What Exactly Is "Ugliness"? (NWL)

What is “ugliness”? Why are we afraid of it? How does it inform our personal, cultural, and political lives? Moshtari Hilal, born in Afghanistan and living in Germany, explores such questions in her book, Ugliness. Combining memoir with reflections on culture, she offers details not only from her many experiences of looking at herself in the mirror but also from a range of subjects, including beauty salons in Kabul, imposter syndrome, the shapes of noses, Darwin, colonialism, hairiness, activism, artists like Teresa Margolles, and western ideas of beauty, all the while challenging readers to rethink our own assumptions about what is beautiful and what is ugly.

Join Irene Papoulis of Trinity College for a discussion of Hilal's book and to tackle questions such as: what are our own perceptions of ugliness and beauty? What do they say about who we are? How does “ugliness” work in our culture and politics?

Presenter Irene Papoulis teaches in the AK Smith Center for Writing and Rhetoric at Trinity College, and is the author of The Essays Only You Can Write. She also sometimes appears on the Friday Nose panel of the Colin McEnroe show on WNPR radio.

Registration required. Registration opens one month before the program at 7:00pm.