Solidarity Under Fascism, World-Building at Empire’s End

Fascism is diagnostic and symptomatic of declining empire. As it resurges in the US and globally, clinging to the hollow jingoism of xenophobia, ethnonationalism, and conquest, the worlds precariously built by capitalist imperialism are in crisis and crumbling. These fissures in empire have been wrenched open and widened because of renewed political resistance across social locations, grounded relations, and disparate geographies. It is that solidarity across difference that demonstrates another world is not simply possible, but has already been lived and, on a planet wracked by climate disaster, white supremacy, and genocide, requires continued cultivation.

There will be a reception with refreshments after the program. Masks are encouraged for the safety of our speakers and guests.

Speakers:

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg musician, writer and academic, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. She is the author of numerous books and her latest, Theory of Water, was short-listed for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-fiction.

Heoli Osorio is a Kanaka Maoli wahine mākua / artist / activist / scholar / storyteller born and raised in Pālolo Valley to parents Jonathan and Mary Osorio. Heoli  is an Associate Professor of Indigenous and Native Hawaiian Politics at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Heoli is a three-time national poetry champion, poetry mentor and a published author.

SA Smythe is a critical theorist and multi-instrumentalist working at the University of Toronto as associate professor of “Black Studies & the Archive” and Director of the Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis. For decades, Smythe has organised with literary/performance, abolitionist, and migrant support collectives across Turtle Island, Europe, and the Mediterranean.

Sophia Azeb is an assistant professor of Black Studies in the Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Sophia’s current book project, “Another Country: Translational Blackness and the Afro-Arab,” explores the currents of transnational and translational blackness charted by African American, Afro-Caribbean, African, and Afro-Arab peoples across 20th century North Africa and Europe.

Uahikea Maile is a Kanaka Maoli scholar, strategist, and practitioner from Maunawili, Oʻahu. He is assistant professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago.

This event is cosponsored by University of Chicago’s Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity and Haymarket Books.