Sunday, December 2, 2018

CONFERENCE PIN, POSTCOLONIAL INTELLECTUALS AND THEIR EUROPEAN PUBLICS

Utrecht, 5-6 February 2019

 

FULL PROGRAMME NOW AVAILABLE HERE

Who are the postcolonial intellectuals? Which of them are currently the most influential? What kind of intellectual activity do collectivities, networks and movements gathering around issues of race and citizenship perform? How do postcolonial academics, artists, writers, parties and movements respond to current timely issues in the European landscape such as migration, citizenship and the legacies of colonialism? How do they contribute to a new idea of “Europe” and relate to Western categories of modernity? Are their critical tools effective enough?

The PIN – Postcolonial Intellectuals and their European Publics network, not only focuses on postcolonial intellectuals as outspoken individuals, but also challenges the traditional definition of the “public intellectual” by emphasizing the role of artists, writers, activists and social movements in shaping postcolonial publics and knowledges.
Postcolonial Intellectuals and their European Publics network    (PIN) brings together an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars to investigate the role of postcolonial public intellectuals as crucial actors in renewing the function of the humanities and of democratic participation in Europe.

Organizer:
Prof. Sandra Ponzanesi (Utrecht University)

Confirmed Keynote speakers: 
Prof. Kaiama GloverAssociate  Professor of French and Africana Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA.
On Blackness and Borders
Having received a B.A. in French History and Literature and Afro-American  Studies from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in French and Romance Philology  from Columbia University, Professor Glover joined the faculty in 2002. Her  teaching and research interests include francophone literature, particularly that   of Haiti and the French Antilles; colonialism and postcolonialism; and sub- Saharan francophone African cinema.. Her book, Haiti   Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon (Liverpool UP   2010), addresses the general issue of canon formation in the francophone   Caribbean and the particular fate of the Haitian Spiralist authors vis-à-vis this canon. Professor Glover has been the recipient of fellowships and awards from the Fulbright Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, The New York Public Library, the PEN/Heim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and she is a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review. Continue reading here.

Prof. Awam Amkpa, Associate Professor, New York UniversityTisch School of The Arts, USA.

Political Activism and its Legibilities
Trained as a dramatist, documentary filmmaker and scholar of theatre and film, Awam Amkpa teaches Drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Africana Studies and Social and Cultural Analysis in NYU’s College of Arts and Sciences and is global visiting professor at NYU Abu Dhabi.  Former Senior Lecturer of Drama and Television at King Alfred’s University College, Winchester, England, and Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at Mount Holyoke College. Author of Theatre and Postcolonial Desires, London: Routledge, 2003 and forthcoming Archetypes, Stereotypes and Polytypes: Theatres of the Black Atlantic. Director of film documentaries such as Winds Against Our SoulsIts All About DowntownNational Images and Transnational Desires, and feature film Wazobia! Author of several articles in books and journals on Modernisms in TheatrePostcolonial theatreBlack Atlantic Issues, and Film studies. Awam Amkpa is also a curator of visual and performing arts. He recently curated, Resignifications for Manifesta 12, Palermo, Lines Motions and Rituals in New York, Significaciones in Havana, Cuba, ReSignifications in Florence, Italy and the international traveling exhibition Africa: See You, See Me. Amkpa is co-founder and co-curator of ‘Real Life Pan-African Documentary Film Festival’ in Accra, Ghana.
Practical information
Date: 5-6 February 2019
Time: 09.00 - 19.00
Location: Drift 21, room 0.05 Sweelinckzaal (entrance drift 27)

The conference is free of charge but registration is required. Please e-mail e.omerovic@uu.nl for registration.
THE FULL PROGRAMME CAN BE FOUND HERE

Abstracts and Bios can be accessed HERE

Photo courtesy of  © Omar Victor Diop, Sashakara, 2016, Le Studio des Vanités

Book presentation Postcolonial Intellectuals in Europe, ed. by Sandra Ponzanesi and Adriano José Habed

5-6 February 2019, Utrecht University

Speakers
Among the confirmed speakers/contributors: 
Bolette B. Blaagaard, Rosemarie Buikema, Gianmaria Colpani, Adriano Jose Habed, Wigbertson Julian Isenia, Koen Leurs, Jamila M. H. Mascat, Ana Cristina Mendes, Sandra Ponzanesi, Mehdi Sajid, Neelam Srivastava, Jesse van Amelsvoort.
Special guest: Rosi Braidotti.

Postcolonial intellectuals have engaged with and deeply impacted upon European society since the figure of the intellectual emerged at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Yet a critical assessment and overview of their influential roles is long overdue, particularly in the light of contemporary debates in Europe and beyond.
With interventions by Engin Isin, Gayatri C. Spivak and Bruce Robbins. Read more here. Click here for more information about this book.

Practical information
Date: 5 February 2019
Time: 16.00 - 18.30
Location: Drift 21, room 0.05 Sweelinckzaal (entrance drift 27)

Please e-mail e.omerovic@uu.nl for registration.

Saturday, December 1, 2018

8th PCI FILM SERIES announcements for January and February 2019



PCI Film Series presents Call Me by Your Name (dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2017)    

Introduced by Sergio Rigoletto (University of Oregon, USA) 

A sensual and transcendent tale of first love, based on the acclaimed novel by André Aciman 

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, the new film by Luca Guadagnino, is a sensual and transcendent tale of first love, based on the acclaimed novel by André Aciman. It's the summer of 1983 in the north of Italy, and Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a precocious 17-year-old young man, spends his days in his family's 17th century villa transcribing and playing classical music, reading, and flirting with his friend Marzia (Esther Garrel). Elio enjoys a close relationship with his father (Michael Stuhlbarg), an eminent professor specializing in Greco-Roman culture, and his mother Annella (Amira Casar), a translator, who favor him with the fruits of high culture in a setting that overflows with natural delights. While Elio's sophistication and intellectual gifts suggest he is already a fully-fledged adult, there is much that yet remains innocent and unformed about him, particularly about matters of the heart. One day, Oliver (Armie Hammer), a 24-year-old American college graduate student working on his doctorate, arrives as the annual summer intern tasked with helping Elio's father. Amid the sun-drenched splendor of the setting, Elio and Oliver discover the heady beauty of awakening desire over the course of a summer that will alter their lives forever. Source (IMDb)


Practical information

Call me by your Name (dir. Luca Guadagnino, Italy, France, Brazil, Usa 2017, 2.21 min)
Date: 13 May 
Time: 17.00- 19.30
Location: Entrance at Muntstraat 2A, MCW-LAB (Grote zaal KNG20)
For more information: 
http://www.postcolonialstudies.nl/
Admission is free of charge. However, due to safety regulations, maximum capacity of the room is 80 people. No exceptions are made. First come, first seated


PCI Film Series presents I Am Not Your Negro (dir. Raoul Peck, 2016)   


Introduced by Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken (CUNY, USA)



I Am Not Your Negro review: race, rage and the American Dream.
Directed by Haitian-born Raoul Peck's I Am Not Your Negro, is a radical documentary about race in America today  based on James Baldwin's unfinished book Remember This House.  Peck  has created one of the most progressive filmographies in cinema history. He received privileged access to the Baldwin archives because the family knew of his outstanding works on the Conga leader, Patrice Lumumba, specifically the 1990 political thriller Lumumba: Death of a Prophet and the 2000 award winning drama on the same subject, Lumumba. They trusted in his ability to accurately represent Baldwin's life and writings, and so he took 10 years to bring this masterpiece to the screen, after being rejected by every American studio he approached. And public agencies said "this is public money so you have to present both sides!" Thus, his ability to produce this film through his own successful company and a supportive French TV station ARTE, allowed him to make a film exactly like he wanted, with no censorship, and no one telling him to rush the film or mellow the message. Peck "didn't want to use the traditional civil rights archives." He chose to avoid the talking heads format and picked Samuel L. Jackson to embody the spirit of Baldwin in the potent narration. The film's powerful structure utilizing rare videos and photos and personal writings of Baldwin, and at the same time aligning them with contemporary issues of police brutality and race relations, creates a mesmerizing awareness of the continuity in the struggle for civil rights.
Practical information
I Am Not Your Negro (2017, dir. Raoul Peck, France, United States, Switzerland, Belgium)
Date: 12 February
Time: 17.15 - 20.00
Location: Entrance at Muntstraat 2A, MCW-LAB (Grote zaal KNG20)
Admission is free of charge. However, due to safety regulations, maximum capacity of the room is 80 people. No exceptions are made. First come, first seated.

PCI Film Series presents Happy End (dir. Michael Haneke, 2017)  

Introduced by Milica Trakilovic (Gender Studies, UU) 


A drama about a family set in Calais with the European refugee crisis as the backdrop.
Happy End dissects an unhappy, self-deceiving family. And yet Jean-Louis Trintignant, as a patriarch this time slipping into dementia himself, has a beautifully intimate conversation with his 12-year-old granddaughter Eve (Fantine Harduin). Even if, this still being Haneke, she’s probably a murderer, and their heart to heart is about poison and suicide. “He’s a more humanistic director than he seems,” Huppert has noted. “There is of course no sentimentality, but there is a belief in mankind.”
“It’s a North-South conflict,” Haneke’s says. “The rich countries against the poor. That’s been confirmed categorically, since Code Unknown. Refugees aren’t a simple problem, and there are no simple solutions, but a solution has to be found. The problem is that, for a lot of people at the moment, the solution is a shift to the right. I’m especially sceptical of comparisons with the 1930s. But this current atmosphere, with everyone dancing on the edge of the volcano, has a parallel there. Because in my youth, immediately after the war, everybody thought that things would get better – because everything could only get better, after that. But now everybody thinks that things can only get worse, and that is a parallel to the situation before World War Two.” (The Guardian)
Practical information
Happy End (2017, dir. Michael Haneke, France, Germany, Austria)
Date: 11 March
Time: 17.15- 20.00
Location: Entrance at Muntstraat 2A, MCW-LAB (Grote zaal KNG20)
Admission is free of charge. However, due to safety regulations, maximum capacity of the room is 80 people. No exceptions are made. First come, first seated


Monday, November 12, 2018

Conference PIN, Postcolonial Intellectuals and Their European Publics

Utrecht, 5-6 February 2019

Who are the postcolonial intellectuals? Which of them are currently the most influential? What kind of intellectual activity do collectivities, networks and movements gathering around issues of race and citizenship perform? How do postcolonial academics, artists, writers, parties and movements respond to current timely issues in the European landscape such as migration, citizenship and the legacies of colonialism? How do they contribute to a new idea of “Europe” and relate to Western categories of modernity? Are their critical tools effective enough?

The PIN – Postcolonial Intellectuals and their European Publics network, not only focuses on postcolonial intellectuals as outspoken individuals, but also challenges the traditional definition of the “public intellectual” by emphasizing the role of artists, writers, activists and social movements in shaping postcolonial publics and knowledges.
Postcolonial Intellectuals and their European Publics network    (PIN) brings together an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars to investigate the role of postcolonial public intellectuals as crucial actors in renewing the function of the humanities and of democratic participation in Europe.

We welcome abstracts that engage with the topics and questions addressed above.
Please e-mail your abstract (250 words), bio (150words) and possible questions to: s.ponzanesi@uu.nl



  • Confirmed Keynote speaker: 
    Prof. Kaiama GloverAssociate  Professor of French and Africana Studies
  • On Border and Blackness
    Barnard College, Columbia University, USA.

    Having received a B.A. in French History and Literature and Afro-American  Studies from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in French and Romance Philology  from Columbia University, Professor Glover joined the faculty in 2002. Her  teaching and research interests include francophone literature, particularly that   of Haiti and the French Antilles; colonialism and postcolonialism; and sub- Saharan francophone African cinema.. Her book, Haiti   Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon (Liverpool UP   2010), addresses the general issue of canon formation in the francophone   Caribbean and the particular fate of the Haitian Spiralist authors vis-à-vis this canon. Professor Glover has been the recipient of fellowships and awards from the Fulbright Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, The New York Public Library, the PEN/Heim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and she is a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review. Continue reading here.

  • Prof. Awam Amkpa, Associate Professor, New York UniversityTisch School of The Arts, USA.
    Political Activism and its Legibilities

    Trained as a dramatist, documentary filmmaker and scholar of theatre and film, Awam Amkpa teaches Drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Africana Studies and Social and Cultural Analysis in NYU’s College of Arts and Sciences and is global visiting professor at NYU Abu Dhabi.  Former Senior Lecturer of Drama and Television at King Alfred’s University College, Winchester, England, and Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at Mount Holyoke College. Author of Theatre and Postcolonial Desires, London: Routledge, 2003 and forthcoming Archetypes, Stereotypes and Polytypes: Theatres of the Black Atlantic. Director of film documentaries such as Winds Against Our SoulsIts All About DowntownNational Images and Transnational Desires, and feature film Wazobia! Author of several articles in books and journals on Modernisms in TheatrePostcolonial theatreBlack Atlantic Issues, and Film studies. Awam Amkpa is also a curator of visual and performing arts. He recently curated, Resignifications for Manifesta 12, Palermo, Lines Motions and Rituals in New York, Significaciones in Havana, Cuba, ReSignifications in Florence, Italy and the international traveling exhibition Africa: See You, See Me. Amkpa is co-founder and co-curator of ‘Real Life Pan-African Documentary Film Festival’ in Accra, Ghana.

     We welcome abstracts that engage with the topics and questions addressed   above.
     Please e-mail your abstract (250 words), bio (150words) and possible   questions to: s.ponzanesi@uu.nl
     More info will follow soon on our website www.postcolonialstudies.nl

    Deadlines:

    • 15 December, 2018
       an abstract of 250 words; a bio of 150 words;
    •  Notification of acceptance: 31 December, 2018
    Practical information
    Date: 5-6 February 2019
    Time: 09.00 - 19.00
    Location: Drift 21, room 0.05 Sweelinckzaal (entrance drift 27)
    More info will follow soon on our website www.postcolonialstudies.nl

    Photo courtesy of  © Omar Victor Diop, Sashakara, 2016, Le Studio des Vanités 

Book presentation Postcolonial Intellectuals in Europe, ed. by Sandra Ponzanesi and Adriano José Habed

28 November, 2018 in Amsterdam

Speakers
Sandra Ponzanesi and Adriano José Habed
Sudeep Dasgupta and Koen Leurs

Respondent: Susan Legêne Susane
This book offers an innovative take on the role of intellectuals in Europe through a postcolonial lens and, in doing so, questions the very definition of "public intellectual," on the one hand, and the meaning of such a thing as "Europe," on the other. It does so not only by offering portraits of charismatic figures such as Stuart Hall, Jacques Derrida, Antonio Gramsci, Frantz Fanon, and Hannah Arendt, among others, but also by exploring their lasting legacies and the many dialogues they have generated. The notion of the ‘classic’ intellectual is further challenged by bringing to the fore artists, writers, and activists, as well as social movements, networks, and new forms of mobilization and collective engagement that are part of the intellectual scene. Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2018  
Click here for more information about this book.

Practical information
Place: Free University Amsterdam
Wednesday, 28 November, 2018
Time 15.30-17.00
Registration: Please register at mdc@vu.nl


Sunday, November 11, 2018

Book Launch: Postcolonial Intellectuals in Europe: Critics, Artists, Movements, and their Publics, ed. by Sandra Ponzanesi and Adriano José Habed

  5-6 February 2019

Among the confirmed speakers/contributors: 

Bolette B. Blaagaard, Rosemarie Buikema, Gianmaria Colpani, Adriano Jose Habed, Wigbertson Julian Isenia, Koen Leurs, Jamila M. H. Mascat, Ana Cristina Mendes, Sandra Ponzanesi, Mehdi Sajid, Neelam Srivastava, Jesse van Amelsvoort.Special guest: Rosi Braidotti.
Postcolonial intellectuals have engaged with and deeply impacted upon European society since the figure of the intellectual emerged at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Yet a critical assessment and overview of their influential roles is long overdue, particularly in the light of contemporary debates in Europe and beyond.With interventions by Engin Isin, Gayatri C. Spivak and Bruce Robbins. Read more here
Practical information
Date: 5-6 February 2019
Time: 15.00 - 18.00
Location: Drift 21, room 0.05 Sweelinckzaal (entrance drift 27)

Sunday, June 24, 2018


 CONFERENCE REPORT NOW AVAILABLE:

Migration and Mobility in a Digital Age: Paradoxes of Connectivity and Belonging


In April 2018, a two-day international conference was held at Columbia University, hosted by the Heyman Center for the Humanities. The event was made possible through co-sponsorship by many units at Columbia University, including the Division of Humanities and the Department of English and Comparative Literature, and other universities in NYC (NYU-MCC and New School-Zolberg Institute) along with European partners. The conference, entitled “Migration and Mobility in a Digital Age: Paradoxes of Connectivity and Belonging,” brought together many international scholars who have been working at the intersection of media and migration for many years from an interdisciplinary and international perspective. The conference was opened with words of welcome by the Dean of Humanities Sarah Cole. The organizer Sandra Ponzanesi introduced the themes and goals of the conference and highlighted the major strands of the seven panels and closing two keynote addresses. READ THE FULL REPORT HERE
















VISIT THE CONFERENCE PHOTOGALLERY HERE






















INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Columbia University
The Heyman Center for the Humanities

Migration and Mobility in a Digital Age: Paradoxes of Connectivity and Belonging

Tuesday, April 10, 2018 - Wednesday, April 11, 2018

 

Organizer

Sandra Ponzanesi
  •  Visiting Professor, Department of English and Comparative LiteratureColumbia University/Professor Gender and Postcolonial Studies, Utrecht University.

Keynote Speakers

Arjun Appadurai
  • Paulette Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University 
Mirca Madianou
  • Professor in the Department of Media and Communications Goldsmiths, University of London
Check the full list of speakers here


The image of Syrian refugees with a smartphone shooting ‘selfies’ upon reaching dry land has captured the international imagination (Chouliaraki, 2017; Kunstman, 2017; Risam, forthcoming 2018). It suggests an image of the ‘connected migrant’ (Diminescu, 2008), which is shaped by a profound ambivalence: migrants are expected to be people fleeing from war, violence, and poverty; they are not expected to be ‘digital natives’, equipped with technologies to navigate their difficult journeys. While smartphones are accessible, affordable, and easy to use, in the realm of the public imaginary the image of the disenfranchised and disconnected migrant remains that of the ‘have nots’, and therefore subject to ‘high tech orientalism’ (Chun, 2006, p. 73). This posits the figuration of the migrant as outside the realm of development and modern forms of communication, disenfranchised and vulnerable in order to be worthy of international aid and pity (Boltanski, 20000; Ticktin, 2008). And yet smartphones are ubiquitous, and migrants have been early adopters and heavy users of technologies for the simple reason that these technologies are ingrained in their daily practices and everyday lives, which often involve perilous crossings but also the need to keep in touch with the home front and their diasporic communities. The promise of connectivity that is guaranteed even under duress becomes fraught with the profound disconnection brought about by the disciplining gaze of Western media and publics.
It is, therefore, crucial to focus on the specific way in which digital technologies bridge or magnify the gap in migration between geographical distance and digital proximity. How are affect, intimacy, and belonging negotiated online in the face of forced migration and expulsions (Sassen, 2012) but also of circular migration, expatriation, and transnational movements?
This conference aims to cover a broad range of conflict-related issues on migration in a digital age. Using the latest insights from a range of interdisciplinary fields, it will explore theories of displacement such as diaspora, cosmopolitanism, and nomadism, and the transformations brought about by the digital revolution, through the analysis of virtual communities, social media platforms, and digital activism. It will also focus on media production and the regulation of information on forced migrants in a ‘post-truth’ era: fake news; the humanitarianism-securitization nexus, migration management, social and political conflicts related to migrant and diaspora communities, radicalization and online counter-terrorism, hate speech and racism, but also solidarities, activism, and protest.
For more info e-mail Sandra Ponzanesi: sp3630@columbia.edu
Or follow the link updates on the programme and schedule:
http://heymancenter.org/events/migration-in-a-digital-age-paradoxes-of-connectivity-and-belonging/

The conference is a collaboration between Columbia University, Heyman Center for the Humanities, and the ERC project ConnectingEurope and other co-sponsors (Columbia University, Division of Humanities, New York University, The New School, IRWGS, Council for European Studies etc..)