A Talk on “Learning Urbanity : Making Sense of Cities” by V Geetha
About the Talk
I have lived in Chennai for almost all my life – and would like to take this opportunity to reflect on my ‘knowledge’ of the city and the ways in which I came to it. Whether this had to do with comprehending what a ‘neighbourhood’ was, or with ‘reading’ streets and street life, this meant getting entangled in the many verbal and non-verbal registers that constituted it. With respect to the ‘making’ of the city, the manner in which it continues to be mapped, guarded, and remapped – how may one understand the ways in which cities are at once palimpsests and archives? In all this, how might one think of those who labour in the city, and labour for it? What helps to produce this ‘knowledge’? I come to these questions through a narrative engagement with all that has helped me make sense of where I live.
About the Speaker
V Geetha is a writer, translator, and feminist historian who writes in English and Tamil on gender, caste labor, and education. Her major publications include Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India (2021), Undoing Impunity: Speech after Sexual Violence, Gender, Patriarchy (2016), and Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: From Iyothee Thass to Periyar (1998; coauthored with S. V. Rajadurai). She has also translated, from Tamil to English, two novels by author Perumal Murugan and trans activist A. Revathi’s autobiography, The Truth about Me: A Hijra Life. Currently, she is the editorial director of Tara Books, Chennai