This roundtable conversation discusses the intersections of language and activism across different communities and contexts.
Words and narratives are powerful carriers of meaning. As self-descriptions, they can create a sense of community and belonging; and as activist tools, they can make things graspable to empower or pave the way to call out discriminatory and oppressive structures. At the same time, words and narratives can be violent when used to suppress and vilify. As a living thing, language constantly changes, adjusts, and grows along with the communities and histories in which they are embedded. Words and narratives can be appropriated and re-appropriate, change meaning, get lost, or shape potential futures.
In this roundtable conversation, Ly Xīnzhèn Zhǎngsūn Brown and Marwan Kaabour dive into language as an activist practice, giving insights into the historical and political contexts of their publishing projects.
From 2011 to 2020, Ly Xīnzhèn Zhǎngsūn Brown wrote about the intersections of gender-based discrimination, racism, and ableism in their blog autistichoya.com, where they also published the Glossary of Ableist Phrases to create awareness of how language perpetuates ableism.
Marwan Kaabour’s 2024 published book The Queer Arab Glossary is an exploration of the linguistic landscape around queerness across the entirety of the Arabic-speaking region. The compilation features more than 300 words and terms of queer slang, ranging from the humorous to the harrowing, serious to tongue-in-cheek, pejorative to endearing. The book also features an anthology of texts by a range of writers exploring themes of language, queerness, slang, and Arab identity.
Event language: English with close-captions.
Ly Xīnzhèn Zhǎngsūn (they/them) published widely as Lydia X. Z. Brown, is an internationally recognized advocate, organizer, attorney, strategist, scholar, and writer whose work addresses interpersonal, corporate, and state violence targeting disabled people at intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, faith, language, and nation. Ly Xīnzhèn teaches at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, USA. Ly founded The Autistic People of Color Fund, and is creating the Disability Justice Wisdom Tarot. They serve as board treasurer of the Disability Rights Bar Association, Disability Justice Committee representative to the National Lawyers Guild board, and a gubernatorial appointee to the Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs. Formerly, for several years, Ly Xīnzhèn led the only policy and advocacy project in the United States focused on disability rights, algorithmic harm, and technology justice.
Marwan Kaabour (he/him) is a graphic designer, artist, and writer. His interdisciplinary practice builds pathways between communication and publication design, curation, pedagogy, and political activism. Alongside his independent projects, he works with non-profit institutions, companies, and individuals in arts and culture sectors. In 2019, Marwan founded Takweer, an online platform and expanding archive of queer narratives in Arab history and popular culture. His debut book, The Queer Arab Glossary, was published in June 2024. Marwan moved from his hometown Beirut, Lebanon to London, UK in 2011 to pursue a Master’s degree in Graphic Design, before joining renowned design agency Barnbrook. He later founded his own studio in 2020.
REGISTER HEREBy registering for this lecture series, you not only enter a transnational community centered around design politics, but you also support the work of commissioning, editing, and publishing original counter-narratives, and help to finance our free online learning program.
The lecture series is accessible through a sliding-scale price structure:
- Solidarity: CHF 290
- Standard: CHF 150
- Student: CHF 70
- Reduced Student: CHF 35
For students with limited finances—particularly those self-identifying as marginalized, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, chronically ill, or disabled—we offer the Reduced Student price. We trust your honesty and do not require proof of self-identification for enrollment.
For institutions keen on facilitating their students’ and staff’s participation (and other bigger groups), we also provide discounted passes. Please contact learning@futuress.org along with the number of participating students and staff, and we would be happy to tailor an offer to your specific needs.
This event is part of the Pressing Issues: Printing Futures, Publishing Resistance paid online series of lectures, tutorials, and roundtable conversations discussing the politics of translating, archiving, and publishing.
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