More than friends: What would happen if platonic relationships were at the heart of our society?

Friendships are integral to our lives but are often overshadowed by the emphasis put on romantic relationships and career advancement. What would happen if these hierarchies of relationships and priorities were reversed? How would a society organized around friendship redefine aspects like family obligations, inheritance, and ownership? Join this public conversation to share your insights and experiences on the significance of friendships in our lives, and to contemplate the transformative possibilities of putting friendship at the centre of our social fabric.

Guests :

Karine Rosso is a professor at the Institut de recherches en études féministes and the Département d'études littéraires at UQAM. She is interested in the figure of the author in autofiction and the different representations of women in French-language literature. She has published a first novel, Mon ennemie Nelly and a correspondence of essays with Nicholas Dawson, entitled Nous sommes un continent, correspondance mestiza.

Camille Toffoli is co-founder of the feminist bookshop L'Euguélionne in Montreal. For several years, she has contributed as an essayist, literary critic and columnist to the magazines Liberté, Lettre Québécoises, Spirale and Nouveau Projet. She has published the essay Filles corsaires in 2021 ans S’engager en amitié.

Moderator:

Élise Ross-Nadié is passionate about the links and intersections between digital cultures, intimacy, power and sexuality. She also has a keen interest in open-source software, artificial intelligence and the decolonization of knowledge. Élise is an acrobatic communicator.

As a flagship program of Concordia University’s Office of Community Engagement, the public bilingual conversations are free and open to participants of all ages, backgrounds and levels of education. Since its inception in 2003, University of the Streets Café has hosted over 400 bilingual public conversations. 

Visit us at concordia.ca/univcafe to learn more about our programming and last-minute scheduling updates. 

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