The ongoing conflict in Sudan has pushed millions to the brink of famine, threatening to devastate an entire generation. Despite the severe humanitarian crisis, global awareness remains limited. In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with Dr. Osman Hamdan and Umniya Najaer about the long history behind these events, the people and groups involved, and the roles that foreign governments and international organizations like the IMF have played. Importantly, we learn how civil society groups are bringing a form of mutual aid and support to the people of Sudan where the national government, warring factions, and international humanitarian organizations have utterly failed.

Dr. Osman Hamdan is a graduate of the University of Khartoum, Sudan, and holds a PhD in forestry economics from the Dresden University of Technology.  He is a longtime pro-democracy fighter and activist. 

Umniya Najaer is a doctoral candidate in the Program in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University where she studies Black Feminist Thought and the Black Radical Tradition.  Her poetry chapbook Armeika(2018, Akashic Press) explores experiences of the Sudanese-American diaspora and the unofficial government torture sites known as Biyout al-Ashbah, or ghost houses.

Speaking Out of Place, which carries on the spirit of Palumbo-Liu’s book of the same title, argues against the notion that we are voiceless and powerless, and that we need politicians and pundits and experts to speak for us.

Judith Butler on Speaking Out of Place:

“In this work we see how every critical analysis of homelessness, displacement, internment, violence, and exploitation is countered by emergent and intensifying social movements that move beyond national borders to the ideal of a planetary alliance. As an activist and a scholar, Palumbo-Liu shows us what vigilance means in these times.  This book takes us through the wretched landscape of our world to the ideals of social transformation, calling for a place, the planet, where collective passions can bring about a true and radical democracy.”

David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He has written widely on issues of literary criticism and theory, culture and society, race, ethnicity and indigeneity, human rights, and environmental justice. His books include The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age, and Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Al Jazeera, Jacobin, Truthout, and other venues.
Twitter/X @palumboliu
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