The Norton Lectures with Steve McQueen: Pulse | Lecture Two: "Small Axe"

Photo: James Stopforth, Courtesy of Thomas Dane Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery

THE NORTON LECTURES

2025-26 Norton Professor of Poetry: Steve McQueen

Discussants: Tracey Scoffield, Producer; Hazel V. Carby, Yale University

Moderator: Ashley Clark, Criterion Collection

The 2025-26 Norton Lectures | Steve McQueen: Pulse

Norton Lecture Two: Small Axe

Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s anthology series has been celebrated for its powerful storytelling, its authentic portrayal of Black British culture, and its exploration of themes of identity, racism, and resilience. The five films, which depict the experiences of West Indian immigrants in London from the 1960s to the 1980s, have garnered critical acclaim and numerous awards. Small Axe is not a traditional television series, but rather a collection of five standalone films, each telling a unique story rooted in the Black British experience during a period of social and political upheaval. McQueen will be joined by Tracey Scoffield (Small Axe producer), Hazel Carby (Charles C. and Dorothea S. Dilley Professor Emeritus of African American Studies, Professor Emeritus of American Studies, Yale University) and Ashley Clark (Curatorial Director, the Criterion Collection) to discuss the anthology.

The films of Small Axe will be screened in September & October ahead of this lecture at the Harvard Film Archive. The full details for the series can be found here. The films include:

• Mangrove: A courtroom drama centered on the landmark 1970 trial of the "Mangrove Nine," who were charged with inciting a riot after protesting police racism.
• Lovers Rock: A vibrant and romantic story set during a blues party in the early 1980s.
• Education: A semi-autobiographical story about a young boy's experience in a special needs school due to systemic racism.
• Alex Wheatle: The story of the young adult novelist Alex Wheatle, from his early experiences in prison to his later success.
• Red, White and Blue: The true story of Leroy Logan, a man who joins the Metropolitan Police in an attempt to change the force from within, despite his father's traumatic experience with police brutality.

This is the second of six Norton Lectures with Steve McQueen. For all Lecture dates and information, click here.

Admission is FREE; tickets are required. Tickets can be obtained through the Harvard Box Office. Seating is first come, first served. Limit of four tickets per person. Tickets valid until 5:45pm.

Tickets will be available in advance one week prior to each lecture starting at noon online, in person at the Smith Campus Center box office, or by phone. Handling fees apply for online and phone sales. Tickets also available in person at Sanders Theatre starting two hours prior to each lecture, subject to availability.

Free parking for all six Norton Lectures is available at the Broadway Garage, located at 7 Felton Street, between Broadway and Cambridge Streets. Parking is from one hour pre-performance to one hour post. More info at Parking & Directions.

About the Speakers

Steve McQueen is recognized internationally as one of the most important artists of his generation. His work explores universal themes, often addressing painful and challenging histories and exposing the fragility of the human condition.

Awarded the Turner Prize in 1999, McQueen has had his artwork presented at some of the most significant venues and museums around the world. His work has been featured in Documenta, he represented Great Britain at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, and was selected several times for the Venice Biennale’s central pavilion. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at the Art Institute of Chicago; Schaulager, Basel; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. In 2019 he presented YEAR 3 at Tate Britain and had a major solo exhibition at Tate Modern in 2020 which toured to Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan in 2022. In Spring 2023, he presented Grenfell at the Serpentine South Gallery, London. In 2024 McQueen unveiled a new installation, Bass, co-commissioned by Dia and Schaulager Basel, at Dia Beacon in New York.

McQueen has directed five feature films. His first, Hunger (2008), was awarded the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and his third, 12 Years a Slave (2013), received the Golden Globe, Oscar, and BAFTA awards for best picture in 2014. In 2020, he made Small Axe, an anthology of five films about London’s West Indian community and, in 2021, Uprising, a 3-part documentary with James Rogan, about the New Cross Fire in London in 1981. His documentary film, Occupied City, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023. Blitz, his most recent feature, about the Second World War, had its world premiere as the opening film of the 68th BFI London Film Festival.

Hazel V. Carby is the Charles C. and Dorothea S. Dilley Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and Professor Emeritus of American Studies, Yale University. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, and an Honorary Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. From 2022-2024, she was a Centennial Professor at LSE’s International Inequalities Institute, and from 2021- 2022, was the Roth Visiting Distinguished Scholar at Dartmouth College.

Tracey Scoffield is an Emmy and Golden Globe-winning drama and film producer, whose career includes establishing and running the films books list at publishers Faber and Faber, and ten years with BBC Films where she developed and Executive Produced films for the cinema and television, including Dirty Pretty Things, A Cock and Bull Story, and The Gathering Storm. She left the BBC to set up Rainmark Films with veteran HBO producer Frank Doelger. Their work for HBO includes Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight starring Christopher Plummer and Into the Storm starring Brendan Gleeson. Scoffield is now a founding director of Turbine Studios, and with fellow director David Tanner, produced and Executive Produced Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s collection of films for the BBC and Amazon Prime Video about the West Indian experience in London.

Ashley Clark Ashley Clark is the curatorial director at the Criterion Collection, a position to which he was appointed in 2020. Previously, he was the director of film programming at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). He is an experienced moderator and critic, and his writing has appeared in Film Comment, Reverse Shot, The Guardian, and Sight & Sound. He is the author of two books: Facing Blackness: Media and Minstrelsy in Spike Lee's Bamboozled (The Critical Press, 2015/Film Desk, 2022), and The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films (Laurence King, 2026).

About the Norton Lectures

The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship in Poetry was endowed in 1925. Harvard’s preeminent lecture series in the arts and humanities, the Norton Lectures recognize individuals of extraordinary talent who, in addition to their particular expertise, have the gift of wide dissemination and wise expression. The term “poetry” is interpreted in the broadest sense to encompass all poetic expression in language, music, or the fine arts.