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Literary Activism, or Creativity at the Fringes

Image of Amit Chaudhuri leaning in a doorway
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Amit Chaudhuri
World Arts

Please join the Publishing Humanities Initiative at the Franklin Humanities Institute for a lunchtime event with novelist, theorist, essayist and musician Amit Chaudhuri! This event is part of our World Arts series.

Literary Activism--activism that revisits and interrogates an idea of literature--emerges from a radically altered landscape for both publishing and academia, where globalization is effecting changes--in language, in the measuring of value, in the concept of influence. In the last four years, a series of symposiums on literary activism took place in Calcutta, Delhi, and Oxford, attempting to open up a fringe space to reconsider creativity in a way that would counter both the market and academic professionalization. The word "activism" was used semi-ironically, given that part of these symposiums' brief was to enquire philosophically into whether creative work comprises an "action" as we ordinarily understand the term. If it doesn't, what kind of "activism" did one mean? Does a literary world exist, and if so, where do its boundaries lie, and how can we define it more openly? In this talk, Amit Chaudhuri--renowned novelist, critic, essayist, and musician--will discuss the repercussions of the symposiums so far and whether it's possible to rethink the history of creativity and of critique. We anticipate a lively Q&A conversation to follow. (Please click "more information" below to register.)

Contact: Sylvia Miller