From BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY
Across the United States, debates over banned books, the dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and challenges to civil rights are intensifying. These “Backlash Blues,” as BGSU English professor Dr. Rachel Walsh describes them, connect to long histories of social injustice struggles, neoliberal policies, and cultural resistance.
On Wednesday, Oct. 29, from 6 – 8:30 p.m., at Grounds for Thought, 174 S. Main St., in downtown Bowling Green, Walsh will present her research in a public talk titled “Backlash Blues: Reading Multiethnic Literature for Archives of Care and Resistance in the Face of Dead Futures.”
Walsh argues that cultural texts – novels, plays, poetry, and other works of art – function as counter-archives, resisting erasure and preserving histories that neoliberal and authoritarian structures attempt to suppress. She suggests these works not only connect past injustices to present struggles but also help people imagine futures rooted in care, community, and resistance.
“Backlash Blues reflects the world we are living in now,” Walsh explained. “By looking at multiethnic literature as an archive of both trauma and resilience, we see how writers and artists push back against erasure and offer ways of imagining care and community, even in precarious times.”
Walsh is an associate teaching professor in BGSU’s Department of English and International Studies Program, where she also serves as interim director of International Studies. Her research focuses on multiethnic U.S. literatures and global texts that examine the intergenerational traumas of settler colonialism, slavery, apartheid, and U.S. imperialism. Her work has appeared in “Contemporary Literature,” “Twentieth-Century Literature, Radical Philosophy Review,” and “Society and Space: Environment and Planning D.”
“Dr. Walsh’s work illustrates how literature can provide essential tools for making sense of today’s political and cultural climate,” said ICS Director Valeria Grinberg Pla. “Her talk embodies the ICS mission of connecting scholarship with public life, creating dialogue that matters both on and beyond campus.”
The Institute for the Study of Culture and Society (ICS) is an interdisciplinary, public humanities center at Bowling Green State University. ICS helps faculty to develop, communicate, and disseminate their scholarly creative work to constituencies across campus and throughout the region. With its public events and outreach efforts, ICS aims to bring issues of vital national and global importance to northwest Ohio, and in turn, bring community knowledge back into the university.
The event is free and open to the public. Grounds for Thought is an accessible venue. For more information, follow ICS on Facebook and Instagram, @icsbgsu, or visit www.bgsu.edu/ics.
