Ghosts, Monsters, and the Dead

5th Annual Conference of Ethnic Studies in California co-sponsored by:
Department of Ethnic Studies and California Cultures in Comparative Perspective,
University of California, San Diego
Program in American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California
Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday March 2 – 4, 2007
University of California, San Diego

Do you have this frightening sensation that issues of race and ethnicity are being erased from public and academic discourse? This might explain why on college campuses around the country, Ethnic Studies scholars and students are often regarded as either monsters or boogeymen providing an unsettling presence. The discipline itself is often treated as a ghostly world, populated by howling specters that refuse to relinquish the sins of the past, and have therefore not been properly laid to rest. Given this declining significance of race both as an analytical tool and an object of public discussion, both the work Ethnic Studies scholars produce and the communities they are engaged with appear to be banished to an obscene world, beyond intellectual mapping or recognition, which enters into the political in an almost horrific fashion.

Within this obscene world we find three key figures, ghosts, the dead, and monsters, which are not simply anachronistic grotesque echoes of an abstract past, but rather crucial reflections of the present moment. There are the ghosts, which always embody a violence that the nation struggles to forget, and create a persistent anxiety in their resistance to their “necessary” exorcism. Then there are the walking dead, forms of bare life, which exist as objects producing sovereignty, and whose only recognition lies in the calculus of domestic tragedy or international genocide. Lastly, there are the monsters, “unnatural” existences which mark a lack of rationality, and therefore defy belief and justify violence.

The focus for the 2007 Crossing Borders Conference is to encourage the submission of papers that go beyond an engagement at the level of a formal absence, and instead engage at the level of this obscene world, by interrogating the horrifying themes of Ghosts, Monsters, and The Dead. We invite graduate students in Ethnic Studies programs or producing Ethnic Studies work to submit abstracts comprised of critical inquires which either directly or indirectly relate to these domains of “terror,” and how they are deployed, produced, and contained in processes of racialization.

The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2006 and may take the form of individual paper presentations or proposed panels. Individual submissions must include an abstract no more than 250 words, a one page CV as well as a cover sheet which provides your contact info and any AV needs. Panel proposals must contain, contact info, an abstract and CV for each presenter, as well as a description for the panel not to exceed 150 words. Please email your submissions and any questions to crossingborders2007@gmail.com

For updates and more information please head to the conference website at http://ethnicstudies.ucsd.edu/crossingborders

Visualizing Iraqi Politics & Cultures in Iraq and Diaspora

PANEL DISCUSSION

Visualizing Iraqi Politics & Cultures in Iraq and Diaspora
Friday, February 16, 2007, 6:30 p.m.
The New School, Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street,
5th floor
(enter at 66 West 12th  Street)
New York City

Admission:
Free for Center for Book Arts members &
New School faculty,
staff and alumni with valid ID$10
$5 for student and faculty of other universities
$10 for general public

In the 1960s and 1970s, Baghdad emerged as a vital cultural center in the Arab world. After the devastation of the Hussein regime, and the developing civil war now,how do Iraqi artists today cope with the daily physical challenges most of us can barely imagine? In particular, the panelists will explore the proliferation of the book as an art form pursued by contemporary Iraqi artists, the relationship between Islamic manuscripts and contemporary book art, notions of identity and resistance to the erasure of identity, and the experience of exile.

Panelists:
Hashim al-Tawil, Professor of Art History,
Henry Ford Community College;
Lecturer in Islamic Art and Architecture and in Arab Studies,
University of Michigan-Dearborn

Sharokin Betgevargiz, artist;
Lecturer in History of Graphic Design,
Central Connecticut State University

Michael Rakowitz, artist,
Associate Professor in Art Theory and Practice,
Northwestern University

Ella Shohat, Professor in departments of Art,
Public Policy, and Middle Eastern Studies,
New York University

Radio Tahrir

Lisa S. Majaj, poet and critic, featured on RADIO TAHRIR

"Claims," audio (2:07)
"These Words," audio (2:46)
What She Said, audio (2:30)
Arguments by Lisa Majaj
Majaj, co-editor of 'Going Global', a collection of critical essays, in an interview with host BN Aziz," (4:14)

MIXED by Jennifer George: Detroit Debut

“mixed”

a play by Jennifer George

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Beverly Lyons Jennifer George

PR Strategies “mixed”

(248) 360-9515 (248) 591-0337

blyons@comcast.net jengeorge@wayne.edu

NEW PLAY BY FERNDALE RESIDENT

TACKLES RACE, DIVERSITY, MULTI-ETHNICITY

DETROIT, Mich., (January 24, 2007) – Acceptance, unity, discrimination, privilege, ignorance, hope and healing – a new, locally created theatrical production, aptly titled “mixed”, tackles these and a varying assortment of other complex issues of diversity

and ethnicity.

Written, directed and produced by Ferndale resident and Wayne State University Theatre alumna Jennifer George, “mixed” is a thought-provoking, provocative play dealing with bi-racial identity, discrimination, anti-racism, abandonment and other such universal and time transcending themes. “mixed”, which marks George’s debut in the role of writer, director and producer of a theatrical production, will premiere in Detroit on Friday, February 23, during Black History Month.

Presented in three acts, “mixed” begins each act with a scene depicting three generations of African American women in the post Civil War South as they unveil their stories and secrets before the audience. Thereafter, the play alternates between ensemble scenes, which deal with issues of contemporary society, and character monologues. One ensemble scene, called Daddy, speaks to the father crisis in America, while another titled, It’s Time, calls for social advancement.

George, herself a product of a mixed-ethnicity household, hopes her play will serve as a springboard for creating more dialogue about race and diversity. ”It may not address all the issues, but hopefully “mixed” will prompt people to talk more freely and openly about this important subject,” she said.

-more-

New Play by Ferndale Resident – Page 2

Born in Granada, Spain to a Chaldean father and a third-generation Polish, Irish, Scottish mother, George, 37, was reared and educated mostly in metro-Detroit. She attended Wayne State University, earning a degree in theatre arts, and later returned to Europe where she studied acting, writing and directing at the La Sorbonne, in Paris, France.

George says her own childhood experience -- living between divorced parents, being of mixed ethnicity and diverse socio-economic backgrounds, and having experienced different cultures – was the impetus for pursuing this subject. Further fueling her interest were many frank discussions about racism with a diverse circle of friends, and the strong belief that there was a need for a more direct treatment of racism in film and the theatre.

Like Playwright and Poet Bertolt Brecht, who espoused the philosophy that theatre should not merely represent the world, but can and should, change the world, George hopes her new play, will motivate people to change the way they feel and think.

“I believe we have made great technological advancements in society, but comparatively little advancement socially,” said George. “I think that, on the whole, we can be better and do better.”

“mixed” runs through March 11 at the Boll Family YMCA Theatre, a 140-seat venue located at 1401 Broadway. Shows will be presented every Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 4 p.m. Tickets are $25 each and $18 for senior citizens and students. For ticket information, call the Boll Family YMCA box office at (313) 309-9622 or visit www.ymcametrodetroit.org.

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I'jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody: Sinan Antoon

I'jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody
By Sinan Antoon
Available June 2007
ISBN 0-87286-457-x
Paperback, 168 pp
$11.95
Pre-order Sale Price$8.37

An inventory of the General Security headquarters in central Baghdad reveals an obscure manuscript. Written by a young man in detention,the prose movesfrom prison life, to adolescent memories, to frightening hallucinations, and what emerges is a portrait of life in Saddam's Iraq.

In the tradition of Kafka's The Trial, or Orwell's 1984, I'jaam offers an insight into life under an oppressive political regime and how that oppression works. This is a stunning debut by a major young Iraqi writer-in-exile.

"Sinan Antoon writes with an assurance of voice, a clear redefinition of form and narrative, and compelling and beautiful language. Iraqi in origin, but global in its scope, this book is deeply human." ­ Chris Abani, author of The Virgin of Flames and GraceLand

"Sinan Antoon's I'Jaam is a stunning work, as it brings to the present a world of terror we know about, we have previously read about, but which usually seems remote, unreal. It takes a great talent to make it so specific, so Iraqi in this case, and so personal. This author shows the particular sadistic humor that goes with cruelty, a "cultural" slant that makes us identify it with the places where it happens. Evil becomes thus both general, universal, and particular. The nightmare gains familiarity, reality." ­ Etel Adnan, author of Sitt Marie Rose and In the Heart of Another Country

Sinan Antoon's novel traces, across time, space and faces, how the life of a young generation under a barbaric regime becomes an existential minefield. Life is no more what it is. Everything is a trace of itself. Even daily language is cluttered with debris from the mines of hell. Incessantly targeted in a nightmarish atmosphere, the individual can only save him/herself with the stubbornness of an animal." ­ Saadi Youssef, author ofWithout an Alphabet, Without a Face: Selected Poems

"In this beautiful and brilliant novel, Sinan Antoon expresses the voice of those whose voices were robbed by oppression, stressing the fact that literature can at times be the only framework to protect human experiences from falling into oblivion. I`jaam is an honest and exciting window onto Iraq, written with both love and bitter sarcasm, hope and despair. It does
not only illuminate reality in Iraq prior to the American invasion, but also the human experience in its insistence on resisting oppression and injustice." ­ Elias Khoury, author of Gate of the Sun

"Brief, bitter and bracing, I'jaam displays all the dangerous prismatic grace and light of shattered glass. Nuanced and direct, Antoon's razor-sharp voice rises out of the prisons and mass graves of Iraq during the era when Saddam Hussein enjoyed U.S. government support and no one heard these voices silenced in their tens and hundreds of thousands. The hopeful tenderness of this voice goes on speaking now, and we can be grateful that a new translation allows us, finally, to hear it. In this time of endless war, it tells (again) a story we needed so many lives ago." ­ Sesshu Foster, author of Atomik Aztex

Sinan Antoon (Baghdad, 1967) has published in leading international journals and has co-directed, "About Baghdad," an acclaimed documentary about Iraq under U.S. occupation. In June 2007, Harbor Mountain Press will be publishing a book of poetry by Sinan, The Baghdad Blues.