Reading Group Towards a shared history with Orsod Malik

Join us for an interactive reading group with Orsod Malik as we explore whether a shared history is possible, and what the creative and political implications for it might be.

Whilst listening to the 1983 speech made by Maurice Bishop, leader of Grenada’s Peoples Revolutionary Government (PRG), at Hunter College, we will read the transcript from the speech in relation to the colonial situation in Palestine and beyond. This reading session will consider how Bishop posits a shared history, and whether the discursive tools he employs can be used to draw connections between different liberation struggles against colonisation today, and the obstacles standing in front of them today.

This reading group is open to all; it is a supportive and peer-led space for thinking and learning together. It is a space for constructive disagreements and critical engagement that is always based on mutual respect, interest, and care.

The transcript below will focus on the full Maurice Bishop speech which you can watch prior to the session but the transcript will be made available to you on the day. You do not need to read it in advance.

This reading group is part of iniva’s Research Network programme Contested Sites. It is supported by funding from Freelands Foundation

Accessibility

If you have any access requirements, please email us in advance at info@iniva.org and we will do our best to accommodate. Extracts of the texts will be provided on the day.

Biography

Orsod Malik, International Curators Forum’s Curator and Digital Strategist, is a Sudanese curator, writer, content producer. He’s also the founder of Code__Switch, an archive dedicated to connecting anticolonial struggles and ideas across time and space. Orsod’s curatorial approach focuses on exploring cultural and political entanglements in a variety of visual and textual materials to explore shared histories. He serves as the Executive Director of the Stuart Hall Foundation and held the position of Archivist-in-Residence at the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD) in 2021.

Resource List

• Maurice Bishop Speaks in NYC at Hunter College, 5th June 1983
• Transcript of Maurice Bishop Speech

Other resources

• Watch Full Stuart Hall Clip: Race: The Floating Signifier
• ‘Culture and Imperialism‘ in Pen and the Sword by Edward Said, pages 63-107.
•  ‘Transnational Solidarities‘ in Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis, pages 129-145.

Image credit: Shifting the Centre Exhibition Opening Event. Photographed by Jemima Yong