Gallery 44 and The Revolutionary Demand for Happiness Working Group are delighted to host two informal conversations facilitated by Katherine McKittrick that focus on anti-colonial theory, reading and writing. Working closely with Sylvia Wynter’s 1967 essay, “We Must Learn to Sit Down Together and Talk About a Little Culture,” each session is structured to balance collaborative reading and conversation; there will be quiet time allocated to read the essay, followed by structured conversations about key themes, theories, literatures and formats that shape A Smile Split by the Stars and related black studies narratives.
Participants will receive the essay in advance—it is recommended participants read the text beforehand. Each reading group has availability for 20 people, with five spaces reserved for graduate students of Black studies, Indigenous studies, studies of Palestine, or cognate areas. There are modest travel funds available for students from outside the GTA. Light Refreshments will be available.
Registration opens on April 1, 2025, and is available on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Exhibition and Programs in partnership and co-produced with Agnes Etherington Art Centre and Modern Fuel. Co-presented with the Canada Research Chair in Black Studies at Queen’s University and the Revolutionary Demand for Happiness Working Group.
Katherine McKittrick is Professor of Gender Studies and Canada Research Chair in Black Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. She authored Dear Science and Other Stories (DUP, 2021), and Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (UMP, 2006). She also edited and contributed to Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis (DUP, 2015). Recent projects include the limited-edition boxset, Trick Not Telos (2023) and the limited-edition hand-made book, Twenty Dreams (2024).
