AGITATE Now!
Diversity is being alone
By Tamar Shirinian Diversity is being alone. Because it’s so great that you are so passionate about it and it’s so important, said she and it’s so important, said he and it’s so important, said they. We are so glad you are doing diversity. It must be true because it can be heard in…
The Power of ‘Ordinary Conversations’: A Review of Madhumita Dutta’s ‘Mobile Girls Koottam’
By Nithya Rajan Feminist research is increasingly moving towards collaborative research methodologies that center the experiences, voices, and knowledge of the people being written about and disrupt the researcher-researched dynamic through a dialogic process. Even so, very rarely are we presented with unanalysed narratives and stories of those whose lives we seek to understand. Madhumita …
Doing History through Art: An Opening
By Ponni Arasu and Kamala Vasuki *This is the first installment in the ongoing series Holding Movements, Agitating Epistemes convened and co-edited by Ponni Arasu and Richa Nagar.* What does it mean to document history? What does it mean to document the history of a place that has lived through a prolonged war? What does…
Holding Movements, Agitating Epistemes: Introducing a Multipart Series on Remembering, Retelling, and Dreaming for Justice
Convened and co-edited by Richa Nagar and Ponni Arasu To invoke movements in search of justice is to summon many layers of lived existence—including motions, moments, rhythms, relationships, and visions—that are, by definition, fluid and uncontainable. What might it mean, then, to document or analyze a movement? Is it possible to hold and feel the…
Maadathy–An Unfairy Tale
by Leena Manimekalai, Bhavana Goparaju, Ajmina Kassim, and Semmalar Annam in conversation with Roja Suganthy-Singh On October 15th, 2021, AGITATE! launched the North American tour of Maadathy: An Unfairy Tale in collaboration with the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota.1 The event included a screening of this film, followed…
Moving Memories: An Archive of Bangladeshi Queer Migrants in the US
Curated by Efadul Huq and Rasel Ahmed for SAADA Moving Memories is an archive of Bangladeshi Queer migrants in the US. The archive is hosted by SAADA (South Asian American Digital Archive) and was created in partnership with Queer Archives of the Bengal Delta. The exhibit centers the voices of ten Bangladeshi queer migrants whose…
Talking Back to white “Burma Experts”
by Chu May Paing and Than Toe Aung In December 2018, Than Toe Aung attended a talk hosted by Parami Institute (now Parami University), self-proclaimed as “Myanmar’s first private, not-for-profit liberal arts and sciences university” in Yangon. The talk featured the well-known journalist Bertil Lintner covering Burma since the era of the former military regime…
Sci-Fi as Accessible Movement Building: A Review of Larissa Lai’s “The Tiger Flu”
by Chloe Dunston The Tiger Flu is set in the year 2145, which author Larissa Lai depicts as a “time after oil” divided by factions, gender, disease, and technology. After years of greedy leadership, environmental degradation, and the exhaustion of fossil fuels, Saltwater City and its outskirts stand alone in what was formerly Vancouver, Canada.…
Black Men’s Stories, By Peter London Global Dance Company
with commentary from Terrence Pride Upon the backs of our ancestors we journey forward, as the light and fire they held for us expands into a greater present and still greater future. We must not let them down! Remember the tremendous brutality of mind, body, and spirit, they endured, that which still continues. Honor and…