Speaking and Being with Kübra Gümüşay
Book Launch
Join us in person or online via livestream for the launch of the English translation of Kübra Gümüşay’s bestselling book: Speaking and Being, translated by Gesche Ipsen and published by Profile Books.
What happens when our language is no longer fit for purpose, and how can we change the discourse?
As a writer and activist fighting for equality, Kübra Gümüsay has been thinking about such questions for many years. In this book she explores how language shapes our thinking and determines our politics. She shows how people become invisible as individuals when they are always seen as part of a group, and the way those in the minority often have to expend energy cleaning up the messy thinking of others. But she also points to how we might shape conversations to allow for greater ambiguity and individuality, how arguments might happen in a space of learning and vulnerability without sacrificing principles – how we might all be able to speak freely.
Kübra Gümüşay is author of the German bestselling book Sprache und Sein (Speaking and Being) and founder of several award-winning campaigns and organisations. In 2018, Forbes Magazine selected her as one of 30 under 30 in Europe. As a Mercator Senior Fellow, she is currently a fellow at CRASSH (Centre for Research in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) and Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at Cambridge University.