LATITUDES
 

Graduate Reading Group for Empire, Race, Postcolonialism, Transnationalism, & Globalization

Spring 2013 SCHEDULE:

Mon. Feb. 4th at 6:00 pm in Fisher-Bennett Hall 401: "New Directions in Caribbean Studies" with Deborah Thomas (Penn Anthropology) and Lewis Gordon (Temple Philosophy, Center for Afro-Jewish Studies) with Rachel Ellis Neyra (Penn English) as a respondent. Titles and pre-circulated material TBA. Reception to follow at 7:30 pm in Fisher-Bennett Hall 330 (Grad Lounge). 

Mon. Feb. 25th at 5:30 pm: Kai Kresse (Zentrum Moderner Berlin, Columbia MESAAS). Selections from "Between Africa and India: thinking comparatively across the western Indian Ocean," "Muslim politics in postcolonial Kenya: negotiating knowledge on the double-periphery" and Philosophizing Mombasa to be pre-circulated. 

Mon. Mar. 25th at 5:30 pm: David Kazanjian (Penn English) work-in-progress. Title and pre-circulated material TBA. 

Mon. Apr. 8th at 5:30 pm: Marina Bilbija (Penn English) work-in-progress. Title and pre-circulated material TBA. 

Fall 2012 SCHEDULE:

Mon. Sept. 17th at 5:30 pm: Introductory Meeting and Readings: Introduction to Brown Over Black by Antoinette Burton and "The Empire Effect" by Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper. Please email the coordinators for copies of the readings. 

Thurs. Oct. 4th at 6:00 pm: Nico Slate (CMU) presents and discusses his book Colored Cosmopolitanism. Please email the coordinators for the pre-circulated selections from this book. Cosponsored by AmLit. 

DATE AND LOCATION CHANGE: Wed. Nov. 7th at 5:30 pm, FB 112: Readings on the Cold War, Civil Rights and Decolonization. Please email the coordinators for the pre-circulated readings. 

Mon. Nov. 19th at 5:30 pm: Work-in-Progress by Chi-ming Yang (Penn), "Racial Ornamentalism: Memory, Ethnography, and the Craft of Chinoiserie." Please email the coordinators for copies of the pre-circulated reading. 

Tues. Nov. 20th at 5:30 pm: Susan Z.Andrade (UPitt) discusses her latest book The Nation Writ Small: African Fictions and Feminisms, 1958-1988 as well as her recent article "Realism, Reception, 1968, and West Africa". MLQ 2012 (73:3). Please email the coordinators for copies of the pre-circulated reading. 

Mon. Nov. 26th at 5:30 pm: Work-in-Progress by Yumi Lee, Penn. Tentative title: "From the 38th Parallel to the Rio Grande: Genealogies of U.S. Empire in Rolando Hinojosa's Klail City Death Trip Series". Please email the coordinators for copies of pre-circulated reading. 

2011-2012 Schedule (Archived)

Spring 

Wed. Jan. 20 @ 7pm: Panel Discussion on the Philadelphia Youth Curfew Law. Featuring Philadelphia Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, Penn Social Policy Professor T.J. Ghose, and Penn State Ph.D. Candidate Vanessa Massaro. Van Pelt Library, Room 223, Meyerson Conference Room. Recommended Reading: "The War on Teenage Terrorists" and the Curfew Bill.

Thurs., Jan. 26: Work-in-Progress by David Eng, Penn. This event will take place in the Faculty Lounge, FBH 135.

Tues. Feb. 21: "The Sound of Blackface: Race in Performance on the 18th-Century British Stage." Work-in-Progress by Ashley Cohen, Penn. Co-sponsored by Eighteenth-Century Reading Group.

Tues. Feb. 28 @ 4:30: Presentation, "U.S. Empire and Queer Transnationalism," by Meg Wesling, U.C. San Diego with Faculty Respondents Heather Love and Josephine Park. This event will be held in the Faculty Lounge. Co-sponsored by Penn English, Penn History, The Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality and Women, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, GASAM, and GenSex. This event will take place in the Faculty Lounge, FBH 135.

Wed. Feb. 29 @ 11:30am: Lunchtime Discussion on Publishing and Archival Research Methods with Meg Wesling. This event will take place in the Grad Lounge, FBH 330.

Mon. March 12 @ 6pm: Discussion of readings in preparation for the 'Transnationalism: A Useful Category of Analysis?' Conference to be held at Penn from March 15-16. This event will take place in the Faculty Lounge, FBH 135.

Tues. March 20 @ 6pm: Presentation, "Consuming Surgery Offshore," by Aren Aizura, Rutgers University. This event will take place in the Faculty Lounge, FBH 135. Co-sponsored with GenSex.

Tues. March 27: Discussion of readings in preparation for South African Poet Laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile's visit to Penn on Thursday, April 5 @ 6pm at the Kelly Writers House (3805 Locust Walk).

Tues. April 10: Presentation, "Late Coltrane, Experimental Tonality, and the Critical Resonance of Black International Sound," by Carter Mathes, Rutgers University. This event will take place in FBH 401. Co-sponsored by the Center for Africana Studies.

Mon. April 16 @ 5pm: Presentation, "Thinking Difference Differently," by Kandice Chuh, CUNY Grad Center. Co-sponsored with Asian-American Studies. Please see here for a bio and an abstract of Prof. Chuh's talk.

Tues. April 17: Presentation, "Exception, Universality, and the Subject of Rights: Dalit Engagements with Global Thought" by Anupama Rao, Columbia University. This event will take place in FBH 401. Co-sponsored by GenSex and The Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality and Women.

Mon. April 30 @ 5pm: End-of-the-Year Latitudes Party.

Fall

Tues., Sept. 27 @ 5:30 pm: Welcome to Latitudes and Introductory Readings: "Is Postcolonial Dissent Possible in South Asia?" We will be discussing the following articles: "Rise of the Anti-Political," "Democracy and Economic Transformation in India,"I'd Rather Not Be Anna," and "Walking with the Comrades."

Tues., Oct. 4: Work-in-Progress by Chris Taylor, Penn: "'The Freebooters of the Manchester School' and the Caribbean 1848."

Thurs., Oct. 13: Presentation, "V.S. Naipaul and the Birth of Postcolonial Literature," by V.S. Naipaul Biographer, Patrick French. Co-sponsored by Penn English. This event will take place in FBH 401 with a reception to follow in the Faculty Lounge (FBH 135). Recommended Readings: "'Like Oliver Twist in the Workhouse'" and "'Something Rich Like Chocolate'" from V.S. Naipaul biography, The World Is What It Is.

Tues., Oct. 25: Roundtable Discussion, "Postapartheid Modernism and Consumer Culture," with Profs. Michael Valdez Moses (Duke), Rita Barnard (Penn), and Jed Esty (Penn). Co-sponsored by Mods.

Tues. Nov. 8 @ 3pm: Meet-and-Greet with Lauren Goodlad, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, followed by a screening of Mad Men S1E6, "Babylon." Sponsored by Mods.

Tues., Nov. 8 @ 6pm: Discussion of Lauren Goodlad's forthcoming book, The Victorian Geopolitical Aesthetic. Sponsored by Mods.

Tues., Nov. 15: Discussion on Global Southern Queer and Feminist Intersections. Co-sponsored by GenSex and The Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality and Women.

Tues., Dec. 6: Prof. Simon Gikandi, Princeton University. Discussion of recent book, Slavery and the Culture of Taste. Dinner Reception to follow in the Faculty Lounge, FBH 135. Co-sponsored by Mods, Eighteenth-Century Reading Group, and the Center for Africana Studies.