Past Events
The 2008-09 Davis Lecture:
Marie Griffith, Professor of Religion, Princeton
4:30 pm , Wednesday, March 04, 2009Room 10, Page Hall
Marie Griffith is Professor of Religion at Princeton University and Director of Princeton's Program in the Study of Women and Gender. She is the author of God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission (UC Press, 1997) and Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (2004). She has also edited or co-edited three additional books: Women and Religion in the African Diaspora: Knowledge, Power, and Performance (Johns Hopkins, 2006); American Religions: A Documentary History (Oxford, 2007); and Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States (Johns Hopkins, 2008). Her current project, "Christians, Sex, and Politics: An American History" (under contract with Norton), analyzes the history of sexuality in American Christianity.
The Body in Pain
Third Annual Graduate Student Conference in Comparative Studies
Hosted by the Department of Comparative StudiesThe Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
16 January 2009
Conference Schedule
Graduate Student Research Colloquium
Friday, May 23, 1:00-2:30pmHagerty 451 (CS Seminar Room)
"Timestamps: Temporality, Visuality, Terror"
Rebecca Adelman
September 11th, 2001 arrested American culture, an extended pause resulting in a prolonged and profound temporal dislocation. The strangeness of this time zone, I argue, compounded the experiences and sensations of that day. Images of 9/11 instantiated terror in American culture, and then, the looped and repeated footage became a traumatic checkpoint from which we could not proceed. Here, I analyze visual practices that engage the disorienting temporality of America's Global War on Terror (GWOT).
Many of the cultural productions of this era play with time, as time seems to play with us, and three are especially remarkable for their overt engagement with terror's capacity to confuse chronology, history, and direction. The flipbook sequence that concludes Jonathan Safran Foer's fanciful 2005 novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close depicts a man falling up into the World Trade Center window from which he jumped in a suicidal effort to save his life. This anonymous figure enacts the confused and familiar wish to rewind and so undo this trauma. The 9/11 Commission Report was the official version of this desire to proleptically retrace our history. In 2006, The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Interpretation (by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón) rendered it visually by transforming the document into a graphic novel, remaking it within a genre uniquely suited to creative representations of time and its weirdness. The book is non-fiction, but its format offers a license to experiment. Conversely, there could be no such flexibility in the analysis of the tape that Osama bin Laden released in September 2007. Most discussions of the video glossed over its content to focus speculatively on its temporal provenance. The fixation on such trivialities as the color of bin Laden's beard was perhaps sadly comic, but the effort to provide a definitive timestamp to this recording reflected a persistent need to finally make sense of the disorderly calendar of terror in the U.S. Ultimately, however, in order to repair the terror they represent, these texts (and their audiences) must relive and, hence, renew it.
Like culture, history and memory stutter over terror. In the process, they conspire to form a national community that is indefinitely caught between endlessly remembering a traumatic past and flinching before a potentially traumatic future. Citizenship thus begins to feel like suspension, as we wait for the next juncture of images from which we will be catapulted forward, or back.
Research Colloquium: Barry Shank, "Listening to the Political" Friday, May 16, 12:30-2pm
Hagerty 451 (CS Seminar Room)
There are many good reasons to listen to music. Listening to music for its political significance, however, is typically not one of them. More often than not, listening to music for its political significance requires one to ignore probably the best reason for listening to music: the experience of musical beauty. This talk will explore the possibilities of listening to the political through a focus on the experience of musical beauty. I will argue that the pleasure that derives from the experience of musical beauty can help to identify the political agency of music.
Annual Davis Lecture: Lee Quinby, "Gender, Violence, and the Christian Apocalypse" Thursday, May 8, 4 pm (please note change of day)
Location: Knight House (Humanities Institute)
Reception to follow lecture
This lecture explores how apocalyptic thought represents gender and sexual dualisms in graphically violent terms, and asks why Christian fundamentalism in the contemporary US is less likely to lead to violence against others, although it inclines toward psychic self-abasement.
Prof. Quinby is Professor of American Studies and Visiting Professor, Macauley Honors College, CUNY. She has published Millennial Seduction: A Skeptic Confronts Apocalyptic Culture (Cornell University Press, 1999), Anti-Apocalypse: Exercises in Genealogical Criticism (University of Minnesota Press, 1994), and Freedom, Foucault, and the Subject of America (Northeastern University Press, 1991); she has edited Gender and Apocalyptic Desire (with Brenda Brasher} (Equinox Press, 2006), Genealogy and Literature (University of Minnesota Press, 1995), and Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance, co-edited with Irene Diamond (Northeastern University Press, 1988).
Talk: John Troyer, "Abuse of a Corpse: A Brief History and Re-Theorization of Necrophilia Laws in America"
Friday, April 25, 12:30-2:00pm, CS Seminar Room
Lecture: "Neoliberalism as Global Form," Aihwa Ong, Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of California, Berkley
Thursday, April 17, 3:30 pm - Postle Hall 1184
Cultural Difference and Democracy Working Group
Contact: Barry Shank at shank.46@osu.edu
Student Lunch and Roundtable Discussion with Aihwa Ong: InterSect, The Graduate Student Organization for the Department of Comparative Studies - Aihwa Ong
Thursday, April 17, 2008, 12:30 to 2:30, at the George Wells Knight House, 104 East 15th Avenue.
There is no charge, but please RSVP to Peggy Reynolds at reynolds.396@osu.edu
Aihwa Ong, professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of California, Berkley is being brought to OSU by the Cultural Differences and Democracy working group. She will give a public lecture and hold a seminar with members of the working group which will focus on a selection of her work to be made available early in April. The more intimate format of the roundtable/lunch will provide students with the opportunity to engage with this world-renowned scholar about her work. To RSVP and/or for additional information, e-mail Peggy Reynolds at reynolds.396@osu.edu.
Lecture: "Deliberative Democracy and Dispute Resolution" Lawrence Susskind, Urban and Environmental Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thursday, April 10, 12:00 pm -- Moritz College of Law
Cultural Difference and Democracy Working Group
Contact: Barry Shank at shank.46@osu.edu
Seminar: Susskind seminar, Friday, April 11 (Cultural Difference and Democracy-reservations through Barry Shank, shank.46@osu.edu )
David Treuer, The acclaimed Native American author and sometimes controversial theorist of Native and American Literature David Treuer will be coming to OSU next week for two events. Among Truer's fictional works are the novels Little, The Hiawatha, and his latest work The Translation of Dr. Apelles. Additionally, Treuer's Native American Fiction: A User's Guide, has been the site of much discussion and contestation in American Indian Studies, and will be the topic of engagement for an Ethnic Studies Research & Working Group meeting.
Thursday April 3rd, Treuer will be reading selections from his fiction.
- 3:30-5:00 - reading and Q&A
- 5:00-6:00 - book signing and public reception
- Location: Wexner Center Film & Video Library, and Bookstore
Friday April 4th, the second chapter of Treuer's Native American Fiction, "Smartberries," will be to topic of a special Ethnic Studies Research and Working Group meeting. Prompting our discussion will be a response from Frederick Aldama of OSU's English Department.
- 3:30-5:00 - ESR&WG Meeting and Discussion
- 5:00-6:00 - public reception
- Location: George Wells Knight House
Lecture: "Deliberative Democracy and Dispute Resolution" Lawrence Susskind, Urban and Environmental Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thursday, April 10, 12:00 pm -- Moritz College of Law
Cultural Difference and Democracy Working Group
Contact: Barry Shank at shank.46@osu.edu
Inaugural Lecture: "Religion and Secrecy: From Colonial India to the Bush Administration," Professor Hugh Urban
Professor Urban's talk will give a brief overview of his research interests by focusing specifically on the intersection between religion and secrecy. He will explain how his research has evolved from the fairly narrow study of esoteric religious movements in colonial India to the larger question of how religion and secrecy function in the world today, and specifically under the Bush administration. Hence, the talk will be framed around the juxtaposition of religion and secrecy in two imperial formations-British India and the contemporary United States as successor to Great Britain as dominant global power.
Thursday, March 13, 4:30 pm, Grand Lounge of the Faculty Club
WOSU's Open Line with Fred Andrle will feature a discussion on the conflict in Kenya this Wednesday, February 20, 10AM. Kennedy Waliaula, a former Kenya TV news anchor and now a PhD candidate in Comparative Studies, will be featured. The full program description:
The Tumultous Middle-East / Kenya's Election Controversy
Strategic challenges in the Middle East, including the rise of Islamic extremism, Iran's development of nuclear power, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the global reliance on oil, with the former Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) Army General John Abizaid.
Violence and civil strife following the December elections in Kenya and hopes for reconciliation, with Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Associate Joel Barkan and former Kenyan news anchor Kennedy Waliaula. http://www.wosu.org/radio-local-programs/radio-open-line/
"Urban Party Mix: Performing the Arts in the Metropole"
Thursday, February 21, 6:30-9 pm,
OSU Urban Arts Space, 50 W. Town Street
and
Friday-Saturday, February 22-23, 9 am-5 pm,
Roy Bowen Theatre, Drake Performance Center, 1849 Cannon Drive
The conference will feature speaker Barbara Browning, as well as researchers and artists, including the Notting Hill Carnival. Conference organizers are Katey Borland (Comparative Studies), Leslie Ferris (Theatre), and Dorry Noyes (English). For more information, contact Katey Borland at borland.19@osu.edu
Lecture: Professor David Simo (Yaounde University, Cameroon)
Professor Simo will speak on February 11 at 3:30 in the ABCD room in the Faculty Club. The title of his talk is "Introduction of the German Law and Legislation in the German Protectorate Cameroon." The talk is sponsored by the Departments of Comparative Studies, Germanic Languages and Literatures, and History and the Center for African Studies.
Second Annual Graduate Student Conference: "Representing Affect / Affecting Representation."
The Second Annual Graduate Student Conference in Comparative Studies on the theme Representing Affect & Affecting Representation will be held Thursday, January 17th (8 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.) and Friday, January 18th, 2008 (9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.) at the George Wells Knight House, located at 104 E. 15th Avenue.
The conference will feature paper presentations by more than 30 graduate students from OSU and a variety of other institutions, and will conclude at 4:00 p.m. on Friday in 020 Page Hall with a public keynote lecture by Marita Sturken (NYU) entitled "Tourists of History: Kitsch and Memory in American Culture."
For more information, please contact AffectAndRepresentation@hotmail.com.
Schedule of Events [PDF]
Inaugural Lecture: Lindsay Jones, "On Juxtaposition: New Uses of Old Buildings at the Archaeological-Tourist Site of Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico."
When: October 15, 2007, 4:30 PM
Where: Faculty Club
Faculty Colloquium: Comparative Studies Professor Daniel Reff
When: October 19, 2007 - 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM
Where: Comparative Studies Conference Room, 451 Hagerty Hall
Lecture: Sonia Alvarez, "Interrogating the Civil Society Agenda: Discourses on Citizen Participation in Governance, Governability and Governmentality"
The lecture was sponsored by the Cultural Differences and Democracy Working Group. Professor Alvarez is a guest speaker from the Latin American Politics and Studies program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Lecture: Ira Chernus, "From Vietnam to Iraq: America's Wars and the Academic Study of Religion."
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is a leading scholar on the subjects of religion, politics, war, peace and foreign policy.
Undergraduate news: Taylor Nelms wins Gates-Cambridge Scholarship
Taylor Nelms, a 2006 graduate in Comparative Studies and Anthropology, is the first OSU student to receive the prestigious Gates-Cambridge Scholarship, awarded to just 40 students nationwide who demonstrate extraordinary intellectual ability and the desire to contribute to society through their scholarly work.
Undergraduate news: Benjamin Thompson featured in film, "The Prisoner"
Benjamin Thomspon is an Iraq War veteran whose friendship with an Iraqi journalist wrongly imprisoned at Abu Ghraib was featured in the documentary film "The Prisoner."
Graduate Student Conference
"Rethinking Precarity", the first annual graduate student conference in the Department of Comparative Studies was held in January 2007, in coordination with a lecture by Michael Hardt, "Love in the Multitude."
Lecture: Juan Cole, "The Ayatollahs of Iraq and Resource Mobilization"
Davis Lecture in the Study of Christianity: Donald Miller Speaks on Global Pentecostalism
This year's annual Davis Lecture was given by Donald Miller, Leonard K. Firestone Professor of Religion and Sociology and Director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California.
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