Dr Aasiya Lodhi
I joined Westminster in 2013 following sixteen years as a BBC producer specialising in arts, documentary and foreign affairs programming at Radio 3, Radio 4 and the World Service (including Front Row, Night Waves, Open Book, The Verb, Crossing Continents). My educational background is in Literature (BA York, MA SOAS), and my PhD (Sussex) examined the relationship between colonial ideology, writers and mid-twentieth century BBC Radio. I am a Trustee of the Charles Parker Archive and of the Stuart Hall Foundation.
I'm interested in cultural and political histories of twentieth-century Britain, especially as revealed through post-war media, writers and the mediation of imperial legacy. I have written on the history of radiogenic forms, particularly features, and with Amanda Wrigley I co-edited Radio Modernisms: Features, Cultures and the BBC (Routledge). My current book (forthcoming) interrogates radio voice, race and coloniality in fifties Britain through a focus on six major authors, including Doris Lessing, George Lamming and Stuart Hall.
Another strand of my research fosters public engagement on questions of race, gender and class through the exploration of media archives. I was the Principal Investigator of the AHRC-funded project 'Reclaiming a Lost Past: Black British Women, Visibility and the BBC', tied to the BBC's centenary in 2022 and in partnership with BBC History, the Feminist Library, the podcast Letter To A Black Girl, and the Young Vic Theatre.
I am Editor, with Abigail Wincott, of the journal RadioDoc Review.