Thursday, January 23, 2025 12:30pm to 2:00pm
About this Event
Fifth Ave at Bigelow, Pittsburgh, 15213
Hosted by the Humanities Center and postdoctoral associate, CE Mackenzie. Respondents include Paula Orozco-Espinel from the Department of History and Dan Wang from the Department of Music. This event will be hybrid, so you can attend it either in person in 602 CL or via Zoom as you prefer.
Ruin translates from Latin’s ruina, meaning “collapse.” Not utter annihilation or swift disappearance of an artifact, but decay. Not lost, but losing. Ruin evokes the slow roll of a calving glacier. Thunderous break and crack, but then icy water silently rising. Ruin releases over time. There is melt, drip. The ice is scattershot. Our archives—written or held—endure analogous injuries.
In this colloquium, Mackenzie shares excerpts from their second book project, organized into an indexical narrative (“A” is for absurd, “B” is for beginnings, “C” is for collage) to illustrate life written in the archive, among the ruins and immersed in the act of ruining. With our own memories and storytelling sullied by impossibility—how to get it “right,” whatever that means—Mackenzie explores what happens when we embrace the faults and failures in our forms. Their story traces their own failings through broken homes, abandoned families, and stunted arrivals to assimilate ruin into another possibility: renewal.
Precirculated material for this colloquium will be available here about two weeks prior and up to the event.
Please let us know if you require an accommodation in order to participate in this event. Accommodations may include live captioning, ASL interpreters, and/or captioned media and accessible documents from recorded events. At least 5 days in advance is recommended.