Precarity and the Politics of Art:  Performative and Critical Empowerment after Democracy

Interdisciplinary Research Seminar at Brunel University, January 27, 2016

4 PM - 6:00 PM

Drama Studio, Gaskell Building 048, Brunel University London, Cleveland Rd.

Seminar 4:    

Anshuman Mondal: "Free Speech (Melo)dramas: Liberalism and the political performativity of tolerance and dissent"

Taghreed Elsanhouri: “Autopsy of a Partition” (film)

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Anshuman Mondal is Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies, specialising in post-colonial studies. He is the author of Nationalism and Post-Colonial Identity: Culture and Ideology in India and Egypt (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), Amitav Ghosh (Manchester University Press, 2007), and Young British Muslim Voices, an account of his journey across the UK talking to young Muslims. His latest book is Islam and Controversy: The Politics of Free Speech after Rushdie (Palgrave, 2014). In 2004, Anshuman led an international project on 'Faith and Secularism' sponsored by Counterpoint, the cultural relations think-tank of the British Council, and wrote the Introduction to the pamphlet Faith and Secularism, part of the Birthday Counterpoint series, which was published by the British Council to mark its 70th anniversary. He has also published journalism in the leading current affairs magazine Prospect, and also The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’. He also writes a current affairs blog called ‘Human Zoo.’ Anshuman has appeared on several TV and radio shows, including Newsnight, Al-Jazeera's 'The Listening Post', British Satellite Television News, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze and Thinking Allowed and the BBC World Service. He has also spoken at numerous public debates including at the Wilderness Festival and the Cheltenham Literary Festival. In 2014, Anshuman was appointed Chair of the Postcolonial Studies Association

Taghreed Elsanhouri began her career in broadcast news and entertainment television. She is now completing a PhD by practice at Brunel University. Our beloved Sudan, the filmmaker’s 3^rd independent documentary feature, premiered at the Dubai film festival in December 2011 and won the special Jury Silver award at the Luxor African film festival in February 2012. The film then went on to feature at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, New York, Lines of Control exhibition, 2012.  Mother Unknown, her 2^nd Independent feature, won the Unicef Child Rights award in 2009. Her directorial debut All about Darfur won the Award of Commendation from the American Anthropological Association in 2006 and the Chair Person’s prize at the Zanzibar International Film Festival (Ziff) 2005 and was selected at numerous film festivals including the Toronto international Film Festival 2005.  Television projects include ‘Orphans of Mygoma,’ a short documentary commissioned by Aljazeera International for their ‘Witness’ documentary strand.