MIT Building 14E-304

Presented by Doyle Calhoun, Assistant Professor of Francophone Postcolonial Studies in the Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages and Linguistics, University of Cambridge   When: Monday, September 28 @ 5:15 PM Where: Building 14, 14E-304 (map)* *Directions: From the Lewis Music Library stairs, take the third floor of Building 14, through the CMS/W doors. Alternatively, take the elevator to the 3rd floor, navigate to the opposite end of the 3rd floor hallway, and enter through the CMS/W doors.   Abstract: From the time of slavery to the Algerian war for independence to the "Arab Spring," people have responded to enslavement, colonisation and oppression through acts of suicide. While often occluded from or obscured in colonial archives, self-killing has long been at the centre of African and Caribbean engagements with the colonial past. Reading across literature, film, oral history, archival documents, legal history, and scientific texts, The Suicide Archive (2024) shows how aesthetic forms (literature, film, visual art, performance) preserve powerful histories of resistance and loss. In so doing, the book offers an innovative reading of African, Caribbean, French and global literary history Please note: this talk will involve discussion of suicide as well as colonial and state violence. Bio: Doyle D. Calhoun is University Assistant Professor of Francophone […]