MINOR TRANSNATIONALISM 2.0
May 19-20, 2017
Royce Hall room 306
UCLA
The 2005 publication of the co-edited volume Minor Transnationalism (second printing 2009) marked the culmination of a decade-long collaboration among some forty faculty members of the University of California system, the “Transnational and Transcolonial Studies” Multicampus-Research Group. Inheriting the intellectual vision of the group and expanding on it, the UCLA Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in the Humanities titled “Cultures in Transnational Perspective,” came into being in 2005, benefiting from two cycles of major funding from the Mellon Foundation. It lasted for a decade (2005-2015) and welcomed twenty-nine fellows. The 2017 reunion conference brings back a majority of the “graduates” of this Postdoctoral Program whose scholarship or creative work privileges minor transnational articulations and minor-to-minor relationalities across genres, movements, places, and times. “Minor Transnationalism 2.0” takes us to the present state of research in this focused area of “minor” transnational studies.
Generously sponsored by the UCLA Division of Humanities and the UCLA Mellon Postdoctoral Program in the Humanities.
This event is free and open to the public, however seating is limited.
For more information, contact Allison Kershner: akershner@humnet.ucla.edu.
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
FRIDAY, MAY 19 | ROYCE HALL 306
WELCOME
9:30am-10:00am
David Schaberg, Dean of Humanities
Françoise Lionnet, Professor of French & Francophone Studies/Comparative Literature
Shu-mei Shih, Professor of Asian Languages & Cultures/Comparative Literature/Asian American Studies
Steven Nelson, Professor of African and African American Art/Director of the African Studies Center
PANEL I: HISTORICIZING
10:00am-12:00pm
Moderator: Shu-mei Shih
“The BBC Eastern Service and the Crisis of Cosmopolitanism” by Babli Sinha, Associate Professor of English and Director of Media Studies (Kalamazoo College)
“The Transnational Aesthetics of Korean National Liberation in Early Cold War Film Melodrama” by Travis Workman, Associate Professor of Asian Languages and Literature (University of Minnesota)
“Queer Vernacularism: Rethinking Queer Transnationalism through Minor Comparison” by Alvin Wong, Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature and Film (Underwood International College of Yonsei University)
LUNCH | 12:00pm
PANEL II: FICTIONALIZING
1:00pm-3:00pm
Moderator: Françoise Lionnet
“Global Racial Form and Feelings in the Transnational Novel,” by Sze Wei Ang, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature (University of Hong Kong)
“Archipelagic Solidarities, Indian Ocean Fiction and the ‘New Thalassology’” by Emmanuel Bruno Jean-François, Assistant Professor of French & Francophone Studies, and Comparative Literature (Pennsylvania State University)
“Vegetal Logics in Alanna Lockward’s Marassá y la nada: Grafting Haitian-Dominican Relation” by Jeannine Murray-Román Assistant Professor of Modern Languages (Florida State University)
COFFEE BREAK | 3:00pm
PANEL III: MOBILIZING SPACE
3:30pm-5:30pm
Moderator: Steven Nelson
“Europe’s “Refugee Crisis” and its Colonial Legacy” by Fatima El-Tayeb, Professor of Literature and Ethnic Studies and Director of Critical Gender Studies (University of California, San Diego)
“Corporate Housing and Sites of Living and Working in Silicon Valley and Dubai” by Anne Cong-Huyen, Digital Scholar (Whittier College)
“From Sit-ins to Riots to Hacking: Mapping Protest Narratives as Transnational Advocacy” by JoAnne Ruvoli, Assistant Professor of English (Ball State University)
SATURDAY, MAY 20 | ROYCE HALL 306
PANEL IV: VISUALIZING
9:30am-11:30am
Moderator: Shu-mei Shih
“Petro-colonial Origins of Cinema in the Arabian Gulf” by Firat Oruc, Assistant Professor of World Literature (Georgetown University-Qatar)
“Toward a Cultural History of the Maghreb: Palimpsest in Motion in Assia Djebar’s Movies” by Maya Boutaghou, Assistant Professor of French and Global Cultures (University of Virginia)
“Sensory Disruptions: Artistic Responses to Alternative Migrations” by Claudia Hoffmann, Assistant Professor of Film (Clarkson University)
FICTION READING
11:30am-12:00pm
Moderator: Françoise Lionnet
“Excursion” by Namrata Poddar, Writer and Lecturer (UCLA)
LUNCH | 12:00pm
PANEL V: PERFORMING IDENTITIES
1:00pm-3:00pm
Moderator: Steven Nelson
“Vocables, Laughter, and Standing Ovation: Performing Indigenous Musical in Sinophone Taiwan” by Tzu-hui Celina Hung, Assistant Professor of Literature (New York University, Shanghai)
“Resignifications: Sicilian Folklore on the Global Catwalk” by Alessandra Di Maio, Associate Professor of English, Comparative Literature and African Studies (University of Palermo, Italy)
“Mutating the Meme: Machine Algorithms and Body Technology in A Saudi Woman’s Beauty Vlog” by Sonali Pahwa, Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts and Dance (University of Minnesota)
COFFEE BREAK | 3:00pm
PANEL VI: BUILDING FUTURES
3:30pm-5:00pm
Moderator: Françoise Lionnet
“Trans/National Networks and Native Governance” by Joseph Bauerkemper, Associate Professor of American Indian Studies (University of Minnesota Duluth)
“’Together We Are Infinite’: Assembling Feminist Constellations in Contemporary Women’s Movements” by Marcela A. Fuentes, Assistant Professor of Performance Studies (Northwestern University)
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
5:00pm-5:30pm
Françoise Lionnet, Shu-mei Shih, and Steven Nelson