David Austin

What is the relationship between poetry, artistic creativity and social change. Is socialism a viable alternative to the current global political and economic climate? Drawing on the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson and the poetic-political traditions that have shaped him, this talk will explore the themes of political consciousness and social transformation in relation to poetic-artistic expression.

David Austin is the author of Fear of a Black Nation: Race, sex, and security in sixties Montreal (Between The Lines, 2013, winner of the 2014 Casa de las Americas Prize), and Dread, Poetry and Freedom: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the unfinished revolution (Pluto, 2018); he is the editor of You Don’t Play with Revolution: The Montreal lectures of C.L.R. James (AK Press, 2010), and editor/author of Moving Against the System: The 1968 Congress of Black Writers and the making of global consciousness(Pluto, 2018). He teaches in the Humanities, Philosophy and Religion Department at John Abbott College.