Discussing the relationship between social activism and research, Dr Asma Sayed will tell us more about her ongoing research.
Join us for a conversation with Dr. Asma Sayed, Canada Research Chair in South Asian Literary and Cultural Studies in the Department of English at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) in Canada, and NTU PhD candidate Ramisha Rafique.
They will discuss how the academic space can play an important role in working towards equity and inclusion and fostering a just society through anti-racism and Islamophobia awareness initiatives. Discussing the relationship between social activism and research, Dr Asma Sayed will tell us more about her ongoing research, activist work, and anti-racism initiatives at KPU.
Free – online via YouTube.
Taking part as part of Bonington Gallery’s Formations programme in partnership with NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre.
Bios:
Dr. Asma Sayed
Dr. Asma Sayed is Associate Vice President (interim) for anti-racism, professor of English, and Canada Research Chair in South Asian Literary and Cultural Studies at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Canada. She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2020. She is the past President of the Canadian Association for Postcolonial Studies. Her interdisciplinary research is informed by feminist and critical race studies and focuses on marginalization of gendered and racialized people as represented in literature, film, and media. Her current project examines the contributions of South Asian writers and filmmakers in Canada to the discourse of social justice. Her publications include five books and numerous articles in academic journals, anthologies, and periodicals.
Ramisha Rafique
Ramisha Rafique is a NTU PhD studentship funded PhD candidate at Nottingham Trent University. Her creative-critical doctoral thesis explores the ontology of the postcolonial flâneuse, considering, class, language, religion, and global technological advancements. Her research interests include Islamophobia, British Muslim women’s writing, and flânerie.
Join Dr Tracey Lindberg in conversation with Valentina de Riso, as part of the When I Dare to be Powerful conference at Bonington Gallery.
Valentina de Riso will be in conversation with Dr Tracey Lindberg on Indigenous voice in literature. This online talk will explore writing as a form of activist engagement, with fiction a site of resistance and a tool for empowerment. Tracey Lindberg will discuss voice as represented and mobilised in her novel Birdie, and the personal and collective implications of storytelling at the intersection with activist and academic work.
This event is part of online talks series leading to the in-person conference When I Dare to be Powerful, on 21 June at Bonington Gallery. The international conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists, together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists in order to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.
Image credit: David Weatherall
Bio:
Professor Tracey Lindberg hails from the As’in’î’wa’chî Ni’yaw (Kelly Lake Cree Nation) and grew up in small cities and towns in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan (including, Melfort, Nipawin and Prince Albert). She studied law at the University of Saskatchewan, Harvard Law School (LLM) and the University of Ottawa (PhD). Her academic work Critical Indigenous Legal Theory won the University of Ottawa’s Gold Medal and the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award.
Tracey Lindberg’s work with Elder Maria Campbell and Priscilla Campeau “Indigenous Women and Sexual Assault in Canada” (in Elizabeth Sheehy ed. Ch. 5, Indigenous Women and Sexual Assault in Canada (Ottawa: U Ottawa, 2017) represents the legal thinking and pedagogy in which she is most interested and engaged and includes engagement with Cree laws, critical Indigenous legal theory and storytelling. Her best-selling novel Birdie is widely read and used to teach courses worldwide.
Professor Lindberg studies, reads and practices Niyaw / Cree law, and works in the areas of Indigenous law and literature, Indigenous legal theory, the rejuvenation and application of Indigenous laws and Indigenous women’s societies, laws and legal orders.
Her next work will be on bookshelves this fall. It is called: sâkihitowin: the Cree word for love and features 16 intertwined stories about the spectrum of love tied to 20 pieces of art by Cree painter George Littlechild.
Tracey currently teaches at the University of Victoria faculty of law.
Valentina de Riso (she/her) is a Vice Chancellor’s Studentship PhD student at Nottingham Trent University. Her research focuses on contemporary writings by First Nations, Métis, and Inuit women who challenge and re-think models for testimony and Indigenous-settler relations in Canada. Her thesis examines motifs of mutual understanding, healing, forgiveness, and empathy which, when employed in national discourses of reconciliation risk naturalising, pathologising, or sensationalising Indigenous experiences of violence and trauma. They are re-imagined in Indigenous women’s productions. Valentina published her article ‘Spin the Tale Inside: Opacity and Respectful Distance in Lee Maracle’s Celia’s Song’ in the academic journal Studies in Canadian Literature (SCL) in 2021.
Join Jeff VanderMeer in conversation with Trang Dang, as part of the When I Dare to be Powerful conference at Bonington Gallery.
Trang Dang and science fiction author Jeff VanderMeer will explore and discuss nonhuman voices, resistance, and activism in an age of anthropogenic climate change and the power of storytelling in accentuating these voices.
This event is part of online talks series leading to the in-person conference When I Dare to be Powerful, on 21 June at Bonington Gallery. The international conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists, together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists in order to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.
Image credit: Kyle Cassidy
Bios:
Jeff VanderMeer has been profiled by the New York Times, Audubon Magazine, and the Guardian, in large part for his environmentalism and his exploration of the nonhuman world in his fiction. His NYT-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy has been translated into over 35 languages. The first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and Shirley Jackson Award, and was made into a film by Paramount in 2018. Other works include Dead Astronauts, Borne (a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award), and The Strange Bird. These novels, set in the Borne universe, are being developed for TV by AMC. His most recent novel, Hummingbird Salamander (MCD/FSG), a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award, interrogates the foundations of our modern world in an environmental context. Called “the weird Thoreau” by The New Yorker, VanderMeer frequently speaks about issues related to climate change and storytelling. His nonfiction about wildlife and nature has appeared in Orion Magazine, Esquire, and the Los Angeles Times, amongst others. In January of 2023, VanderMeer founded the Sunshine State Biodiversity Group, a non-profit devoted to rewilding, biodiversity education, and environmental journalism. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife Ann, cat Neo, and a yard full of native plants.
Trang Dang (she/her) is a PhD researcher in literary studies at Nottingham Trent University, funded by NTU Studentship Scheme, and previously graduated from Oxford Brookes University with a BA and an MA in English Literature. Her PhD project focuses on Jeff VanderMeer’s weird fiction, exploring narratives of co-existence between humans and nonhumans and the role of new weird novels in portraying the current climate crisis. Her main research interests are contemporary literature, cli/sci-fi, critical theory, and continental philosophy. She has published on the topics of animal studies, American culture and politics, and the Anthropocene.
Join Jasmine Qureshi in conversation with Trang Dang, as part of the When I Dare to be Powerful conference at Bonington Gallery.
Trang Dang and queer writer, journalist, wildlife TV researcher Jasmine Qureshi will discuss the role of voice in her journey into environmental conservation and activism and in addressing the intersecting gender and environmental issues we are currently facing.
This event is part of online talks series leading to the in-person conference When I Dare to be Powerful, on 21 June at Bonington Gallery. The international conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists, together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists in order to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.
Bios:
Jasmine Isa Qureshi is a writer and a storyteller. She is also a wildlife television/media researcher, previously working at Wild Space Productions on a series for Netflix, BBC Natural History Unit/BBC Earth, and Sound Off Films, a freelance wildlife filmmaker, an ambassador for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, an engagement officer for the youth led nature organisation A Focus On Nature, an activist, and a marine biologist. She is passionate about wildlife, conservation and the environment, and can usually be found on the coast, combing for marine life, and exploring the ruins and new builds of our urban jungles, and speaking and writing far too much about insects and arthropods. As a speaker and journalist, she has found a place for herself to share her passion for topics such as diversity in workplaces and in all the subjects she is involved with, politics and how it affects science and nature but also the social sciences, sexuality, identity and gender, particularly trans rights and the understanding of these; and has been able to contribute to events around the country such as Norwich Science Festival, Cheltenham Science Festival, etc. As a presenter, she has been involved with CBeebies, Edinburgh Science Festival, and VOX Media.
Trang Dang (she/her) is a PhD researcher in literary studies at Nottingham Trent University, funded by NTU Studentship Scheme, and previously graduated from Oxford Brookes University with a BA and an MA in English Literature. Her PhD project focuses on Jeff VanderMeer’s weird fiction, exploring narratives of co-existence between humans and nonhumans and the role of new weird novels in portraying the current climate crisis. Her main research interests are contemporary literature, cli/sci-fi, critical theory, and continental philosophy. She has published on the topics of animal studies, American culture and politics, and the Anthropocene.
Join Ather Zia in conversation with with Amir Kaur Aujula-Jones and Trang Dang, as part of the When I Dare to be Powerful conference at Bonington Gallery.
Amir Kaur Aujla-Jones and Trang Dang are in conversation with Ather Zia about writing as a powerful tool to amplify the voices of women active in the Kashmir conflict. Their voices are often ignored in a dominant narrative that fails to give them agency and instead writes them as victims of the conflict.
This event is part of online talks series leading to the in-person conference When I Dare to be Powerful, on 21 June at Bonington Gallery. The international conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists, together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists in order to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.
Bio:
Ather Zia, Ph.D., is a political anthropologist, poet, short fiction writer, and columnist. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Gender Studies program at the University of Northern Colorado Greeley. Ather is the author of Resisting Disappearances: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir (June 2019) which won the 2020 Gloria Anzaldua Honorable Mention award, 2021 Public Anthropologist Award, and Advocate of the Year Award 2021. She has been featured in the Femilist 2021, a list of 100 women from the Global South working on critical issues. She is the co-editor of Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak (Women Unlimited 2020), Resisting Occupation in Kashmir (Upenn 2018) and A Desolation called Peace (Harper Collins, May 2019). She has published a poetry collection “The Frame” and another collection is forthcoming. Ather’s ethnographic poetry on Kashmir has won an award from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology. She is the founder-editor of Kashmir Lit and is the co-founder of Critical Kashmir Studies Collective, an interdisciplinary network of scholars working on the Kashmir region. Ather is also a co-editor of Cultural Anthropology.
Amir Kaur Aujla-Jones (she/her) has a BA (Hons) in History from the University of Sussex, a MA in Education from the University of Nottingham and a PhD in Sociology from Nottingham Trent University. Dr Aujla-Jones’s research has focused on race and gender equality using an intersectional lens. Her PhD thesis examined the lived experience of Black, Asian, and Mixed-race girls in predominantly white English secondary schools. Dr Aujla-Jones is part of Conscience Collective, an international network based in the UK aiming to extend understanding of climate and social justice.
Trang Dang (she/her) is a PhD researcher in literary studies at Nottingham Trent University, funded by NTU Studentship Scheme, and previously graduated from Oxford Brookes University with a BA and an MA in English Literature. Her PhD project focuses on Jeff VanderMeer’s weird fiction, exploring narratives of co-existence between humans and nonhumans and the role of new weird novels in portraying the current climate crisis. Her main research interests are contemporary literature, cli/sci-fi, critical theory, and continental philosophy. She has published on the topics of animal studies, American culture and politics, and the Anthropocene.
Professor Gus John and poet Yolanda Lear join Jenni Ramone’s Black Writing in Britain students and Formations audiences for a special event on the history of New Beacon Books and its place in the history of Black British publishing, writing, and activism.
Gus John discusses publishing, decolonisation, and the contemporary university. Yolanda Lear reads and discusses her poetry, and both speakers engage in conversation with English and Creative Writing students at NTU.
FORMATIONS is a public events series which foregrounds under-represented artists, writers, thinkers, and activists, run by NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre and Bonington Gallery.
Click here to reserve your spot at this free online event.
Biographies:
Professor Gus John is one of the co-founders of the Communities Empowerment Network – CEN. He is also a writer, education campaigner, consultant, lecturer and researcher.
He has worked extensively in the fields of education policy, management and international development and as a social analyst he specialises in social audits, change management, policy formulation and review, and programme evaluation and development.
Since the 1960s Gus has been visibly active in issues of education and schooling in Britain’s inner cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and London, and was the first black Director of Education and Leisure Services in Britain. Gus has also worked in a number of university settings, including as visiting Faculty Professor of Education at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, as an associate professor of education and honorary fellow of the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the UCL Institute of Education, University of London and is a visiting professor at Coventry University.
A respected public speaker and media commentator, Gus works internationally as an executive coach and a management and social investment consultant. He is also a frequent contributor to the Guardian, writing on subjects including Windrush, universities and education, racism in UK institutions, and about Grenada, which is where he was born.
He is a Non-Executive Director for New Beacon Books, which was established in 1966, and is the only remaining independent Black publishing and bookselling entity in the UK. it has been central to the growth of the Black Education Movement, the Black Supplementary School Movement and current calls for the decolonisation of the curriculum.
Yolanda Lear is 28 years old. The project lead for Account Hackney, she is also a poet, an advocate for mental health, a community activist, public speaker, public rep, self-published author, youth leader and spoken word artist. Yolanda has a strong desire to create a positive change within her community and others. With her book, The Journey To An Undefeated Mind, and her workshop, she aims to empower, encourage, inspire and motivate others to take charge of their own paths in life, and help improve their own well-being.
Account Hackney is a youth-led Police Monitoring and Scrutiny Group based in Hackney. Holding the police to account, and empowering our community.
Instagram: @HackneyAccount
‘The Undefeated Mind’
Email: Info@theundefeatedmind.co.uk
Website: Theundefeatedmind.co.uk
Instagram: The_undefeatedmind
To coincide with Cedar Lewisohn’s solo exhibition earlier this year, Patois Banton, join us for a free online talk by Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson entitled Questioning Language and Knowledge: The Challenge to Creole-speaking Communities. This will be followed by a Q&A with Ramisha Rafique.
This event follows on from an in conversation with Cedar Lewisohn, Ioney Smallhorne and Honey Williams which can be watched here.
“That children learn best in their mother language, has been known for several decades. However, the application has been very slow in societies where the mother language of the majority is a Creole language. This is due to what I refer to as an epistemological blind spot emerging from what colonial and neo-colonial education determine to be (real) knowledge, and how those ideological systems designate the languages that are the vehicles of ‘real’ knowledge.
Given their historic low status, Creole languages like Jamaican, Haitian Creole, Barbadian, are therefore not seen as proper receptacles of knowledge. In an attempt to unpack the philosophy of language that drives this state of affairs, I explore the historical roots of these views, and the ways in which they undermine and stunt the production, dissemination, and development of indigenous forms of knowledge.” – Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson, Coordinator, Jamaican Language Unit
FORMATIONS is a public events series which foregrounds under-represented artists, writers, thinkers, and activists, run by NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre and Bonington Gallery.
Click here to reserve your spot at this free online event.
Biographies:
Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at The University of the West Indies, Mona. Dr. Farquharson holds B.A. in Linguistics and Spanish and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from UWI, and an M.Phil. in European Literature (Spanish) from the University of Cambridge. He has been serving as the Coordinator of the Jamaican Language Unit (JLU) since August 2019 and is currently a member of the Communication & Information Advisory Committee of the Jamaica National Commission for UNESCO, and the Convenor of the subject panel for CAPE Communication Studies.
Ramisha Rafique is a PhD studentship funded PhD candidate at Nottingham Trent University. Her creative-critical doctoral thesis explores the ontology of the postcolonial flâneuse, considering class, language, religion, and global technological advancements. Her research interests include Islamophobia, British Muslim women’s writing, and flânerie.
Join Alison, Marina, and Andrew in conversation, discussing materials they have found in their research on European periodicals post-1945. At the heart of the project is a focus upon the practice of translation:
The Spaces of Translation project studies a small collection of important literary and cultural magazines from three countries (Britain, France, Germany) in order to consider how they explore and construct notions of European identity in the period from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1960s. The current exhibition at the Bonington explores a number of these issues and displays a range of original magazines from 1945-65. Alison, Marina, and Andrew will discuss some of the fascinating material they have found in their research so far.
The event will be chaired by Dr Annalise Grice, Department of English, NTU.
Alison E. Martin is Professor of British Studies, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz/Germersheim, Germany. She is a specialist in translation studies, travel writing and comparative literature. Her books include Nature Translated: Alexander von Humboldt’s Works in Nineteenth-Century Britain (2018) and Moving Scenes: The Aesthetics of German Travel Writing on England, 1783-1830 (2008), as well as two co-edited volumes, Travel Writing in Dutch and German, 1790-1930 (2017) and Travel Narratives in Translation, 1750-1830 (2012). Before coming to JGU, she taught at the University of Reading, Universiteit Hasselt, the Universität Kassel and the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. She is the German PI for the Spaces of Translation project on European magazines, 1945-65.
Marina Popea is a Research Fellow on the Spaces of Translation project, based at NTU. She specialises in translation and cultural magazines with a broad comparative focus. A Latin Americanist with an interdisciplinary background, she is completing an AHRC-funded PhD at Oxford University on the role of translation in shaping modern poetics in Mexican magazines of the early twentieth century. She is particularly interested in Digital Humanities and the methodological challenges of studying translation in the context of periodical publications.
Andrew Thacker is Professor of Twentieth Century Literature at NTU. He is the author or editor of several books on modernism and modernist magazines, including the three volumes of The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines (2009-13) and, most recently, Modernism, Space and the City (2019). He was a founder member and the first Chair of the British Association for Modernist Studies. He is the UK PI for the Spaces of Translation project on European magazines, 1945-65.
This online roundtable is a pre-conference event on Dalit magazines with editors and subject experts from West Bengal and Maharashtra. It is being organised in association with the Network on Dalit and Adivasi Literature and Bonington Gallery as part of our Formations Series.
Conceptualised to draw the attention of researchers working in this field within and outside India, the roundtable will be moderated by Dr Nicole Thiara and Prof Judith Misrahi-Barak.
Funded by the Research Seed Grant Scheme, GITAM (Deemed to be University), the project on Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines intends to critically engage with the underrepresented area of Dalit Periodicals within the broad research field of Dalit Studies. It aims to trace and collect periodicals published in Bangla and Marathi (1950-2000) and look into their publication process, circulation and readership.
Besides, it aims to build a digital repository of Bangla and Marathi periodicals to facilitate easier access, a historiographic narrative on the evolution of Dalit literary periodicals in Marathi and Bangla and encourage translations of Dalit writings published in these periodicals.
As part of the outreach programme, a three-day conference is being organised in GITAM, Hyderabad, titled “Vernacular Periodicals and Dalit Writing: Production, Circulation and Reception” from 1st March to 3rd March 2023 in association with the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore. This conference aims to bring together editors, subject experts, early career scholars and graduate students to initiate a conversation across Indian languages and to reflect upon the vernacular Dalit periodicals critically.
The discussion will primarily focus on:
1) the possibility and scope of research in the area of vernacular periodicals and Dalit writing,
2) the challenges in such research and
3) the significance of such research.
A retired central government employee, Dhurjati Naskar, is an essayist, poet, and novelist from South 24 Parganas of West Bengal. He has been involved in editing periodicals since the early 1970s. Some of the periodicals edited by him are: Bangla Maati (Soil of Bengal), Dakkhin Barasat Sahitya Patra (South Barasat Literary Magazine), Baridhati, Dakhina Path, Baruipur Sambad (Barupipur News), Bharatiya Pundra Samachar (Indian Pundra News) and Pundra-Poundra Badhav. These periodicals, predominantly literary, also published essays concerning the history, ethnonational and folk traditions of the Poundra community. He is a member of Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sangstha (Kolkata), West Bengal Dalit Sahitya Sabha and a founding member of Dr Bhusan Chandra Naskar Archive. He has been a recipient of the West Bengal Sahitya Akademy Award in the year 2019.
Prof. Sipra Mukherjee teaches English at West Bengal State University. Her areas of interest are religion, caste, folklore and orality. She has been a visiting fellow at the department of English University of Hyderabad, School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University. She has received many national and international research and travel grants. Some of them are – ICSSR research grant for a research project on ‘Interpreting Folklore: Understanding the relationship between folklore, religion and caste in East India’, 2013-2015; a Research Grant from the University Grant Commission, India, ‘Faiths in the Margins’, 2009; Luce Grant from Comparative Religion Programme, on Religion and Human Security: Negotiating the Power of Religious Non-State Actors, University of Washington, 2008. Besides her research on the intersection between caste and religion, she has been an avid translator. Her translated works include the Autobiography of Dalit writer Manoranjan Byapari, Interrogating My Chandal Life, 2018, and Under My Black Skin Flows a Red River: Translations of Dalit Writings for Bengal, 2021, which she co-edited along with Prof. Debi Chatterjee. She is also a member of Ebong Alap, a voluntary non-profit society which works with youth to encourage critical thought.
Dr Asit Biswas is an Associate Professor of English in West Bengal Education Service, currently posted at P.R. Thakur Government College, Thakurnagar, West Bengal. He completed his PhD research on the film adaptation of western texts in Bengali films from the University of Gour Banga, Malda, West Bengal. He has published seventeen research papers, six Dalit short stories, two Dalit plays and some poems in Bengali. He is the co-editor of the book Shotoborsher Bangla Dalit Sahitya; Dalit Poems, Dalit Literary Horizon (translation of Manohar Mouli Biswas’s book, Dalit Sahityer Digboloy), Songs and Dialogues from Bengal in English Translation and Dalit Protest Unbridled: Two Dozen Plays of Raju Das. He also published the book Pardon Not: Marichjhampi Massacre, a translation of the novel Kshama Nei by Nakul Mallik. Recently his translation of Kalyani Thakur’s novella Andhar Bil O Kichhu Manush (Andhar Bil and Some People) has been published by Zubaan. At present, he is translating a Bangla epic.
Urmila Pawar is a widely known Indian (Marathi) writer. She has been active in the Dalit and feminist movements in India since her early life. She was a part of the Marathi Dalit feminist magazine Aamhi Maitarni which was published during the 90s. She has eleven publications to her credit including the popular Marathi short story collection translated into English as Mother Wit by Prof. Veena Deo (Hamline University, USA), published by Zuban. Her Autobiographical narrative Aydaan translated into English as The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs by Prof. Maya Pandit remains most popular even today (it has been translated into other Indian languages as well – Hindi, Kannada and Tamil). Many of her short stories have been prescribed in the syllabus framework of Indian universities as well as universities abroad (Colombia University, USA).
A bilingual poet, translator, editor, critic and columnist, Dr Chandrakant Patil writes in Marathi and Hindi and occasionally in English. He has several publications – collections of Marathi poems such as Nissandarbh, Ittambhoot, Bayaka ani Itar Kvita, and a collection of Hindi poems Apni Bhasha Ke Sameep to mention a few. Besides, he has also published six critical essay collections and twenty-five collections in Marathi and Hindi translations. He is popularly known for his active engagement in the Little Magazine Movement in Maharashtra during the 1960s and 1970s. He acted as one of the editors and publishers of the highly discussed little magazine Wacha. Besides, he was also one of the founder members of Wacha Prakashan that published the first collections of avant-garde poets of Marathi, such as Bhalchandra Nemade, Manohar Oak, Satish Kalasekar, Dilip Chitre etc. He has been a recipient of national and state-level awards for his various contributions – Sahitya Akademi Translation award (1991), Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sahitya Akademi (1994), Bhasha Vruddhi Sammaan, Govt. Of Maharashtra (2022).
Prof. Dilip Chavan is an academic scholar and a professor of English at SRTM University, Nanded, Maharashtra. His doctoral work, Language Politics under Colonialism: Caste, Class and Language Pedagogy in Western India, was published as a book by Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars in 2013. He writes in Marathi and has published nine books on contemporary social issues such as language, caste, class, imperialism, and women’s education. Some of his notable works are – Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar ani Jativyawastha Ant (1998); Shikshan: Jatvargiya Vastav ani Samatavadi Paryay (1999); Stree Shikshanacha Sangharsha (2007); Dr Ambedkar ani Bhartiya Shikshanatil Jatisanghrsha (2003); Samrajyavad: Bhasha ani Sanskriti (2010); Corona ani Stree-Purush Vishamatecha Prashna (2022). He also has a keen interest in translations from English to the Marathi language (he is working on the Marathi translation of Braj Ranjan Mani’s book Debrahminising History). Besides, he has been a part of the widely read fortnightly ‘Pariwartanacha Watsaru’ as its executive editor. He has been associated with academic institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore.
A graduate from the University of Hyderabad, Dr Sayantan Mondal is currently an Asst. Professor in the department of English at GITAM, Hyderabad (Deemed to be University). His areas of interest are Reading-Print readership, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Dalit Studies and Translation. Sayantan has been an Erasmus Mundus Fellow at the University of Oxford during 2015-16. He has received the University of Heidelberg Travel Grant 2015 and the University Grants Commission Travel grant 2016. Presently, he is working on a research project titled “Mapping Vernacular Network of Ideas and Recovering the Ephemeral: Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines”, along with Dr Jondhale Rahul Hiraman. This project aims to trace Bangla and Marathi Periodicals and the exchange of ideas on the caste question. Some of his published works are – Of Caste-Class and Dalit Writing, 2015; An Introduction to the World of Monoranjan Byapari, 2015; Language and its People: A Comparative insight into the Kurdish and Rohingya Genocide, 2019; Prantik theke Dalit: Nandonikatar Rajniti o Dalit Chetona (From Marginalised to Dalit: Politics of Aesthetics and Dalit Consciousness), 2022; Migration and Cultural Identity: An Introduction, 2022.
Having received a doctorate in English (Cultural Studies) from The English and Foreign Languages University (EFL-U), Hyderabad, Dr Jondhale Rahul Hiraman is an assistant professor of English at GITAM (Deemed to be University), Hyderabad campus. His doctoral research, Religious Conversion and Dalit Experience: A Study of the Meanings of Conversion among the Neo-Buddhists, emphasises the phenomenon of Dalit conversion to Buddhism and studies the conversion movement in Nanded district (Marathwada region, Maharashtra) through collecting and analysing historical records – pamphlets, posters, record books etc. He is a recipient of a prestigious Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, doctoral fellowship for his doctoral research. He has been publishing in the area of Dalit Studies/literature on issues such as caste, colonial intervention into the caste question, Dalit identity and culture etc. Currently, he is involved in a research project, “Mapping Vernacular Network of Ideas and Recovering the Ephemeral: Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines”, along with Dr Sayantan Mondal.
To coincide with Cedar Lewisohn’s solo exhibition, Patois Banton, join us for a free online in-conservation event between Lewisohn and performance poet, writer and educator Ioney Smallhorne, and artist, graphic designer and singer Honey Williams.
As a starting point the panel will discuss the subject of Jamaican Patois, the English-based creole language spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora – exemplified by the poetry anthology Office Poems, published on the occasion of the exhibition and written in English by Lewisohn and translated into Patois by Joan Hutchinson.
Together, the speakers will talk about their own experience of patois and how it is linked more widely to subjects including identity, history, class, race and gender.
BIOGRAPHIES
Cedar Lewisohn is an artist, writer and curator. He has worked on museum projects for institutions such as Tate Britain, Tate Modern and The British Council. He has published three books (Street Art, Tate 2008, Abstract Graffiti, Marrell, 2011, The Marduk Prophecy, Slimvolume, 2020) He has also edited and self-published numinous publications. Cedar curated the landmark Street Art exhibition at Tate Modern. He was the curator of the project “Outside The Cube” for HangarBicocca Foundation in Milan and in 2018 worked with Birmingham Museums on the project, Collecting Birmingham. He was curator of The Museum of London’s Dub London project and in 2020 was appointed as curator of Site Design for The Southbank Centre, London. www.cedarlewisohn.com
Honey Williams is a creative powerhouse, singer-songwriter, visual artist, designer, DJ, alt-choir director and educator. Honey’s art looks at decolonisation, identity, beauty, power, race and gender. The British Council invited Honey to be a Muralist in Kingston, Jamaica to honour the Windrush Generation. Honey won the Public Choice Award at the NAE Open 2019 for her piece ‘Big Black Truth’. Honey has created special commissions for the Bonington Gallery at the University of Nottingham. Honey has delivered many art and music-based workshops working with various organisations, in 2021, Streetwise Opera Nottingham asked Honey to produce a collaborative mural and weekly workshop for YMCA Nottingham with people who experience homelessness.
Honey’s recent work ‘Shrines’, a series of large-scale self-portraits and immersive afro-futuristic multimedia, live-art performance, and an autobiographical exploration of misogynoir and fatphobia. As a singer-songwriter, Honey has performed and collaborated with world-renowned recording artists, Klashnekoff, Roni Size, Natalie Duncan, Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Jazz Jamaica. Honey was invited to perform at the 300th Anniversary of Karlsruhe, Germany. Honey is the Creative Director of an alt-soul choir called the Gang of Angels that has performed all over the UK. Honey is currently an Associate Artist at City Arts in, Nottingham, UK.
Ioney Smallhorne is a performance poet, writer, educator, with a MA in Creative Writing & Education, earned at Goldsmiths University. She’s a Hyson Green, Nottingham native. Her artistic practice is ignited by her Jamaican heritage, fuelled by the Black British experience, and smoulders with womanness.
Shortlisted for the Sky Arts/Royal Society of Literature fiction award 2021. Winner of the Writing East Midlands/Serendipity Black Ink Writing Competition 2021, longlisted for the Jerwood Fellowship 2017, short listed by Caribbean Small-Axe prize 2016.
As a Spoken Word Educator she works across the East Midlands encouraging people to harness the power of poetry and is the Co-lead facilitator for Gobs Poetry collective in Nottingham.
For 2022, Ioney was the New Art Exchange’s resident artist July-September, where she was developing her project, Jamaica and Her Daughters, a collection of poetry and prose. For 2023 she has received Arts Council funding to translate this project from page to performance, a work in progress sharing will be at New Art Exchange 23rd February. Her short story, First Flight, appears in the first Black British speculative fiction anthology, Glimpse, published by Peepal Tree Press and Ioney has recently been selected for the Apples & Snakes/Joseph Coelho/Otter Barry Books Diversifying Children’s Literature programme.