Book Talk & Panel Discussion in Tuscaloosa, Thursday, Jan 29
Dr. Noor Ghazal Aswad, two guest professors will explore her work, Searching for Solidarity: Revolutionary Dreams and Radical Social Movements
Interested persons are invited to join Dr. Noor Ghazal Aswad for a book talk and conversation with two distinguished guest professors as they explore her work, Searching for Solidarity; Revolutionary Dreams and Radical Social Movements.
The book talk will be held Thursday, Jan. 29th from 6:00 PM--8:30 PM in The University Club, 421 Queen City Avenue, Tuscaloosa, 35401.
The event is free and open to the public. Both in-person and Zoom attendance is available, with the Zoom link being https://bit.ly/3LsC4pW. The QR code (above) can also be scanned to register for the live stream.
Dr. Aswad will be joined by Dr. Lisa Flores, Weiss Chair of the Humanities, The Pennsylvania State University and Dr. Karma Chávez, Mexican American e Latina/o Studies Chair, University of Texas at Austin at the book talk.
In Searching for Solidarity, Dr. Aswad explores how the emancipatory qualities of transnational revolutionary struggle are often denied, misunderstood, and erased. Drawing on the stories of those in struggle, Searching for Solidarity reimagines solidarity as an affective, ethical, and political capacity that can thrive amid today’s volatile “political economy of emotion”—an environment marked by mistrust, fake news, and disinformation campaigns targeting those in resistance. At the heart of this book is the “radical subject,” which refers to those revolting against repressive forces to achieve liberatory change at the risk of death, injury, or disappearance. These radical subjects offer a new foundation for critical theory—one that rejects “negative solidarity,” the tendency to acquiesce to power or distance oneself from those fighting against systemic injustice. By immersing readers in the testimony, memory, and hopes of these subjects, each chapter reveals solidarity as an affective force capable of cutting through distortive narratives and binding us in a cross-cultural, decolonizing, and nonhierarchical collectivity. Solidarity, through this lens, emerges as a transformative stance that compels us to, as Yassin al-Haj Saleh writes, become “partners in word and deed to change power.”
Searching for Solidarity is available from the Ohio State University Press at THIS LINK.
Dr. Noor Ghazal Aswad is a writer and scholar whose work explores solidarity, revolution, and the search for justice across borders. An Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama, she writes at the intersection of rhetoric, politics, and global social movements. Her award-winning research has been recognized by the National Communication Association and appears in leading journals including Quarterly Journal of Speech and Rhetoric & Public Affairs. Searching for Solidarity, her debut book, reimagines what connects us in times of struggle-drawing on the Syrian revolution, feminist thought, and decolonial visions of hope.
