Special Events Archive (2014-2015)
"UNCANNY EXCAVATIONS: KHODASEVICH, POMPEII, AND REMAINS OF THE PAST" Heading link
This lecture is devoted to the role of the excavations of Pompeii and cultural memory in the work of the Russian émigré writer Vladislav Khodasevich, who spent six months living with Maxim Gorky in Sorrento within view of Mount Vesuvius. This talk discusses Khodasevich’s disturbing travel sketch “Pompeian Horror” (1925) in tandem with his celebrated poem “Sorrento Photographs” (1925-26), showing how these two seemingly unrelated texts are both engaged in reworking the images of Pompeii found in Russian and Western culture. For Khodasevich, Pompeii is a symbolic necropolis, which forces him to confront the demise of prerevolutionary Russian culture.
Sponsored by the UIC School of Literatures, Cultural Studies and Linguistics and the Institute for the Humanities
"THEATER, WAR MEMORY AND CONTEMPORARY FRANCE: STAGING THE VICHY YEARS (1940-44) AND THE ALGERIAN CONFLICT (1954-62)" Heading link
"NARRATIVE SHOCK AND POLISH MEMORY REMAKING IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY" Heading link
"MEMORY, LANGUAGE, AND THE BRAIN" Heading link
DISCUSSION: "CRISIS IN ZIONISM II: IS LIBERAL ZIONISM DEAD?" Heading link
Speakers: Antony Lerman, Peter Beinart, Mira Sucharov
Antony Lerman is a British writer who specialises in the study of antisemitism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, multiculturalism, and the place of religion in society. From 2006 to early 2009, he was Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, a think tank on issues affecting Jewish communities in Europe. He is a founding member of the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights, and the author of The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist. He also wrote the widely read New York Times article, The End of Liberal Zionism.
Peter Beinart is perhaps the most prominent defender of liberal Zionism today. He is a Senior Columnist at Haaretz, a contributor to the Atlantic and National Journal, a former editor of The New Republic, and the author of The Crisis of Zionism. He is also known for a a 2012 New York Times Op-Ed entitled To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements.
Mira Sucharov is Associate Professor of Political Science at Carleton University in Ottawa, a regular contributor to Haaretz, and the author of The International Self: Psychoanalysis and the Search for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. In Which Side of the Israel-Palestine Conflict Are You On?, she questions the usefulness of the standard categories employed in the Israel/Palestine conflict.
DISCUSSION: "CRISIS IN ZIONISM I: PROBLEMS WITH A JEWISH ETHNO-RELIGIOUS STATE" Heading link
Speakers: Charles Manekin and Yitzhak Melamed
The discussion will open with a presentation by Manekin on “The (Too) Jewish State: A Liberal and Zionist Critique of Israel,” and a presentation by Melamed on “Loving the Land of Israel by Loving Its People.” Manekin is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland. He blogs at MagnesZionist. Melamed is a Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, who also participates in its Jewish Studies program. Both speakers are critical of Zionism as it is standardly understood. Melamed opposes all nationalism, and Manekin is a supporter of the global BDS movement and of the Jewish Voice for Peace.
ISRAEL: A VIEW FROM OUTSIDE (TO BE RESCHEDULED) Heading link
Please join us for a conversation with authors Sayed Kashau and Todd Hasak-Lowy addressing “Israel: A View from Outside”. Sayed Kashua is an Arab Israeli writer. He is the author of three novels, a satirical sitcom (Avoda Aravit – “Arab labor”) for Israel’s Channel 2, and a regular column for Ha’aretz. His columns about leaving Israel, during the anti-Arab riots this past summer, including Why Sayed Kashua is Leaving Jerusalem and Never Coming Back and Why I have to Leave Israel, were widely read. Todd Hasak-Lowy is a scholar and translator of Israeli literature, and the author of the novels Captives and 33 Minutes. His young adult novel, “Me Being Me is Exactly as Insane as You Being You,” is due out in the Spring.
Registration is encouraged for this free program at huminst@uic.edu or 312-996-6352.
PALESTINIAN NATIONAL UNITY AND THE GAZA WAR Heading link
Hussein Ibish, Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine
Date(s): Wednesday, 10/22 3:00 PM to Wednesday, 10/22 5:00 PM
Campus Address: MC206
Address: 701 South Morgan
Location: Chicago, IL
Contact: Linda Vavra
Email: huminst@uic.edu
Website: http://huminst.red.uic.edu/
Phone: (312) 996-6352
Hussein Ibish is a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP). He is the author of three major studies of hate crimes against Arab Americans and the monograph What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal (ATFP, 2009). He is a weekly columnist for both The National (UAE) and NOW media and a contributor to numerous other American and Arab publications, as well as a regular guest on the PBS NewsHour. He previously served as Communications Director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Ibish holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he specialized in postcolonial theory and English Renaissance drama.
Sponsored by the UIC Jewish Studies Program, International Studies Program and Institute for the Humanities
"CONVERGING NARRATIVES: THE PERSONAL MEETS THE NATIONAL" - DAY 2 Heading link
A Graduate Student Conference featuring presentations from scholars and artists representing a wide variety of national literatures and cultures
Please Note: The event will take place in University Hall, Room 1501
Date(s): Saturday, 4/11 12:45 PM to Saturday, 4/11 6:00 PM
Campus Address: University Hall, Room 1501
Address: 601 S. Morgan Street
Location: Chicago, IL
Contact: Linda Vavra
Email: huminst@uic.edu
Website: http://convergingnarratives2015.weebly.com/
Phone: (312) 996-6352
Keynote 2:
“Subjunctive Sovereignty: Yoko Tawada, Stephanie Syjuco, Byron Kim and the Limits of the jus publicum Europaeum”
John Kim, Comparative Literature, Japanese, German
University of California, Riverside
Though the Westphalian order is said to be everywhere waning, its schematic force persists within discourses of transnationalism and multilingualism through the political trope of the “person.” Rereading this trope in Carl Schmitt’s writings on sovereignty and political theology, this paper examines the persistence and ironic undoing of “the person” in the work of the literary author Yoko Tawada as well as in that of the visual artists Stephanie Syjuco and Byron Kim. This paper seeks to articulate the ways in which their work reminds us through their creative engagement with the crisis of representation that Westphalian sovereignty has been waning since its inception.
John Kim is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Japanese and German at the University of California, Riverside. His research focuses on issues of translation, both cultural and linguistic, and he has published widely on authors and thinkers including Paul de Man, Immanuel Kant, Michel Foucault, Friedrich Hölderlin, Yoko Tawada and Naoko Sakai, among others. He writes about issues such as cosmopolitanism, universalism and imperialism. He has translated works from French, German and Japanese into English.
Scholarly presentations on interdisciplinary topics will take place on Saturday, April 11 from 9-11:45 and 2:30-5:15 in University Hall (UH 1501).
All events are free and open to the public.
For more information about the program, please see the website: http://convergingnarratives2015.weebly.com/ or contact the organizers: uic.grad.student.conference@gmail.com.
Organizing Committee:
Agnieszka Jezyk, Slavic and Baltic Studies
Julia Koxholt, Germanic Studies
Christina Mekonen, Germanic Studies
Amalia Cantisan Munoz, Hispanic and Italian Studies
Heidi Schlipphacke, Germanic Studies (Faculty Mentor)
Special thanks for their generous support of the conference go to the School of Literatures, Cultural Studies and Linguistics, the Stefan and Lucy Hejna Family Chair of Polish Language and Literature, Germanic Studies, Hispanic and Italian Studies, the Institute for the Humanities, Gender and Women’s Studies, International Studies, the Graduate Student Council, and Latin American and Latino Studies.
"CONVERGING NARRATIVES: THE PERSONAL MEETS THE NATIONAL" - DAY 1 Heading link
A Graduate Student Conference featuring presentations from scholars and artists representing a wide variety of national literatures and cultures
Please Note: The event is taking place at Daley Library, Room 1-470.
Date(s): Friday, 4/10 3:45 PM to Friday, 4/10 6:00 PM
Address: 801 S. Morgan Street
Location: Chicago, IL
Contact: Linda Vavra
Email: huminst@uic.edu
Website: http://convergingnarratives2015.weebly.com/
Phone: (312) 996-6352
“‘Marzi’: A Graphic Memoir of Communist Poland: An Interview with the Author Marzena Sowa”Followed by a reception.Marzena Sowa is a Polish cartoonist. She is the author of the celebrated autobiographical illustrated novel Marzi, a comic about her childhood in 1980s-era Poland that has been serialized. She writes about life under communism, food shortages, and her childish escapades. Her books offer a unique window into the complex social world of communist Poland. So far, six volumes of Marzi have been published. The comics have appeared in French, in Polish, in Spanish, and in English (Vertigo).
Scholarly presentations on interdisciplinary topics will take place on Saturday, April 11 from 9-11:45 and 2:30-5:15 in University Hall (UH 1501).
All events are free and open to the public.
For more information about the program, please see the website: http://convergingnarratives2015.weebly.com/ or contact the organizers: uic.grad.student.conference@gmail.com.
Organizing Committee:
Agnieszka Jezyk, Slavic and Baltic Studies
Julia Koxholt, Germanic Studies
Christina Mekonen, Germanic Studies
Amalia Cantisan Munoz, Hispanic and Italian Studies
Heidi Schlipphacke, Germanic Studies (Faculty Mentor)
Special thanks for their generous support of the conference go to the School of Literatures, Cultural Studies and Linguistics, the Stefan and Lucy Hejna Family Chair of Polish Language and Literature, Germanic Studies, Hispanic and Italian Studies, the Institute for the Humanities, Gender and Women’s Studies, International Studies, the Graduate Student Council, and Latin American and Latino Studies.
“CHARLIE AND CONTEXT” Heading link
The January attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo gave rise to an unprecedented display of solidarity in the streets of Paris and throughout France. Yet the many voices raised in the press, in the streets, and online in the weeks since have eloquently demonstrated that the issues surrounding the attacks and their aftermath are both longstanding and complex.
Please join us on February 18 at 2:30 pm at the Institute for the Humanities for a roundtable presentation and discussion that will examine some of these issues, including the importance and limitations of contextualization itself.
Featured scholars on the panel:
Jane Weston Vauclair, Paris-based translator and independent researcher, “Charlie Hebdo and Visual Satire: The Clash of the Local and the Global”
Nina Dubin (Art History and French, UIC): “French Caricature: A Brief History”
Yann Robert (French and Francophone Studies, UIC): “Charlie and Voltaire: The Free Speech Debate as Evasion”
John Ireland (French and Francophone Studies, UIC): “Charlie Hebdo: The Irony of a Massacre”
Khalid Madhi (Political Science, UIC): “Ni Charlie, Ni Coulibaly: Liminality Explained to My Daughter”
Jennifer Solheim (French and Francophone Studies, UIC): “Secularism and Multiculturalism in France”
Co-sponsored by the UIC Institute for the Humanities and the UIC Francophone Studies Department
Date(s): Wednesday, 2/18 2:30 PM to Wednesday, 2/18 4:30 PM
Address: 701 South Morgan
Location: Chicago, IL
Contact: Linda Vavra
Email: huminst@uic.edu
Website: http://huminst.red.uic.edu/
Phone: (312) 996-6352
** THE SOUNDS OF FREEDOM Heading link
- Date(s): Saturday, 11/8 4:30 PM to Saturday, 11/8 5:30 PM
- Campus Address: UIC Forum, Meeting Room GHI
- Address: 725 W. Roosevelt Road
- Location: Chicago, Illinois
This program is presented in partnership with the UIC Institute for the Humanities and the Chicago Humanities Festival
The UIC Forum comes alive with an hour of iconic American music.Johari Jabir, acclaimed musician and University of Illinois at Chicago professor of African American studies, celebrates the place of gospel music in the civil rights movement. Take a sonic tour from Rev. James Cleveland’s pioneering sound to Nina Simone’s protest songs. This program is presented in partnership with the UIC Institute for the Humanities.