[MGSA-L] "Year of Comparison" at Michigan

[Vassilios Lambropoulos]

[A series of forthcoming events that may be of interest to various constituencies on this list.]

The Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan is pleased to announce Winter 2011 events co-sponsored by its “Year of Comparison”.  
For more information, please go to  http://www.lsa.umich.edu/complit/themeyear/comparison20102011


February 4, 2011
"Lesbian and Queer Historiography"
Symposium in Lane Hall (9am-6pm)

This symposium will highlight the range of methodological approaches currently being devised for writing the history of same-sex love and  desire in periods before the emergence of a widely-perceived, distinct homosexual identity.  Featuring the scholarship of Laura Doan, professor of cultural history and sexuality studies at Manchester University, England, and Susan Lanser, professor of Women's Studies, English and Comparative Studies at Brandeis University, along with that of Valerie Traub, Professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan, the symposium will cross historical periods in an effort to think comparatively about the methodological issues involved in writing a non-identitarian history of sexuality.  This event is coordinated by the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Lesbian-Gay-Queer Research Initiative, and co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature's "Year of Comparison."


February 11, 2011
"Memory Citizenship: Migrant Women and Holocaust Remembrance in Contemporary Germany" 
Lecture in 3308 MLB (2-4 pm)

Professors Michael Rothberg (Comparative and World Literature, Jewish Culture) and Yasemin Yildiz (Germanic Literatures) from the Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will present new research on the effects of transnational migration on cultural memory. Working through the binaries of majority and minority cultures, and the triangulation of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian religious traditions, their work opens up new venues in comparative memory studies. This event is coordinated by the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures and co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature's "Year of Comparison."


February 18, 2011
"Why Compare?"
Panel Discussion in 3222 Angell Hall (12-1:30 pm)

An open panel discussion, responding to the 2009 special issue on "Comparison" in the journal New Literary History http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/new_literary_history/toc/nlh.40.3.html  Panelists will include University of Michigan Professors Charlie Bright (History), Geoff Eley (History), June Howard (English and American Culture), Webb Keane (Anthropology), Vassilis Lambropoulos (Classical Studies, Modern Greek, and Comparative Literature) and Xiaobing Tang (Asian Languages and Culture and Comparative Literature). Discussion moderated by Professor Yopie Prins (English and Comparative Literature). This event is coordinated and sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature's "Year of Comparison."


February 18, 2011
"Asian Literatures: Comparison from Calcutta to Kyoto"
Roundtable in 2022 Thayer (3-5 pm)

This roundtable discussion will ask: How can scholars of various linguistic, geographical, and historical areas in Asia come together under the rubric of comparison to build a cohesive discipline?  How can literature provide a basis for discussion among scholars of Asia?  How can comparison as an intra-disciplinary mode help scholars to discover new ways of thinking about Asia?  Visiting scholars participating in the discussion include Michael Emmerich (Modern and Premodern Japanese, Princeton University ), Keller Kimbrough (Medieval Japanese, University of Colorado at Boulder), G. S Sahota (Indian Literary and Intellectual History, UC Santa Cruz) and Anne Murphy (Modern Punjabi Literature and History, University of British Columbia).  This event is coordinated by the Asian Languages and Cultures Graduate Students Organization, and co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature's "Year of Comparison."


April 5, 2011
Lecture by Professor Harriet Guest
3222 Angell Hall (4pm)

Harriet Guest is Professor at the University of York. Her most recent book is “Empire, Barbarism and Civilization: James Cook, William Hodges, and the Return to the Pacific” (Cambridge, 2007).   This event is coordinated by the English Department’s Nineteenth-Century Forum and the Eighteenth-Century Studies Group, and co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature's "Year of Comparison."


April 8-9, 2011
"Mediterranean Topographies: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Mediterranean Studies" 
Symposium in the Kelsey Museum

A symposium on transnational, cross-cultural, comparative, and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the Mediterranean as a region of interconnected histories and identities.  The symposium will feature a keynote lecture by Paul Sant Cassia ( Professor of Anthropology, University of Malta), a series of graduate student panels, and a roundtable discussion with UM Professors Frieda Ekotto (Comparative Literature), Megan Holmes (History of Art), Kader Konuk (Comparative Literature), Artemis Leontis (Modern Greek), Karla Mallette (Romance Languages and Literatures), Nadine Naber (American History and Women’s Studies), and Andrew Shryock (Anthropology).  This event is coordinated by the Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop on Mediterranean Topographies (Meditopos) and co-sponsored by the Departmen of Comparative Literature's "Year of Comparison."  For schedule see http://sitemaker.umich.edu/meditopos/our_conference


April 20, 2011
"Vernacular and Cosmopolitan Languages: A Global Conversation"
Symposium in 1014 Tisch (10-5pm)
 
This symposium will explore the relationship of cosmopolitan languages to the rise of vernaculars, in order to develop a comparative perspective on various imperial and colonized languages, the relation between classical and local languages, the dynamics of bilingualism, and the function of translation.  The conversation will takes its initial cue from “The Language of the Gods in the World of Men” by Sheldon Pollock, who will attend the symposium.  Panels will include “The Rise of the Italian Vernacular” (with Alison Cornish, Christopher Davis, Peggy McCracken), ”Arabic in Medieval Europe” (with Karla Malette, Michael Bonner, Tom Burman), “Sanskrit and Desi Bhasha” (with Ben Fortson, Sean Pue), and “Modern Arabic.”  This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Romance Languages, the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, and the Department of Comparative Literature’s “Year of Comparison.” 

 
 
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