Date/Time: Tuesday 6 May 2025, 5.30pm

Venue: Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building, Newcastle University

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All our events remain free and open to all, but pre-booking is required. Bookings for this lecture will open at 10.00am on 29 April To reserve your place click the booking link below or telephone our booking voicemail line 0191 208 6136.

Chaired by Dr Raksha Pande, Senior Lecturer, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology

What is the white working class? Why has it become such a significant concept? And what does it tell us about the way we think of race and class? Answers involve historical shifts in the relationship between race and class; how white identity has become a means of rebranding racism; and whether those deemed ‘white working class’ are best served by the label.

Biography

Kenan Malik is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster, and a columnist for the Observer.  His latest bookNot So Black and White challenges much of our understanding of race by retelling the history of the concept. Previous books include The Quest for a Moral Compass  (2014), Multiculturalism and its Discontents (2012) and From Fatwa to Jihad (2009/2017), which explores the social and political impact of the controversy around Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and was shortlisted for the Orwell Book Prize. He was for many years a presenter of Nightwaves, Radio 3’s flagship arts programme, and a panelist on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze.