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“(RE)MAPPING GLOBAL MODERNITIES: HETEROGENEOUS TIME AND SPACE” March 7-8, 2014 Across the global 20th and 21st centuries, the idea of the modern nation and processes of modernity have predominantly referred to progressive change and growth, whether in economic, (geo)political, or cultural realms. Recent scholarship in the Humanities has been productively questioning such singular, grand narratives, especially their perpetuation of spatial inequalities between the broadly conceived West and non-West and their imposition of developmental timescales across a range of territories: borderlands, islands, global cities, maritime cartographies, and homelands. How can transnational studies as a developing, interdisciplinary field of inquiry contribute to the conceptualization of alternative and contested global modernities? This conference proposes to bring a transnational perspective to bear on diverse forms of modernity, particularly as they are expressed in various realms of culture. Discussion will explore representations of time and space in literature, film, new media, theory etc., focusing on cities—global, or otherwise—in Asia and Africa, the borderlands of Hawaii and mainland United States, the “developing global South,” networks of the Indian Ocean, and the deterritorialized nation (island and diasporic). Ultimately, we ask, how do heterogeneous time and space disentangle controlling narratives of global modernity? Keynote speakers: Guest Speakers include: FRIDAY, MARCH 7, ROYCE HALL 306 1:00 pm Welcome David Schaberg 1:30 pm “Interrogating Modern Transnational Heritage” Melissa Tandiwe Myambo Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor (UCLA), “Heritage Migration and Transnational Cultural Time Zones: African and Asian Diasporas ‘Return’ to Emerging Modernity” Jemima Pierre Assistant Professor (Vanderbilt University), “Expats, Afropolitans, or Heritage Tourists?: Race, Class, and Diaspora Returns to Africa” Discussant: Yogita Goyal, Associate Professor (UCLA) 3:00pm Coffee Break 3:15 pm “Hawaii and Queer Archives of Modernity” Chase Smith Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor (UCLA), “Don who? Don Ho”: Hawaii, Modernity and the Don Ho Episode J. Kēhaulani Kauanui Associate Professor (Wesleyan University), “Hawaiian Indigeneity, (Same-Sex) Marriage, and the Racial Politics of Colonial Modernity” Discussant: Rachel Lee, Associate Professor (UCLA)
5:00pm “Reframing Insular Ethno/Geo Politics” Emmanuel Bruno Jean-François Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor (UCLA), “Rethinking Boundaries through Transgenerational Narratives: Diasporic Ethnicity, Nation-State Citizenship, and Poetics of the Island in Mauritian Literature” Julia Waters Associate Professor (University of Reading), “Differently Mauritian: Heterogeneous Belonging in Contemporary Mauritian Fiction” Discussant: Vinay Lal, Associate Professor (UCLA) 6:30 pm Reception SATURDAY, MARCH 8, ROYCE HALL 306 10:00 am “Queer Asia as Critique” Alvin Wong Anjali Arondekar Associate Professor (UC Santa Cruz), “Area Impossible: Sexuality and South Asia” Discussant: Sean Metzger, Assistant Professor (UCLA) 11:30 am Coffee Break 11:45 am “Mediated ‘Asian’ Urbansims” Anne Cong-Huyen Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor (UCLA), “Dubai vs. Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City: A Case of Comparative Asian Global Cities” Jini Kim Watson Associate Professor (NYU), “Aspirational City: Singapore and the Dialectics of Desire and Modernity” Discussant: Dell Upton, Professor (UCLA) 1:15 pm Lunch Break 2:30 pm Creative Keynote Address, Royce Hall 306 Allan deSouza Artist and Associate Professor, Department of Art Practice, UC Berkeley 4:00 pm Closing Reception, Royce Hall 314 |
“(RE)MAPPING GLOBAL MODERNITIES: HETEROGENEOUS TIME AND SPACE”
March 7-8, 2014
Royce Hall 306 & 314
UCLA
Across the global 20th and 21st centuries, the idea of the modern nation and processes of modernity have predominantly referred to progressive change and growth, whether in economic, (geo)political, or cultural realms. Recent scholarship in the Humanities has been productively questioning such singular, grand narratives, especially their perpetuation of spatial inequalities between the broadly conceived West and non-West and their imposition of developmental timescales across a range of territories: borderlands, islands, global cities, maritime cartographies, and homelands. How can transnational studies as a developing, interdisciplinary field of inquiry contribute to the conceptualization of alternative and contested global modernities?
This conference proposes to bring a transnational perspective to bear on diverse forms of modernity, particularly as they are expressed in various realms of culture. Discussion will explore representations of time and space in literature, film, new media, theory etc., focusing on cities—global, or otherwise—in Asia and Africa, the borderlands of Hawaii and mainland United States, the “developing global South,” networks of the Indian Ocean, and the deterritorialized nation (island and diasporic). Ultimately, we ask, how do heterogeneous time and space disentangle controlling narratives of global modernity?
Keynote speakers:
Allan deSouza, Artist and Associate Professor, Department of Art Practice, UC Berkeley
Guest Speakers include:
Jemima Pierre, Assistant Professor (Vanderbilt University)
J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Associate Professor (Wesleyan University)
Julia Waters, Associate Professor (University of Reading)
Anjali Arondekar, Associate Professor (UC Santa Cruz)
Jini Kim Watson, Associate Professor (NYU)
FRIDAY, MARCH 7, ROYCE HALL 306
1:00 pm
Welcome-Heading 3
David Schaberg-Paragraph
Dean of Humanities (UCLA)
Françoise Lionnet and Steven Nelson
Directors, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities, “Cultures in Transnational Perspective” Program
1:30 pm
“Interrogating Modern Transnational Heritage”
Melissa Tandiwe Myambo
Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor (UCLA), “Heritage Migration and Transnational Cultural Time Zones: African and Asian Diasporas ‘Return’ to Emerging Modernity”
Jemima Pierre
Assistant Professor (Vanderbilt University), “Expats, Afropolitans, or Heritage Tourists?: Race, Class, and Diaspora Returns to Africa”
Discussant: Yogita Goyal, Associate Professor (UCLA)
3:00pm
Coffee Break
3:15 pm
“Hawaii and Queer Archives of Modernity”
Chase Smith
Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor (UCLA), “Don who? Don Ho”: Hawaii, Modernity and the Don Ho Episode
J. Kēhaulani Kauanui
Associate Professor (Wesleyan University), “Hawaiian Indigeneity, (Same-Sex) Marriage, and the Racial Politics of Colonial Modernity”
Discussant: Rachel Lee, Associate Professor (UCLA)
4:45 pm
Coffee Break
5:00pm
“Reframing Insular Ethno/Geo Politics”
Emmanuel Bruno Jean-François
Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor (UCLA), “Rethinking Boundaries through Transgenerational Narratives: Diasporic Ethnicity, Nation-State Citizenship, and Poetics of the Island in Mauritian Literature”
Julia Waters
Associate Professor (University of Reading), “Differently Mauritian: Heterogeneous Belonging in Contemporary Mauritian Fiction”
Discussant: Vinay Lal, Associate Professor (UCLA)
6:30 pm
Reception
SATURDAY, MARCH 8, ROYCE HALL 306
10:00 am
“Queer Asia as Critique”
Alvin Wong
Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor (UCLA), “Queer Anti-Capitalism in Transnational ‘China(s)’ ”
Anjali Arondekar
Associate Professor (UC Santa Cruz), “Area Impossible: Sexuality and South Asia”
Discussant: Sean Metzger, Assistant Professor (UCLA)
11:30 am
Coffee Break
11:45 am
“Mediated ‘Asian’ Urbansims”
Anne Cong-Huyen
Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor (UCLA), “Dubai vs. Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City: A Case of Comparative Asian Global Cities”
Jini Kim Watson
Associate Professor (NYU), “Aspirational City: Singapore and the Dialectics of Desire and Modernity”
Discussant: Dell Upton, Professor (UCLA)
1:15 pm
Lunch Break
2:30 pm
Creative Keynote Address, Royce Hall 306
Allan deSouza
Artist and Associate Professor, Department of Art Practice, UC Berkeley
Introduced by Steven Nelson, Associate Professor and Mellon Program Co-director (UCLA)
4:00 pm
Closing Reception, Royce Hall 314