Vijay Prashad is a historian, journalist and the director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research as well as the author of several books including the Darker Nations and Washington Bullets. Vijay joins us to discuss the history surrounding Roberto Fernandez Retamar's landmark essay Caliban (1971), a piece situated in a rich history of debate surrounding the emergence of sovereignty in the colonised world.

At Soft Network in New York, an investigation into the archive of the late Turkish-American photographer Sheyla Baykal sheds new light on the downtown community of which she was a vital figure. Berk Korkmaz discusses the powerful legacy she leaves behind.

For our summer reader issue, we decided to read some smut. That the production of romance literature is the only thing keeping the publishing industry afloat may prove a damning fact for those disposed against it, but how much of this distaste is bias? In this essay, Amelia McGarvey analyses the state of the industry and what it means for both our conception of literature and our relationship to sex.

Vicky, Lom, Becky and Sommai left home to sell sex in Europe, to support the families they love and chase dreams of their own. Anthropologist Sine Plambech spent two decades alongside them. Here, she reads from “Global Sex: What Sex Workers Know About Love and Capitalism”, the book she made from those years of field notes.

Following the success of her first book, Notes on a Foreign Country, Suzy Hansen's From Life Itself chronicles life under rising authoritarianism in Turkey. In the small neighbourhood of Karagümrük, local concerns over national identity and immigration serve as a metonym for the country, and indeed the world, at large. Here, she reads an excerpt from the new book.

On a voyage across the Nile on the SS Sudan – the boat once taken by Agatha Christie, inspiring her novel Death on the Nile (1937) – Caroline Issa muses on a culture steeped in the same historical intrigue and mortality that haunted Christie's imagination.

What is sound beyond music? Claire Ducharme speaks with composer Angela Wai Nok Hui joins to discuss her experimental use of sound in “The Church Bell Cancels”, a piece featured in Act 3 of COVID-26: Bad Bias in the Body, hosted at The Horse Hospital earlier this year. She also shares her previous works and references ongoing exploration at arts space EAT THE SUNSHINE. DOWN THE SUN in Kennington, London.

Sky Yang is an actor and filmmaker based in London. He joins Claire Ducharme to discuss the creative process behind creating ‘Sunny', a short film featured in Act 2 of COVID-26: Bad Bias in the Body, hosted at The Horse Hospital earlier this year. Trained as an actor and working primarily on-screen, ‘Sunny’ marked his move into filmmaking, and he reflects on his experience as an East Asian actor working across British and American productions.

Ming Chin Hsieh is a dance artist originally from Taipei, Taiwan, now based in London, trained in ballet, contemporary dance, and martial arts Taichi. She opened COVID-26: Bad Bias in the Body with Act 1, The Weight of a Word. Hsieh reflects on how she came to open the event, and discusses the process of developing this contemporary dance performance in response to experiences of anti-Asian racism during the pandemic.

Jihun Park and Haerin Kim are co-directors of Bad Bias, a London-based organization producing multidisciplinary events centred on diverse East and Southeast Asian arts and culture. They organized COVID-26: Bad Bias in the Body to create in a safe and creative space for East and Southeast Asian artists and audiences to revisit experiences of racism during the pandemic. Bringing together movement, film and live sound performance, the programme unfolded through 3 acts. Kim and Park talk about the inspiration behind this event and invite audiences to revisit it.