Ethics, Academic Freedom, and a Case Study on Palestine, an Ezra Hale Lecture Series

Speaker: Saynett Telwar, Professor of Art Therapy and Counseling at the Art Institute of Chicago

Abstract: This presentation examines the relationship between ethics, academic freedom, and discussions of Palestine. It considers the boundaries of permissible academic speech and instructors' responsibilities when engaging with contested subjects. Participants will explore excerpts from a case study to consider the multifaceted nature of empathy, critical thinking, and ethical inquiry in discussions of Palestine. The presentation will also address the importance of protecting academic freedom as a foundation for meaningful teaching, learning, and dialogue.

Short Bio: 

Dr. Savneet Tawar is a Chicago based American Studies scholar, fiber artist, educator, art therapist and somatic coach. She is currently a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the art therapy and fiber and material studies departments. Her art and therapeutic practice is informed by her doctoral training in anti-oppressive frameworks, social justice and intersectional feminism. She strives to embrace abolitionist concepts to enhance her art practice and pedagogy.

 As an interdisciplinary fiber and feminist artist, her work exists at the intersection of archives, memory, language, feminists politics and questions of resistance. She is interested in the contradictions of feminist and archival matters – what and who is worthy of being a subject of discourse? What colonial narratives and images continue to define matters of the global south?

 Talwar has initiated various community based projects such as the Wandering Uterus Project to facilitate conversations on reproductive justice; the CEW (Creatively Empowered Women) Design Studio, a social enterprise for Bosnian and South Asian Women in Chicago and most recently the Mending Lab, a pop up art studio to facilitate conversation on the role of repair in communities.  She is also a member of the P O Box Collective, a social practice space in Rogers Park, Chicago.

She is the author of Art Therapy for Social Justice: Radical Intersections and has published numerous articles in national and international journals on ethics of care, intersectional feminism, feminist pedagogy, the politics of crafting, culture and identity, ethics, law and cultural competence, trauma informed art therapy, and more. Talwar served as the Associate Editor of Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association from 2015-2018.

Join the lecture via ZOOM.

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