Take Back the Night! Thurs. at 7 p.m.

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Take Back the Night is an annual march for survivors of sexual violence that began in the 1970s. Today at Wesleyan we carry on this work through our own march. The march will include two speak out circles and a candle lighting ceremony and will be followed by debriefing session in Usdan 110. We invite you to give survivors a voice and to show as a community that we will not tolerate sexual violence on our campus.Thank you.

Where: Olin Steps
When: Thursday, April 7th, 7 P.M.

From the Olin Steps, we will be marching to the CFA Courtyard and then to Andrus Field where survivors can share their stories. Please feel free to join us late. We hope we can count on you to join us for this important event!

Shasha Seminar: Prof. Nell Irvin Painter–“What the History of White People Can Tell Us about Race in America” Sat., 4/9–8 p.m.

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The 9th Annual Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns

Keynote Address by Nell Irvin Painter

“What the History of White People Can Tell Us about Race in America”

Saturday, April 9, 2011    8:00 p.m.

Memorial Chapel

 Americans are likely to think first and only of black people when the topic of race arises.  But in the past Americans considered as white were assigned to a hierarchical spectrum of different white races.  This fascinating history suggests some ideas about the functions of racial categorization in science and in everyday life.   

Nell Irvin Painter is Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University. The former president of the Organization of American Historians  and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she is the author of seven books, including Standing at Armageddon (1987), Sojourner Truth (1996), and The History of White People (2010). In addition to her scholarly life, Nell Painter currently is pursuing an MFA in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Lecture: Prof. Daniel Kim–“Black Korea, 1950-53: African Americans & the Conflict in Korea” Wed., 6 p.m.

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English Department Lecture Series
Daniel Kim
Associate Professor of English, Brown University

“Black Korea, 1950-53: African Americans and the Conflict in Korea”

Wednesday, April 6, 6pm
Downey House, 113

The talk is taken from Professor Kim’s current book project, The Korean War in Color.  In it, Kim examines U.S. cultural representations of the Korean War in an interracial and transnational framework, focusing on depictions of Asians, Asian Americans and African Americans.  Working against the historical erasure of this event, the book returns us to novels, films, and journalistic accounts from the 1950s to bring into focus the watershed role that the war played in the framing of dominant liberal narratives of race and empire.  

Daniel Kim is the author of Writing Manhood in Black and Yellow: Ralph Ellison, Frank Chin, and the Literary Politics of Identity (Stanford University Press, 2005). Generated at the intersections of feminist, gender, gay/lesbian and ethnic studies, this book examines literary representations of racialized masculinity, and it is the first study to do so in a comparative – African American and Asian American – context. He has published essays in American Literary History, Criticism, Journal of Asian American Studies, and Novel: A Forum on Fiction.

Students and faculty from across the university are warmly welcome for what we hope will be a convivial and exciting event.

For more information, please contact Amy Tang (x3595 or atang@wesleyan.edu).

PTIR Talk: Prof. F. Christine Fair on Lashkar-e-Taiba & Pakistan — 4/7

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Dr. F. Christine Fair, Georgetown University

“Lashkar-e-Taiba and Pakistan”

Thurs., April 7, 2011   4:30-6:00 p.m.    PAC 001

Reception to Follow

Dr. Fair is an assistant professor in the Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS), within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, she has served as a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation, a political officer to the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, and a senior research associate in USIP’s Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. She is also a senior fellow with the Counter Terrorism Center at West Point. Dr. Fair holds a B.S. in Biological Chemistry, an M.A. in Public Policy, an M.A in South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and a Ph.D. in South Asian Languages and Civilizations, all from the University of Chicago. Her research focuses upon political and military affairs in South Asia. She has authored, co-authored, and co-edited several books including Treading Softly on Sacred Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations on Sacred Space (Oxford University Press, 2008), The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (USIP, 2008), Fortifying Pakistan: The Role of U.S. Internal Security Assistance (USIP, 2006); among others, and has written numerous peer-reviewed articles covering a range of security issues in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. She is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the editorial board of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism.

This event is sponsored by the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life and the Program on Terrorism and Insurgency Research. For more information, please contact Erica Chenoweth at echenoweth@wesleyan.edu. Click here for information on future PTIR Speaker Series events.

FGSS Diane Weiss Memorial Lecture: The Queer Art of Failure — 4/7

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The 24th Annual Diane Weiss ’80 Memorial Lecture: 

“The Queer Art of Failure ”

J. Jack Halberstam, Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Gender Studies, USC

Thursday, April 7, 2011  —  8:00 p.m.  —  PAC 001

ALL ARE WELCOME! 

J. Jack Halberstam is Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. Halberstam works in the areas of popular, visual and queer culture with an emphasis on subcultures.  Her work on female masculinity refutes the notion that butch lesbians are just imitations of “real men” and instead locates gender variance within a lively and dramatic staging of hybrid and minority genders. Her ground-breaking 1998 book, Female Masculinity, tracks the impact of female masculinity upon hegemonic genders. Halberstam’s last book, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (2005), described and theorized queer reconfigurations of time and space in relation to subcultural scenes and the emergence of transgender visibility. The book explores queer uses of time and space that have developed in opposition to the institutions of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction. She also blogs at bullybloggers.com and has just finished a book, the title of which is also the title of her Weiss lecture. The Queer Art of Failure will be published by Duke University Press.

 

Apply to be a Peer Career Advisor Next Year!

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The CRC is accepting applications for its coveted Peer Career Advisor position for the next academic year.  The job pays well, is in a fun and friendly work environment, and will transition from the Butts to our new location next to Usdan in January 2012. 

For details, go to the MyCRC calendar > April 12 > and click on Peer Career Advisor. 

If you have any questions, contact Jim Kubat at the CRC: jkubat@wes

“Law & Lit: Who Owns It?” 4/1–4:30 p.m.

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Eva Geulen (Bonn University), “Law and Literature: Who Owns It?”

Friday, April 1, 4:30 p.m., Russell House

Co-sponsored by German Studies, History, COL, Sociology, English, the Dean of the Social Sciences, and the Center for the Humanities.

Eva Geulen’s talk will examine the historically and conceptually fraught relationship between law and literature from four points of view: 1. The common history and shared heritage of law and literature; 2. law as literature; 3. literature vs. law; 4. literature in law.

Eva Geulen received her Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University and has taught at the University of Rochester and at New York University.  Currently, she is professor of modern German literature at Bonn University. She has published widely in the areas of modern narrative prose, discourses of education, gender studies, and aesthetics. Her books include The End of Art: Readings in a Rumor after Hegel (Stanford UP 2006) and Giorgio Agamben zur Einführung [Introducing Giorgio Agamben] (Junius 2005; second, revised edition 2009).

Amb. Marwan Mu’asher: “Redefining Arab Moderation” 3/31, 5 p.m.

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Ambassador Marwan Mu’asher:  “Redefining Arab Moderation”

 Thursday, March 31, 5:00 p.m.   Russell House 

Marian Mu’asher is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, where he oversees the Endowment’s research in Washington and Beirut on the Middle East. Mu’asher served as foreign minister (2002-04) and deputy prime minister (2004­-05) of Jordan, and his career has spanned the areas of diplomacy, development, civil society, and communications. He is also a senior fellow at Yale University.

Mu’asher began his career as a journalist for the Jordan Times. He then served at the Ministry of Planning, at the prime minister’s office as press adviser, and as director of the Jordan Information Bureau in Washington. In 1995, Mu’asher opened Jordan’s first embassy in Israel, and in 1996 became minister of information and the government spokesperson. From 1997 to 2002, he served in Washington again as ambassador, negotiating the first free trade agreement between the United States and an Arab nation. He then returned to Jordan to serve as foreign minister, where he played a central role in developing the Arab Peace Initiative and the Middle East Road Map.

In 2004 he became deputy prime minister responsible for reform and government performance, and led the effort to produce a ten-year plan for political, economic, and social reform. From 2006 to 2007, he was a member of the Jordanian Senate.  Most recently, he was senior vice president of external affairs at the World Bank from 2007 to 2010.

He is the author of The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation (Yale University Press, 2008).