Rehearsals for Living
Rehearsals for Living
Imperialism and ongoing colonialism have been ending worlds for as long as they have been in existence, and Indigenous and Black peoples have been building worlds and then rebuilding worlds for as long as we have been in existence. Relentlessly building worlds through unspeakable violence and loss. Building worlds and living in them anyway.
Robyn Maynard & Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
These are some of the first thoughts expressed in Rehearsals for Living, a series of incredible letters Leanne and Robyn wrote to each other during the COVID pandemic. These thoughts emanate from the co-mingled, interinanimation of Indigenous resurgence, the Black Radical Tradition and abolitionist practice. Abolitionist organiser and writer Harsha Walia, described Robyn and Leanne’s letters as their gift of thinking and practice as our future ancestors in the now. The great historian of the Black Radical tradition, Robin D. G. Kelley says of the book, in dissecting the death-drive-disguised-as-worldview of colonial and racial total violence, they help us understand “that the end of the world promises nothing except a chance to make the world anew.”
We think Rehearsals for Living is the most affecting, direct, personal, accessible yet clear eyed and edifying abolitionist text of the last 5 years. For Episode 11, Leanne and Robyn will share, read from and discuss their letters, in depth and in person.
What a pleasure and honor it is to read two such probing and principled minds in conversation and collaboration. Maynard and Simpson dare to confront the most wrenching challenges of our omnicidal times, while finding joy and love along the way. A beacon of a book.
Naomi Klein
Robyn and Leanne embody and express how practice makes different. This necessary book is a model—through the shared process of two brilliant thinkers it gifts us clarity to see rehearsals otherwise and elsewhere.
Ruth Wilson
GilmoreIn these letters, Leanne and Robyn constellate our brightest wounds and scars, but refuse to waste their energies of love and imagination on fixing or salvaging the Nation/State. Instead, they reorganize the trajectories and shapes of those constellations—retelling stories again and anew, of who we have been and might yet be again.
Natalie Diaz
Join Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on Friday 15 November at More Than Perfect in conversation with Ailton Krenak, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Geni Núñez.
ReadBios
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the intersections between politics, story and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity.
Leanne is the author of eight books, including A Short History of the Blockade and the novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies which was short listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and the Dublin Literary Prize. This Accident of Being Lost was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award. Her new project, a collaboration with Robyn Maynard, Rehearsals for Living is a National Best Seller and was short listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction. Leanne is also a musician. Her latest release Theory of Ice was named to the Polaris Prize short list, and she is the 2021 winner of the Prism Prize’s Willie Dunn Award.
Working for two decades as an independent scholar using Nishnaabeg intellectual practices, Leanne has lectured and taught extensively at universities across Canada and the United States and has over twenty years experience with Indigenous land-based education. She holds a PhD from the University of Manitoba and is member of Alderville First Nation.
Robyn Maynard is a Black feminist author and scholar based in Toronto, where she holds the position of Assistant Professor of Black Feminisms in Canada at the University of Toronto in the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies. Maynard’s first book, Policing Black Lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present (Fernwood 2017) is a national bestseller, designated as one of the “best 100 books of 2017” by the Hill Times, listed in The Walrus‘s “best books of 2018,” shortlisted for an Atlantic Book Award, the Concordia University First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction, and the winner of the 2017 Errol Sharpe Book Prize. Rehearsals for Living (Knopt/Haymarket, 2022) co-authored with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, is a national bestseller and was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award for literary non-fiction, designated one of CBC’s “best Canadian non-fiction books of 2022” and the “best 100 books of 2022” by the Hill Times. Other awards include “2018 Author of the Year” from Montreal’s Black History Month and the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQI* Emerging Writers. Additional writing appears in Washington Post, World Policy Journal, the Toronto Star, TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, Canadian Woman Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, Scholar & Feminist Journal and numerous book anthologies.
▴ Leanne Betosamosake Simpson, Credit: Nadya Kwandibens
▴ Robyn Maynard, Credit: Stacy Lee Photography
▴ Leanne Betosamosake Simpson, Credit: Nadya Kwandibens
▴ Robyn Maynard, Credit: Stacy Lee Photography
Access
BSL
The live spoken elements of this event will have live British Sign Language interpretation; the simultaneously interpretation of spoken English into signed language and vice-versa as required. more
Live Captions
This event will have Live Captions; a verbatim transcription of dialogue into text as it is spoken live. In-person, the text will appear on a screen beside or behind the speaker. Online, the live captions will appear along the bottom of the screen. The captioner for Episode 11 is Andrew Howells. more
See general Access information for Episode 11: To End the World As We Know It event
Artists
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson