A Conversation with the Author, Dr. Cynthia Franklin: Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea
Nadwat Series
November 20, 2023
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Virtual Talk and Conversation with Dr. Franklin about her new book, Narrating Humanity
In this talk, Dr. Franklin will discuss her book, Narrating Humanity, including themes such as who counts as human and ways of being human necessary for not only surviving but also thriving during a time of accelerating crises brought on by the intersecting effects of racial capitalism, imperialism, heteropatriarchy, and climate change. The lecture will focus on the connections between the Palestinian movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions and Native Hawaiian movements to protect Mauna a Wākea.
Overall, Dr. Franklin will cover these themes through a focus on how life writing can be mobilized to do more than perpetuate dominant forms of dehumanization that underwrite violence and instead, can help materialize ways of being human inspired by political movements that based on queer kinship, inter/national solidarity, abolitionist care, and decolonial connectivity among humans, more-than-humans, land, and waters.
About Author: Cynthia Franklin is Professor of English at the University of Hawai‘i. She coedits the journal Biography and is author of Academic Lives: Memoir, Cultural Theory, and the University Today (2009), as well as Writing Women’s Communities: The Politics and Poetics of Multi Genre Anthologies (1994). In both her teaching and research, She is interested in contemporary works--primarily but not exclusively written in the U.S.--that challenge genre boundaries, and that engage issues in feminist and queer theory, life writing, studies of race and ethnicity, and cultural studies. Dr. Franklin is committed to doing Palestine solidarity work, and since 2013 have been part of the Organizing Collective of USACBI, the US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, founded UH Faculty and Students for Justice in Palestine, and co-founded the Hawai'i Coalition for Justice in Palestine (HCJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace-Hawai'i. In spring 2018, She did a short-term residency at Al-Quds University and served on a team that developed a partnership between Al-Quds and UH.
This virtual event is organized in collaboration with the course, Introduction to Arab American Studies (GLAS/ANTH 242) and is co-sponsored by the Arab American Cultural Center, Indigenous Students Alliance, Students for Justice in Palestine, Pacific Islander Student Outreach (AANAPISI), Native American Support Program, Indigenous Graduate Students Association, Global Asian Studies, and the Critical Middle East Studies Working Group of the Institute for Humanities.
To attend remotely, email arabamcc@uic.edu to receive the zoom link.
Date posted
Oct 12, 2023
Date updated
Oct 12, 2023