POSSIBLE FUTURES
OPIRG RAD FROSH
Missed the event live? catch all of the talks and panels recorded below!
What does it look like to radically re-imagine a world that is different from the one we live in, and how do we get there?
PANELS
A community discussion and panel facilitated by Anti-Oppression and Anti-Racism Educator, Organizer, and Moderator Timaaj Hassen.
Birthed from a tweet by user, @haterscafe, reading: “Mutual Aid not as activism but as the basis of our every day relationships.” This conversation will be an expansion on how we as comrades, friends, and community members show up for one another in relationships, families, and larger communities; the ancestral practices of interdependency; and the real ways we can demonstrate our politics outside of theory and direct action. Grounded in an abolitionist framework, the discussion is meant to encourage community members to look beyond the state for resources of care.
Featuring
Vivienne Wilson, Jeremiah Mondesir,
and Andrea "Peachtree" Boucaud
Black Cannabis Futures surrounds the the use, criminalization, cultivation, history, and culture of cannabis use in Black communities. How do we as business owners, chefs, land stewards, organizers, and community members contend with the perceptions and realities of cannabis use? And how can we work to create better relationships and repair damaged relationships between cannabis and Black communities?
talks
The personal dimensions of the political
Sunday September 26th 12pm
The Personal Dimensions of the Political is a talk by Daysha Loppie that accompanies a written piece wherein she shares herstory of creating personal liberation as a Black woman and survivor in order to understand how we all can contribute to a different future in our own ways.
Daysha Loppie is a Black writer currently based in Toronto, Ontario. She has worked with 1919 Mag, the Eyeopener, Paper Plane, and several other online publications. In fact, Daysha runs her own arts and culture platform, Good Fortune, which documents the nuance of the Black experience in Toronto and beyond. At the moment, however, Daysha is focusing much of her energy on more personal projects as she continues to heal and grow through written expression. To read more of her work, please visit @goodfrtune or goodfrtune.com.
An anticolonial poetics of love and resistence
Monday September 27th 6pm
"An Anticolonial Poetics of Love and Resistance" brings into conversation the work of scholars such as bell hooks, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Frankie Condon to explore how love and care directly oppose practices of colonization and supremacy. The poetics of love are directly intertwined with the poetics of resistance, as seen through examples of poems across different cultures and languages.
Manahil Bandukwala is a Pakistani writer and visual artist. She is co-lead of Reth aur Reghistan, an interdisciplinary project that explores Pakistani folklore through poetry and sculpture. Her work has appeared in Briarpatch, the Malahat Review, the Puritan, CV2, and other places. She is currently completing her MA at the University of Waterloo. See more of her work at manahilbandukwala.com.
Re-imagining pedagogy for international students in the post-pandemic era
Tuesday September 28th 6pm
The talk and accompanying paper focuses on academia and the challenges faced by international students within academia in the pandemic era. It also reflects on the anecdotes of personal experiences of international students, the necessity to overcome these challenges and how can we re-imagine pedagogy in post-pandemic times.
The talk is concluded by a question and answer period with one of the paper’s author’s Fairuz Sharif.
Fairuz Sharif is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa, who finished her coursework and is currently preparing to sit for the comprehensive exams in the upcoming year. Her field of research includes Tribal/Indigenous identity crisis, Environmental Racism and Migration of Tribal women in Bangladesh.
Sohini Ganguly is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa, who has finished her coursework and preparing to sit for the comprehensive exams in the upcoming year. My field of research includes the Oral history of Iconic religious figures in India in relation to lower-class Dalit and Tribal women.
WHERE THE MUNDANE GIRL TAKES US
Thursday September 30th 11am
Narratives of trauma experienced in girlhood often highlight a growth or transition into a new person. Yet many girls who experience trauma deal with it on a daily basis, throughout girlhood, without a transition. As we think of possible futures and writing about trauma and girlhood, whether it be by girls or others I implore us all to think of trauma through a new lens. One that takes into account that trauma is not a singular experience and that overcoming trauma is a privilege many are not afforded.
Sophia Obaidu, (she/her) is a student at the University of Toronto. When thinking of Possible Futures she always keep in mind dreamers, like her. Those who think beyond their reality and have the resilience to continue on.
