Speaker(s): Dr. Defne Çizakça, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey
Date & Time: 19/05/2016 15:00-18:00
Location: AVARTS Secretariat Building, Room 4, Former Asylum
Language: English

Some acts of transgression - whether we have enacted or suffered them - can be turned into stories we share with others. In these narrations, there are some words that overpower the rest. They are different for us all, but as words they have the potential to connect to more words and to link our lives to those of others, restoring us in the process.

And yet, certain forms of transgression can cause us to fall quiet, either due to the pain they cause us, or because they border on the transcendent. We may become unable to express what we live through, choose not to perpetuate the story, or lack the vocabulary to articulate the new experience altogether. In these cases, we try to cover up particular words, to lose them, to forget them with a vengeance, or try desperately to speak with another tongue, to imbue old words with new meanings.

“Words Lost and Found” will focus on these “unequal words”; the ones we have saturated with expectations, and the ones we have tried to disown. It is hoped that this creative writing workshop will help participants to discover their own unique lexicon, and to enrich it with words old and new, foreign and made up, gifted and saved.