After the Lecture: The Sonic Life of Ideas Episode 1 – MøN€Y

The two-hour event will take the form of a live-recorded conversation between the hosts of After the Lecture and invited guests. The inaugural episode will explore the theme of money, asking how money shapes our lives, relationships and society.

The conversation will be interspersed with approximately 30 minutes of collective listening across the evening, featuring around six songs connected to the episode’s theme. These ‘sonic breaks’ will provide moments to listen together and reflect on how questions of money, debt, finance and the wider capitalist economy are expressed through music and culture.

Audience members will also be invited to contribute throughout the event using a live audience-engagement platform such as Slido or Mentimeter. They will be able to respond to prompts, share reflections and submit comments or questions for the hosts and guests to discuss. Participation will be optional.

What does money sound like to you? Audience members will be invited to contribute a song to our collective MØN€Y playlist, bringing together music about work, debt, wealth, survival, aspiration and inequality. Together, the playlist will become a sonic record of the episode, shaped by our guests and audience.

The conversation will be recorded live for later broadcast on Voices Radio, making the evening both a public event and the inaugural episode of After the Lecture.

Approximate running order: 10-minute welcome and introduction; 45-minute opening conversation; 15-minute collective listening and audience interaction; 35-minute second conversation incorporating audience contributions; 15-minute final listening session, reflections and closing discussion.

After the Lecture treats radio as a kind of université populaire: a shared space where ideas, culture and critical thought can circulate beyond the university. Each episode takes a single theme and explores it through conversations with scholars, artists and organisers.

Booking

The event is free to attend (no money spent here!), but advance booking through Ibraaz is required. If you are no longer able to attend, please cancel your booking or contact Ibraaz so that your place can be made available to someone else.

Refreshments

Unfortunately, we will not be able to provide refreshments during the live recording. However, we are planning a private gathering with refreshments at a nearby venue following the event. Further details will be shared with registered attendees closer to the date.

Age guidance: While we would love for After the Lecture to involve children and young people and to host family-friendly events in the future, this particular event is a live radio recording and requires a relatively quiet environment. For this reason, we ask that attendees are aged 16 or over.

We recognise that this may create an additional barrier for parents and carers. If childcare costs would prevent you from attending, please contact us to discuss whether we can provide support.

Accessibility: Information about the venue’s accessibility is available on the Ibraaz website: https://ibraaz.org/visit-us

We want this event to be as accessible as possible. If you face any barriers to attending, including childcare or transport costs that you would otherwise be unable to cover, or if you have any other access requirements, please contact us at r.twahirwa@aston.ac.uk. We will do our best to discuss what support can be provided.

MØN€Y is a public conversation about the political, social and cultural life of money, and the launch event for After the Lecture, a new long-form radio programme, hosted by Dr rémy-paulin twahirwa (Aston University) and Dr Lilly Markaki (Royal Holloway), and created in partnership with Voices Radio. The event will feature contributions from Professor Laleh Khalili (University of Exeter) and Dr Ryan Davey (Cardiff University).

Money is one of the most powerful forces shaping modern life, yet we rarely stop to ask what money actually is, where it comes from, or how it has come to organise so much of our lives. From wages, debt and banking to the digitalisation of finance, cryptocurrencies and dreams of cashless futures, money shapes not only economies but also our relationships, aspirations and ideas about what, and who, has value.

Bringing together scholars from across disciplines whose work explores money, debt, capitalism, commerce and finance, MØN€Y asks: How has money changed the ways we live and relate to one another? Who gets to create and control money? How are money, debt and finance connected to wider histories of power and inequality? And could we organise our lives differently?

The event will also explore the sonic life of money. Music has long given voice to experiences of aspiration, survival, debt, wealth and inequality, from hip-hop and gangsta rap in the United States to rap conscient in France and beyond. Our guests will bring songs that speak to the theme of money, which we will listen to and discuss together. These collective listening moments will invite the audience to think about what music can tell us about money that economic language sometimes cannot.

No specialist knowledge of economics or finance is needed. Audience members will be invited to bring their own experiences and questions about money, debt, work and everyday economic life into the conversation. Expect an informal and accessible discussion, collective listening, opportunities to contribute, and a chance to experience the making of a radio programme live.

The conversation will be recorded for broadcast on Voices Radio as the inaugural episode of After the Lecture. The programme treats radio as a kind of université populaire: a shared space where ideas, culture and critical thought can circulate beyond the university.

Bios

Hosts

Dr rémy-paulin twahirwa is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Aston University, community organiser and writer based in London. With over a decade of involvement in migrant justice movements in so-called Canada and the UK, their work explores the ghostly affects and matters of migrant life under contemporary border regimes and the parasitic expansion of the carceral state. Their writing has appeared in both academic and non-academic venues, including LSE Review of Books, Society + Space and Liberté. They are currently completing their first manuscript, On Ghostly Lives, and serve as Managing Editor of The Philosopher and co-convenor of the BSA Race and Ethnicity Study Group. rémy also organise screenings with the Haringey Community Cinema. More about their work can be found at: https://ghostlylivesaproject.wordpress.com/. You can follow them on Bleusky: @ rpaulint.bsky.social.

Dr Lilly Markaki is Lecturer in Race and Culture in Film and Media at Royal Holloway, University of London. They are a scholar, public programmer, and educator working across critical theory, visual culture, media theory, political philosophy, and Black radical and anti-colonial thought. Their research investigates the political life of aesthetic forms and broader questions of race and the coloniality of being, time, and the intersections of desire, technology, and contemporary capitalism.https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/lilly-markaki-2/.

Guest speakers

Professor Laleh Khalili is a professor of Gulf Studies at Exeter and the author or editor of seven books including most recently Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula (Verso 2020) and Extractive Capitalism: How Commodities and Cronyism Shape the Global Economy (Profile Books 2025).

Dr Ryan Davey is a lecturer in social sciences at Cardiff University, working across anthropology and sociology with a primary focus on debt. His first book is The Personal Life of Debt: Coercion, Subjectivity and Inequality in Britain (Bristol University Press, 2025), based on eighteen months’ fieldwork on a housing estate in southern England. He is currently developing research into the relationship between debt, sexuality and intimate life, drawing on queer and Marxist perspectives.

Julio César Linares is a community organiser and economic anthropologist born in the territories known today as Guatemala. He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics, where he studied and worked on projects with the late David Graeber. Julio is the author of Decolonizing Money: The Promise of Abolishing the US Dollar (Pluto Press, 2026) and serves as Public Outreach for the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). He lives in Berlin, Germany.

Dr rémy-paulin twahirwa is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Aston University, community organiser and writer based in London. With over a decade of involvement in migrant justice movements in so-called Canada and the UK, their work explores the ghostly affects and matters of migrant life under contemporary border regimes and the parasitic expansion of the carceral state. Their writing has appeared in both academic and non-academic venues, including LSE Review of Books, Society + Space and Liberté. They are currently completing their first manuscript, On Ghostly Lives, and serve as Managing Editor of The Philosopher and co-convenor of the BSA Race and Ethnicity Study Group. rémy also organise screenings with the Haringey Community Cinema. More about their work can be found at: https://ghostlylivesaproject.wordpress.com/. You can follow them on Bleusky: @ rpaulint.bsky.social.

Dr Lilly Markaki is Lecturer in Race and Culture in Film and Media at Royal Holloway, University of London. They are a scholar, public programmer, and educator working across critical theory, visual culture, media theory, political philosophy, and Black radical and anti-colonial thought. Their research investigates the political life of aesthetic forms and broader questions of race and the coloniality of being, time, and the intersections of desire, technology, and contemporary capitalism.https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/lilly-markaki-2/.

This event on money is…free! It is also open to everyone. You do not need to be a student, researcher, or have any prior knowledge of economics, finance or the topics discussed to attend.

The event is particularly aimed at people who are curious about how money shapes our everyday lives, relationships and society, as well as those interested in music, culture, politics and alternative ways of thinking about the economy.

We especially welcome people who might not usually attend university talks or academic events. After the Lecture is designed to create an informal and accessible space where ideas can be explored collectively, bringing academic research into conversation with culture, lived experience and the perspectives of the audience.

Audience participation is encouraged but entirely optional. You are equally welcome to come along, listen to the conversation and music, and enjoy the evening.

The event may be of particular interest to people curious about the role money plays in our everyday lives and relationships, and those interested in questions of debt, work, inequality, banking and alternative economies.

It may also appeal to people interested in music and popular culture, particularly how artists have explored experiences of wealth, poverty, aspiration, survival and economic inequality.

More broadly, this live recording of MØN€Y is aimed at anyone interested in politics, society and culture who enjoys encountering big ideas outside traditional academic settings. We particularly hope to welcome local communities, students, artists and organisers, as well as people from marginalised and underrepresented communities, including those who may have experienced economic insecurity or exclusion. We especially want the event to feel welcoming to people who might not ordinarily see university talks or academic events as spaces for them.

Booking will close two hours before the event for logistical purposes.