The City of Our Dreaming by Laleh Khalili, V. Mitch McEwen, Gabriela Leandro Pereira, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, with an introduction by Christina Sharpe

As a former rural Maritimer with absolutely zero hope of getting to any good lectures at that period in my life (I live in Halifax now, where there are five significant post-secondary institutions within walking distance of my house, and I do get to go to lectures!) I really have a soft spot for the printed lecture series that exist. The 2024 Alchemy Lecture took place at York University in October 2024, and is printed here, with an introduction by Christina Sharpe, a noted scholar and author (Ordinary Notes, which is remarkable, changed my life and thinking) who organizes the lecture each year. The theme in 2024 was “the city of our dreaming,” and invited the speakers to provide an imagining of a city that actually serves the needs of the community, and cares for those in it.

Each speaker takes this theme and imagines it from their lens. V. Mitch McEwen, who opens this lecture volume, speaks from a lens of architecture and imagines the city as a swamp, using the physics of floating. This is an impressive (and somewhat challenging) metaphor, but I hung in there and was rewarded with a number of examples of the community care that a city of floating would embody — and also not embody. McEwen ties this theory of physics of floating from the work of Archimedes, to what doesn’t work: keeping the voices of Black, Indigenous and other marginalized voices on the edges of society. A city works when we care for everyone, and listen to them.

This line goes through the other speakers’ work: Laleh Khalili imagines the city as one with hospitality, welcoming all to the table, embracing reciprocal giving, and the use of the literal breaking of bread together. Khalili also speaks of Palestine and the Israeli atrocities that have been perpetrated upon them again and again, and then examines hospitality within Palestine. The need to share food, and the generosity of the sharing that still happens, as well as framing her city of dreaming as one where Palestinians will be free. Khalili says:

“In the city of my dreaming, the land will be cleared of rubble, and the springs will be revived, and the oldest of the olive trees will be heavy with fruit.”

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson also builds her city through the lens of water, but also grieving colonial violence, and specifically how colonial violence and genocide is being repeated in Gaza, after having been conducted elsewhere, including her people, the Nishnaabeg. Her centring of the land adds a wonderful peace to this series.

Gabriela Leandro Pereira speaks of her city through the lens of her great-grandmother Florisbella, an Indigenous woman in Brazil who was married to a Black man. Her tribe was not known to her family. Pereira looks at her city through this erasure and violence, and the complicated racial dynamics in Brazil, including the lateral violence perpetrated by marginalized groups on each other under the eye of whiteness. Pereira ends up building her city from the very concept of dreaming, as it is the place from where all can truly be free.

I loved the diversity of views inside this panel-style lecture, and having read Simpson’s Theory of Water earlier this year, was also familiar with at least one of the threads inside this lecture. And while I enjoyed it and love being able to read and engage with the lecture through this volume, I remain a little sad that I didn’t get to experience it in person, because these are such thoughtful pieces and the opportunity to ask questions and discuss in the room when they were delivered would have added so much to an already-powerful reading. An excellent addition to an excellent lecture series.

Publisher: Knopf Canada (September 23, 2025)
Hardcover 8″ x 5″ | 184 pages
ISBN: 9781039058064

Alison Manley

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Alison Manley has ricocheted between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for most of her life. Now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is the Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian at Saint Mary's University. Her past life includes a long stint as a hospital librarian on the banks of the mighty Miramichi River. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. While she's adamant that her love of reading has nothing to do with her work, her ability to consume large amounts of information very quickly sure is helpful. She is often identified by her very red lipstick, and lives with her partner Brett and cat, Toasted Marshmallow.