How to Have Dangerous Ideas
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Drawing from her experience as an author and cultural critic who consistently challenges predictable opinions, Roxane Gay urges us to embrace the danger and discomfort of dissent. But in an age of polarised opinion warfare, this comes at a personal and professional cost. Courage is an essential ingredient in this strategy, but it can only take you so far. When the tide of viral criticism, is both toxic and overwhelming, it can seem rational either to give up on nuance or withdraw. What does it take to stand your ground and fight for complex and difficult ideas?
Roxane Gay is presented in Sydney by Festival of Dangerous Ideas. She is presented in Melbourne by The Wheeler Centre and Now or Never.
There will be an Auslan interpreter for this session.
Roxane Gay [USA]
Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018, Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Harper’s Bazaar, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times where she also writes the “Work Friend” column. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, The New York Times’ bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Bad Feminist and The New York Times’ bestselling Hunger: A Memoir of My Body and the nationally bestselling Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business. She is also the author of the Eisner Award winning World of Wakanda for Marvel and the editor of Best American Short Stories 2018. She is currently at work on film and television projects, a book of writing advice, an essay collection about television and culture, and a YA novel entitled The Year I Learned Everything. In 2018, she won a Guggenheim fellowship. She is also the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Photo: Reginald Cunningham
Narelda Jacobs
Narelda Jacobs OAM is a Whadjuk Noongar journalist, presenter, commentator, speaker and MC. With a career at Network 10 spanning more than two decades, Narelda brings experience, poise and personality to her work. Narelda presents the daily one-hour national news bulletin 10 News First: Midday, and 10 News First: Afternoons. You’ll also find her on NITV/SBS, the ABC, podcast airwaves, hosting events around the country and internationally, sharing her lived experience on panels and giving back to her community through various ambassadorial and board roles.
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We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation - the custodians of the country in which we meet - and acknowledge their Elders, past and present.
While we believe in freedom of speech, the views and opinions expressed by the speakers are not necessarily the views of The Ethics Centre and our partners.