Thinking Together in the Present

Thinking Together in the Present

Simon(e) van Saarloos and Matthew Stadler in conversation

Zoom Webinar with ASL interpretation and automatic captioning

Thinking Together in the Present: an unrehearsed conversation with Dutch-American philosopher, journalist, and activist Simon(e) van Saarloos and Matthew Stadler, the editor of ArtsEverywhere’s Polity of Literature series. Presented in collaboration with PS Guelph.

This live event on Zoom marks the launch of Simon(e) van Saarloos’s newest book, Take ‘Em Down, a critical investigation of common tactics of historic memorialization, which poses the question What if we could commemorate everything and everyone, all at the same time? Among van Saarloos’ provocative recommendations is that statues marking the brutal history of settler colonialism ought to be pulled down—and be left lying in the streets. Van Saarloos does not seek erasure, nor revision, but a future that puts the ruinous obstacles history created right at our feet—and in our way—so that we have to engage them collectively while we make our future. This live conversation will also introduce and explore Stadler’s newest iteration of the Polity of Literature series—a publishing platform called “The GOAT PoL” that will connect disenfranchised writers (those who are stateless, incarcerated, or children) to readers, publication, and agency inside of a living “polity of literature.”