LUNCH TALK #17 – GHAYATH ALMADHOUN (PAL)
WRITING IN TIMES OF GENOCIDE
From 2020, FSW Connects (Faculty of Social Sciences) will bring a free Lunch Talk four times a year in collaboration with 'Nuff Said. During these Lunch Talks, an artist from the world of comedy, literature or music is central. The focus is on the personal and professional story of the guest, and how it takes place against a background of important social themes and events such as migration, polarization and (international) conflicts. Come along and be inspired by our unconventional guest speakers.
Ghayath Almadhoun is a Palestinian poet, born in Damascus in 1979, who moved to Sweden in 2008. Almadhoun has published five poetry collections in Arabic, the most recent of which, I Brought You a Severed Hand, appeared in 2024. His poetry has been translated into nearly 30 languages. He has created several poetry films, collaborated extensively with artists and scientists, and curated numerous events, readings, and literary anthologies. Almadhoun currently divides his time between Berlin and Stockholm.
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In this lunch talk, Ghayath will explore the vital role of the poet when confronted with mass violence and erasure in Gaza, emphasizing writing as an act of witness, memory, and refusal. He will show how language becomes a form of resistance, as poetry refuses to let atrocities slip into silence and instead preserves the experiences that perpetrators seek to erase. By bearing witness, poets document the lived realities of destruction, transforming trauma into narrative and countering the erasure of individuals and communities. The poet’s voice thus safeguards memory and insists on the persistence of human dignity. This talk highlights how poetic expression, far from being solely an artistic endeavor, becomes a moral and political act—one that challenges annihilation and asserts the enduring presence of those targeted by genocide.
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Friday December 5, 2025 - City campus, Building M, Sint-Jacobstraat 2, room M.107
12:30 Walk-in with free continuous lunch
12:45 Introduction by Amal Miri (CRESC & ‘Nuff Said)
12:50 Talk by Ghayath Almadhoun
13:20 Brief afterthought
13:25 Q&A
13:45 End
Free, but registration is required.
Ghayath Almadhoun is also performing at ‘Nuff Said on Dec 5 (Antwerp) and 6 (Genk). Info & tickets: www.nuffsaid.be
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A collaboration between the Faculty of Social Sciences and 'Nuff Said.
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