How is it possible to theorize not only on the so-called Global South, but also in, from, and through it? What appears as the universal often involves a gestureduc of generalization, flattening and dominating the particular, predominantly from a Eurocentric perspective.
This workshop will discuss ways to unsettle the very distinction between the general and the particular that underlies claims to universality and simultaneously retain the claim to the universal that makes theorization generative and relevant. In this vein, it will reflect on the following questions: How are theoretical affinities transformed through contexts in the Global South? How can theoretical work be made relevant to the larger audience beyond particular region or area studies? What are possible strategies to present the theoretical impact of one’s work despite its constant peripheralization as a case study? How can one maintain a critique of the Eurocentric gaze without falling into the traps of ethnocentrism? What are the affordances that particular disciplines and institutions could offer to tackle such theoretical and methodological challenges? What methodologies can be employed to expand, if not transform, current understandings of the universal?
Scholars from a variety of fields who undertake such inquiries are invited to jointly develop novel methods, approaches, and styles of knowledge production and circulation.
In English
14:00 Introduction
by
Özgün Eylül İşcen and Iracema Dulley
14:15 – 16:00 Panel I – Beyond Singularity
Juliana Streva
Relational Zones: Assembling Encruzilhada
Nader Talebi
Politics of Knowledge Production: Nativism in Iran
Iracema Dulley
This Has a Name: Notes on Witchcraft, Tautology, and Ethnographic Theory
Discussant: Kai Kresse
Moderator: Xenia Chiaramonte
16:00 Coffee Break
17:00 – 19:00 Panel II – Aesthetic Mediation and Collectivity
Özgür Çiçek
Challenges for Enriching Critical Thinking on the Minor Subject:
Decolonizing Minor Aesthetics
Özgün Eylül İşcen
The Geopolitical Aesthetic of Digital Media and Theorizing Through Arts
Rosalia Namsai Engchuan
Thinking Nearby: Making and Holding Space as a Method for Collective Theorization
Discussant: Rosa Castillo
Moderator: Sam Dolbear
14:00 – 16:00 Panel III – Beyond Disciplines
Firoozeh Farvardin
Unsettling ‘the South’ in the Global South:
Reflections from within Iranian studies
Anaheed Al-Hardan
Empires, Colonialism and the Global South in Sociology
Bernardo Bianchi
On the Meanings of Knowledge:
Between Epistemic Authority and Subversion
Sarath Jakka
Beyond the Excluded Middle:
Thinking Through a Plural Logic
Discussant: Kerry Bystrom
Moderator: Özgün Eylül İşcen
16:00 Coffee Break
17:00 – 19:00 Panel IV – Dialogical Encounters
Amina El-Halawani
Where is North? And What is South? A Reading of Derek Walcott’s
A Branch of the Blue Nile and Frank Maguinness’s Carthaginians
Mahmoud Al-Zayed
Decolonizing/Re-Locating Theory:
Notes from Frantz Fanon and Malek Bennabi
Burcu Alkan
Theorizing World Literature from the Threshold:
Turkish Literature as World Literature
Discussant: Clara Ruvituso
Moderator: Iracema Dulley
Organized by
Iracema Dulley and Özgün Eylül İşcen
With
Poster design: Studio BENS based on a collage © Claudia Peppel, 2019 (detail)
