ConveRACEions with Rayya Ghul

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 16:00 - 17:30 Greenwich Mean Time (UTC±0)

Register here.

We are delighted to invite you to the first virtual ConveRACEions event in 2022, discussing yet another critical issue regarding racial (in)equality in academia and beyond on the 24th of February, from 4pm-5:30pm (GMT- UK Timezone).

This month’s guest speaker will be Rayya Ghul and her talk will be titled “Are you a terrorist, then?”

A few words about the event:

Our event will start by introducing our initiative and our guest speaker, followed by Rayya’s talk and an open Q&A discussion. Our event will be held in Zoom and the link to join our virtual event will be shared in a separate email closer to the event.

A few words about the speaker:

Rayya Ghul:

Rayya Ghul is the academic lead for the Edinburgh Teaching Award. She is the child of two displaced persons with a Palestinian father and Silesian mother and she grew up in Scotland.

A few words about the talk:

Rayya will talk about her experience of having a complex national and cultural heritage and how she has been able to understand and navigate the different identities she inhabits. Drawing on the portrayal of Arabs by British colonial ‘scholars’ as well as contemporary events in Israel/Palestine she will explore how colonisation and coloniality are forces that have shaped both the history and present of the region. Through this journey she will talk about the tensions of being a supporter of Palestinian rights with the anti-racist commitment she holds. This has been particularly challenged in recent times with the escalation of oppression, dispossession, and erasure of areas of East Jerusalem, particularly Silwan, where Rayya’s father was born and the family have lived for centuries.

Disclaimer: Please note that this series of events focuses on racial issues which may be triggering and cause distress. Please only sign up if you feel comfortable with that. All of our speakers talk about their own personal and academic experiences which should be seen as such and not invalidated during the discussion.

A few words about ConveRACEions:

ConveRACEions is a project set up by Ph.D. students within the School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this group aims to create a space for all of us to learn, discuss, reflect, and actively work towards equality, diversity, and social justice within academia. In collaboration with Dr Rosie Stenhouse, we have worked on an initiative to discuss and dismantle barriers to racial equality, as well as ways of moving forward from here.

With the support of the Social Responsibility and Sustainability Student Project Grant awarded to the ConveRACEions team, this year we are excited to invite monthly guest speakers to give one-hour-long talks on their research and/or experiences with racial and equality issues within (and outside) academia. You can find our previously recorded sessions here.

The ConveRACEions initiative was also recently awarded the Social Responsibility and Sustainability Changemaker Award 2021 from the University of Edinburgh.