The Garret

The Garret is a pamphlet to incite a conversation on narrative captivity. It is anchored in the space occupied by Harriet Jacobs -- hidden from the life of a slave inside a pent roof atop her grandmother’s house. This text constructs an architecture of oppression through the words of the oppressed across the Global South. It lays bare the narratives we are forced to inhabit to survive, the limits of resistance set by the state, and the words that layer on top of each other to protect power, and reclaims the art of storytelling. Produced in the legacy of liberatory form (a pamphlet) and a revolutionary pen (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl), The Garret demands a reckoning before considering the possibility of emancipation through narrative work.

Dr. Gowrinathan is the Founder and Director of the Politics of Sexual Violence Initiative, a global study examining the impact of rape on women’s political identities in extremist movements, and a Visiting Research Professor, teaching courses on Gender and Violence at the Colin Powell Center for Global and Civic Leadership at City College New York.