Dr. Esmeralda Thornhill Black Feminist Speaker Series – Links to Canada: Rum, Molasses, Saltfish and $ or Why I Wouldn't Marry Canada

The Simone de Beauvoir Institute and Harambec invite you to the 3rd Annual Dr. Esmeralda Thornhill Black Feminist Speaker’s Series, taking place on Wednesday, October 8, 2025, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Concordia University’s Conference Centre (1450 Guy Street, 9th floor). A catered reception will follow.

This year’s keynote address, Links to Canada: Rum, Molasses, Saltfish and § or Why I Wouldn’t Marry Canada, will be delivered by M. nourbeSe Philip, the acclaimed Canadian poet, writer, critic, and lawyer. Best known for her groundbreaking work Zong!, Philip’s writing fills archival silences, confronts systemic erasure, and re-voices histories that have been suppressed. Her interventions align deeply with the mission of the Black Feminist Speaker’s Series: centering Black agency and imagining liberatory futures.

In partnership with the Dark Opacities Lab, a special workshop will also be held earlier the same day at Concordia’s 4th Space in the J.W. McConnell (LB) Building (1 to 3 p.m.). Featuring Katherine McKittrick, Nasrin Himada, and M. nourbeSe Philip, this conversation — linked to the collaborative exhibition A Smile Split by the Stars: An Experiment — will explore Black girlhood, Black femininity, and revolutionary aesthetics through Philip’s poem Meditations on the Declension of Beauty by the Girl with the Flying Cheek-bones.

We warmly invite you to join us for this vital event that celebrates and amplifies Black voices, stories, and art.