Time and Experience
Paul Gilroy and Zainabu Jallo in Conversation

Event with

Zainabu Jallo
Early-Career Fellow 2025–2026

Details

October 3, 2025, 19:45 (75 mins), in English.

Venue: Stadtkino Basel, Klostergasse 5, 4051 Basel

Tickets available via the website or at the box office.

What does it mean to be human, and how do histories of exclusion continue to shape cultural memory? On October 3 at Stadtkino Basel, Paul Gilroy and Zainabu Jallo will discuss Steve McQueen’s Small Axe: Mangrove in a conversation that connects cinema, diaspora, and the enduring legacies of infrahumanity.

The Stadtkino Basel will host a dialogue between Paul Gilroy, Professor Emeritus of the Humanities (University College London, UK), and Zainabu Jallo, playwright and anthropologist, currently a early-career fellow at the Collegium. Their conversation, “Time and Experience,” takes as its point of departure Steve McQueen’s film Small Axe: Mangrove (2020), the first part of the five-film anthology Small Axe. Mangrove presents a gripping portrayal of a pivotal trial in 1971 that revealed the anti-Black racism prevalent within London’s Metropolitan Police. The story revolves around a Trinidadian immigrant who operates a restaurant named The Mangrove, a popular gathering spot for Black Londoners. Unfortunately, it soon becomes the target of raids conducted by white police officers, which not only discourages patrons but also negatively impacts the business. A protest ensues.

The discussion will explore central themes in Gilroy’s work—music, memory, diaspora, and infrahumanity. In landmark books such as The Black Atlantic (1993) and There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack (1987), Gilroy has examined the transnational entanglements of Black culture and identity. His reflections on “infrahumanity,” a condition of being considered “human, but not quite human,” remain highly influential across the humanities and social sciences.

Jallo’s own research at the Collegium resonates with these themes. Her work on the history of criminal anthropology through material objects engages directly with the concept of the “infrahuman,” defined as “human, but not quite human” and the troubling ways in which certain groups have been denied full humanity, whether through pseudoscientific theories or more subtle forms of exclusion.

By bringing these perspectives together, the conversation will illuminate how film, theory, and lived experience intersect to address questions of justice, dignity, and the very meaning of humanity.