Tuesday, November 1, 2011





PCI/Doing Gender Lecture: March 15

Prof. Inderpal Grewal

Professor, Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies (Yale University)




Title: “Outsourcing Patriarchy: National anxieties, Transnational mediations”
Time: 16.00-18.00
Place: Domplein 4, Marnixzaal (Utrechts Centrum voor de Kunsten)

Synopsis: My paper concerns the recent uses of the term "honor killing" in the newspapers in India. I examine how and why such a term emerges in the context of transnational media in India and the implications of this for feminist media research.



 









Professor Inderpal Grewal is Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. She is the author of among others Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire and the Cultures of Travel (1996) and  has written and edited (with Caren Kaplan) Gender in a Transnational World: Introduction to Women’s Studies (2001, 2005) and Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational: Feminist Practices (1994). Currently she is working on a book length project on the relation between feminist practices and security discourses.



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
POSTCOLONIAL FILM SERIES

Starting on January 17, 2012, Postcolonial Initiative PCI Utrecht 
launches its 2nd postcolonial film series with a selection of films that draw on a variety of different contexts in our postcolonial world. Each film will be introduced briefly by scholars connected to the PCI.
TIME:18.00
LOCATION: U-theater Studio T, Kromme Nieuwegracht 20, Utrecht
All screenings are free of charge. For more information contact PCI.gw@uu.nl



***************************************************************************************************************************

New Publications 

 

Postcolonial Cinema Studies

Edited by Sandra Ponzanesi and Marguerite Waller

Published 21st October 2011 by Routledge – 272 pages

more details








This collection of essays foregrounds the work of filmmakers in theorizing and comparing postcolonial conditions, recasting debates in both cinema and postcolonial studies. Postcolonial cinema is presented, not as a rigid category, but as an optic through which to address questions of postcolonial historiography, geography, subjectivity, and epistemology.
Current circumstances of migration and immigration, militarization, economic exploitation, racial and religious conflict, enactments of citizenship, and cultural self-representation have deep roots in colonial/postcolonial/neocolonial histories. Contributors deeply engage the tense asymmetries bequeathed to the contemporary world by the multiple,diverse, and overlapping histories of European, Soviet, U.S., and multi-national imperial ventures. With interdisciplinary expertise, they discover and explore the conceptual temporalities and spatialities of postcoloniality, with an emphasis on the politics of form, the ‘postcolonial aesthetics’ through which filmmakers challenge themselves and their viewers to move beyond national and imperial imaginaries.

Reviews:

"Postcolonial Cinema Studies will be a major contribution to postcolonial research and cinematic scholarship and is on the "leading edge" of its field." Dr Imogen Tyler, Lancaster University, UK

"Postcolonial Cinema Studies argues that current experiences of migration, economic exploitation, militarization, racial and religious conflicts, and tensions between citizens and non-citizens are haunted by colonial and neocolonial histories globally. Impressive in its scope and its attention to diverse cinematic dimensions, the book is an important intervention in cinema and postcolonial studies." Katarzyna Marciniak, Ohio University, USA

"This book is a significant contribution to the study of postcolonial cinema and beyond. Global in scope yet thorough in its rigorous investigation of specific case studies of national, transnational and glocal cinemas, this book will probably be considered one of the definitive texts on postcolonial cinema for many years to come." Yosefa Loshitzky, University of East London, UK

"Postcolonial Cinema Studies is an essential book that orchestrates an enriching dialogue between postcolonial studies and cinema studies, in ways that mutually illuminate both fields. Interdisciplinary and transnational, the volume goes beyond the usual Anglo-phone boundaries. Not only does it stretch the corpus of films to be studied, it also productively counterpoints theories, methodologies, and regions." Ella Shohat, New York University, USA and Robert Stam, Tisch School of the Arts, USA

Contents:
Introduction, Sandra Ponzanesi and Marguerite Waller
Part I Cinemas of Empire 1. Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema: Kif Tebbi, the Conquest of Libya, and the Assault on the Nomadic, Ruth Ben-Ghiat 2. Blackface, Faciality, and Colony Nostalgia in 1930s Empire Films, Julie Codell 3. The Socialist Historical Film: Nested Orientalisms, Anikó Imre  
Part II Postcolonial Cinemas: Unframing Histories 4. From ‘Over There’ to Inside: Camp de Thiaroye, The Battle of Algiers and Hidden, Hamish Ford 5. Fraught Frames: Fatima, l’algérienne de Dakar and Postcolonial Quandaries, Jude Akudinobi 6. Postcolonial Relationalities: Toulon, Oran, Mecca, and Palestine: Philippe Faucon's Dans la vie, Mireille Rosello 7. The Postcolonial Condition of "Indochinese" Cinema from Việt Nam, Cambodia and Laos, Mariam B. LamPart III Postcolonial Cinemas: Aesthetics 8. Spectral Postcoloniality: Lusophone Postcolonial Film and the Imaginary of the Nation, Paulo de Medeiros 9. The Aesthetics of Postcolonial Cinema in Raul Ruiz’s Three Crowns of the Sailor, Sabine Doran 10. The Postcolonial Circus: Maurizio Nichetti’s Luna e l’altra, Marguerite Waller 11. Postcolonial Adaptations: Gained and Lost in Translation, Sandra Ponzanesi
Part IV Postcolonial Cinemas and Globalization
12. Unpeople: Postcolonial Reflections on Terror, Torture and Detention in Children of Men, Shohini Chaudhuri 13. Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding and the Transcoded Audiologic of Postcolonial Convergence, Kanika Batra and Richard Rice 14. Nollywood Films in Transit: The Globalization of Postcolonial African Cultural Productions, Claudia Hoffmann Postface: On Teaching Postcolonialism and Cinema, Interview with Priya Jaikumar conducted by Marguerite Waller


Sandra Ponzanesi is Associate Professor of Gender and Postcolonial Critique, department of Media and Culture Studies/Gender Programme at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Among her publications are Paradoxes of Post-colonial Culture (2004), Migrant Cartographies (2005) and Deconstructing Europe: Postcolonial Perspectives (Routledge, 2011).

Marguerite Waller is Professor of Women's Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Riverside. Among her publications are Frontline Feminisms (Routledge, 2001), Federico Fellini (2002), Dialogue and Difference: Feminisms Challenge Globalization (2005), and The Wages of Empire (2007).

Contributors include: Jude G. Akudinobi, Kanika Batra, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Shohini Chaudhuri, Julie F. Codell, Sabine Doran, Hamish Ford, Claudia Hoffmann, Anikó Imre, Priya Jaikumar, Mariam B. Lam, Paulo de Medeiros, Sandra Ponzanesi, Richard Rice, Mireille Rosello and Marguerite Waller.


*************************************************************************************************************************** 

Deconstructing Europe

Postcolonial Perspectives

Edited by Sandra Ponzanesi and Bolette Blaagaard

Published 29th September 2011 by Routledge – 179 pages

more details







This book engages with the question of what makes Europe postcolonial and how memory, whiteness and religion figure in representations and manifestations of European ‘identity’ and self-perception. To deconstruct Europe is necessary as its definition is now contested more than ever, both internally (through the proliferation of ethnic, religious, regional differences) and externally (Europe expanding its boundaries but closing its borders).
This edited volume explores a number of theoretical discussions on the meaning of Europe and proposes analyzing some of the deeds committed, both today and in the past, in the name of Europe by foregrounding a postcolonial approach. To deconstruct Europe as a postcolonial place does not imply that Europe’s imperial past is over, but on the contrary that Europe’s idea of self, and of its polity, is still struggling with the continuing hold of colonialist and imperialist attitudes. The objective of this volume is to account for historical legacies which have been denied, forgotten or silenced, such as the histories of minor and peripheral colonialisms (Nordic colonialisms or Austrian, Spanish and Italian colonialism) and to account for the realities of geographical margins within Europe, such as the Mediterranean and the Eastern border while tracing alternative models for solidarity and conviviality. The chapters deal with social and political formations as well as cultural and artistic practices drawing from different disciplinary backgrounds and methodological traditions. As such it creates an innovative space for comparative and cross-disciplinary exchanges.

Contents: 
Introduction: In the Name of Europe Sandra Ponzanesi and Bolette Blaagaard
Part I: Outbound: Geographical Margins, Historical Cores
1. Negotiating White Icelandic Identity: Multicultural and Colonial Identity Formations Kristín Loftsdóttir 2. Asylum seekers as Austria’s Other: The re-emergence of Austria’s colonial past in a state-of-exception Brigitte Hipfl and Daniela Gronold 3. Spelling out exclusion in Southern Italy Claudia Buonaiuto and Marie-Hélène Laforest 4. Whose freedom? Whose memories?: Commemorating Danish colonialism in St Croix Bolette B. Blaagaard
Part II: Deconstructing Europe: Conviviality and Invisibility
5. Europe in Motion: Migrant cinema and the politics of encounter Sandra Ponzanesi 6. Multiculturalism in a Selection of English and Spanish Fiction and Artworks L. López-Ropero and A. Moreno-Álvarez 7. Adrift on the Black Mediterranean Diaspora: African Migrant Writing in Spain Esther Sanchez-Pardo 8. "Rented spaces": Italian postcolonial literature Manuela Coppola 9. "Dubbing di Diaspora": Gender and Reggae Music inna Babylon Sonia Sabelli Coda: Workings of whiteness: Interview with Vron Ware Conducted by Bolette B. Blaagaard


Sandra Ponzanesi is Associate Professor of Gender and Postcolonial Critique in the Department of Media and Culture Studies/Gender Programme at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Among her publications are Paradoxes of Postcolonial Culture (2004), Migrant Cartographies (2005) and Postcolonial Cinema Studies (2011). 

Bolette B. Blaagaard is Research fellow at the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City University London, UK. She has published articles and contributed to edited volumes on issues of Nordic colonialism and whiteness in the Nordic region as well as the ethics of journalistic practices, objectivity and freedom of speech.


***************************************************************************************************************************




New special issue on
Postcolonial Europe
Journal Moving World. A Journal of Transnational Writing
Issue 11.2, 2011.
Edited by Graham Huggan

more details






  



The issue is an output of the AHRC funded research network ‘Postcolonial Europe’
The papers included in the issue were presented at the Leeds workshop ‘Europe and the Rest. A Dialogue between Etienne Balibar and Zygmunt Bauman (May, 2009) and Utrecht conference on the ‘Idea of Europe. Occidentalism, Orientalism, and the idea of a Postcolonial Europe’ (October, 2009).

Volume 11 Issue 2 2011
Contents
EDITORIAL
GRAHAM HUGGAN 1
ARTICLES
ZYGMUNT BAUMAN, The Triple Challenge 7
ÉTIENNE BALIBAR, Ideas of Europe: Civilization and Constitution 12
PAUL GILROY, Shameful History: The Social Life of Races and
the Postcolonial Archive 19
SIMON GLENDINNING, ‘Europe, for example’ 35
LUISA PASSERINI, The Ethics of European Memory: What is to be Done? 48
MAX SILVERMAN, Hybrid Memory in the City 57
SANDRA PONZANESI, Europe Adrift: Rethinking Borders, Bodies, and
Citizenship from the Mediterranean 67
CORDULA LEMKE, Contesting Europe, Provincializing the World 77
MARGARET FETZER, Beyond the Textual Line: Walter Scott’s Postponing and
Post-scripting of ‘Authentic’ Scottishness 86
PAULO DE MEDEIROS, A Failure of the Imagination? Questions for a
Post-imperial Europe 91
JOHN MCLEOD, No End to Europe? Connecting Caledonias
in the South Pacific 102
REVIEWS
by WERNMEIYONG ADE, CLAIRE CHAMBERS, NATALIE DIEBSCHLAG 111



*************************************************************************************************************************** 


Call for Papers:



CALL FOR PAPERS: Digital Crossroads: Media, Migration and Diaspora in a Transnational Perspective
See full call for papers attached.

28-30 June, 2012
Utrecht University, the Netherlands
http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl




Deadline for abstract submission and panel proposals: January 10, 2012
Conference chair: Sandra Ponzanesi       Conference coordinator: Fadi Hirzalla

Because of the disjunctive and unstable interplay of commerce, media, national policies, and consumer fantasies, ethnicity, once a genie contained in the bottle of some sort of locality (however large), has now become a global force, forever slipping in and through the cracks between states and borders – Appadurai 1996, p. 41, Modernity at Large




The rapid development of digital technologies has radically transformed ways of keeping in touch with home cultures and diasporic networks. Moreover, the notion of migration has undergone significant shifts, coming to signify imaginaries on the move which are not necessarily linked to geographical displacement. The aim of this conference is to address the relationship between migration and digital technologies across national contexts and ethnic belonging. Migrancy embeds many of the local and global paradoxes that also pertain to digital media with their compression of space and time. However, the link between the two fields is still under-theorized and in need of more situated and comparative analysis. Drawing from approaches from the humanities and social sciences (media theory, communication studies, learning sciences, gender studies, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, migration and transnational studies, among others), the primary aim of this conference is to explore how the study of digitalization and migration challenges existing notions of diaspora, identity, nation, family, learning, literacy, social networks, youth, body, gender and ethnicity, asking for new approaches and a rethinking of traditional social and cultural categories.

 For full call for papers and more information go to: http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl/





Friday, August 19, 2011

NWO subsidy

 

NWO-subsidy for Postcolonial Europe Network (PEN)

NWO has granted a subsidy for internationalisation to the project ‘Postcolonial Europe Network (PEN).’ The project conducted by Sandra Ponzanesi and Paulo de Medeiros (coordinators of the PCI) aims at establishing an international platform for developing research into new forms of conceptualizing Europe from a multidisciplinary perspective engaging several disciplines (literary, media, gender studies) in the Humanities and the Social Sciences (sociology, political theory). PEN aims to develop theoretical and methodological tools for representing and imagining Europe in a postcolonial and postimperial perspective.

 
The project analyses concrete historical events such as the adoption of treaties by the
various European states and their consequences, issues in political theory and political
philosophy such as the notions of sovereignty, borders, and law, as well as their
representations in a variety of media from literature to film and popular culture. The main
aim is to develop theoretical and methodological tools, based on particular case studies,
to discuss future ideas of Europe in a postcolonial and postimperial perspective. The project aims to significantly contribute to existing knowledge, and prepare the ground for
future multi-disciplinary research, bridging some gaps in current discipline-bound
scholarship, and asserting the importance of culture in general, and Humanities-based
research in particular, for imagining models for a European polity.



Postcolonial Europe and its legacies

The project will focus on the organisation of international conferences on the issues of Europe and its Fluid Borders, Cultural Memory and the Postcolonial and on the New European Polity, publications in international journals and the creation of a digital platform on postcolonial Europe.

International partners

Sandra Ponzanesi (MCW) and Paulo de Medeiros (DMT) work together in this project with other colleagues from Utrecht University and with partners from the University of Leeds (Graham Huggan, John McLeod, Max Silverman), University of Munich (Tobias Doering, Christopher Balme, Robert Stockhammer), London School of Economics (Paul Gilroy and Marsha Henry), University of Roskilde and Iceland (Lars Jensen and Kristín Loftsdóttir) and University of Naples (Iain Chambers). The project starts from 1 September 2011 and last for 3 year. The subsidy is granted by the NWO-programme Internationalisation in the Humanities.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Conferences: 



CALL FOR PAPERS: Digital Crossroads: Media, Migration and Diaspora in a Transnational Perspective
See full call for papers attached.

28-30 June, 2012
Utrecht University, the Netherlands
http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl


Deadline for abstract submission and panel proposals: January 10, 2012
Conference chair: Sandra Ponzanesi       Conference coordinator: Fadi Hirzalla

Because of the disjunctive and unstable interplay of commerce, media, national policies, and consumer fantasies, ethnicity, once a genie contained in the bottle of some sort of locality (however large), has now become a global force, forever slipping in and through the cracks between states and borders – Appadurai 1996, p. 41, Modernity at Large
 


The rapid development of digital technologies has radically transformed ways of keeping in touch with home cultures and diasporic networks. Moreover, the notion of migration has undergone significant shifts, coming to signify imaginaries on the move which are not necessarily linked to geographical displacement. The aim of this conference is to address the relationship between migration and digital technologies across national contexts and ethnic belonging. Migrancy embeds many of the local and global paradoxes that also pertain to digital media with their compression of space and time. However, the link between the two fields is still under-theorized and in need of more situated and comparative analysis. Drawing from approaches from the humanities and social sciences (media theory, communication studies, learning sciences, gender studies, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, migration and transnational studies, among others), the primary aim of this conference is to explore how the study of digitalization and migration challenges existing notions of diaspora, identity, nation, family, learning, literacy, social networks, youth, body, gender and ethnicity, asking for new approaches and a rethinking of traditional social and cultural categories.

 For full call for papers and more information go to: www.digitalcrossroads.nl




**************************************************************************

Shock & Awe - A Conference on the History of Aerial Bombing

A Hundred Years of Bombing from Above

November 2011 marks the centenary of a world-historic event.An Italian pilot, Guilio Cavotti dropped the first bombs from an aeroplane on to the oasis of Tagiura outside Tripoli.
The development of aerial bombardment was more than just a military revolution. It changed both war and peace. It redrew the legal and moral boundaries between civilians and combatants, spread the theatre of war into new environments and expanded the battlefield, making cities into places of mass death and taking warfare into private, domestic spaces.
The conference Shock And Awe: a hundred years of bombing from above will mark this anniversary and explore important elements of the century of bombing that followed the fateful attack on Tegura.
This multi-disciplinary event brings together internationally renowned critics, sociologists, geographers, philosophers and historians to reflect on all aspects of a hundred years of bombing from above.
It will develop a conversation between very different historical experiences and cases of bombing and establish a cosmopolitan conversation about these difficult issues.

Confirmed Speakers:  Prof. Les Back; Prof. Michèle Barrett;   Prof. Alexander B. Downes; Prof. Martin Evans; Prof. Paul Gilroy; Prof. Derek Gregory; Sven Lindqvist;   Dr. Hiroki Ogasawara; Prof. Daniel Pick; Dr. Nirmal Puwar; Prof. Daniel Swift; Prof. Eyal Weizman; Prof. Patrick Wright
The conference will be held: on Thursday 10th November 2011 at London School of Economics and
and on Friday 11th and Saturday 12th November 2011 at Goldsmiths, University of London
For more information visit: http://www.shockandawe.org.uk


**************************************************************************  
 

 JOB OPPORTUNITIES

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
ARTS AND SCIENCE

The Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University invites
applications for a tenure-track appointment in the cultural study of the Middle East at the
assistant professor level, to begin September 1, 2012, pending budgetary and administrative approval. We seek a scholar who can contribute to the department’s graduate track in Culture and Representation, which focuses on the history, politics, and theories of representation as they relate to Middle Eastern cultures within an interdisciplinary framework. The department welcomes candidates from different disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and from across the broader geography of the Islamic world (interest in Turkey or the Maghrib is desirable). Candidates must have the Ph.D. by the time of appointment, demonstrate potential for superior scholarly accomplishment, and be prepared to teach a wide range of graduate and undergraduate courses and to supervise doctoral dissertation research. Review of applications will begin on November 15, 2011. To apply, see the NYU Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies web site at http://meis.as.nyu.edu/ via the “Employment” link to submit a detailed cover letter describing research and teaching experience, c.v., writing samples, and the names of three referees. NYU is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 



UPCOMING  EVENTS




PLEASE NOTICE ALSO THE FOLLOWING EVENTS
ORGANIZED BY THE CENTRE FOR THE HUMANITIES:






UTRECHT SCHOOL OF CRITICAL THEORY 2012
ORGANIZED BY THE CENTRE FOR THE HUMANITIES

January 17 – February 4, 2011
G-local Cosmopolitanism: the Social Responsibility of the Artists, the Academics, and the Media

For more information click here

Friday, June 17, 2011

20 June 2011

 New Directions in Literary Postcolonial Studies’ lecture:
Translating the 'World' in World Literature
(in collaboration with Birgit Kaiser and Emanuelle Radar)

Speaker: Emily Apter
Synopsis: The talk focuses on the "littérature-monde" debate in postcolonial francophone studies.
Date: 20 June 2011

Time: 10.00-13.30
Round Table: Hans Bertens (UU); Robert Folger (UU); Theo D'Haen (Leuven)
Location:
Drift 21, Sweelinckzaal



Emily Apter Masterclass with OSL
Date: 21 June 2011.
Time: 11.00-13.30
Location: Jansekerkof 13, room 006:
Synopsis:
The masterclass will discuss central positions of Emily Apter's new book Against World Literature? The Politics of Untranslatability in Comparative Literature (forthcoming). The book engages in a critique of recent efforts to revive World Literature models of literary studies (Moretti, Casanova, Damrosch, Dimock) arguing that they construct their curricula on the assumption of translatability. As a result, incommensurability and what she calls the “untranslatable” are, according to Apter, insufficiently built into the literary heuristic. Drawing on philosophies of translation developed by Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Sam Weber, Barbara Johnson, Abdelfattah Kilito and Edouard Glissant, the aim of the new book is to activate "Untranslatability" as a theoretical fulcrum of Comparative Literature and sound its bearing on approaches to world literature, literary world systems and literary history, and the poetics of translational difference. In the masterclass, students will discuss texts from the new book as well as selected texts from the earlier publication The Translation Zone (2006).

In preparation of the master class, students are invited to send in focused questions beforehand.


Bio:
Emily Apter teaches at NYU since 2002, after having taught in French and Comparative Literature at UCLA, Cornell University, UC-Davis, Penn and Williams College. At NYU she teaches in the departments of French, English and Comparative Literature, specializing in courses on French Critical Theory, the History and Theory of Comparative Literature, the problem of "Francophonie," translation studies, French feminism, and nineteenth-and twentieth-century French literature. Recent essays have focused on paradigms of "oneworldedness," the problem of self-property and self-ownership, literary world-systems and the translatability of genres, and how to think about translation as a form of intellectual labor. 




Monday, June 6, 2011

The Postcolonial Film Series - Today: Slumdog Millionaire

Today: Slumdog Millionaire!

Throughout the academic year a series of six postcolonial films are shown. Each film is introduced by a specialist and at the end of each session there is public discussion.

The film schedule for the first postcolonial cinema series are:

1- Michael Haneke, Hidden (Caché) (2005, 117 min. ); January 27, 2011 
   (introduction by Emanuelle Radar).
2- Fatih Akin, Auf der anderen Seite (2007, 116 min.); Feb 25, 2011
   (Introduction by Birgit Kaiser).
3- Giuliano Montaldo, A time to Kill (Tempo di Uccidere) (1989, 110 min.); March 10, 2011   
   (Introduction by Sandra Ponzanesi)
4- Margarida Cardoso. The Murmuring Coast (A Costa dos Murmúrios) (2004, 115 min.);
    April   8, 2011
  
(Introduction by Paulo de Medeiros).
5- Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionnaire, (2008, 120 min.); June 6, 2011
    (Introduction by Barnita Bagchi).