Laleh Khalili, Shipwreck on the shore of Damietta, Egypt
Laleh Khalili will be in conversation with James Butler, contributing editor of The London Review of Books and co-founder of Novara Media, to celebrate the launch of the latest book in our DISCOURSE series, The Corporeal Life of Seafaring.
Drawing on ongoing research and experiences of travelling on cargo ships, Laleh Khalili's illustrated essay takes in both scholarly and literary accounts to describe with care and imagination the material and physical realities of contemporary commerce at sea.
Thursday 15 February
19:00 GMT
London Review Bookshop
14 Bury Pl
London, WC1A 2JL
Tickets available here
About The Corporeal Life of Seafaring
The body of the seafarer is a fulcrum upon which global systems of power, longstanding maritime traditions, and gendered and racialised pressures all rest. In this vital new essay, scholar Laleh Khalili draws on her ongoing research and experiences of travelling on cargo ships to explore the embodied life of these labourers. She investigates an experience riddled with adversities – loneliness, loss, and violence, stolen wages and exploitative shipowners – as well as ephemeral moments of joy and solidarity. In the unique arena of the ship, Khalili traces the many forms of corporeality involved in work at sea and the ways the body is engaged by the institutions that engulf seafarers’ lives and work.
DISCOURSE is a series of small books in which a theorist, artist, or writer engages in a dialogue with a theme, an artwork, an idea, or another individual across an extended text.
Find out more and order copies here
