Arundhati Roy: “Fascism, Fiction, and Freedom in the Time of the Virus”

Not unrelated to my earlier post this morning on the fight over academic freedom, treat yourself to the renowned Arundati Roy who spoke recently at the University of Texas at Austin on her latest piece titled, “Religious Nationalism, Dissent, and the Battle Between Myth and History" as per this notice by the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center at UT:

"The seventh annual Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold Endowed Lecture in Peace, Social Justice and Human Rights, presented at the LBJ Auditorium on The University of Texas at Austin campus. The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center hosted the lecture in partnership with the Rothko Chapel and it was co-sponsored by the South Asia Institute at the University of Texas at Austin on April 20, 2022. For more information on the event, visit https://law.utexas.edu/humanrights/ev.... Arundhati Roy used the occasion to deliver a new piece, “Religious Nationalism, Dissent, and the Battle Between Myth and History,” which has now been published on Literary Hub (https://lithub.com/arundhati-roy-on-r...). After the lecture, Roy engaged in conversation with LBJ School of Public Affairs Professor Raj Patel, in which she read passages from a number of her works and answered audience questions. 

Engineered myths like "Modi the Messiah" and lies alongside Hindu, anti-Muslin, religious nationalism, she states, are tearing at the very fiber of the country's well-being. To my ears, much of what she shares resonates with the current political context here in the U.S.

-Angela Valenzuela

For more information on the lecture series and recordings of previous lectures, visit https://law.utexas.edu/farenthold/abo...."