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Dardishi Festival & Shubbak Present: Mainstreaming Subaltern Writing

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Friday, June 25th, 6 - 7pm GMT

“Can the Subaltern Speak?” Black women writers from South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) and its diaspora discuss their practice in relation to Gayatri Spivak’s eponymous question-essay. Can they resist gender framing through their writing from a subaltern perspective? How do they employ writing to contribute to the decades’ long struggle against the erasure of their (her)stories? Can writing challenge and undo a political consensus on traditional brands of womanhood?

About the panel

The panel is moderated by Toronto-based academic researcher and former journalist, Houda Mzioudet. Mzioudet has worked with international outlets such as Al Jazeera English, the CBC, the BBC, and Qantara (Deutsche Welle). She also co-authored a book on the Libyan displacement crisis (Georgetown University Press, 2016 and co-founded the first black Tunisian association (ADAM) in 2012, and the Voice of Tunisian Black Women collective in 2020. She holds an MA in Cultural Studies from the University of Manouba (Tunisia) and is currently studying Political Science and International Relations at the University of Toronto. 

Fatma Emam Sakory is a Nubian Egyptian feminist researcher and translator interested in the intersection of race, gender and religion. She has 16 years of experience as a researcher and has she served as an advisor for FRIDA Fund, the Young Feminist Fund and as a council member for the International Solidarity Network for Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML). She has a master’s degree in Human Rights and Democratisation from Malta University. 

Momtaza Mehri is a poet, essayist and independent researcher. Her work has appeared in Granta, Artforum, The Guardian, BOMB Magazine, and The Poetry Review. She is the former Young People’s Laureate for London and columnist-in-residence at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Open Space, as well as a Frontier-Antioch Fellow at Antioch University. Her latest pamphlet, Doing the Most with the Least, was published by Goldsmiths Press. 

 Sabah Sanhouri is a Sudanese fiction writer. Her short stories collection, Mirrors, was published in 2014, followed by her novel, Paradise, in 2019. Her 2009 story, Isolation, won a Tayeb Salih Award and was transformed into a film shot in Jordan in 2013. She was awarded the title Honorary Fellow in Writing from the University of Iowa for her participation in the International Writing Program. Sanhouri is also the founder of #OneDayFiction, a cultural project providing mentorship and professional opportunities to young writers.

Suitable for ages 18+

This event has BSL translation and live captioning

Purchase tickets HERE

About Shubbak

 
 

Shubbak Festival is the UK’s premier festival of contemporary Arab arts and culture.

This year’s features new perspectives, fresh collaborations and unexpected voices alongside distinguished names in an ambitious programme of premieres and new commissions.

With a vibrant mix of visual arts, film, music, theatre, dance, literature, workshops and debates, both live and online, Shubbak Festival 2021 invites you to witness the creativity and imaginative power of Arab artists to speak of our times.

How will the online talk work?

We’ll be running the talk through Zoom, simply purchase an e-ticket and 1 hour before the talk is scheduled to start we’ll email you a link to the event!