“Citizen, Writer -- Wielding Words to Change the World”
20Dec
Speaker
Dr. Miguel Syjuco
Assistant Professor of practice, literature, and creative writing New York University Abu Dhabi
Time
0930-1030, 20 Dec 2018
Venue
AST1102, Sing Tao Building, Ho Sin Hang Campus, HKBU
Speaker's bio:
Miguel Syjuco — a novelist, journalist, and university professor from the Philippines — is an assistant professor of practice, literature, and creative writing at New York University Abu Dhabi, and a contributing opinion writer for the International New York Times. His debut novel Ilustrado was a NY Times Notable Book as well as the winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize, the Hugh MacLennan Prize, the Palanca Award, and the Filipino Readers' Choice Award.
Dr. Syjuco has worked in journalism for 20 years, as a copyeditor and freelancer. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Time, Newsweek, the Nikkei Asian Review, the Globe & Mail, the International Herald Tribune, Rappler, The Boston Review, OpenDemocracy, the BBC, the CBC, Inside Higher Ed, and many others. For the past two years he has been invited to participate at the World Economic Forum on ASEAN and the World Forum for Democracy at the Council of Europe.
Born in Manila in 1976, Dr. Syjuco received a B.A. in English Literature from the Ateneo de Manila University, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Columbia University, a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide, and a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University.
Both his fiction and non-fiction focus on politics, history, inequality, cultural identity, literature, and formal experimentation.
Abstracts:
The writing life is a process of evolving skills, perspective, goals, and a maturing relationship with craft. That accrued experience is vital to any pedagogy that focuses on creative and effective communication, and this presentation charts one writer's path through fiction, novels, journalism, social media, community organizing, and global discourse -- and how all of that can be used to help other writers and artists become better citizens, as well as to help other citizens become more creative and confident in their abilities to speak out, share ideas, and participate in the vital conversations about our societies' past, present, and future. Our pens can be mightier than the sword only if we first learn how to sharpen and wield them.
