Possessions : A conversation with Davina Quinlivan

About this episode

Layla O'Mara speaks with Davina Quinlivan about her memoir and the themes of transformation and cultural identity.

Welcome to part one of BODY WORK - a series of conversations and workshops on the body - how we write it, listen to it, use it, create from it. To learn more about upcoming episodes and workshops, check out my post on my homepage. ‘Before others tried to change me, I tried to change myself. Instinctively, I developed a habit, perfecting the art of self-imposed conditioning, preparation for the more violent and pernicious forms of possession that were to come. And they were coming, thick and fast. All I had to do was wait.’ I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Davina Quinlivan about her new memoir Possessions: A Memoir of Transformation in an Era of Precarity . It is a wild, genre-bending narrative that charts Quinlivan’s ultimate rejection of ‘passing for something else’ as she reclaims her mind and body. After two decades of academic research and undergraduate teaching, Davina and the world of university education, were approaching crisis; teaching online, ticking boxes for other people’s diversity criteria, stuck, like so many others, in a cycle of fixed term contracts. Yet as a child of Anglo-Burmese parents, growing up in West London, academia had promised a way out…

People in this episode

Host: Layla O'Mara

Guest: Davina Quinlivan

Topics covered

• body work
• self-imposed conditioning
• memoir
• transformation
• academic crisis
• cultural heritage

Keywords

• memoir
• transformation
• Davina Quinlivan
• self-identity
• cultural heritage
• academic crisis
• body work

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Possessions: A Memoir of Transformation in an Era of Precarity

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