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Lecture Series 2023 "How Do We Think (In) The 'We'?"

Poster for lecture series 2023: How Do We Think (In) The "We"?
Photo: Poster: Marius Stepanek

In this lecture series, we aim to think in configurations of “we”s, and neither in a universal “I” nor in a universal “we”, that denote property, ownership, and individuality so embedded in neoliberal sociality. We want to consider who makes up the “we”, its possibilities and limits in its multiple configurations and challenges. The labour of meaning-making and creating together, in spite of conditions of inequality, is the starting point of this conversation. In conceiving and perceiving multiple worlds, and contesting inherent injustices, we recognise that thinking in the “we” requires conversation and exchange, but also care and reparations in the pluriverse.

We are happy to collaborate with scholars, artists, workers and activists to engage in conversations about rethinking humanity, kinship and solidarity with (more-than-)humans, vulnerability and humanitarian regimes, the future(s) of world literature, and feminism beyond borders.

                                                                                     

Program

  • 27.04.2023:
    The Global and the Planetary: Thinking CoFutures,
    Dr. Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay
     
  • 01.06.2023:
    Weak Resistance and Solidarity in Contemporary Borderlands,
    Dr. Ewa Majewska 
     
  • 15.06.2023: (Online at 10 am CET):
    An Oceanic 'We': Poetry, Solidarity, and Multispecies Justice in the Pacific,
    Dr. Craig Santos Perez 
     
  • 29.06.2023:  (Room 211, Institut für Europäische Ethnologie at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
    Beyond Vulnerability: Rethinking Humanitarian Governance and Interventions, a  joint lecture and conversation with
    Dr. Lewis Turner and Dr. Fadi Saleh 
     
  • 09.07.2023:
    Rethinking Humanity (at Gropius Bau, Berlin)
    hn. Lyonga

 


Lecture 1 - The Global and the Planetary: Thinking CoFutures

In this talk, Dr. Chattopadhyay will present the contemporary moment in SF and genre theory, especially the discussion that there is somehow a new "global" genre of SF, where writers and their works from around the world can now find a place. This global of the genre is maintained in academic dialogue and discussion, as well as popular media. Especially with theorisations in new futurisms such as Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, Latin American futurism, Latinx Futurism, Indigenous Futurisms etc, this “global turn” in SF studies, inspired by contemporary literary studies, is one where deep literary histories are elided through labels or subsumed under a hierarchy of futures, futurities, and ethnofuturities. CoFutures clashes with the global turn, arguing that this turn either purposefully or unwittingly reproduces assumptions about futures and futurities, and what forms of storytelling are recognized for future making.

Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay leads the international research group CoFUTURES, and is the principal investigator of two major research projects, “CoFutures: Pathways to Possible Presents” (European Research Council), and “Science Fictionality” (Norwegian Research Council which explore contemporary global futurisms movements from a transmedial perspective, including literature, film, visual arts, and games). He is manager and co-founder (with Moumita Sen) of Theory from the Margins, a research collective with over 16,000 followers worldwide. Chattopadhyay is an Associate Professor of Global Culture Studies at the University of Oslo. He is also an Imaginary College Fellow at the Center for Science and the Imagination, Arizona State University. He has served as an innovations consultant with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and has been a visiting researcher at the Department of Informatics at the University of California at Irvine and the Evoke Lab/Calit2, as well as the Department of English, University of Liverpool. He has served as co-Editor-in-Chief of Fafnir: Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, and the Journal of Science Fiction. He is also founding co-editor (with Taryne Taylor) of the Routledge book series Studies in Global Genre Fiction. Chattopadhyay has written or edited ten books, published numerous articles, exhibited in six transnational art projects, and produced the award-winning film Kalpavigyan: A Speculative Journey, the first documentary on science fiction from India and Bengal. His latest work is the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of CoFuturisms – coedited with Grace Dillon, Isiah Lavender III, and Taryne Taylor – a 400,000 word essay collection featuring a stunning range of work from around the world on contemporary futurisms, including Indigenous Futurisms, Afro and African futurisms, Latinx and Latin American futurisms, and Asian Futurisms. Other than his research and artistic research grants, he is also the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including the prestigious World Fantasy Award (2020), the Johannes H Berg Memorial Prize (2019), the Foundation Essay Prize (2017), and the Strange Horizons Readers’ Poll Award (2013). His research website is: https://cofutures.org


Lecture 2 - Weak Resistance and Solidarity in Contemporary Borderlands

Following Lauren Berlant we could say that today's optimism often becomes "cruel", as many institutions, in which we entrust our creative agency, labor and hopes, represent the most uncritical feudalism, foreclosing medieval rules of authoritarianism under the thin veil of knowledge and openness. More importantly however, this optimism enacts cruelty in the multiple abuses of representation politics, allowing and legitimizing such notions, as the supposed equality of the excluded, built on homogenizing notions of collective subjectivity, which introduce false unity of de facto heterogeneous and conflicted lived experiences of individuals and groups. Such fake unity fuels the pastoral powers of institutional and corporate "care for the population", allowing enhanced surveillance and control, while at the same time undermining any forms of solidarity and resistance.

The brutalized diversity of Borderlands experience, so meticulously depicted by Chicana feminists, including Gloria Anzaldua, has been made visible by the events taking place on the East border of Poland, which since 2004 has also been the East border of the European Union, with all the troublesome and sometimes tragic repercussions of it. While the dramatic events resulting of Russia's invasion in Ukraine made the Polish-Ukrainian border a welcoming zone for at least those of the war refugees, who happen to fulfil the racist criteria of whiteness, the Polish-Belarussian border has since 2021 became a brutally different version of the state of exception, with the 37 officially recognized deaths of the mainly non-European refugees trying to cross the border, in vain, being illegally pushed-back to Belarus, tortured by the border guards of both countries and left to die in the frozen primaeval forests of Białowieża.

While Poland and many other countries in Europe opened their homes and institutions to millions of war refugees fleeing the brutal war terror currently enacted in Ukraine, thousands of non-European refugees have died trying to enter the Fortress Europe via the Mediterranean Sea... and the Polish-Belarussian (and Lithuanian) border. The notions of "weak resistance" and solidarity allow depicting the painful diversity of all these Borderland experiences, while also allowing the problematic visibility their contradictions and alliances. In the critical negotiations of the institutional abuses and supposed disempowerment, represented by the brutality and lack of agency of the border guards on Polish-Belarussian border, we need to maintain the experience of vulnerability and exposure, while at the same time producing critically invested claims. To this task Dr. Majewska will try to build a methodological introduction.

Ewa Majewska – is a feminist theorist of culture, associate professor at the SWPS University in Warsaw, Poland, working on the queer studies/archive theory project “Public against their will. The production of subjects in the archives of "Hiacynt Action”, examining the state action targeting gay men in the 1980s Poland. She taught at the UDK Berlin, University of Warsaw; she was a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley; ICI Berlin and IWM in Vienna. She published seven books, incl. Feminist Antifascism (Verso, 2021), as well as articles and essays in journals, magazines and collected volumes: e-flux, Signs, Third Text, Journal of Utopian Studies and others. Her research focuses on archive studies, dialectics of the weak; feminist critical theory and antifascism. She co-curated the exhibition of Mariola Przyjemska's work at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (2022-2023).

When?

This lecture takes place on June 1st, 2023 from 16.00 to 18.00 CET.

Where?

At Campus Neues Palais of the University of Potsdam, Building 9, Room 1.12. 

Address:
University of Potsdam,
Am Neuen Palais 10

14469 Potsdam

 


Lecture 3 - An Oceanic 'We': Poetry, Solidarity, and Multispecies Justice in the Pacific

In this hybrid talk and poetry reading, I will discuss and share some of my poetry related to articulating an “oceanic we.” I will define an “oceanic we” as a network of people, places, animals, objects, and elements gathered into an interconnected, intergenerational, multicultural, and multispecies kinship ecology. This assemblage is rooted in Pacific Islander cultural wisdom, practices, and stories. Using examples from my own poetry, I will show how literature can express the complex entanglements of an “oceanic we.” Furthermore, I will share examples from other poets, specifically drawing work from a new anthology that I co-edited, Indigenous Pacific Islander Eco-Literatures (2022).

Dr Craig Santos Perez is a CHamoru scholar, poet and activist from the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam). He is a Professor in the English Department at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa, where he teaches creative writing, eco-poetry, and Pacific literature. He is affiliate faculty with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies and the Indigenous Politics Program, and he was the Director of the Creative Program (2014-2016 and 2019-2020) and the Chair of the Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific Islander Board in the Office of General Education (2019-2020). Among other positions, Craig serves on the Board of Directors for Pacific Islanders in Communication (2019-) and for Indigenous Nations Poets (2021-). He also co-curated the Native Voices Reading and Lecture Series, the Chamorro Studies Speaker Series, and the New Oceania Literary Series.

Craig is the author of two spoken word poetry albums, Undercurrent (2011) and Crosscurrent (2017), as well as six books of poetry, including his two latest collections, Habitat Threshold (2020) and from unincorporated territory [åmot] (2023). His work has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, German, and Spanish. His monograph, Navigating CHamoru Poetry: Indigeneity, Aesthetics, and Decolonization (2022) received the MLA Prize in Native American Literature, Cultures, and Languages (2022).

In 2010, the Guam Legislature passed Resolution No. 315-30, recognizing and commending Craig “as an accomplished poet who has been a phenomenal ambassador for our island, eloquently conveying through his words, the beauty and love that is the Chamorro culture.”

Craig worked as co-founder of Ala Press from 2010-2022 and is the co-editor of six anthologies of Pacific and eco-literature. He serves on the editorial boards of Sun Tracks and The Contemporary Pacific. In 2018, Craig became the series editor for the New Oceania Literary Series with the University of Hawaiʻi Press.

When?

This lecture takes place on June 15th, 2023 at 10:00 CET

Where?

This will be an online lecture, on Zoom. 


Lecture 4 - Beyond Vulnerability: Rethinking Humanitarian Governance and Interventions

In contemporary humanitarian regimes, refugees’ so-called “vulnerability” heavily shapes their access to protection, aid, shelter, or resettlement. “Vulnerability” markers such as bodily abilities, socio-economic circumstances, mental health, family situation, sexual orientation and gender identities therefore play a central role in humanitarian-refugee relations. Engaging in a conversation with Dr Lewis Turner and Dr Fadi Saleh, this lecture invites us to think beyond predominant humanitarian frameworks and seeks to formulate a radical critique of contemporary humanitarian politics.

Based on his ethnographic research on the Syria refugee response in Jordan, Lewis Turner will explore how humanitarian workers and organizations understand and operationalize the idea of ‘vulnerability.’ What does it mean – according to humanitarians – for refugees to be ‘vulnerable’? How do gender, race, and orientalism shape humanitarians’ views of who ‘deserves’ their assistance? In a context of huge need and limited resources, how do humanitarian organizations attempt to measure who is ‘vulnerable?’ And to what extent do humanitarians examine whether their understandings of ‘vulnerability’ are shared by the people they work with?

Drawing on his ethnographic research with Syrian LGBTIQ refugees in Istanbul, Turkey, Fadi Saleh further problematizes these questions by exploring the ways queerness and humanitarianism intersect and shape each other. He argues that Western humanitarian actors and discourses do not only impose very specific, Eurocentric notions of gender and sexuality for Syrian LGBTIQ refugees to be eligible for humanitarian support, but it also forces them to change, erase, or completely suppress any histories or lived experiences of being LGBTIQ Syrian that do not match their expectations. This dynamic is not only problematic when it comes to writing queer histories in the Global South, but also has far-reaching implications for the LGBTIQ refugees’ livelihoods and their chances of resettlement. In conclusion, Saleh will offer some insights into how we could intervene into such dynamics and transform the queer humanitarian work landscape to become more radically inclusive of and helpful for the very people it claims to protect.

 

Dr Lewis Turner is Lecturer in International Politics of Gender at Newcastle University, UK. He is a political ethnographer of humanitarianism in ‘the Middle East’ – particularly Jordan - and his work investigates questions of gender (especially men and masculinities), refugee recognition, vulnerability, labour market integration, and race and racism in humanitarianism. His research on the Syria refugee response has appeared in journals including Middle East Critique, Review of International Studies, and Social Politics, and has received prizes from professional associations including the British International Studies Association and the Political Studies Association. Currently, he is part of the ASILE Project, an EU Horizon2020 funded project investigating the interactions between emerging international protection systems and the United Nations Global Compact for Refugees. In this project, his research focuses on status, rights and vulnerability for those seeking international protection in Jordan.
                                            lewis.turnernewcastle.acuk                          
                                                                                                           

Dr. Fadi Saleh is a queer anthropologist. In his research and teaching, he focuses on issues of queer and trans* migrations, asylum, and humanitarianism with particular attention to the UNHCR third-country resettlement program in the context of Syria/Turkey. Recently, he co-edited a special issue, together with Dr. Mengia Tschalaer, on “Queer Liberalisms and Marginal Mobilities”, which was published in the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies. His work on Syrian LGBTIQ refugees in Turkey appeared in Middle East Critique and Transgender Studies Quarterly. Outside of academia, Saleh has worked in various activist, training, consultancy, and research capacities at different (LGBTIQ) NGOs, institutions, and initiatives. He has been the editor of the Syrian LGBTIQ Series on Syrianuntold.com. since 2020, and currently, he is the Program Officer for Queer Intersectional Political Education at the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung). Now that he changed careers and is not in academia anymore, he is doing his best to pretend that he does not miss academia, but he secretly does from time to time.

When?

This lecture takes place on June 29th, 2023 from 16.00 to 18.00 CET.

Where?

Institut für Europäische Ethnologie - Room 211

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, (formerly M*Str.) Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Str. 40-41, 10117 Berlin

 


Lecture/Workshop 5 - Rethinking Humanity

What is a community, and who is in it? How is the community different from the neighbourhood? Where does the neighbourhood begin and end? How do bodies become subjects and objects in the neighbourhood space? What drives an exhibition hall’s desire to become a neighbour? What is the relevance of institutions for people living on the margins of society in Berlin? Because the needs of the neighbourhood are recurring, life-long and continuous, my work as a Neighbour in Residence will be to find ways to address these questions.

The question of residence determines under what terms I can begin to imagine a life. It impacts how I show up in the world. A residence is never simply a question of how long a person is allowed in a place; it is rather a very fundamental question of existence in space just as we are. Residence to me is about rooting oneself in a place or a community. It is living with certainty. It is belonging to a place that wants you to live within its vicinities. A place you are not at risk of losing.

As a migrant from Cameroon who has undergone asylum processes, the question of residence governs every aspect of life. The idea of a residence, a stable place to keep my body in always lingered and hovered over me as I moved across multiple German cities. I see this role as an opportunity to enter into a meaningful relationship with community members. To listen, to learn, to think together and to work towards mutually beneficial interests.

hn. lyonga is a Black, Queer, multi-genre writer, Poet and curator of perspectives, MA student in American Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, co-founder of the Black Student Union at Humboldt, member of the Kuratorium of BARAZANI.berlin – Forum Kolonialismus und Widerstand, the artist collective Field Narratives, with interest in Black speculative literature, fixity of land as infrastructure and storytelling as an act of memory reconfiguration.

My work can be considered Wake Work, because it is a labor within the space of paradoxes surrounding Black citizenship. And because it is the work of continuous inhabiting and rupturing of episteme  (Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being). 

When?

This lecture takes place on July 9th, 2023 from 16.00 to 18.00 CET.

Where?

At Gropius Bau.

Address:
Niederkirchnerstrasse 7
10963 Berlin


Where?

Lectures will be at Campus Neues Palais of the University of Potsdam (unless stated otherwise), Building 9, Room 1.12. 

 

Address:
University of Potsdam,
Am Neuen Palais 10

14469 Potsdam

 

Time

Lectures will take place from 16.00 to 18.00 CET, unless stated otherwise.

 


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