borders of diversity

Tommorrow is the big Borders of Diversity Student Conference. It's an annual event sponsored by PCC's English and Languages Departments, where students take lead and speak. Every hour there's a different panel of students who present papers, films, or speeches on behalf of an overarching theme, this year it's "Decolonizing the Mind: Liberating Language and Culture to Create a Just Society."

My English course on environmental ethics was chosen to be the first panel and possibly more exciting, (at least for me) I was chosen to be on the panel! I decided to forgo my paper on land ethics and global warming (both pressing issues of which got me chosen to be a panelist) and instead am going to be bold and try something different, presenting the connections between animals and women in advertisements and the subsequent harmful consequences, much of which was inspired by Carol Adams' The Sexual Politics of Meat.

The keynote speaker of the event is noted author, activist and UC Irvine Professor, Ngugi Wa Thiong’O. His political commentary in his 1977 play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want) provoked the government of Kenya to order his arrest. While in prison, he wrote the first modern novel in his native language of G?k?y?, Caitaani m?tharaba-In? (Devil on the Cross), on toilet paper. He was released a year later and continues to write and lecture. read more.

What daring brilliance.