Bringing together writers and artists from around the world, the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practices held its seventh Spring Symposium and Literary Festival April 2 and 3.

The symposium — titled “America from the Outside: How the World Sees US” — was sponsored by the Lannan Foundation, a family foundation that includes some Georgetown alumni and promotes cultural freedom, diversity and creativity.

Three-time symposium Director Henry Schwarz chose this year’s symposium theme based on experiences as a teacher more than 10 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“The students and I were turning a corner with the election of Obama and the wrapping up of the wars and so on because, almost for the first time since 9/11, we were able to think clearly about what these years had meant because we had lived under the shock of responding to terrorist attacks,” Schwarz said.

According to Schwarz, this realization coincided with his exposure to the works of the symposium’s speakers and prompted him to structure this year’s symposium around how the world views the United States in the aftermath of 9/11.

“The idea of coming to some sort of reckoning with 9/11 with these new cultural and political developments just seemed very exciting and exhilarating,” Schwarz said.

The conference began Tuesday afternoon with a screening of Heidi Ewing (SFS ’93) and Rachel Grady’s 2012 documentary “Detropia” about the decline of Detroit’s economy and its effect on the city’s residents.

Later that evening, journalist Naomi Klein and television journalist and documentary filmmaker AviLewis spoke in Gaston Hall about “The Take,” their documentary about Argentina’s occupied factories.

Schwarz said that he invited Klein to speak because of her reputation as an outspoken critic of corporate globalization and of her appreciation for the symposium’s theme.

“She’s an icon of our times and an essential figure of progressive culture,” Schwarz said. “She shared a desperate argument that our very existence is in our hands, and people understood that powerfully.”

The symposium continued Wednesday morning with an event entitled “America the Beautiful,” featuring Ewing, New York University professor Wafaa Bilal and photographer Trevor Paglen, whose recent works all relate to the War on Terror and 21st -century America.

Bilal, known for his live performance interactive art about international politics, spoke about his 2007 piece, “Domestic Tension,” in which he lived in a Chicago gallery space for 31 days during which viewers could observe his everyday activities and shoot a paintball gun at him via a website.

“The results were inspiring, healing, yet deeply disturbing,” Bilal said.

Ewing spoke about the conflation of religion and politics in the shadow of the War on Terror.

“You can’t dodge the War on Terror or dodge your era,” Ewing said. “Every story has been affected in some way by 9/11.”

Paglen, who uses astrophotography to capture black sites such as secret air bases in the United States and CIA prisons in Afghanistan, shared a selection of his photographs related to secrecy and covert operations.

“Secrecy is a logic … but when that logic intersects with what the world is made of, there are lots of contradictions,” Paglen said.

The symposium also featured readings by poets Naomi Ayala, Dinaw Mengestu (COL ’00) andAbdourahman Waberi. The readings offered insight into how 9/11 has impacted relations between the United States and the rest of the world. A panel discussion between symposium speakers and Georgetown professors followed the presentations.

During the panel, Mengetsu said that the convergence of politics and aesthetics makes for challenging but illuminating subject matter.

“What you hope, on the novelistic side, is that you’ve absorbed the politics that are important to you, and these merge and support each other in tandem with aesthetics,” Mengetsu said.

Journalist Christopher Hedges concluded the symposium with a speech about the United States’ overall foreign policy, including foreign aid and international defense.

“All of the correctives, all of the openings for American democracy come through radical movements that never achieve formal positions,” Hedges said.

Hedges added that the U.S. foreign policy has created an international environment of fear.

“As a journalist, it’s been very disturbing to watch … Obama’s harsh measures of confinement, torture and government effort against whistleblowers,” Hedges said. “People are too frightened to speak.”

Hedges called for a restoration of reform movements and encouraged attendees to question the government.

“People held against their will and forced to work — that’s the future,” Hedges said. “It is only by building those movements out of the formal mechanisms of power that we have any hope of saving the planet and protecting ourselves.”

Overall, Schwarz said he was pleased with the symposium’s results, despite minimal student attendance.

“These types of events are equally, if not more, educational than classroom learning,” Schwarz said. “To see students attending with some regularity, as if this were a required event, would be gratifying.”

D.C. resident Donna Graham has attended the Lannan Symposium for the last several years said she felt the presentations were enlightening.

“The presentations were both informative and scary,” Graham said. “I keep coming back because I always enjoy being exposed to the new authors and artists that participate in the conference.”

Jay Plamondon, an exchange student from Middlebury College, agreed, specifically regarding Hedges’ speech.

“It was interesting to hear about the defense rhetoric that stresses keeping American power strong, but there’s never a voice questioning that authority,” Hedges said. “[That questioning] is played off as fringe movement, but Hedges showed how it’s actually refreshing.”

Special to The Hoya Colette Gilner contributed reporting.