Presented by: M. NourbeSe Philip
An exploration of a journey within the colonial grid of history along ley lines of memory. Using my own life experiences of living in Canada as student, lawyer, poet and writer, grounded in an analysis of how these experiences mirror, affect and are affected by the larger historical and sociopolitical events, my talk will engage with issues at the heart of the ongoing struggle for justice that I have witnessed and been a part of against systems that exploit and oppress. Memory has been an indispensable resource for me in this process; a process which Black and African-descended peoples have fuelled by their insistence on their humanity—an insistence I describe by neologism, Afriscendant. It is these Afriscendant energies that have enlarged and redefined what it means to be human in a world still resistant to the idea that simply being is sufficient and ought not to be conditional.