Trans-formations: Theorizing Class and Race in the 21st century

Veranstalter: Prof. Dr. Sieglinde Lemke

Marked as it was by 9/11, the Bush presidency, Hurricane Katrina, the financial meltdown, the election and presidency of Barack Obama, the first decade of the new millennium has been a time of rapid change in American cultural and societal life. The rise of postcolonialism, black, gender, and ethnic studies has been among the most pertinent critical interventions in the late twentieth century. These new disciplines made an indelible mark in the fields of literary and cultural studies as they led to a fundamental rethinking of the concept of representation. Working from the premise of the 00’s as a decade of transformations, this conference presents cutting edge research in further reconceptualizing class and race. Scholars who shaped the critical framework in the fields of postcolonial and black studies will convene to share their current research. This conference aims, then, to define a new critical paradigm for theorizing race and class.

Contact for guest auditors: freiburg.transformations@googlemail.com

June 17, 2010
Location: University Building 1 – KG I [HS 1199]

17.30-18.00
Welcome Address

WERNER FRICK
Professor of Comparative Literature
Director – FRIAS School of Literature

Visual Essay

SIEGLINDE LEMKE
Professor of American Studies
Conference Organizer

18.00-19.30
GAYATRI CHAKRAVORTY SPIVAK [Columbia University]
Gender, Race and Class: Three Women’s Texts
Introduced by Dr. Miriam Nandi

June 18, 2010
Location: Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

9.00-10.15
PAULA MOYA [Stanford University]
Doing Race in the 21st Century:
Eight Conversations
Introduced by Prof. Horst Tonn

10.15-10.45
Coffee & Pastries

10.45-12.45

YOUNG ACADEMICS WORKSHOP
Florian Groß (Hannover)
Nicole Hirschfelder (Tübingen)
Marlon Lieber (Frankfurt)
Anne Overbeck (Münster)
Christopher Young (Freiburg)
Moderated by Prof. Ulla Haselstein

12.45-16.00
Lunch

16.00-17.30

HENRY LOUIS GATES [Harvard University]
Faces of America (Screening / Q&A via Skype)

17.30-19.00

Dinner

19.00-20.15

University Building 1 – KG I [HS 1098]
MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL [Princeton University]
Embodying Blackness: Michelle Obama and the Politics of Black Women’s Citizenship
Introduced by Prof. Hanjo Berressem

20.30
Prometheushalle, University Building 1 – KG I Open to the public/Öffentlich
Reception

June 19, 2010
Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

9.30-10.45
CHRIS NEWFIELD [UC Santa Barbara]
What’s Left of Obama’s Presidency?
Introduced by Prof. Susanne Rohr

10.45-11.15
Coffee & Pastries

11.15-12.30

RAMÓN SALDÍVAR [Stanford University]
Speculative Realism and the Post-Race Aesthetic:
Transformations in Contemporary American Fiction
Introduced by Dr. Laura Bieger

12.30-13.00
Concluding Remarks: FORM-ATIONS
SIEGLINDE LEMKE

Program (Print Version)