IAS Book Launch: Black Boys

In Black Boys: The Aesthetics of British Urban Film, Clive Chijioke Nwonka offers the first dedicated analysis of Black British urban cinematic and televisual representation as a textual encounter with Blackness, masculinity and urban identity where the generic construction of images and narratives of Black urbanity is informed by the (un)knowable allure of Black urban Otherness. Foregrounding the textual Black urban identity as a historical formation, and drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks that allow for an examination of the emergence and continued social, cultural and industrial investment in the fictitious and non-fictitious images of Black urban identities and geographies, Nwonka convenes a dialogue between the disciplines of Film and Television Studies, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Black Studies, Sociology and Criminology. Here, Nwonka advances an expansive reading of the Black British urban text as the outcome of a complex conjunctural interaction between social phenomena, cultural policy, political discourse and the continuously shifting politics of Black representation.

Rooted in historical and contemporary questions of race, racism and anti-Blackness but equally attentive to the social dynamics that render the screen as a site of Black recognition, authorship and authenticity, Black Boys presents a critical rethinking of the contextual and aesthetic factors in the visual constructions of Black urban identity.

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The event will be chaired by Professor Tariq Jazeel (UCL Geography). The talk by the author Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka (UCL Institute of Advanced Studies) will be followed by responses by discussants Professor Suzi Hall (LSE Department of Sociology), Dr Kesewa John (Goldsmiths, Department of History) and Professor Anamik Saha (University of Leeds, Department of Media and Communications). The talk will be followed by a drinks reception, where copies of the book will be available to purchase.

This book launch is organised in collaboration by the Institute of Advanced Studies, the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racialisation and the UCL Film Studies Programme.