We have ground-breaking events galore in our first semester of the 2019/20 year. Please do join us for collaborations with Southall Black Sisters, The Guardian and many more in-house events.
Don’t forget to follow our research seminars English Postgraduate Research Seminar, QUORUM Drama Seminar and Queen Mary Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies for more events.
Monday 21 October
PANEL DISCUSSION: The Postcolonial Novel of Ideas
Jeanne-Marie Jackson-Awotwi (Johns Hopkins) & Rashmi Varma (Warwick)
Chair: Andrew van der Vlies (QMUL) present a panel discussion on ‘The Postcolonial Novel of Ideas’.
See more events in this series
Wednesday 23 October
Shattering the Glass Ceiling
Come and hear from leading Guardian journalists about the intersections of race, class and gender and how they impact careers in the media.
Thursday 31 October
Halloween Party with Daniel Oliver – BOOK Launch and Lo-fi Relaxed Rong Table Discussion
The event will include: discounted copies of the book, a chance to discuss its core topics (neurodiversity, awkwardness, audience participation) using Daniel’s clunkily conceived Rong Table format and due to the date, fully non-commital/over-committed Halloween dress code will be optional.
Friday 8 November
Reimagining Britain: Curating, Performing, Publishing, Reading
This one-day symposium will host a series of discussions about the current climate for artistic and cultural production in Britain. The four thematic strands are on English literature (in particular school and university curricula design), publishing, curating and performing. The event brings together experts and practitioners who will share their experience of how these areas of the arts may or may not be changing, especially given ongoing agendas around inclusivity, diversity and ‘decolonising’.
Speakers include: Aditi Anand, Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, Natasha Bucknor, Elizabeth Cooper, Corinne Fowler, Rachael Gilmour, Nadia Yahya Hafedh, Anthony Joseph, Danuta Kean, Madhu Krishnan, Sharmaine Lovegrove, Malachi McIntosh, Rachael Minott and Jeremy Poynting.
Discover more events in the Wasafiri 35 series here
Tuesday 12 November
The Sexual Cultures Research Group at QMUL: Saleem Haddad
Saleem Haddad was born in Kuwait City to an Iraqi-German mother and a Palestinian-Lebanese father. His first novel, Guapa, published in 2016, was awarded a Stonewall Honour and won the 2017 Polari First Book Prize. His short stories have been published in a number of anthologies, including most recently in the Palestinian science fiction anthology “Palestine +100”. Haddad was also selected as one of the top 100 Global Thinkers of 2016 by Foreign Policy Magazine. His directorial debut, Marco, premiered in March 2019 and was nominated for the Iris Prize for Best British Short. He is currently based in Lisbon.
Saleem will be in conversation with Nadia Atia (QMUL). There will be an opportunity to buy copies of Guapa, which Saleem is happy to sign on the day.
Tickets are free, but booking is essential.
Saturday 16 November
East Side Story
East meets west in this high octane dance-off with two titans from the dance world, IMD and Bolly Flex. This show fuses hip hop and Bollywood in four acts, The Greatest Bollywood Showman, The Real Avengers of the UK, The History of Hip Hop and Romeo and Juliet Remixed! Check out glittering examples of cinema’s great dance moves with breath-taking agility and dynamism at Queen Mary’s Great Hall. These tributes and stories use acrobatics and physical theatre and provide the perfect homecoming for both IMD’s Omar Ansah-Awuah and Bolly Flex’s Naz Choudhury to return to their east London roots. Special guest appearances will help ignite this energetic dance spectacular as a reminder that commonalities and differences between cultures can be celebrated in the most exhilarating ways!
Saturday 30 November
Turning the Page: Book Launch with Southall Black Sisters
A literary conversation between two groups of BAME women – published writers responding creatively to the stories of the SBS support group.
Launching an anthology of writings, Turning the Page, by the SBS Survivors’ Group
Southall Black Sisters ends its 40th anniversary year with a unique evening, crowning a year- long series of events to celebrate its survival and reflect on its history. The anthology represents an intimate engagement, a two-way literary conversation, between established writers and emotionally vulnerable women who have found relief in writing about their troubled lives.
The survivors’ group at Southall Black Sisters have spent six months writing their stories in the company of Rahila Gupta.
Jackie Kay, Moniza Alvi, Meena Kandasamy, Miss Yankey and Rahila Gupta have written new work in response to the stories written by the SBS women. Their new work will be published in the book and they will read from this and other work alongside the SBS women. Imtiaz Dharker will also be performing at this event.
Be uplifted! Break your hearts and recommit yourself to the cause during the 16 days of activism against violence against women.
