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The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies, University of Toronto,
presents
rumi roaming: contemporary engagements and interventions
Gita Hashemi and Elena Basile
Thursday, 17 April 2025, 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Location for In-Person Attendance:
Rm 304, 4 Bancroft Ave, Toronto, ON M5S 1C1
Zoom Registration Link for Virtual Attendance:
https://utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/register/2opdgPl_S1eqy_kV9lL14A
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Abstract:
Curated and edited by Gita Hashemi, rumi roaming: contemporary engagements and interventions (SubversivePress and Guernica Editions, 2025) is a multi-platform, multi-language, and multi-disciplinary anthology that juxtaposes new translations of some of Rumi’s ghazals with contemporary creative non-fiction, poetry, scholarly essays, photo essays, and performance and art videos. Inspired by Rumi’s own early trajectory, the volume draws attention to diverse geographies and modalities of Rumi’s circulation, and invites the reader to think about him in lowercase and as a dynamic cross-cultural force within contemporary contexts of translingual poetics and translation politics, Indigenous language revitalization and diasporic language reclamation, and interrogations of spirituality, healing, and social justice. Contributors include Indigenous folks, migrants, settler descendants, refugees, transnationals, and guests from India, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Italy, Cuba, Morocco, Mexico, and Turtle Island including Zainab Amadahy, Elena Basile, Carly Butle, Radha D’Souza, Masoud Eskandari, Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet, Gita Hashemi, Hajar Hussaini, Fatemeh Keshavarz, Nika Khanjani, Ehab Lotayef, ML Papusa Molina, Mahdi Tourage, Jayce Salloum, charles c. smith with Meryem Alaoui, Öykü Tekten, and Hjalmer Wenstob with Annika Benoit-Jansson and Tim Masso.
Bios:
Gita Hashemi is a refugee, artist, activist, curator, and writer who works from T’karonto, the “Dish With One Spoon” wampum belt territory, the land of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. She lives near Wonscotonach River. Her home in Shiraz was near Khoshk River. She works in visual, media and performance art, digital and net art, and language-based art including live embodied calligraphy, as well as in curation and publishing. She has created and/or curated many transdisciplinary, generative, collaborative, and multi-platform projects.
Elena Basile lives and works in T’karonto, Treaty 13. She teaches literature, sexuality, and translation studies at the University of Toronto and at York University. Her collaborative research and art practice are oriented towards a decolonizing politics and poetics of belonging in the wake of the relentless expropriative violence of colonial capital. She is a contributor and the poetry and translation editor of rumi roaming: contemporary engagements and interventions curated and edited by Gita Hashemi (Guernica/subversive press 2025).