Mariame Kaba delivers an online free, public lecture as part of the Fall 2020 Intra-Disciplinary Seminar series. Poet Martin Espada tells us that “No change for the good ever happens without it being imagined first, even if that change seems hopeless or impossible in the present.” All of the most important and impactful social transformations happened because people fought and struggled for things they had never seen. Prison industrial complex abolition demands imaginative work and is rooted in building another world. This talk will focus on the critical role of imagination and creativity in the abolitionist project.

Registration is required.

Kaba is an organizer, educator, and curator who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. She is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. She has co-founded multiple organizations and projects including We Charge Genocide, the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women, Love & Protect and most recently Survived & Punished. She runs Prison Culture blog and her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Nation Magazine, The Guardian, The Washington Post, In These Times, Teen Vogue, and The New Inquiry.

The IDS public lecture series is part of the Robert Lehman Visiting Artist Program at The Cooper Union. We are grateful for major funding from the Robert Lehman Foundation. The IDS public lecture series is also made possible by generous support from the Open Society Foundations.