Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) is accepting applications to attend the 2016 WITH/OUT ¿BORDERS? Conference scheduled for Oct. 20-23 on the K campus in Kalamazoo, Mich. Journalist and author Naomi Klein will be among a panel of distinguished conference participants. She will deliver the keynote address on the evening of Oct. 21.

“This conference aims to confront and provoke the notion that the current nadir of austerity, violence and ascent of the global one-percent is normal and the best we humans can do,” said Brock. “We intend to bring together people whose work envisions an imaginative, robust, plentiful and just future.”

According to Brock, confirmed conference participants thus far include:

– Political scientist Simon Akindes;
– Actor, singer, writer and composer Daniel Beatty;
– Author and political scientist Peter Bratsis;
– Science fiction writer, social justice activist and performer Adrienne Brown;
– Educator Prudence Browne;
– Food justice activist Dara Cooper;
– Divestment activist Sean Estelle;
– Indigenous historian Nick Estes;
– Author and racial justice and labor activist Bill Fletcher, Jr.;
– Afro-Jewish philosopher, educator and musician Lewis Gordon;
– American studies scholar and anti-racist social movements historian Christina Heatherton;
– Educator Alice Kim;
– Journalist, columnist and author Naomi Klein;
– New Orleans poet, singer and activist Sunni Patterson; and
– Ethnomusicologist Stephanie Shonekan.

Topics of discussion will include Afrofuturism and post-oppression desires, decolonizing knowledge and liberatory education, sustainable futures, and next systems and new economic possibilities.

Brock said this will be a “conference/unconference” featuring modules that will include panel discussions, breakout sessions, and performances “designed to prompt us to collectively conjure, theorize, decolonize, and map a future we can all thrive in.”

Conference modules will take place at the ACSJL (205 Monroe Street) and other venues on the K campus.

The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (www.kzoo.edu/arcuscenter) is an initiative of Kalamazoo College. Its mission is to develop and sustain leaders in human rights and social justice through education and capacity-building. We envision a campus and world where: every person’s life is equally valued, the inherent dignity of all people is recognized, the opportunity to develop one’s full potential is available to every person, and systematic discrimination and structural inequities have been eradicated.

Kalamazoo College, founded in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1833, is a nationally recognized liberal arts and sciences college and the creator of the K-Plan that emphasizes rigorous scholarship, experiential learning, leadership development, and international and intercultural engagement. Kalamazoo
College does more in four years so students can do more in a lifetime.