SOAS Library

📣 Alumni Call-Out: SOAS Stories from the ’70s, ’80s & ’90s

Were you at SOAS in the ’70s, ’80s or ’90s? We’d love to hear from you.

We’re gathering reflections on what student life was like: your memories of the library and the bar, how you connected with others, and the hopes and ambitions you had at the time.

📧 Get in touch at [email protected], and we’ll send you a few short questions.

If you know someone who was a student at SOAS in those years, please feel free to share this post or connect us: we’d love to include their story.

Photo: Phonetics class in progress, © SOAS University of London, 1979

Join us for the final events accompanying 'In-/Visible Spectrums: Contemporary Video Art from the Sinosphere' at SOAS Gallery.

📅18th June, 6:00pm
Screening and Panel Discussion: The Body and Classical Chinese Aesthetics

Experience a screening of artist Tong Wenmin's moving image work, followed by a discussion exploring the relationship between contemporary art, the body, nature and Daoist-inflected aesthetics. The panel features Tong Wenmin, Dr Kiki Tianqi Yu and Professor Paul Gladston, with audience Q&A.

📅 20th June, 3pm
Join us for our concluding Study Day and Panel Discussion on In-/Visible Spectrums, bringing together artists, scholars and specialists to reflect on the exhibition's themes, artworks and wider significance across the contemporary Sinosphere.

20th June is also the final day to visit this landmark exhibition of contemporary video art from mainland China, Hong Kong and the diaspora.

🎟️ Both events are free to attend and open to the public: https://ow.ly/mkQZ50Z8Ls6

📍 SOAS University of London
Image: Tong Wenmin, Crawl (2018–2019)

Author talk: 'Ghost Season' by Fatin Abbas SOAS Library welcomes Fatin Abbas to celebrate 'Ghost Season', a powerful debut novel connecting five characters caught in the crosshairs of conflict on the Sudanese border.

🤩🥳

Step into the immersive world of Siu Wai Hang’s Cage Bridges (2021), currently on view in Invisible Spectrums at the SOAS Gallery.

Combining moving image, architecture, and memory, Cage Bridges reflects on Hong Kong’s densely built urban environment and the emotional experience of navigating spaces shaped by confinement, transition, and connection. Through layered video imagery and atmospheric sound, Siu Wai Hang invites viewers to consider the invisible structures that shape everyday life.

This work is located on the Ground Floor of the exhibition, alongside more video art exploring contemporary experiences across the Sinosphere.

Come and experience Invisible Spectrums before it closes on 20th June.
Open Tuesday–Saturday.

London event alert!🚨

Join us for our next Inaugural Lecture Series with Professor Catherine Dolan from the Department of Anthropology and Sociology and Professor Michael Charney from the Department of History.

Professor Dolan will explore how ideas of ethical capitalism, such as sustainability and fair markets, work in practice in East Africa. Drawing on field research, the lecture looks at how these schemes are adapted and challenged on the ground, and how they affect people’s everyday lives and social relationships.

Professor Charney will examine how the study of Southeast Asia has changed over time. His lecture will trace the rise and decline of area studies and will show how knowledge is now produced globally, not just in Western universities.

📅Thursday 4 June, 6-8 pm
📍SOAS Gallery Lecture Theatre

👉 Sign up here: soas.ac.uk/about/event/inaugural-lecture-series-professors-catherine-dolan-and-michael-charney