Revisiting Revolutionary Temporalities

Celebrating Professor Chinmoy Banerjee (1940-2020) Through Fragments of Images, Revolutionary Songs, and Cherished Memories
About this Event

The Fifth Annual Chinmoy Banerjee Lecture in Anti-Racism

In this talk, Dr. Ajay Bhardwaj will discuss Prof. Chinmoy Banerjee’s life and work in the historical context of the revolutionary upsurges of the long sixties in the imperial core. He will emphasize anti-colonial solidarities forged among radical left movements and organizations of Third World immigrants, Indigenous communities, and Canadian New Left. Drawing on curated footage from Chin’s interview for his work-in-progress documentary, A Single Spark on the Indian People’s Association in North America (IPANA), Bhardwaj will present, in Chin’s own words, his journey towards left radicalism. Deeply contemplative and infused with subtle humour, Chin’s recollections of personal experiences and political events traverse an epoch in which power was being challenged and contested everywhere. According to Chin, this was the broader context in which a “dislocated and destabilized subject finds the possibility of reidentification and reorientation.” Bhardwaj will evoke an embodied sense of these struggles and solidarity playing excerpts from songs on the three LPs of revolutionary music produced by IPANA, two of which were made in Vancouver in collaboration with the Indian Workers Association, Great Britain, and the third in Montreal.

Reception to follow after the talk.