What role does art play in activism? How does creative collaboration impact politics? This event addresses these questions and celebrates the publication of The Revolution will Be Improvised: The Intimacy of Cultural Activism (University of Michigan Press, 2024). In her book, Dr. Elizabeth Rodriguez Fielder (University of Iowa) recovers an archive of texts, objects, and media produced by cultural activists of the 1960s and contends that their values and methods have a profound legacy on contemporary activism. From performance and theater to photography and multimedia experimentation, civil rights movement activists established new methods and aesthetics for social justice art. 

Dr. Rodriguez Fielder will be in conversation with Dr. Martyn Bone, Professor of American Literature at University of Copenhagen. In our 30 minute Q & A (in English), we will discuss why the young activists of the civil rights movement felt that creativity was essential to social movements and what lessons we might learn from them today. Dr. Rodriguez Fielder wrote much of this book here in Copenhagen on Blågårdsgade and is overjoyed to return to discuss how this neighborhood influenced her writing.

free with RSVP

limited seating