Events at Reed

February 8, 2016

Black History Month Lecture: "Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements"

Monday, 7:00 p.m., Psychology 105

All organizing is science fiction. Those wanting to change the world must first be able to dream of new worlds. That's where Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements comes in. Join co-editor Walidah Imarisha and writer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha for a reading and community conversation around radical science fiction and social change.

Walidah Imarisha is a writer, organizer, educator and performance poet. She is one half of the poetic duo Good Sista/Bad Sista. She has shared the stage with Angela Davis, Cornel West, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Kenny Muhammad of the Roots, Chuck D, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Umar bin Hassan from The Last Poets, Boots Riley, Saul Williams, Ani DiFranco, John Irving, dead prez and Kochiyama. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including the hip hop anthology Total Chaos. Walidah has facilitated poetry and journalism workshops third grade to twelfth, in schools, community centers, youth detention facilities, and women’s prisons. She directed and co-produced the Katrina documentary Finding Common Ground in New Orleans. She has taught in the Portland State University’s Black Studies department, Oregon State University’s Women’s Studies department and Southern New Hampshire University’s English department. 

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer disabled femme writer, performance artist, and educator of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent. The author of the Lambda Award-winning Love Cake, Dirty River, Bodymap and Consensual Genocide and co-editor with Ching-In Chen and Jai Dulani of The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities, her writings on femme of color and Sri Lankan identities, survivorhood, healing, disability, and transformative justice have been widely anthologized. She is the co-founder of Mangos With Chili, North America's touring queer and trans people of color cabaret, a lead artist with the disability justice incubator Sins Invalid and co-founder of Toronto's Asian Arts Freedom School. In 2010 she was named one of the Feminist Press' 40 Feminists Under 40 Shaping the Future, and she is a 2013 Autostraddle Hot 105 member.

There will be a fiction writing workshop at 3:30 p.m. in Winch/Capehart ("Sci Fi and Direct Action Training") Participants will use familiar stories of other worlds (such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Oz, Harry Potter, etc.) to design direct action campaigns that parallel the world we are fighting for in the here and now. By the end of the session, regimes will be toppled, evil forces vanquished, and solid skills in direct action organizing developed. The workshop will be followed by the public lecture and book signing at 7:00 p.m. in Psychology 105. Sponsored by the Multicultural Resource Center.


For more information on Reed's Black History Month events, visit our website.

Add to Calendar 02/08/2016 19:00 02/08/2016 22:00 America/Los_Angeles Black History Month Lecture: "Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements" View details at http://www.reed.edu/events/posts/2015-16/lecture-octavias-brood.html Reed College, Psychology 105 Reed College Events events@reed.edu false MM/DD/YYYY