2013-14 Events

Tuesday, October 8, 4:30 p.m.
Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall

Judith Butler
Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory, University of California, Berkeley; Visiting Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University

Plural Action

November 2, 9:30 a.m.
A.D. White House

Communist Currents

Participants:

• Bruno Bosteels
• George Ciccariello-Majer
• Joshua Clover
• Jodi Dean
• James Martel
• Camille Robcis
• Jordy Rosenberg
• Anna Marie Smith
• Jason E. Smith
• Alberto Toscano
• Gavin Walker

A conference sponsored by Society for the Humanities iwth additional support from the Departments of Government, History, and Romance Studies

^{View: Conference video}

Wednesday, November 20, 4:30 p.m.
HEC Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall

Wendy Brown
Class of 1936 Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

The Demos Undone: Neoliberalism, Democracy, Citizenship

Wednesday, February 5, 4:30 p.m.
Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall

Eric Cheyfitz
Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters, Cornell University

The Force of Exceptionalist Narratives in the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

^{View: Invitational Lecture video}

Thursday, February 20, 4:30 p.m.
Guerlac Room, A.D. White House

Irus Braverman
Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future Fellow, Society for the Humanities; Professor, SUNY Buffalo Law School

Wild Life The Nature of In Situ and Ex Situ Conservation

While some argue that today’s skyrocketing extinction rates call for a more intense conservation of species in captivity (ex situ), proponents of exclusive in situ conservation question the validity of saving species away from their natural habitat. Wild Life draws on interviews with more than one hundred conservation and population biologists, zoo experts, and wildlife managers to document their perspectives on the complex interrelations between in situ and ex situ conservation. It examines the emerging understanding that endangered species and their habitats may need to be managed in perpetuity and the challenges that such an understanding poses to current definitions of nature. Finally, it considers the insights that may be gained by viewing the recent transformations in conservation practices as a shift from sovereign power to biopower.

Thursday, March 13, 4:30 p.m.
Guerlac Room, A.D. White House

Youngmin Kim
Professor of Literature, Dongguk University, Seoul

Mobility of Humanities and the Ethics of Transnational Othering in Korea

Professor Kim is widely published on the topics of poetry, poetics, and transnationalism. As President of the influential English Language and Literature Association of Korea (ELLAK) in 2012, he organized the ELAK International Conference, Border, Translation, and What Then? He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of English Language and Literature sponsored by the Korean National Research Foundation.

Monday, April 14, 4:30 p.m.
Guerlac Room, A.D. White House

Sustianing the Humanities: Climates, Creatures, Geographies

Alexander Gordon, Anthropology
Fortuitous Disasters: Pollution and Uncertainty in an Insurance Brokerage Firm on Wall Street

Catherine Kearns, Classics
Fragmentary Landscapes and the Archaeology of Sustainability

Amy Lee Kohout, History
Binoculars and Birdsong: Environmental History Outside the Archive

David Rojas, Anthropology
Trading Pollution, Modeling Defacement: An Ethnography of Climate Policy Forums

Avery Slater, English
The Psychogeography of Dust: Muriel Rukeyser and Gauley Bridge, West Virginia

Panelists are recipients of Sustainability Research Grants awarded by the Society for the Humanities Initiative on Sustainability via the Humanities and the Arts, which is the sponsor of this event, with support from the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.

April 18-19, 2014
A.D. White House

Occupation: A Critical Problematic for the Humanities

Friday, April 18

4:00 - 6:00 p.m. Occupation: New Perspectives Roundtable with Society Fellows

• Chair: Brett de Bary (Acting Director, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University)
• Annmaria Shimabuku, The Seduction of Sovereignty and the Birth of Biopolitics: Okinawan Sexual Labor under U.S. Military Occupation as a Problem of the Extralegal
• Liron Mor, Occupy in the Plural: Tents in Political Protests in Israel/Palestine Pedro Erber: Occupy the Shopping Mall
• Erin Obodiac, Preoccupations of the Already-There
• Avery Slater, Hazards of Occupation in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia: Thinking the Poetics of Ecology

Saturday, April 19

10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Panel I: Settler Colonialism, Sovereignty, Indigeneity

• Chair: Jolene Rickard (History of Art; Director, American Indian Program, Cornell University)
• J. Kehaulani Kauanui (American Studies & Anthropology, Wesleyan University), Indigeneity and the Politics of Occupation
• Discussants: Jordy Rosenberg (Society for the Humanities), Gerald Torres (Cornell Law School)

1:00 - 2:30 p.m. Panel II: Technology, Digitization, Occupation in the Palestinian Territories

• Chair: Diana Allan (Society for the Humanities)
• Helga Tawil-Souri (Media, Culture, & Communication, New York University), Digital Occupation
• Respondents: Irus Braverman (Society for the Humanities), Christine Leuenberger (Science & Technology Studies, Cornell University)

2:45 - 4:15 p.m. Panel III: Theorizing Colonial “Occupation” and Black Radicalism

• Chair: Anna Marie Smith (Society for the Humanities)
• Fred Moten (English, University of California, Riverside), Preoccupied Breathing
• Respondents: Jasbir Puar (Society for the Humanities), Dagmawi Woubshet (English, Cornell University)

4:45 - 6:00 p.m. Particular Assembly: Reflections on Occupy Movements

• Moderators: Jodi Dean (Society for the Humanities), Chris Garces (Society for the Humanities)

^{View: Fellows' Conference video}

Friday, April 25, 12:30 p.m.
Second Floor Library, A.D. White House

Thomas Balcerski
Department of History, Cornell University

Civil War at the Tredwells adn Other Lessons Learned from the Public Humanities Front

What are the prospects for the public humanities today? How does funding work for public projects? What are the possibilities of intersection between the academy and the public? Join Thomas Balcerski, the inaugural Cornell University Graduate Student Public Humanities Fellow, for this lively lunch-time colloquium about the practice of the public humanities today. Balcerski will discuss his experiences as a public humanities fellow, with particular emphasis on his collaboration with the Merchant’s House Museum located on E. 4th Street in Manhattan.