Arts & Humanities Colloquium: From Aesthetic to Political Revolution

From Aesthetic to Political Revolution
Javier Padilla Rios, associate professor of English and creative writing

Revolutionary Poetics considers the role of politically engaged poetry in social revolutions and processes of decolonization. Javier Padilla argues that writers in Ireland, Central America, Africa, and the Caribbean sought to capture in their poetry the time of liberation—a moment conjoining the end of colonialism and imperialism with the dawn of a decolonized historical consciousness. The book thus analyzes key moments in the history of 20th-century liberation movements through poetry and poetics, examining the work of W. B. Yeats, Ernesto Cardenal, Pedro Mir, René Depestre, and Roque Dalton alongside the decolonial theories of thinkers such as Frantz Fanon and Enrique Dussel. These poets reimagined and adapted modernist poetics of instantaneity in order to advance collective aims and bolster the prospects of liberation. While the poetics of temporal rupture can be traced back to earlier Anglo-European traditions, it is in peripheral regions that the revolutionary moment acquired not just aesthetic but also historical and political meaning.

This event is part of the Division of Arts & Humanities Fall 2026 Colloquium Series.

Refreshments provided.

All are welcome.