Writers, Masses, Multitudes

Posted in Symposia

February 13-14, 2007

The two-day symposium engaged questions such as tribal activism and resistance in India; the critical legacies of decolonization in the academy; climate change and its relationship to human emancipation; literature and the aesthetics of resistance; and other topics.

Additional Sponsors: Program on Justice and Peace, Office of the College Dean, Lacay Lecture Fund, GU Lecture Fund and Department of English


Participants

Schedule of Events

Tuesday, February 13

Welcome and Introduction
4:00 – 4:30PM | Copley Formal Lounge
Henry Schwarz, Program on Justice and Peace

Symposium I: Masses as a problematic for framing relationships between groups and their leaders
4:30 – 5:45PM | Copley Formal Lounge
Participants: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Ganesh Devy, Kim Stanley Robinson, DaKxin Bajrange Chhara, Nokuthula Mazibuko and Dinaw Mengestu.

Reading by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Lannan Distinguished Reader at Georgetown
8:00 – 9:00PM | ICC Auditorium
Reception and book-signing to follow in ICC Foyer.

Wednesday, February 14

After Amnesia: Culture and Development
10:00 – 10:45AM | Copley Formal Lounge
Ganesh Devy rethinks center and margin in literary history.

Abrupt Climate Change and Human Emancipation: Terraforming Earth
1:00 – 11:45AM | Copley Formal Lounge
Kim Stanley Robinson asks whether the Earth has a future.

The Critical Legacies of Decolonization
1:15 – 2:15PM | ICC
An excerpt from Manthia Diawara’s film Who’s Afraid of Ngugi? will frame this discussion of decolonization and the academy. Panelists: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Nokuthula Mazibuko, Dinaw Mengestu and others.

Legacies: Theatre
2:15 – 2:45 | ICC
Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s “This Time Tomorrow” in a dramatized reading by the Black Theatre Ensemble.

Film & Performance: A User’s Manual for the Construction of a Radical Theatre
3:00 – 4: 30PM | ICC
DaKxin Chhara, Ganesh Devy, and Awaaz — Georgetown’s South Asian theatre group — stage an improvisational talk and performance, “Acting Like a Thief: Ordinary Crime and Resistance.” Accompanied by screenings of Acting Like a Thief (dir. Shashwati Talukdar) and Bulldozer (dir. DaKxin Chhara).

Keynote Address: “The Word Made Flesh: Literature and the Aesthetics of Resistance”
5:00 – 6:00PM | ICC
Lecture by by Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Part of the Lacay Lecture Series, 2006-2007
Reception will follow in ICC Galleria.

Reading by Kim Stanley Robinson
8:00 -9:00PM | ICC
Reception and book-signing to follow in ICC Foyer.


Media

The Critical Legacies of Decolonization

Penn Szittya, Mark McMorris, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o | Lacay Lecture

Ganesh Devy and Dakxin Bajrange Chhara