The ANU Centre for European Studies is pleased to invite you to “Remembering the Dead”, a book launch and a conversation on topics we rarely discuss: death, grief, absence and different ways of remembering people, places and things we have lost.

Date: 31 October – All Saints Eve (All Hallows Eve)

Time: 5.30 – 7:00 pm

Venue: Auditorium, ANU Research School of Social Science, 146 Ellery Cr, Acton

Registration: Eventbrite

The event will open with a conversation between artists and scholars, who believe that death and loss are not subjects that have to be avoided or else reduced to a Halloween-themed commercial experience, but are both personal and cultural, unsettling and uplifting, focused on people, places, roots, landscapes, spirituality and creativity.

The speakers will reflect on these themes drawing on their own creative perspectives and diverse cultural connections, and they include:

• Dr Bogumiła Żongołłowicz, a Polish-Australian poet, journalist, editor and biographer
• Ms Anita Patel, a Singapore-born Australian poet and writer
• Dr Scott Davie, a concert pianist and lecturer at the ANU School of Music
• Prof Vladimir Canudas Romo, researcher in demography and the study of mortality

The conversation will be followed by the launch of Patches for My Soul (2023) by Bogumiła Żongołłowicz, a collection of poems which are “the result of struggling with the loss of loved ones, but also, in a sense, an expression of philosophical explorations and biographical interests.”

Death became the subject of Żongołłowicz’s literary reflections and the leitmotif of her poetry forty years ago, at the beginning of her literary journey. Today, it remains, as the poet observes, “the foundation of my reflection on life.” As one of the reviewers commented, Patches for My Soul is a collection “laced with wonderful black humour. (…) Yet surprisingly, it is an anthology of comforting irony, philosophy and hope.”

Patches for My Soul will be launched by Dr Katarzyna Williams and Ms Wanda Horky OAM will read selected poems from the book.

The event is part of the ANUCES Jean Monnet Project Remembering Across the Continents delivered with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.