Sonali Chakravarti, Author at Public Seminar

In I’m Still Here, a Mother Refuses to Let a Dictatorship Rewrite Reality

Political engagement must not preclude the fullness of life

April 9, 2025 • by Sonali Chakravarti

Put on earrings. Go out for ice cream. Swim. Expose the conditions of torture. For Eunice Paiva, the protagonist of 2024 Brazilian film I’m Still Here, the fight against dictatorship has a rhythm. After being interrogated about her association with communists and terrorists, she must now try to find out where ...

In <em>I’m Still Here</em>, a Mother Refuses to Let a Dictatorship Rewrite Reality

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Three Values of Anger

Chapter Five from ‘Sing the Rage’ by Sonali Chakravarti

August 9, 2017 • by Sonali Chakravarti

—Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider Anger, like other emotions, is closely related to a cluster of affective predispositions, including resentment, sadness, and frustration. Insisting on a narrow definition of anger misses the way these emotions often overlap; conversely a broad interpretation of the emotions, writ large, lacks analytical specificity. Cutting through these ...

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Sing the Rage

Listening to Anger after Mass Violence

July 27, 2017 • by Sonali Chakravarti

The words of Godfrey Xolile Yona, who appeared before the TRC in October 1996, exemplify the type of testimony that is the catalyst for my thinking about the significance of anger in testimony after mass violence and its relationship to restorative justice. Detained for his involvement with the anti-apartheid organization ...

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The OJ Simpson Verdict, Jury Nullification and Black Lives Matter: The Power to Acquit

August 5, 2016 • by Sonali Chakravarti

The nation is, once again, caught up in the OJ Simpson trial because of two riveting series that revisit the case. The FX mini-series, American Crime Story, and the ESPN documentary, OJ: Made in America, provide their audiences with a level of detail and sociological interpretation that can only be achieved 20 years ...