MONOMYTHS is conceived and curated by Shannon Cochrane and Jess Dobkin.
Presented in partnership with University of Toronto Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies.

MONOMYTHS invites a diverse collection of artists, scholars, and activists to revise Joseph Campbell’s conception of the hero’s journey through performance art, lectures, workshops, and other offerings. This new assemblage of non-linear un-narratives proposes a cultural, political and social feminist re-visioning of the world. The MONOMYTHS perception of the universal journey dispels the notion of the lone patriarchal figure on a conquest to vanquish his demons—both inner and outer—in consideration of community, collectivity, and collaboration.

MONOMYTHS Stage 6: Tests, Allies, Enemies
Physics of Blackness: Understanding Beyond Linear Time
Dr. Michelle M. Wright

FADO picks up the epic MONOMYTHS series at Stage 6: Tests, Allies, Enemies with a talk given by (and a reading group led by) Dr. Michelle M. Wright entitled Physics of Blackness: Understanding Beyond Linear Time.

In this talk, Physics of Blackness: Understanding Beyond Linear Time, Michelle M. Wright shows how our current struggle to be diverse and inclusive in our worldview has more to do with Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and gravity than most would realize. Blackness, for example, can only be understood accurately by drawing on different understandings of time and space—specifically going beyond linear time and the myth of universal progress. Moving from discussions of 17th century physics to 3rd century Christian religions, to 21st century African travel narratives to Black European postwar histories to Black Caribbean settlement in 18th century Australia, Physics of Blackness goes around the globe through all spaces and times to show us the unexpected ways Blackness reveals and encounters itself.

© Michelle M. Wright, Physics of Blackness: Understanding Beyond Linear Time, 2016. Photo Henry Chan.