Monthly Flanor

On the 18th of June, Flanor is organising its final themed lecture. This one will be given by Dr. Dan Leberg, a professor at the RUG in film and media studies.

Since the premiere of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), HR Giger’s monstrous xenomorph has captured the imagination of science fiction and horror fans alike. Although the xenomorph has encouraged many critical interpretations over the years, the incompatibilities and tensions between these interpretations is just as interesting as the franchise’s monster itself. Is the xenomorph an embodiment of the patriarchal fear of female sexuality, or a symbolic representation of terminal diseases like AIDS? Is it a conservative allegory for “welfare queens” or an instrument of anti-colonial vengeance? This presentation contrasts multiple interpretations of the xenomorph to help us each ponder where the creature lives inside of us. 

On August 13th, Adiba Jaigirdar is coming to Flanor for an interview. She is a Bangladeshi-Irish author of multiple bestselling LGBTQ+ Young Adult books, such as The Henna Wars, Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, and Rani Choudhry Must Die. Her debut, The Henna Wars, was listed by Time Magazine as one of the best 100 YA books of all time. She will tell us more about her books during the interview and of course there is time afterwards to get your books signed. It is not necessary to have read books by Adiba to come to the interview. 

Gretchen Head is a professor of Arabic literature and will discuss Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses in relation to Khomeini, the fatwa, and the possibility of questioning Islam in literary texts.

On February 14, 1989, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling for the death of British author Salman Rushdie and his publishers following the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses (1988). As a result, his Japanese translator was murdered, his Italian translator and Norwegian publisher barely survived attempts on their lives, and Rushdie himself lived in hiding under police protection for ten years.

This lecture will, with a careful analysis of the novel and the broader literary context, explore how Iran, through the condemnation of Rushdie's novel and the resulting global crisis, effectively repositioned the boundaries of literary kufr (disbelief or blasphemy) in the Islamic world. This has radically changed the boundaries of freedom of expression and literary discourse, from the Middle East/North Africa to South and Southeast Asia.

This lecture will be in English.