SWAG 2009-2010 Colloquium Series
Friday, September 11, 2009
"Translation and the Predicament of Transversal Anthropology"
Smadar Lavie
Associate Professor of Studies in Women & Gender, University of Virginia
1:00 p.m., Clark Hall Room 107
Reception to follow
Cultural Studies has been an excellent move that is assumed to have assisted in the decolonizing of the humanities
and social sciences, Cultural Anthropology included. The move, however, was mainly one way: the theory was
formulated and articulated in the Western metropolitan universities, but the data came from "post"colonial
situations, whether in the Third World or in "Third Worlded" Western metropolises. My presentation concerns
Palestine/Israel, and is part of the larger project of the World Anthropologies Network Collective (WAN).
The paper will shed light on the disciplined processes through which English-language cultural theory travels to
and from Israel's intellectual spheres, and then shed light on the transcultural Hebrew-language theories that
ought to travel from Palestine/Israel into the English-language sphere, and on the reasons for our urgent need
to allocate funds for their Hebrew-to-English translations.
Friday, October 16, 2009
"The Transnational Trials of Taslima Nasrin"
Brinda Bose
Associate Professor of English, Hindu College, Delhi Univeristy
1:00 p.m., Minor Hall Room 125
Reception to follow
Taslima Nasrin's case is symptomatic of the state of menace that has been consistently threatening to engulf
South Asian secular freedoms. It is also, clearly, a case for feminist intervention against censorship of speech
and expression, and for an investigation into what happens when a radical Muslim woman writer and doctor from
Bangla Desh, who is an icon, finds herself homeless, literally and metaphorically. Brinda Bose will discuss her
case.
April 2010
The Theater Offensive, Boston
Abe Rybeck, Founder and Artistic Director
Eugene Tan, Community Engagement Director
The Theater Offensive is a Boston-based theatrical organization, dedicated to the production of queer works.
It was founded in 1989 by Abe Rybeck and grew out of the United Fruit Company, a gay men's "guerilla theater
group." It has won more than a dozen awards for both its artistic and activist contributions. The Theater
Offensive mounts and produces festivals and individual productions by national and local queer performers, and
also serves as a development environment for new theatrical work.
Co-Sponsored Events
September 25, 2009
South Central Graduate Music Consortium, Plenary Speaker
Susan Thomas
Department of Music and Women's Studies, University of Georgia
