The Philosophy Department welcomes Tareq Baconi at the University of Pennsylvania for a book talk and public conversation with Noura Erakat on his forthcoming book Fire in Every Direction (Simon & Schuster). The event will take place between November 10-14 and center on Baconi’s urgent memoir. Erakat, a human rights attorney and scholar of international law, will serve as respondent and interlocutor in a moderated conversation followed by audience Q&A.

Baconi explores what it means to be queer living through inherited histories of migration, diaspora, and exile—offering readers a meditation on identity, belonging, and loss across generational time. As a queer Arab thinker raised between cultures and trained as a scholar of the Middle East, Baconi’s voice is a rare and necessary one. With a literary sensibility and a deep sense of historical responsibility, Baconi charts how grief, love, and moral clarity can survive in the face of long-standing conflict and dispossession. The conversation will offer students and the broader Philadelphia community the opportunity to engage with a leading voice, and it will bring together interdisciplinary scholars and community members in thinking about ways to collectively move forward and heal in the face of enduring conflict. 

More details forthcoming.