Culture Wars and Cancel Culture
Join Ash Sarkar and Michael Chessum for an in-depth discussion on the complexities and contradictions of contemporary politics. This event examines the rise of cancel culture, debates around wokeism, and the increasing fragmentation of progressive movements across the UK and beyond.
Why does political progressivism struggle to maintain momentum in the face of cultural and social change? Sarkar and Chessum draw on their extensive backgrounds in activism, political organising, and media commentary to explore how ideological purity, generational divides, and the fast pace of social media dynamics have reshaped the left’s ability to effect real change.
The conversation also asks whether debates around free speech, identity politics, and cultural conflict are undermining the very goals of equality and justice that progressive movements seek to achieve.
This event offers a sharp critique of today’s political landscape while pointing towards possible futures for progressive politics in an age of polarisation. Essential viewing for anyone interested in cancel culture debates, culture wars, and the future of political activism.
About the Chair
Saeed Khan
Saeed Khan is a cultural historian and commentator based at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he teaches in the departments of History and Global Studies. His academic expertise includes Islamic and Middle Eastern history, Islamic political thought, and transnational identities. Alongside his academic work, he is a frequent analyst for international media outlets. Saeed is the founder of the Center for the Study of Trans-Atlantic Diasporas, a policy institute focused on ethnic and immigrant communities in North America and Europe.
About the Speakers
Ash Sarkar
Ash Sarkar is a British journalist, academic, and activist. Senior editor at Novara Media, she writes and speaks on race, class, feminism, and colonial history. Known for her sharp political commentary and engaging media presence, Sarkar blends radical politics with cultural critique across platforms, including broadcast, print, and academia.
Michael Chessum
Michael Chessum is a journalist and activist who has been on the front line of the new left movements of recent years. He co-founded the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, playing a prominent role in the student protests of 2010 and the anti-austerity movement that followed. When Momentum was created, he was elected to its first Steering Committee and served as its Treasurer, and worked as a press officer and speechwriter on Jeremy Corbyn’s second leadership campaign. As National Organizer for the left wing anti-Brexit group Another Europe is Possible, he became a dissident within Corbynism and a prominent voice in the public debate on Brexit and migrants’ rights.
He has written on politics and social movements for more than a decade, and has reported from the ground as left movements surged in Chile and Greece. His writing has been published in the Guardian and Observer, the New Statesman, The Independent, Vice, Novara, The London Review of Books and many others.
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