This was a question that actually was one of the guiding questions throughout the book because i did want to find out, can i exist in a language i was not meant to speak and but be spoken about? And so while i was struggling with this very er, with this question, after having finished writing this book, i was then asked in interviews to talk about the different emotions that i connected to each language. But i had come to the realization that i could be in any language if i had the audacity, orthe courage to change the language to allow and create space for myself and people like me within a language. That only works if we don't just imitate the movements through this building
Language is expressive, a way of opening doors or a tool for creating new dialogue. But a tool so powerful can also take us to unforeseen or unintended places. It can create narratives that become fixed, unhelpful, or exclusionary. Kübra Gümüsay is a writer and activist focusing on social justice and public discourse. Her new book is Speaking and Being, which looks at the power of words, asking whether language creates freeing new spaces or plays a part in walling them off. Our host for the discussion is Danielle Sands, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway University in London, where she works across disciplines bridging philosophy, literary studies and critical theory.
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