BHUBANESWAR: To celebrate the spirit of feminism, Bhubaneswar Poetry Club, in collaboration with Bibliophiles of Bhubaneswar and UN Women, conducted a literary reading session at Ekamra Haat, Kharvel Nagar Road here Sunday.
The word ‘feminism’ has been a topic of many speculations, especially in the recent times. The role of mass media in showcasing feminism in a negative light is exponential.
‘A Brief History of Feminism’ is a collaborative attempt by Bhubaneswar Poetry Club, Bibliophiles of Bhubaneswar, and UN Women, to understand how important it is to be a feminist, with the help of exemplary literary works.
Some of the authors that we are going to read include Margaret Atwood, Roxane Gay, Audre Lorde, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Shulamith Firestone and Nivedita Menon.
The curation of the event was diverse ranging from early works by Mary Wollstonecraft where she writes about the right of education for women to Sukirtharani’s poems, where she uses her words to advocate for Dalit women rights and intersectional feminism.
Apart from that, we will be reading Susan Sontag’s works where she writes about the relationship between class struggle and feminism and excerpts from Bell Hooks’ book where she talks about lesbianism and feminism.
The literary session is a joint effort by both Bhubaneswar Poetry Club and Bibliophiles of Bhubaneswar to cultivate the habit of reading and talking about what we read, an art that we have long forgotten of.