Abolish Human Bans: Intertwined Histories of Architecture
Esra Akcan, Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory, Department of Architecture, Cornell University
Cornell AAP faculty member Esra Akcan speaks about her recently published book, Abolish Human Bans: Intertwined Histories of Architecture (CCA 2022). Published as part of the CCA Singles series, Esra Akcan builds on her theory of architectural translation to construct an activist gesture—through the lens of architectural history—against the anti-immigration policies of ruling powers. To contest the alleged inaccessibility of seven countries specifically vilified by the United States government, Akcan explores case studies from Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iran, and Yemen, tracing some of the transportations and transformations of architecture in each. The projects in this book demonstrate that modern architectural histories are global and intertwined, and frame questions as to whether architects can commit their ethical and political compasses to peace rather than to dominant geopolitical regimes. Andrew Scheinman, editor at the Canadian Center for Architecture (CCA) speaks after the talk to introduce the book as part of the center’s innovative CCA Singles series. This recording is a hybrid event with audiences attending in person on on Zoom.
Esra Akcan is Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory, Department of Architecture. Akcan's research on modern and contemporary architecture and urbanism foregrounds the intertwined histories of Europe and West Asia and offers new ways to understand architecture's role in global, social, and environmental justice.
April 20, 2022
Fanon, Phenomenology and Psychiatry
Jean Khalfa, Fellow and Senior Lecturer in French Studies, Trinity College, University of Cambridge
Fanon’s phenomenological and psychiatric references are both obvious and intriguing in all of his political works. They seem to determine his interpretation of the colonial situation and the decolonizing processes he was deeply involved in, in Martinique, Algeria as well as in Subsaharan Africa. In Black Skin, White Masks (1952), the effect of the racist gaze upon its victim is described as and alienation via a destruction of the “body schema, ”a notion borrowed from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who himself imported it into phenomenology from psychiatry. In The Wretched of the Earth (1961) Fanon describes the colonial situation in the same terms as he had described classical psychiatric internment and presents participation in an anti-colonial struggle as a form of disalienation similar to the techniques of psychiatric social therapy which he had pioneered in his clinical work.
With the recent publication of 800 pages of lost or forgotten material by Fanon, Alienation and Freedom (2018 and 2020) (Écrits sur l’aliénation et la liberté, 2015, 2019), it is now possible to see that rather than providing simple analogies, Fanon’s phenomenological and psychiatric reflections are the foundations of his political thought, and what has made it so enduring.
March 20, 2022
Connecting Art Histories Across Africa and Asia
This presentation reflects on Connecting Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia (MAHASSA) project, which brought together a team of international faculty and emerging scholars to investigate the cultural histories of these regions. Shaped by shared developments, these regions are marked by similar experiences that include the rise of modern art practices associated with the withdrawal of colonialism and the consolidation of nationalism, the founding of institutions such as the art school and the museum, and increasing exchange with international metropolitan centers via travel and the movement of ideas through publications and exhibitions. MAHASSA emphasized a connected and contextualized approach to better understand both common developments as well as divergent trajectories, and included two intensive 10-day workshops, Hong Kong (Aug 2019), and Dhaka (Feb 2020).
MAHASSA is a partnership between Asia Art Archive, Dhaka Art Summit, and Cornell University’s , and has been generously supported by Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories initiative.
Speakers: Diana Campbell Betancourt, Iftikhar Dadi, Anissa Rahadiningtyas, Muhammad Nafisur Rahman, Amie Soudien, Akshaya Tankha, John Tain, Ming Tiampo
October 12, 2020
Anti-Racism, Activism and Institutional Change
A conversation with Cornell faculty and students about the obstacles and opportunities the present moment has raised for anti-racism and activism in the university and elsewhere.
Speakers: Russell Rickford (Department of History) and student activists from across the College of Arts and Sciences: Max Greenberg, Kun Huang, Bwesigye Mwesigire, Estefania Perez, Jessica Diaz Rodriguez, Krinal Thakkar, and Kevin Zong, Moderated by Derek Chang (Department of History, Asian American Studies Program) and Shelley Wong (Department of English, Asian American Studies Program)
October 14, 2020
From One Arab Spring to Another: A Regional Revolutionary Process
Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations, SOAS University of London
Discussants: Ziad Fahmy, Professor, Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University; Samia Henni, Assistant Professor, Architecture; Fouad Makki, Associate Professor, Global Development, Cornell University
September 30, 2020
Health, Inequality and Pandemics
Panelists: Jamila Michener, Assistant Professor, Department of Government, Cornell University
Suman Seth, Marie Underhill Noll Professor of the History of Science, Department of Science & Technology Studies, Cornell University
Moderators/co-hosts: Fouad M. Makki, Director, The Polson Institute for Global Development, Associate Professor, Department of Global Development, Cornell University
Natalie Melas, Resident Director, ICM, Department of Comparative Literature, Cornell University
May 21, 2020
CAMP: Cinema at a Time of More Cameras than People
Shaina Anand Filmmaker and Artist, CAMP, Mumbai September 27, 2019
Aesthetic Economies
Pedro Erber
Associate Professor of Luso-Brazilian Studies, Romance Studies, Cornell University
October 24, 2018
Reading Édouard Glissant
Jacques Coursil
Independent Scholar and Jazz Musician
August 30, 2018
The Colonial Genealogies of Fascisms in Europe
Eleni Varikas
Emeritus Professor, Political Theory and Gender Studies, Université Paris 8/Saint-Denis
Researcher, Centre de Recherches Sociologiques et Politiques de Paris Cresppa (CNRS)
April 11, 2018
Marxism and Romantic Anticapitalism
Michael Löwy
Emeritus Research Director at the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research)
Lecturer, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
March 27, 2018
The Disinformation Age: The Collapse of Liberal Democracy in the United States
Eric Cheyfitz
Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters
English Department, Cornell University
February 13, 2018
Homo Oeconomicus of the 'New Turkey': Urban Development in the 2000s
Esra Akcan
Associate Professor, Architecture, Cornell University
Director, Cornell Institute for European Studies
October 19, 2017
Juridical Colonialism, International Law, and the Ottoman Response
Mostafa Minawi
Assistant Professor, History, Cornell University
Director, Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative
November 29, 2017
Objects from the Deep
Naiza Khan
Artist, London and Karachi
September 14, 2017
Our Future is Another's Past
Sibo Grovogui
Professor, Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University
October 12, 2017
A Politics of Habitability: Plants, Healing, and Sovereignty in a Toxic World
Stacey Langwick
Associate Professor, Anthropology, Cornell University
April 11, 2017
Lecture by Tariq Ali: The Birth of Modern Europe and the Expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Spain
View this lecture on Cornellcast
Abolitionism, Modern Anti-Slavery, and #BlackLivesMatter
Edward E. Baptist
Professor, History, Cornell University
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
A Mutilated Cartography
Françoise Vergès
Consutling Professor, Goldsmiths College, University of London
October 29, 2013
Against Sovereign Violence: Feminist Activism and Law in Ghana
Saida Hodžić
Assistant Professor, Anthropology; Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cornell University
December 3, 2015
The Futures of Indian Communism
Vijay Prashad
George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History; Professor, International Studies, Trinity College
April 16, 2017
Subversive Santiago, 1920
Raymond Craib
Associate Professor, Department of History, Cornell University
September 9, 2014
Muslims and the Secular State: The View from Practice
Abdullahi An-Na’im
Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, School of Law, Emory University
April 18, 2017
American Muslims of Imagined and Re-Imagined Communities
Abdullahi An-Na’im
Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, School of Law, Emory University
April 17, 2013
Film Screening and Panel Discussion, "Maryse Condé: Une Voix Singulière"
Carole Boyce Davies
English; Africana Studies, Cornell University
Naminata Diabate
Comparative Literature, Cornell University
Kavita Singh
Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto
Marie-Claire Vallois
French Studies, Cornell University
Françoise Vergès
Goldsmiths College, University of London; Collège d’études mondiales
April 30, 2013
What Does the Emerging International Law of Migration Mean for Sovereignty?
Chantal Thomas
Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
October 2, 2013
One of These Mornings You're Gonna Rise Up Singing': The Secret Black Feminist History of Porgy and Bess
Daphne Brooks
Professor, English and African American Studies, Princeton University
April 12, 2017
Just War Theory and the Invention of the American Man
Gerard Aching
Professor, Romance Studies, Cornell University
April 10, 2012
The Feelings of Motherless Children: AIDS Orphans and their Epistles to the Dead
DAGMAWI WOUBSHET
Assistant Professor, English, Cornell University
Accumulating Insecurity: Violence and Dispossession as Lived Experience
SHELLEY FELDMAN
Professor, Development Sociology; Director, Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Cornell University
and
CHARLES GEISLER
Professor, Development Sociology, Cornell University
Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern Nation through Popular Culture
Ziad Fahmy
Assistant Professor, Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University
November 2, 2011
Freedom and Democracy: Rethinking Political Philosophy in Modern Africa
Olúfémi Táíwò
Professor of Philosophy and Global African Studies and Director of the Global African Studies Program, Seattle University
October 18, 2011
Can the New Man Speak?
Bruno Bosteels
Professor, Romance Studies, Cornell University
September 14, 2011