Speaking Out of Place: SUSAN ALBUHAWA discusses “Palestine Writes”

Speaking Out of Place: SUSAN ALBUHAWA discusses “Palestine Writes”

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Novelist · Poet · Essayist · Scientist · Mother · Activist
Organizer of “Palestine Writes” · the only North American literature festival celebrating Palestinian Writers & Artists
Founder of the Children’s Organization Playgrounds for Palestine

Palestinians have been facing erasure for decades. There's the physical erasure of our villages, the names of our villages, the erasure of the word Palestine from the map, erasure of our identities. And now there's this kind of colonization of our narratives, of our stories, and our history. And Palestine Writes is part of a counterforce against this new form of colonization. The Zionist colonial narrative has always shifted with shifting wind, depending on what's in vogue at the time. Initially, it was a sort of romantic ending to Europe's genocide of its own Jewish population. And there was this epic myth of "a land without people for a people without land". And of course that was unsustainable.

SIMON DALBY - Author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World

SIMON DALBY - Author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World

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Author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World
Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University

We also need to note most people move locally rather than globally. In the discussions about climate refugees, people are going to be dislocated. There are obviously going to be places that are going to become quite literally uninhabitable because they're too hot and too dry, or they've been flooded so frequently that they're just not sustainable. That said it is also worth pointing out that this climate change process is playing out in a global economy, which is also changing where people live and how people live very rapidly. the migration from rural areas to urban systems has been massive over the last couple of generations. We became an urban species.

Speaking Out of Place: JEFF CHANG discusses the Supreme Court’s Recent Decision on Affirmative Action

Speaking Out of Place: JEFF CHANG discusses the Supreme Court’s Recent Decision on Affirmative Action

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Journalist · Activist · Public Intellectual
Author of We Gon' Be Alright: Notes On Race and Resegregation ·
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation

This conversation focuses on the Supreme Court’s recent decision on affirmative action and presenting a ”true and historically honest confrontation with America’s racism.”

Speaking Out of Place: CHING-IN CHEN & KATE HAO discuss the cancellation of the Asian American Literary Festival 2023

Speaking Out of Place: CHING-IN CHEN & KATE HAO discuss the cancellation of the Asian American Literary Festival 2023

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on the cancellation of the Asian American Literary Festival 2023

This August, the Asian American Literary Festival was to take place in Washington, DC.. The longstanding event had been on hiatus because of the pandemic, so this year’s event had generated a lot of buzz.  Organized by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), the event had already garnered substantial investments and expectations from both national and international groups and states. Ching-In Chen is a poet who was curating a festival event featuring books by trans and nonbinary writers. Kate Hao is a program coordinator who was on contract with the Smithsonian for the festival.

Speaking Out of Place: JENNIFER JACQUET discusses The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World

Speaking Out of Place: JENNIFER JACQUET discusses The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World

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Author of The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World

They weren't able to employ scientists to not find a fingerprint of anthropogenic climate change. They weren't able to pull that off, and when they're not able to do that, what they do instead is create an arsenal of expertise who just create the illusion of disagreement, and they were so successful at doing that with climate change that it's remarkable because there actually was scientific consensus. There wasn't this giant rift in the scientific community, and for decades, they created an illusion of disagreement that we all bought. And they're able to do that using Stanford University, Rockefeller University, these names of institutions as well as individuals, but they're not actually publishing science. And so I think it deserves a kind of special carve out of all of the tactics because it really says: actually these systems are working pretty well. You're just not getting the right information. And they do that again through the media and PR firms and controlling the dialogues and press releases and journals, and especially their relationship with the media, is very, very privileged.

Highlights - JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet - Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill

Highlights - JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet - Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill

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Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet · Director of Creative Writing Program · Emory University
Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill

As writers, it's our job to write what will become clichés. Not to write clichés, but to be original enough that we make something that people are still saying for hundreds of years to come. And if that's what you're doing, that's pretty powerful. When I'm writing a poem I'm making a world. And if I can stick to that, then I have to believe that once a poem is out in the world, another world has been made, another way of living, another way of thinking, another way of seeing things.

JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet - Editor of “How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill”

JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet - Editor of “How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill”

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Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet · Director of Creative Writing Program · Emory University
Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill

As writers, it's our job to write what will become clichés. Not to write clichés, but to be original enough that we make something that people are still saying for hundreds of years to come. And if that's what you're doing, that's pretty powerful. When I'm writing a poem I'm making a world. And if I can stick to that, then I have to believe that once a poem is out in the world, another world has been made, another way of living, another way of thinking, another way of seeing things.

Highlights - ERICA BERRY - Author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear

Highlights - ERICA BERRY - Author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear

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Author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear

And I think the ways that wolves converse with one another, there's also so much there that really conjures the way that we humans do. And I was trying to piece together: why did we feel so threatened by wolves? In part, I think because there's a sort of uncanny mirror that humans have seen in a wolf. And I'll give an example. Wolf packs will form a diversity of family structures very often. So they will have a nuclear family where you'll have two breeders, but they can also have an extended family where there's sort of aunts and uncles in the pack. Or (these are the biologist's names) they'll call it a step-family if a wolf pack welcomes an outside breeder. A foster family, if they welcome another outsider. And I think the way that a pack is its own ecosystem: if one wolf dies, there's one wolf in this pack that might be the one that teaches how to move through the territory. And if that one wolf dies, the whole pack has a much higher likelihood of disbanding. And so this idea that the interconnectivity between the packs and the individuality of the wolves is so critical. It is so beautiful, and you see that studying these different wolves, they have personalities.

ERICA BERRY - Author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear

ERICA BERRY - Author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear

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Author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear

And I think the ways that wolves converse with one another, there's also so much there that really conjures the way that we humans do. And I was trying to piece together: why did we feel so threatened by wolves? In part, I think because there's a sort of uncanny mirror that humans have seen in a wolf. And I'll give an example. Wolf packs will form a diversity of family structures very often. So they will have a nuclear family where you'll have two breeders, but they can also have an extended family where there's sort of aunts and uncles in the pack. Or (these are the biologist's names) they'll call it a step-family if a wolf pack welcomes an outside breeder. A foster family, if they welcome another outsider. And I think the way that a pack is its own ecosystem: if one wolf dies, there's one wolf in this pack that might be the one that teaches how to move through the territory. And if that one wolf dies, the whole pack has a much higher likelihood of disbanding. And so this idea that the interconnectivity between the packs and the individuality of the wolves is so critical. It is so beautiful, and you see that studying these different wolves, they have personalities.

Highlights - TOM LIN - Author of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu - Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2022

Highlights - TOM LIN - Author of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu - Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2022

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Author of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu
Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2022

When I was growing up, it was all about representation. I think that was the thing that was being championed: we need more people of color in books, movies, across all media. And then I think what we saw was an extremely cynical and capitalistic-minded ruthless optimization of that, where someone said: Oh, you want representation? Then we'll just throw in token people of color into projects. And then we'll check that box. And I think that became so prevalent in so many pieces of media that that became what we thought of as representation. I think it's a salvageable concept because, I mean, when I encountered books growing up, they were all with white people in them. Front to back, start to finish. It was just white characters. And so when I started writing stories of my own in school as a middle schooler they - surprise - they had white people in them, right? There were just white people talking about other white people. I went to public school in Queens. I knew very few white people. And so I think what representation does at its best is that it informs the boundaries of possibility. By seeing yourself represented in media, you become able to imagine your own stories transpiring in media and being made available for everybody else to witness.

And so I think the point of representation is not just if we do a checklist of this piece of media, can we find a person of color. But I think the idea of representation is more that we want to be expanding the realm of storytelling, expanding what's possible by telling these stories that are not normally told.

TOM LIN - Author of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu - Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2022

TOM LIN - Author of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu - Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2022

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Author of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu
Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2022

When I was growing up, it was all about representation. I think that was the thing that was being championed: we need more people of color in books, movies, across all media. And then I think what we saw was an extremely cynical and capitalistic-minded ruthless optimization of that, where someone said: Oh, you want representation? Then we'll just throw in token people of color into projects. And then we'll check that box. And I think that became so prevalent in so many pieces of media that that became what we thought of as representation. I think it's a salvageable concept because, I mean, when I encountered books growing up, they were all with white people in them. Front to back, start to finish. It was just white characters. And so when I started writing stories of my own in school as a middle schooler they - surprise - they had white people in them, right? There were just white people talking about other white people. I went to public school in Queens. I knew very few white people. And so I think what representation does at its best is that it informs the boundaries of possibility. By seeing yourself represented in media, you become able to imagine your own stories transpiring in media and being made available for everybody else to witness.

And so I think the point of representation is not just if we do a checklist of this piece of media, can we find a person of color. But I think the idea of representation is more that we want to be expanding the realm of storytelling, expanding what's possible by telling these stories that are not normally told.

Highlights - MARK MASLIN - Author of How To Save Our Planet: The Facts - Professor, Earth System Science, UCLondon

Highlights - MARK MASLIN - Author of How To Save Our Planet: The Facts - Professor, Earth System Science, UCLondon

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Author of How To Save Our Planet: The Facts
Professor of Earth System Science at University College London

I think the most important thing is realizing how much impact humans have had on the planet. For example, did you know that we move more rock and sediment than all the natural processes put together? We also have created enough concrete already to cover the whole world in a layer that's two millimeters thick, and that includes the oceans. We have also created and make something like 300 million tons of plastic every single year, which we know ends up in our rivers. It ends up in our oceans. And we've also found that microplastics have been found in human blood. So this is the impact we're having all around the world. We've also cut down 3 trillion trees, that's half the trees on the planet. We have doubled carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We've increased methane by about 150%, which has led to a warming of the planet of about 1.2 degrees Celsius. And If you weigh the land mammals, 30% of that weight is us humans. There are 8 billion of us, and I have to say a few of us could lose a few pounds, but 67% of that weight is our livestock. And just 3% is those wild animals. So in less than 5,000 years, we've gone from 99% being wild animals to less than 3%. That's how much impact we humans have had on the planet.

MARK MASLIN - Author of How To Save Our Planet: The Facts - Professor, Earth System Science, University College London

MARK MASLIN - Author of How To Save Our Planet: The Facts - Professor, Earth System Science, University College London

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Author of How To Save Our Planet: The Facts
Professor of Earth System Science at University College London

I think the most important thing is realizing how much impact humans have had on the planet. For example, did you know that we move more rock and sediment than all the natural processes put together? We also have created enough concrete already to cover the whole world in a layer that's two millimeters thick, and that includes the oceans. We have also created and make something like 300 million tons of plastic every single year, which we know ends up in our rivers. It ends up in our oceans. And we've also found that microplastics have been found in human blood. So this is the impact we're having all around the world. We've also cut down 3 trillion trees, that's half the trees on the planet. We have doubled carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We've increased methane by about 150%, which has led to a warming of the planet of about 1.2 degrees Celsius. And If you weigh the land mammals, 30% of that weight is us humans. There are 8 billion of us, and I have to say a few of us could lose a few pounds, but 67% of that weight is our livestock. And just 3% is those wild animals. So in less than 5,000 years, we've gone from 99% being wild animals to less than 3%. That's how much impact we humans have had on the planet.

Speaking Out of Place: CYNTHIA G. FRANKLIN discusses “Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea”

Speaking Out of Place: CYNTHIA G. FRANKLIN discusses “Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea”

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Author of Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea
Professor of English at University of Hawai'i · Coeditor of the journal Biography

I posit narrated humanity as a lens through which to study how narratives participate in struggles to conceive human being beyond juridical and narrative humanity. What I was thinking about was just the kind of narrative codes and conventions and genres that help us to understand who counts as human in ways that people who are fighting for human rights as a thing that you have to do, even as there are all kinds of critiques that can and have been made rightly so of human rights, but that you have to do it.

Highlights - SERGEI GURIEV - Political Economist - Provost of SciencesPo - Co-author of Spin Dictators

Highlights - SERGEI GURIEV - Political Economist - Provost of SciencesPo - Co-author of Spin Dictators

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Political Economist · Provost of SciencesPo
Co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century

In Russia, I ran a university, a new economic school. And as an economist and a public intellectual, I was engaged in interactions with the government, including with Vladimir Putin. And there, of course, the situation was that Russia was already a nondemocratic country, meaning that it was a country where elections were not free and fair and partial censorship was already in place. Yet in those years, we could express ourselves openly, not on national TV, but at least in newspapers and on radio. And that eventually brought me into trouble with Vladimir Putin, who at some point suggested that I talked too much and I should not be in the same country. I was also interrogated. My office was searched. And at some point, common friends told me, 'Look, you shouldn't be here.' And I bought a one-way ticket for the next day and just left Russia. The dictators in the 20th century used military or paramilitary uniforms to project brute force and fear. Today, the situation is different. Successful dictators pretend to be democrats.

SERGEI GURIEV - Economist - Provost of SciencesPo - Co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century

SERGEI GURIEV - Economist - Provost of SciencesPo - Co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century

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Political Economist · Provost of SciencesPo
Co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century

In Russia, I ran a university, a new economic school. And as an economist and a public intellectual, I was engaged in interactions with the government, including with Vladimir Putin. And there, of course, the situation was that Russia was already a nondemocratic country, meaning that it was a country where elections were not free and fair and partial censorship was already in place. Yet in those years, we could express ourselves openly, not on national TV, but at least in newspapers and on radio. And that eventually brought me into trouble with Vladimir Putin, who at some point suggested that I talked too much and I should not be in the same country. I was also interrogated. My office was searched. And at some point, common friends told me, 'Look, you shouldn't be here.' And I bought a one-way ticket for the next day and just left Russia. The dictators in the 20th century used military or paramilitary uniforms to project brute force and fear. Today, the situation is different. Successful dictators pretend to be democrats.

NICHOLAS ROYLE - Author, Editor, Educator reads “Mother: A Memoir”

NICHOLAS ROYLE - Author, Editor, Educator reads “Mother: A Memoir”

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Co-author of An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory
Author of Mother: A Memoir · Managing Editor of Oxford Literary Review

My mother died years ago. What has induced me to write about her after all this time remains mysterious to me. It is connected to the climate crisis. As the natural historian David Attenborough says: 'the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.' In ways I cannot pretend to fathom I have found that writing about my mother is bound up with writing about Mother Nature and Mother Earth. And no doubt it has to do also with my own aging and the buried life of mourning. The strange timetables of realization and loss. A memoir is 'a written record of a person's knowledge of events or of a person's own experiences'. 'A record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation.' So the dictionaries tell us. But this memoir of my mother makes no attempt at a comprehensive record.

JEFFREY SACHS - Director, Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia - President, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network

JEFFREY SACHS - Director, Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia - President, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network

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President of UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Director of Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University

The US signed several statements in 2021 confirming that NATO would enlarge. Russia massed troops on its border and put on the table a draft US-Russia security agreement on December 17th, 2021 based on no NATO enlargement. The Biden administration formally replied that it was not willing to negotiate over that issue in a response in January. Then Russia invaded on February 24th, 2022. Four weeks later, Zelenskyy declared that Ukraine was accepting of neutrality. In other words, the initial Russian invasion brought Ukraine to the negotiating table, and during the second half of March, with the Turkish government being the mediators, Russia and Ukraine hammered out a peace agreement. Incredibly, the United States blocked it because the United States told the Ukrainian government: you fight on.

MARGE PIERCY - NYTimes Bestselling Novelist, Poet & Activist

MARGE PIERCY - NYTimes Bestselling Novelist, Poet & Activist

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Novelist, Poet & Activist

People who take care of sick people and AIDS and teachers and garbage collectors and people who work in daycare…all the things that have to happen in society we pay shit for. We pay an enormous amount of money to people who can throw a ball through a hoop. We pay an enormous amount of hedge fund people. All the people who take over corporations go in and destroy get immensely rich while the people who do what we actually need doing, what we must have to survive, the people who grow food, the independent farmers that used to exist…

Highlights - MARK GOTTLIEB - Vice President & Literary Agent at Trident Media Group

Highlights - MARK GOTTLIEB - Vice President & Literary Agent at Trident Media Group

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Vice President & Literary Agent at Trident Media Group

There's a lot of apprenticeship in our industry because historically it had to be that way, otherwise what you would have in publishing - there's still a lot of this - is a bunch of English majors trying to make sense of how to run a business, right?Because book publishing or working at a literary agency - a talent agency for authors like I do - is at the crossroads of creative and business. And if you didn't have that kind of apprenticeship, someone to learn from at the company where you work, then we would all just be English majors just trying to feel our way in the dark.

I think that the important thing for people to really know about storytelling is that books are sort of like the oil paintings of the new media. It's a very fine art form, an old art form, and a story exists in everything, whether it's a photograph, a painting, a song, or a movie, it all began with a story. And stories have been here from the dawn of time. They're going to forever be in our existence, but I think people should just always have curious minds and seek out stories and storytelling and try to see the story in everything, not just look at things for face value.