @britishlibrary.bsky.social says they are launching a new version of their main catalogue on Monday 8 December and around that time also launch an interim version of their Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. Hooray!
www.bl.uk/stories/news...
www.bl.uk/stories/news...
Restoring our services – November 2025 update
In the coming weeks and months we will be restoring a number of key functions.
www.bl.uk
November 22, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Latest update from @britishlibrary.bsky.social says they are launching a new version of their main catalogue on Monday 8 December and around that time also launch an interim version of their Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. Hooray!
www.bl.uk/stories/news...
www.bl.uk/stories/news...
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
Michael Goldman's "Hidden Empire of Finance" investigates the dark arts of global finance that muscle into everyday life and city government, profiting from racialized dispossession and undermining the right to the city. Read the intro for free now: buff.ly/A09zJCV
November 21, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Michael Goldman's "Hidden Empire of Finance" investigates the dark arts of global finance that muscle into everyday life and city government, profiting from racialized dispossession and undermining the right to the city. Read the intro for free now: buff.ly/A09zJCV
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
“Seven women told Bloomberg about alleged rapes or sexual assaults across the university in the past five years, while more than 30 described direct experiences of harassment or bullying over the past 20 years.”
But the truth will always out. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Here is the full article from Bloomberg:
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Here is the full article from Bloomberg:
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Oxford University Has Failed Women Over Harassment Concerns, Staff Say
The university has repeatedly been slow to act against male academics accused of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior, a Bloomberg investigation found.
www.bloomberg.com
November 19, 2025 at 11:16 PM
“Seven women told Bloomberg about alleged rapes or sexual assaults across the university in the past five years, while more than 30 described direct experiences of harassment or bullying over the past 20 years.”
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
Not to reify ultimately harmful brands, but if the Russell Group is going to exist, should it do something useful and say that if you want to belong you need a basic complement of things that universities do?
This isn’t “efficiency” it’s an ideological shift towards a Little England university system.
Nottingham is set to become the only Russell Group university with no modern languages or music degrees.
48 courses on the line. We’re fighting it.
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Nottingham is set to become the only Russell Group university with no modern languages or music degrees.
48 courses on the line. We’re fighting it.
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
University of Nottingham considers axing language and music degrees
Total of 48 degrees could disappear from Russell Group institution, with falling revenues and rising costs blamed
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Not to reify ultimately harmful brands, but if the Russell Group is going to exist, should it do something useful and say that if you want to belong you need a basic complement of things that universities do?
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
"You cannot peg humans to a particular piece of territory over centuries and millennia. You can’t. They’ve moved. This fiction that every tribe had a homeland was extended so that every homeland had a customary authority."
Mahmood Mamdani on Zohran, Uganda and forced expulsion: ‘Who is part of the nation and who is not?’
After being expelled from his homeland in 1972, the academic has grappled with questions of political belonging – a major theme of his son’s mayoral campaign
www.theguardian.com
November 18, 2025 at 3:58 PM
"You cannot peg humans to a particular piece of territory over centuries and millennia. You can’t. They’ve moved. This fiction that every tribe had a homeland was extended so that every homeland had a customary authority."
For a long while; the humanities have been fundamentally eroded in this country (except in oxbridge) which is part of the apathy towards to serious issues faced by the British library.
But our attention should also be turned to British Library staff on strike who are literally grappling w this!
But our attention should also be turned to British Library staff on strike who are literally grappling w this!
I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?
The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity
www.cityam.com
November 18, 2025 at 2:15 PM
For a long while; the humanities have been fundamentally eroded in this country (except in oxbridge) which is part of the apathy towards to serious issues faced by the British library.
But our attention should also be turned to British Library staff on strike who are literally grappling w this!
But our attention should also be turned to British Library staff on strike who are literally grappling w this!
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
This is so on the nose you can scarcely believe it even though it's the most believable thing in India. The regime essentially celebrating 10 years of normalising lynching & saffron nazism in India by dismissing the first lynching case under the current government.
UP govt moves to withdraw all charges against accused in Akhlaq lynching: Report
A decade after Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched to death in his hometown in Uttar Pradesh's Dadri, the state government has moved to drop charges against all Mob Lynching, Mohammed Akhlaq, Uttar Pradesh A ...
maktoobmedia.com
November 16, 2025 at 8:27 AM
This is so on the nose you can scarcely believe it even though it's the most believable thing in India. The regime essentially celebrating 10 years of normalising lynching & saffron nazism in India by dismissing the first lynching case under the current government.
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
@florianurban.bsky.social found for our book Form Follows Fuel that it's v hard to get #embodiedenergy figures for buildings today. #embodiedcarbon is widespread, yet it's much less clear, and more vulnerable to distortion. Here's our argument:
www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/is-embo...
www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/is-embo...
Is embodied carbon a vanity metric?
With ambitions for regenerative architecture increasing, it is vitally important that we measure the right things in trying to get there, say Barnabas Calder and Florian Urban
www.architectsjournal.co.uk
November 15, 2025 at 7:26 AM
@florianurban.bsky.social found for our book Form Follows Fuel that it's v hard to get #embodiedenergy figures for buildings today. #embodiedcarbon is widespread, yet it's much less clear, and more vulnerable to distortion. Here's our argument:
www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/is-embo...
www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/is-embo...
Friends how are you’ll going through the emails????
I am impressed, I barely have time for my own let alone trawling through that 😭
I am impressed, I barely have time for my own let alone trawling through that 😭
November 13, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Friends how are you’ll going through the emails????
I am impressed, I barely have time for my own let alone trawling through that 😭
I am impressed, I barely have time for my own let alone trawling through that 😭
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
Would you like a free up and coming urban history book for Christmas? Would you like to write a review for us at @urbanhistory.bsky.social? We have the books and you have the words! Browse the below list and get in touch if you want to write us a review:
November 13, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Would you like a free up and coming urban history book for Christmas? Would you like to write a review for us at @urbanhistory.bsky.social? We have the books and you have the words! Browse the below list and get in touch if you want to write us a review:
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
Excited to be soft-launching a new online essay series for @the-breakdown.bsky.social - (re)reading radical thinkers for the climate crisis.
First up is Casey A. Williams on Stuart Hall and his analytical power for climate strategy today.
www.break-down.org/reading-stua...
First up is Casey A. Williams on Stuart Hall and his analytical power for climate strategy today.
www.break-down.org/reading-stua...
Reading Stuart Hall for the Climate Crisis
Stuart Hall’s politics of culture offers the left a blueprint for confronting the climate crisis.
www.break-down.org
November 13, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Excited to be soft-launching a new online essay series for @the-breakdown.bsky.social - (re)reading radical thinkers for the climate crisis.
First up is Casey A. Williams on Stuart Hall and his analytical power for climate strategy today.
www.break-down.org/reading-stua...
First up is Casey A. Williams on Stuart Hall and his analytical power for climate strategy today.
www.break-down.org/reading-stua...
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
This really struck me. If Uber were legally acknowledged as an employer, then it would be the biggest employer in the world, with over 9,000,000 employees globally. Think about how many taxes, wages, and protections are being lost b/c of their intransigence.
November 12, 2025 at 9:35 PM
This really struck me. If Uber were legally acknowledged as an employer, then it would be the biggest employer in the world, with over 9,000,000 employees globally. Think about how many taxes, wages, and protections are being lost b/c of their intransigence.
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
I wrote about this last year: hitting all the markers of adulthood (and middle age!) while still being precariously employed. It’s not good for anyone. williamcarruthers.wordpress.com/2024/04/17/p...
November 12, 2025 at 10:26 AM
I wrote about this last year: hitting all the markers of adulthood (and middle age!) while still being precariously employed. It’s not good for anyone. williamcarruthers.wordpress.com/2024/04/17/p...
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
Since the U.S.’s inception as a nation in the 18th century, white people have deployed monuments to territorialize their power through representations of famous men, writes Mabel O. Wilson in her essay for Issue No. 8
hammerandhope.org/article/uva-...
hammerandhope.org/article/uva-...
A Free Black Woman, a Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, and the Battle Over U.S. History
How Charlottesville’s memorial landscape can help us understand — and combat — the White House’s violent plans to reshape the nation’s public spaces.
hammerandhope.org
November 11, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Since the U.S.’s inception as a nation in the 18th century, white people have deployed monuments to territorialize their power through representations of famous men, writes Mabel O. Wilson in her essay for Issue No. 8
hammerandhope.org/article/uva-...
hammerandhope.org/article/uva-...
Do share this fully funded PhD (with stipend) in Architectures of the Global South as broadly conceived with people who maybe interested. It has Amit Srivastava, Peter Sciriver and Katherine Bartsch as supervisors in Adelaide University adelaideuni.edu.au/research/res...
Expression of interest | Adelaide University
adelaideuni.edu.au
November 10, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Do share this fully funded PhD (with stipend) in Architectures of the Global South as broadly conceived with people who maybe interested. It has Amit Srivastava, Peter Sciriver and Katherine Bartsch as supervisors in Adelaide University adelaideuni.edu.au/research/res...
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
#OtD 5 Nov 1975 300 youths fought police in protest at racist harassment in Leeds, UK. Police had used cars to circle groups of young Black people. After the battle, a plainclothes officers' car was destroyed while two other officers were hospitalised stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1056...
November 5, 2025 at 4:10 PM
#OtD 5 Nov 1975 300 youths fought police in protest at racist harassment in Leeds, UK. Police had used cars to circle groups of young Black people. After the battle, a plainclothes officers' car was destroyed while two other officers were hospitalised stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1056...
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
For those that missed this truly excellent review of my book.
‘In pursuing its goal of globalising the story of slavery, the Maritime Museum has inadvertently enabled some (white) Liverpudlians to reduce the city’s own role in transatlantic slavery to, as one resident put it, a “mere footnote”.’
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite · Holed below the Waterline: Liverpool’s Losses
Liverpool’s explosive growth followed the construction of a deep-water port in 1715. Soon it was a centre of the...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 9, 2025 at 3:10 PM
For those that missed this truly excellent review of my book.
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
a mental health crisis among British students whilst universities are pushing faculty to accept or even encourage students using generative AI is a catastrophe waiting to happen
1.This is not the only known example we know of ChatGPT cheering on a vulnerable young person to die by suicide, this time it is a recent Texas A&M grad
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
November 7, 2025 at 9:19 PM
a mental health crisis among British students whilst universities are pushing faculty to accept or even encourage students using generative AI is a catastrophe waiting to happen
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
Y'all remember when they said Mamdani tried to pretend to be Black to get into Columbia? And newspapers rushed to mention this without discussing the hack of applicants' data or the politically motivated reasons behind publicizing anything about his college app to a college that rejected him.
November 5, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Y'all remember when they said Mamdani tried to pretend to be Black to get into Columbia? And newspapers rushed to mention this without discussing the hack of applicants' data or the politically motivated reasons behind publicizing anything about his college app to a college that rejected him.
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
Obviously the Mamdani victory has nothing to teach Labour because he came out of the grass roots populist DSA and the Labour right deliberately killed any community based organising of that type and would move any and all institutional levers in their control to stop a Mamdani emerging
November 5, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Obviously the Mamdani victory has nothing to teach Labour because he came out of the grass roots populist DSA and the Labour right deliberately killed any community based organising of that type and would move any and all institutional levers in their control to stop a Mamdani emerging
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
CfP for the new journal: Historical Materialism: Workers and Capital.
Please see below for the full call and to submit abstracts before the (extended) deadline of 16th of November 2025: workersandcapital.historicalmaterialism.org
Please see below for the full call and to submit abstracts before the (extended) deadline of 16th of November 2025: workersandcapital.historicalmaterialism.org
Historical Materialism: Workers and Capital
Historical Materialism: Workers and Capital is a Marxist journal based in London.
workersandcapital.historicalmaterialism.org
November 4, 2025 at 1:38 PM
CfP for the new journal: Historical Materialism: Workers and Capital.
Please see below for the full call and to submit abstracts before the (extended) deadline of 16th of November 2025: workersandcapital.historicalmaterialism.org
Please see below for the full call and to submit abstracts before the (extended) deadline of 16th of November 2025: workersandcapital.historicalmaterialism.org
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
My book Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy is out with @hurstpublishers.bsky.social. It has been shaped by the support of a great community of scholars - grateful for generous endorsements from
@rahulraothariel.bsky.social @katesde.bsky.social @kalramnath.bsky.social
Order here - shorturl.at/55NjW
@rahulraothariel.bsky.social @katesde.bsky.social @kalramnath.bsky.social
Order here - shorturl.at/55NjW
November 4, 2025 at 8:14 AM
My book Coolie Migrants, Indian Diplomacy is out with @hurstpublishers.bsky.social. It has been shaped by the support of a great community of scholars - grateful for generous endorsements from
@rahulraothariel.bsky.social @katesde.bsky.social @kalramnath.bsky.social
Order here - shorturl.at/55NjW
@rahulraothariel.bsky.social @katesde.bsky.social @kalramnath.bsky.social
Order here - shorturl.at/55NjW
Reposted by Sonali Dhanpal
*New Review Article*: After Coasts: Cartography,Desiccation, and Dwelling in Amphibious Worlds
#openaccess 1/6
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
#openaccess 1/6
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
After Coasts: Cartography, Desiccation, and Dwelling in Amphibious Worlds
As cities and nation-states design massive coastal development projects, I show in this review how these projects require and produce emptied and flattened surfaces necessary for the workings of colon...
www.annualreviews.org
November 3, 2025 at 9:40 AM
*New Review Article*: After Coasts: Cartography,Desiccation, and Dwelling in Amphibious Worlds
#openaccess 1/6
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
#openaccess 1/6
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
“For it is AI that has given the American ruling class the final impetus to more or less abolish education. As primary and secondary schools prepare to push AI on students, higher-education funding is basically being eliminated.
thebaffler.com/salvos/we-us...
thebaffler.com/salvos/we-us...
We Used to Read Things in This Country | Noah McCormack
Technology changes us—and it is currently changing us for the worse.
thebaffler.com
November 2, 2025 at 4:13 PM
“For it is AI that has given the American ruling class the final impetus to more or less abolish education. As primary and secondary schools prepare to push AI on students, higher-education funding is basically being eliminated.
thebaffler.com/salvos/we-us...
thebaffler.com/salvos/we-us...