‘An Alchemy of the Intentional and the Unintended’

Theoretical and methodological possibilities of Cedric Robinson’s ‘racial regimes’: A London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP) Symposium

Please join us for ‘An Alchemy of the Intentional and the Unintended’: Theoretical and methodological possibilities of Cedric Robinson’s ‘racial regimes’, a 2-day symposium hosted by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP) organised by Alana Lentin (Western Sydney University), Tom Six (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama), Munotida Chinyanga (LAHP), Mai Omer (LAHP) and Rachel Vogler (LAHP).

London, 3-4 July 2025.

Registration at this link is free.

About:
This interdisciplinary symposium will explore Cedric Robinson’s concept of the ‘racial regime’ as a theoretical framework for analysing race in the contemporary world. Researchers at all career stages will gather for a series of discursive, interdisciplinary panels with the aim of elaborating the potential of Robinson’s work for future race-critical interventions in scholarship and activism.

Cedric Robinson, who died in 2016, worked across an extraordinary range of disciplinary fields in his study of the Black radical tradition as a historical phenomenon and a resource for developing the theory and practice of liberation. He is now best known for his critiques of Marxist theory and wide-ranging analyses of the operation of racial capitalism. This symposium proposes that, in spite both of its late position in Robinson’s work and its relatively under-theorised status, the concept of a ‘racial regime’ contains theoretical and methodological insights that could prove transformative across the disciplines of race critical studies. With the exception of Joshua Myers’ elaboration of ‘racial regimes’ in relation to Black Studies (2022), and the use of ‘racial regimes’ in studies of political economy (Camp 2009), aesthetics (Lloyd 2018), and the law (Bhandar 2018), sustained theoretical attention was not given to Robinson’s framing of every such regime as ‘an alchemy of the intentional and the unintended, of known and unimagined fractures of cultural forms, of relations of power and the power of social and cultural relations’ until Alana Lentin’s The New Racial Regime (2025). Lentin’s focus on the ‘recalibrations’ of race that both enable it to adapt successfully to changing configurations of power and expose its foundational weakness will be a central theme of our discussions.

In summary, the symposium will enable race-critical scholars from across the humanities and social sciences to reflect on:

• the significance of Robinson’s concept for their fields, and

• how their own theoretical and methodological positioning can contribute to the project of deeper and finer elaboration of Robinson’s insights.
  
  Contributors will include:
  Paul Bagguley
  Alex Charnley
  Munotida Chinyanga
  Yasmin Hussain
  Malcolm James
  Alana Lentin
  Ali Meghji
  Shifana Niyas
  Mai Omer
  HLT Quan
  Penny Rabiger
  Fatima Rajina
  Naaz Rashid
  Victoria Redclift
  Sudip Sen
  Tom Six

Hope to see you there,

Alana