Saturday, May 29 14:00 PDT / 17:00 EDT
Zoom // Free
Register by emailing
register@unitpitt.ca
You may also register through Eventbrite
On Saturday, May 29, join La Commune 2021 Free School for a virtual discussion on Jodi Dean’s Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging (Verso, 2019) with special guests Hilda Fernandez-Alvarez, Mike Gouldhawke, Steffanie Ling, and Gustavus Stadler.
You can purchase Comrade as a physical book and/or e-pub on Verso’s website, currently listed at 20% off. You don’t have to have read the whole book to participate. If you aren’t able to access it, or you just don’t have time, there are some free online resources to check out in advance:
- Jodi Dean, “Four Theses on the Comrade,” in e-flux (November 2017)
- Jodi Dean, “We need Comrades,” in Jacobin, November 18, 2019.
- The video “COMRADE: A discussion with Jodi Dean” at The People’s Forum NYC, February 13, 2020.
This event is organized and moderated by Roxanne Panchasi (Simon Fraser University, La Commune 2021 Free School), and is hosted by UNIT/PITT over Zoom.
This event will be recorded, and documentation from it will eventually be posted online. It will be a regular Zoom meeting format to enable open discussion, but attendees are not obligated to have their videos or mics turned on. Live Closed Captioning and Live Transcription will be available through Rev Live Captions. For additional enquiries related to access and accessibility, please email register@unitpitt.ca
Hilda Fernandez-Alvarez is a Lacanian psychoanalyst based in Vancouver, Canada. She has a vast clinical experience with diverse populations in public (hospital and outpatient) and private settings in Mexico and Canada. Her research has been published internationally and focuses on the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, trauma, discursive and socio-spatial practices, love and politics. She co-founded the Lacan Salon in 2007 and currently acts as its clinical director. She is an academic associate with the SFU Institute for the Humanities at SFU and is registered with the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors.
Mike Gouldhawke is a Métis and Cree writer and community organizer whose family is from Kistapinanihk (City of Prince Albert) and nêwo-nâkîwin (Mont Nebo) in Treaty 6 territory in Saskatchewan. His writing has appeared in magazines such as Redwire and Briarpatch. He is based out of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, and and Sel̓íl̓witulh territories (Vancouver, British Columbia) and has been part of Indigenous and anti-poverty movements in the city.
Steffanie Ling is a writer, cultural worker and guest living on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. She is the author of NASCAR (Blank Cheque, 2016), Cuts of Thin Meat (Spare Room, 2015), and a forthcoming chapbook, Mixed Martial Arts (House House Press, 2021). She has written for artforum.com, Brooklyn Rail, Flash Art, Hong Kong Review of Books, March: a journal of art and strategy, MUBI Notebook, and Senses of Cinema. Recently she has examined post-work, comradeship, and the notion of free time in cinema and video. She is currently researching New Work Poetry, Situationist comic strips, Soviet era animation and organizing study groups on Discord.
Gustavus Stadler is the author of Woody Guthrie: An Intimate Life and Troubling Minds: The Cultural Politics of Genius in the U.S. 1840-1890 (Beacon Press, 2020). His essays on U.S. literature, left politics, music, and sound culture have appeared in Al Jazeera, Public Books, ://avidly.com, Social Text, American Literature, and many other venues. He is currently beginning work on a book about Cafe Society, New York’s first fully integrated nightclub. He is Professor of English at Haverford College.
La Commune 2021 Free School is a virtual free school focused on the Paris Commune of 1871 created by writer and scholar Roxanne Panchasi in collaboration with UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness.
