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John Narayan

Dr John Narayan

Senior Lecturer in European and International Studies

Contact details

Biography

John joined King’s in September 2019 having previously held a lectureship in Sociology at Birmingham City University. Prior to this he was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick. He received his PhD from the University of Nottingham. John is the chair of The Institute of Race Relations and a member of the Race & Class Editorial Working Committee and of the Global Black Thought editorial board.

Research

  • Racial Capitalism
  • Race, Racism & Anti-Racism
  • Globalization and Democracy
  • Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism
  • Social & Political Theory

John has interdisciplinary research interests, which centre on the interlinkages between globalization, inequality and racialization, and on the global aspects of anti-racist and democratic politics.

His most recent research has focused on the understudied transnationalism of Black Power and political theory created by groups such as The Black Panther Party. This project has sought to retrieve this history and highlight how the global politics of Black Power provides lessons about the link between anti-racism and democratic politics in an age of resurgent nativism in Europe and the USA. John has published the results of this research in journals such as Third World Quarterly, Theory, Culture and Society, Current Sociology, and The Sociological Review. He is currently completing his second monograph based on the project’s findings

Teaching

  • Resisting Racial Capitalism
  • The Making of Modern Europe

PhD Supervision

John welcomes doctoral applications in any area related to his research interests.

Publications

Books

(2016) John Dewey: The Global Public and its Problems. Manchester University Press: Manchester (paperback version 2019).

Edited Volumes/Journal Special Issues

(2023) New Circuits of Anti-Racism, Race and Class. Vol 65, Issue 1

(2017) ‘Whatever Happened to the Idea of Imperialism?’ (co-edited with Leon Sealey-Huggins) Third World Quarterly.  Vol. 38 (11).

(2016) European Cosmopolitanism: Colonial Histories and Postcolonial Societies. (co-edited with Gurminder K. Bhambra), International Library of Sociology Series, Routledge: London.

Journal Articles

(2023) 'New Times or new circuits: recovering Sivanandan’s political economy.' Race & Class, 65(1), 14–33.

(2020) 'Brexit as Heredity Redux: Imperialism, Biomedicne and the NHS in Britain’ The Sociological Review doi.org/10.1177/0038026120914177

(2020) ‘‘Surviving Pending Revolution: self-determination in the age of proto-neoliberalism’ Current Sociology. doi.org/10.1177/0011392119886870

(2019)  British Black Power: the anti-imperialism of political blackness and the problem of nativist socialism.’  The Sociological Review, Vol. 65 (5), pp. 945-947.

(2019) ‘Huey P. Newton’s Intercommunalism: an unacknowledged theory of empire’ Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 36 (3), pp. 57-85.

(2017) ‘Whatever Happened to the Idea of Imperialism?’ (co-authored with Leon Sealey-Huggins) Third World Quarterly.  Vol. 38 (11), pp. 2387-2395.

(2017) ‘The wages of whiteness in the absence of wages: racial capitalism, reactionary intercommunalism and Trumpism’ Third World Quarterly, Vol. 38 (11), pp. 2482-2500.

Book Chapters

(2021) ‘Huey P. Newton 1942-1989’ in Callincos, A., Kouvelakis, S., and Pradella, L. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Marxism and Post-Marxism. Routledge: Abingdon.

(2017) ‘Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth: The Spectre of the Third World Project’ in Davies, D., Lormbard, E., and Mountford, B. (eds.) Fighting Words: Fourteen Books That Shaped the Post-Colonial World. Peter Lang: Oxford.

(2016) ‘Fanon’s Decolonized Europe: The Double Promise of Coloured Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Austerity’ in Narayan, J. and Bhambra, G.K. (eds.) European Cosmopolitanism: Colonial Histories and Postcolonial Societies. Routledge: London.

(2016) ‘Introduction: Colonial Histories and the Post-Colonial Present of European Cosmopolitanism,’  (co-authored with Gurminder K. Bhambra) in Narayan, J. and Bhambra, G.K. (eds.) European Cosmopolitanism: Colonial Histories and Postcolonial Societies. Routledge: London.

Research

contemporary marxim research group resized
Contemporary Marxism Research Group

The Contemporary Marxism Research Group use the varieties of Marxist theory to analyse the contemporary world, with special reference to political economy and to political and social movements.

News

Staff and students honoured at annual awards

Outstanding students and staff from across the School of Politics and Economics (SPE) were honoured at an awards ceremony.

SPEaward23John

Panel examines what lies ahead for prime minister at special event

Rishi Sunak’s fledgling premiership was in the spotlight at special panel event hosted by the Department of European and International Studies.

Downing Street

Academic appointed to role with leading think tank

A King’s College London academic has been announced as the new chair of one of the UK’s leading anti-racist think thanks.

SPENewsStock

Call for papers made ahead of major workshop

A call for papers has been issued ahead of major international workshop taking place at King’s next year.

FanonLanzmann

Student-led event seeks to demystify decolonisation

The King’s Decolonising Working Group (Decol) held an event aimed at dispelling some of the dominant myths about decolonisation in Higher Education (HE).

Decol Team

Abolishing Racism: The Global Black Lives Matter Revolt

European politics student, Tadiwanashe Ndlovu shares her account of a webinar which brought together hundreds of people from across the globe to talk about...

European politics student, Tadiwanashe Ndlovu

'Politics of heredity' was at heart of campaign to leave EU

The cultural politics of heredity and ancestral right were ‘revived and renewed’ by the Vote Leave campaign as they sought to get Britain out of the EU, a new...

The cultural politics of heredity and ancestral right were ‘revived and renewed’ by the Vote Leave campaign

Events

06DecGuernica

What is Anti-Racism? And Why it Means Anti-Capitalism?

Book launch with author Arun Kundnani, and with discussants Vanessa E. Thompson, John Narayan & Lucia Pradella.

Please note: this event has passed.

09MarDowning Street

Back on Track or Off the Rails? British Politics under Rishi Sunak

Has Rishi Sunak managed to navigate British politics through choppy waters or is there more turmoil to come in the next 12 months?

Please note: this event has passed.

15OctIRRposter

New Circuits of Anti-Racism

Join a range of thinkers, scholar-activists and campaigners for an IRR50 conference on racism, imperialism and new lines of resistance.

Please note: this event has passed.

17MarThe webinar will focus on race in politics.

Populism and White Nationalism: Race and Racism in Politics

What's behind the unprecedented groundswell in support for populist politics?

Please note: this event has passed.

Research

contemporary marxim research group resized
Contemporary Marxism Research Group

The Contemporary Marxism Research Group use the varieties of Marxist theory to analyse the contemporary world, with special reference to political economy and to political and social movements.

News

Staff and students honoured at annual awards

Outstanding students and staff from across the School of Politics and Economics (SPE) were honoured at an awards ceremony.

SPEaward23John

Panel examines what lies ahead for prime minister at special event

Rishi Sunak’s fledgling premiership was in the spotlight at special panel event hosted by the Department of European and International Studies.

Downing Street

Academic appointed to role with leading think tank

A King’s College London academic has been announced as the new chair of one of the UK’s leading anti-racist think thanks.

SPENewsStock

Call for papers made ahead of major workshop

A call for papers has been issued ahead of major international workshop taking place at King’s next year.

FanonLanzmann

Student-led event seeks to demystify decolonisation

The King’s Decolonising Working Group (Decol) held an event aimed at dispelling some of the dominant myths about decolonisation in Higher Education (HE).

Decol Team

Abolishing Racism: The Global Black Lives Matter Revolt

European politics student, Tadiwanashe Ndlovu shares her account of a webinar which brought together hundreds of people from across the globe to talk about...

European politics student, Tadiwanashe Ndlovu

'Politics of heredity' was at heart of campaign to leave EU

The cultural politics of heredity and ancestral right were ‘revived and renewed’ by the Vote Leave campaign as they sought to get Britain out of the EU, a new...

The cultural politics of heredity and ancestral right were ‘revived and renewed’ by the Vote Leave campaign

Events

06DecGuernica

What is Anti-Racism? And Why it Means Anti-Capitalism?

Book launch with author Arun Kundnani, and with discussants Vanessa E. Thompson, John Narayan & Lucia Pradella.

Please note: this event has passed.

09MarDowning Street

Back on Track or Off the Rails? British Politics under Rishi Sunak

Has Rishi Sunak managed to navigate British politics through choppy waters or is there more turmoil to come in the next 12 months?

Please note: this event has passed.

15OctIRRposter

New Circuits of Anti-Racism

Join a range of thinkers, scholar-activists and campaigners for an IRR50 conference on racism, imperialism and new lines of resistance.

Please note: this event has passed.

17MarThe webinar will focus on race in politics.

Populism and White Nationalism: Race and Racism in Politics

What's behind the unprecedented groundswell in support for populist politics?

Please note: this event has passed.