Rehearsals for Living: In Conversation with Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson – UTSC

The Equity Matters Seminar Series provides an opportunity for the University of Toronto Scarborough community to engage with prominent speakers on issues of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in academia.

Seminars are open to faculty, librarians, staff, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Information about previous Equity Matters Seminars can be accessed here. Questions can be directed to Eileen Egan-Lee, Faculty Development Administrator. 

Rehearsals for Living: In Conversation with Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson 

When the world entered pandemic lockdown in spring 2020, Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson began writing each other letters—a gesture sparked by a desire for kinship and connection in a world shattering under the intersecting crises of pandemic, police killings, and climate catastrophe. These letters soon grew into a powerful exchange about where we go from here. By articulating to each other Black and Indigenous perspectives on our unprecedented here and now, and reiterating the long-disavowed histories of slavery and colonization that have brought us to this moment, Maynard and Simpson create something new: an urgent demand for a different way forward, and a poetic call to dream up other ways of ordering earthly life.  Please join us for a reading from Rehearsals for Living by Maynard and Simpson and an engaging conversation about the book between the authors and Professor Karina Vernon.

Learn more about the speakers.