February 22, 2017 UCHI FELLOWS TALK
Dimitris Xygalatas (Anthropology)
‘Extreme rituals: ritualized suffering as a social technology’
Get to know our Fellows: Four Questions with Dimitris Xygalatas
Feb. 21, 2017, 6:00 PM at the University of Connecticut’s Konover Auditorium
At a time of international unrest and misunderstanding, the UConn Storrs campus will host an evening of talks by three distinguished translators of world literature to discuss how translation can protect and celebrate human rights across the boundaries of language.
Carles Torner – Executive Director PEN International, the world’s leading international literary and human rights organization – will join acclaimed translators Edith Grossman and Esther Allen on Feb. 21, 6PM at the University of Connecticut’s Konover Auditorium. Their subject: the key role that translation plays in protecting human rights through the sharing and preservation of world literature.
In her genre-defining book Why Translation Matters, Grossman writes: “Despotic governments are willing to go to extraordinary lengths in their usually successful, tragic official efforts to control, restrict, and narrow access to the spoken and written word.” Join us as we celebrate the spoken and written word, and explore the ways a new generation of translators can contribute to this important work.
This event is co-sponsored by UConn’s Humanities Institute and Human Rights Institute.
Date: Tuesday, February 21st, 6PM, with opening reception
Location: Konover Auditorium, Thomas J. Dodd Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
Participant biographies:
Carles Torner is Executive Director of PEN International; he is a literary translator and has published several books of poetry in Catalan, the most recent being La núvia d’Europa (Europe’s bride, 2009). In 1998 he was awarded the National Critic’s Award for Viure després (Life afterwards). His most
recent collection of fiction and nonfiction essays is L’arca de Babel (Babel’s arch, 2005). He has held senior positions in PEN International (1993-2004), and is at present the Head of the Literature and the Humanities Department of the Institut Ramon Llull, which aims for the international promotion and translation of Catalan literature.
Edith Grossman is a translator and critic, the recipient of awards and honors including Fulbright, Woodrow Wilson, and Guggenheim Fellowships, the PEN Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Queen Sofía Translation Prize, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Grossman has brought over into English poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by major Latin American writers, including Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, Álvaro Mutis, Mayra Montero, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Peninsular works that she has translated include Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes, novels by Julián Ríos, Carmen Laforet, Carlos Rojas, and Antonio Muñoz Molina, poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, The Solitudes of Luis de Góngora, and the Exemplary Novels of Miguel de Cervantes.
Esther Allen is a writer and translator who teaches in the CUNY Graduate Center Ph.D. Programs in French and in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages, and at Baruch College, CUNY. Among her many translations are works by Jorge Luis Borges, Gustave Flaubert, and Jose Marti. A two-time recipient of National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowships, she has been a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers and at at the Grad Center’s Leon Levy Center for Biography. She co-founded the PEN World Voices Festival in 2005, and has worked with the PEN/Heim Translation Fund since its inception in 2003 . In 2006, the French government named her a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres and in 2012 she received the Feliks Gross Award from the CUNY Academy for the Arts and Sciences. Her most recent translation is of Antonio Di Benedetto’s 1956 classic Zama, published by New York Review Books Classics.
For more information, please contact:
Peter Constantine, Director, Program in Literary Translation
peter.constantine@uconn.edu
917-704-1140
Brian Sneeden, Graduate Assistant, Program in Literary Translation
brian.sneeden@uconn.edu
828-776-3855
I find ritual to be one of the most fascinating aspects of human conduct. It is a truly universal behavior, but we don’t think about it too much – we just do it. As an ethnographer, whenever I ask people why they perform their rituals, they typically respond along these lines: “that’s just what we do”; “we’ve always done it this way”; “this is who we are”. So, there is a sense of salience and sacredness about these practices; people agree that rituals are important to them, but more often than not they have no justification for why they are important. I find this quite puzzling, especially in the context of painful or stressful rituals, so the kinds of questions I am asking are concerned with what these costly activities offer to those who engage in them.
UConn’s Humility and Conviction in Public Life project announces $2 million in fellowship grants for projects that will delve into newsrooms, classrooms and the halls of Congress
What’s in a name? The creation of the United States of America made us a democracy and a republic. That creation story and the players in it are very much with us. “Hamilton,” is one of the biggest Broadway hits and presents founders Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr as flesh and blood men. With their flashes of brilliance and crippling personal deficits they invent a new government.
Politics has occupied public attention for the past year as we elected a new U.S. president. So a deeper dive into documents created by our founders is especially timely.
The Hartford History Center at Hartford Public Library, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and the University of Connecticut’s Humanities Institute, are launching a community engagement partnership with a new discussion series called Encounters. The partners will provide discussion leaders to engage in topics aimed at strengthening our ability to know ourselves and one another through respectful and challenging dialogue. This February and March, Encounters will focus on the fundamental documents that define our democracy.
NANCY FRASER, THE NEW SCHOOL
PAPER WORKSHOP, 2.7.17, 1:30-3:00 PM
BABBIDGE LIBRARY 4th FLOOR ROOM 4/209
CONTACT FRED.LEE@UCONN.EDU FOR A COPY OF THE PAPER
FROM EXPLOITATION TO EXPROPRIATION:
ON RACIAL OPPRESSION IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY
NANCY FRASER, THE NEW SCHOOL
PUBLIC LECTURE, 2.7.17, 3:30-5:00 pm
BABBIDGE LIBRARY CLASS OF 1947 ROOM
Exploitation-centered conceptions of capitalism cannot explain its persistent entanglement with racial oppression. In their place, I suggest an expanded conception that also encompasses an ongoing but disavowed moment of expropriation; in so doing, I disclose (1) the crucial role played in capital accumulation by unfree, dependent labor and (2) the equally indispensable role of politically enforced status distinctions between free, exploitable citizen-workers and dependent, expropriable subjects. Treating such political distinctions as constitutive of capitalist society and as correlated with the “color line,” I demonstrate that the racialized subjection of those whom capital expropriates is a condition of possibility for the freedom of those whom it exploits.
Nancy Fraser is Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor at the New School for Social Research and is Vice-President and President-Elect of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division. She is also Professor II at the Centre for Gender Research at the University of Oslo and holds the Chair in «Global Justice» at the Collège d’études mondiales, Paris. Her most recent books are Domination et anticipation: pour un renouveau de la critique, with Luc Boltanski (2014); Transnationalizing the Public Sphere: Nancy Fraser debates her Critics (2014); and Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis (2013).
Sponsored by the Political Theory Workshop, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Asian/Asian American Studies, Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology, THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT HUMANITIES INSTITUTE.
Tonight’s event – “What’s at Stake?” – will be postponed due to inclement weather; a new date will be announced soon.
As Donald Trump begins his presidency, please join students and scholars for a thoughtful exchange on this unique moment in American political history. “What’s at Stake?” is a space for reflection, contemplation, and conversation that is respectful of diverse viewpoints.
This event is free and open to the public.
PROGRAM:
7:00 p.m. The Stakes of U.S. Politics, Law, and Citizenship
– Bethany Berger, Wallace Stevens Professor of Law
– R. Kent Newmyer, Professor of Law and Emeritus Professor of History
– Douglas Spencer, Associate Professor of Law and Public Policy
– David Yalof, Professor and Head of Political Science
– Moderated by Jeffrey Shoulson, Professor and Director, Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life
7:45 p.m. The Stakes of American Media, Culture, and Race
– Maureen Croteau, Professor and Head of Journalism
– Melina Pappademos, Associate Professor of History and Director of Africana Studies
– Cathy Schlund-Vials, Professor of English and Director of Asian and Asian American Studies
– Christopher Vials, Associate Professor of English and Director of American Studies
– Moderated by Davita Silfen Glasberg, Interim Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
8:30 p.m. Student-Led Discussion
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This event will be Sign Language interpreted.
Laurel Hall is accessible to persons with disabilities and persons who are wheelchair users. Assistive listening devices (ALD) are available upon advance request.
For individuals requiring an ALD or other accommodations, please contact Maryann Markowski at (860)486‐3639 or Maryann.Markowski@uconn.edu, by Thursday, January 26 to help us to ensure availability. Please understand that failure to provide adequate notice may result in accommodations not being available.
We encourage you to visit the Center for Students with Disabilities website to review accessible parking and building (entrances, elevators, restrooms) information.
Live stream the event at: https://mediasite.dl.uconn.edu/Mediasite/Play/250f813baaaf4e619af4de638515c2ea1d
Contact:
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (primary), Africana Studies Institute, American Studies, Asian American Studies Institute, Communication Department, Judaic Studies, UConn Master Calendar
How did you arrive at this topic?
Honestly, it was the realization I described in the last question. Victim agency was more complicated than I was appreciating — maybe even too complicated for the straightforward principles and clean verdicts of academic philosophy. I began my research talking about obligations to self, and why resistance was important for victims. But the more I examined these cases, the more I understood that we don’t actually get very far by talking about resistance. Of course it’s good. The problem is that, for victims, complicity can also be good. It can often unlock all the same benefits as resistance, and do so with diminished risk and fewer potential costs. So we can’t just dismiss complicity as mere selfishness or an insensitivity to the demands of justice. It’s a strategy for dealing with oppressive burdens, not a way to avoid dealing with them.
As you can imagine, I gradually stopped writing about resistance, and the focus of my research changed. And while I was coming to this realization, ‘passing’ was the example I kept coming back to. Partly because it presents a fascinating, messy, real-world dilemma for ethical systems. Partly because it’s so timely, with many recent cases receiving national attention. Partly because there are so many applications, like understanding so-called ‘reverse passing’ and the possibility of trans-race identities, reaching careful conclusions about how to navigate daily life with an ‘inauthentic’ identity, and making sense of invisible disabilities like mental illness. And partly because, well, navigating the pros and cons of passing is personal for me. (You should never 100% trust an academic whose research focus is passing.)
What impact might your work have on a larger public understanding of your topic?
We badly need an ethics of looking out for yourself. The trick is, the phrase ‘looking out for yourself’ has both negative and positive connotations. It can be a term of reproach for individuals that shirk their obligations or opt out of a shared struggle against oppression. But it can also be a term of praise for people that take care of themselves in circumstances that threaten their well-being, and for those who strive to live the life they want despite the burdens they face. Complicit Identity cases are challenging because these individuals ‘look out for themselves’ in both senses of the phrase, upending simple verdicts about the importance of resistance and the impermissibility of complicity. So while my project presents a framework for understanding victimhood and passing that moves beyond familiar, misguided debates about deception and authenticity, I hope it can also say something about a dilemma we all face: how to balance what we owe ourselves with what we owe others in times of injustice.
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