Prita Meier, The Surface of Things: A History of Photography from the Swahili Coast
PRITA MEIER (Associate Professor, Department of Art History & Institute of Fine Arts, New York University)
C.J. Wan-ling Wee, "Shanghai Spirit": The Shanghai Biennale 2000 and the Transnational Postcolonial
ICM NEW CONVERSATIONS SERIESSPRING 2026C.J. WAN-LING WEE (Professor of English, School of Humanities, Nanyang Technical University, Singapore)
Call for Proposals: ICM Graduate Reading Group Grants
The Institute for Comparative Modernities seeks to provide greater opportunities for graduate students from across the campus to engage each other through interdisciplinary and collaborative research working groups. To that end, the Institute provides a meeting space as well as seed money for the establishment and the maintenance of a small number of graduate student…
Amiel Bize, "The Post-Agrarian Question"
THE POST-AGRARIAN QUESTIONTuesday, March 24, 2026 (note new date)Klarman Hall, KG424:45 P.M. –6:15 P.M.
Nasser Abourahme, “In the Open Time of Dispossession: Camp, Colony, Palestine"
NASSER ABOURAHME (Assistant Professor, Middle Eastern and North African Studies, Bowdoin College)In the Open Time of Dispossession: Camp, Colony, PalestineWednesday, March 11, 2026Goldwin Smith Hall, Kaufmann Auditorium G644:45 P.M—6:15 P.M.
Samantha Sheppard, “A Black W/hole: Tisa Bryant's Phantom Cinemas”
SAMANTHA N. SHEPPARD (Associate Professor, Department of Performing and Media Arts, Cornell University)
Pop Art and South Asia Conference in Jaffna, Sri Lanka
This conference focuses on South Asian art’s engagement with popular culture from the mid-twentieth century through the present. The rapid development of capitalism, urbanism, media, technology, and mass politics since the late nineteenth century has engendered multiple resonances in the complex societies of South Asia, providing openings for artists to engage with popular social and…
Juliana Hu Pegues, "Colonialism is Gorges: The Confluence of Racial Capitalism and Settler Feminism" 11.19
The Institute for Comparative Modernities is delighted to host colleague Juliana Hu Pegues for a lecture on her current research, "Colonialism is Gorges: The Confluence of Racial Capitalism and Settler Feminism."
Architecture and the Right to Heal: Resettler Nationalism in the Aftermath of Conflict and Disaster by Esra Akcan
ICM Board and Cornell AAP faculty member Esra Akcan's monumental new book, Architecture and the Right to Heal: Resettler Nationalism in the Aftermath of Conflict and Disaster (Duke University Press) is officially released on November 11, 2025.
Shaoling Ma, "Integrated Rural Circuits: A Scalar History of Southeast Asia's Computational Environments" 11.13
SHAOLING MA (Cornell University)Integrated Rural Circuits: A Scalar History of Southeast Asia's Computational Environments
Postwar Revisited: A Global Art History Features Work by ICM Members
ICM board member Iftikhar Dadi’s essay published in Postwar Revisited: A Global Art History, co-edited by ICM Faculty Advisor Okwui Enwezor (late), and Atreyee Gupta.
Pop Art and South Asia: Conference
This conference focuses on South Asian art’s engagement with popular culture from the mid-twentieth century through the present. The rapid development of capitalism, urbanism, media, technology, and mass politics since the late nineteenth century has engendered multiple resonances in the complex societies of South Asia, providing openings for artists to engage with popular social and…
Atreyee Gupta, "Non-Aligned: Art, Decolonization, and the Third World Project in India + Postwar Revisited: A Global Art History" 10.8
Non-Aligned: Art, Decolonization, and the Third World Project in India + Postwar Revisited: A Global Art History
Nidhi Mahajan, "Moorings: Voyages of Capital Across the Indian Ocean" 9.22
The Institute for Comparative Modernities is thrilled to welcome Cornell alum Nidhi Mahajan '15 to campus for a talk about her recently published book, Moorings: Voyages of Capital Across the Indian Ocean (University of California Press, 2025).
FANON: Screening and Discussion at Cornell Cinema 9.17
Join us for a free screening of the biopic Fanon (2025) followed by a discussion with Cornell faculty members Naminata Diabate (Comparative Literature) Natalie Melas (Comparative Literature) and Olúfémi Táíwo (Africana Studies) about the great anti-colonial theorist and practitioner Frantz Fanon.
Irina R. Troconis, "The Necromantic State: Spectral Remains in the Afterglow of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution" 4.21
The Necromantic State: Spectral Remains in the Afterglow of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution Monday, April 21, 2025 | 4:45 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.Goldwin Smith Hall G22 | Reception to follow
Pinar Ogrenci, "Gurbet is a Home Now" and "Aşît - The Avalanche" Screening and Discussion 4.15
A screening of two films followed by conversation with filmmaker PINAR ÖĞRENCİ and ESRA AKCAN (Cornell University). Moderated by IFTIKHAR DADI (Cornell University)
Announcing the passing of Alumnus Elizabeth W. Giorgis, PhD '10
Alumnus Elizabeth Giorgis, PhD ’10, passed away in Sharjah, UAE, on March 16, 2025.
ICM Graduate Reading Group Awards Call for Proposals
The Institute for Comparative Modernities seeks to provide greater opportunities for graduate students from across the campus to engage each other through interdisciplinary and collaborative research working groups. To that end, the Institute provides a meeting space as well as seed money for the establishment and the maintenance of a small number of graduate student…
Michell Chresfield, “Crafting Recognition: Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Native Identity” 3.17
MICHELL CHRESFIELD (Assistant Professor, Africana Studies & Research Center)“Crafting Recognition: Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Native Identity”
Dadi leads Climate Congress symposium with Getty Foundation grant
The conference, in Lahore, Pakistan, featured more than thirty guest scholars, curators, artists, and other practitioners and twenty-seven emerging scholars.
Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, "Iranian Matriotism and Curative Modernity" 2.27
Similar to dissection in modern medicine, the colonization of Egypt and India endowed the late nineteenth-century Iranian observers of Russian and British encroachment with a “death-bearing” vision of Iran as a sovereign motherland. By anthropomorphizing Iran as a dying mother, they provided compelling “illness scripts” for a curative modernity intent on restoring and rejuvenating Iran’s…
ICM Announces Spring 2025 Events Series
The Institute for Comparative Modernities is pleased to announce the 2025 Spring Events Series, a range of engaging hosted events featuring film screenings, co-sponsored seminars and talks; conversations from Cornell faculty members and guest speakers about recent publications, and lectures about ongoing critical research and practice.
Tejasvi Nagaraja, "The Work of Internationalism: Labor and Black Solidarity in Global War" 11.20
"The Work of Internationalism: Labor and Black Solidarity in Global War"Wednesday, November 20, 20244:45 p.m.—6:15 p.m.
Samera Esmeir, "Territorial Imperatives Revolutionary Leanings: Thinking with the Palestinian Revolution" 3.26
Wednesday, March 26, 2025 | 4:45 p.m. — 6:15 p.m. (Rescheduled from postponed fall semester date)Kaufmann Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall
Seema Golestaneh, Poetry, Jihad, and the Communal Self in Afghan Resistance Literature of the 1980s and 1990s 10.21
ICM NEW CONVERSATIONSEEMA GOLESTANEH (Associate Professor, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University)
Pulitzer Prize-winning author from Jerusalem to speak Oct. 10
Nathan Thrall will talk about his most recent book, “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy.”
Angela Davis: A World of Greater Freedom 10.3
A screening of the film Angela Davis: A World of Greater Freedom (2023) followed by a conversation with filmmaker Manthia Diawara and Salah M. Hassan.
Mario Lewis, "Forest Notebooks: The Interaction Between Art, Community, and Ecology"
Mario Lewis, an artist and agriculturalist practicing in Trinidad and Berlin, is one of several Trinidadian collaborators in the documentary film project making its debut at Cornell Cinema on Wednesday, September 25, 2024. On Wednesday September 25, just before the debut test screening at Cornell Cinema, Mario Lewis will give an artist talk at Toboggan…
Possible Landscapes Debut Test Screening
A collaboration between a documentary filmmaker, Kanan Arunasalam and two professors, Tao DuFour (Architecture) a spatial theorist and Natalie Melas (Comparative Literature) a postcolonial comparatist and scholar of Caribbean thought, Possible Landscapes is the outcome of the team research project, “Possible Landscapes: Documenting Environmental Experience in Trinidad and Tobago,” funded through the Cornell Migrations Initiative…
Sagal Farah, "Where We Leave Things" ICM New Conversation
"Where We Leave Things" Literatures in English Lounge, Goldwin Smith 25812:00 p.m. — 1:15 p.m.
Professor’s feature-length documentary film debuts at Cornell Cinema
“Possible Landscapes,” a new feature-length documentary film exploring the lived experience of landscapes and environments in the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago, will have its debut screening on Sept. 25 at Cornell Cinema.
ICM Announces Fall 2024 Events Series
The Institute for Comparative Modernities is pleased to announce the 2024 Fall Events Series, a range of engaging hosted events featuring film screenings, co-sponsored conferences and talks; conversations from Cornell faculty members and guest speakers about recent work, and lectures about ongoing critical research and practice.
Peter Loewen named dean of Arts and Sciences
Coming from the University of Toronto, where he was the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Loewen began his five-year appointment as the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Aug. 1.
Salah M. Hassan curates "Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free! A Retrospective 1970–2023" at the Sharjah Art Foundation
Salah M. Hassan curates Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free! A Retrospective 1970–2023 at the Sharjah Art Foundation. The exhibition opened at the Sharjah Art Foundation 18 Nov 2023–10 Mar 2024, and will travel to the Whitechapel Gallery, London, 12 Jun – 1 Sep 2024. Organized by Whitechapel Gallery and Sharjah Art Foundation, in collaboration with…
Beshara Doumani, "A Modern History of the Palestinians Through the Social Life of Stone" 5.6
"A Modern History of the Palestinians Through the Social Life of Stone" Monday, May 6, 2024 Goldwin Smith Hall 64 | Kaufmann Auditorium 4:45 p.m —6:15 p.m.
Naeem Mohaiemen, Jole Dobe Na / Those Who Do Not Drown 3.28
Thursday, March 28, 2024 4:45 p.m. — 6:30 p.m. Cornell Cinema | 104 Willard Straight Hall
Begüm Adalet, "Insurgent Mood" 11.7
BEGÜM ADALET (Cornell University)INSURGENT MOODTuesday, November 7, 2023, 4:45 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.Toboggan Lodge, 38 Forest Home Drive
Paraska Tolan-Szkilnik, Maghreb Noir: The Militant-Artists of North Africa and the Struggle for a Pan-African, Postcolonial Future 11.1
PARASKA TOLAN-SZKILNIK Maghreb Noir: The Militant-Artists of North Africa and the Struggle for a Pan-African, Postcolonial Future Wednesday, November 1, 2023, 4:45 p.m –6:15 p.m.
Oumar Ba, "Rethinking Liberal Internationalism: Imperialism, Pacification, Humanity," 10.25
Wednesday, October 25, 2023, 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. A.D. White House, Guerlac Room
Jodi Byrd, "Accumulated Catastrophes" 10.16
Monday, October 2, 2023, 4:45 p.m —6:15 p.m. Goldwin Smith Hall, G22
Rinaldo Walcott, "On Property, After Reparations, Towards Repair" 10.2
RINALDO WALCOTT On Property, After Reparations, Towards Repair Monday, October 2, 2023, 4:45 p.m —6:15 p.m. Goldwin Smith Hall, G22
La Langue, Colonial Legacies, and Area Studies: Comparative Modernities 9.22—9.23
A Conference Sponsored by the Department of Asian Studies and the Institute for Comparative Modernities, Cornell University
We Love We Self Up Here Receives SAH Award for Film and Video
The Award for Film and Video from the Society of Architectural Historians has been given to the film “We Love We Self Up Here,” produced by Natalie Melas, associate professor of comparative literature in the College of Arts and Sciences and Tao DuFour, assistant professor of architecture in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning.…
Rahaab Allana, The South Asian Imaginary: Exploring the region through image-making practices 4.17
Monday, April 17, 2023, 4:45 p.m. –6:15 p.m. Goldwin Smith Hall, G22
Racial Capitalism: Past, Present, and Futures 4.21—4.22
This two-day conference, co-organized by the Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Institute for Comparative Modernities, and the Polson Institute for Global Development, brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars conducting innovative research on the topic of racial capitalism across the globe. Anchored around political theorist Cedric Robinson’s two central claims—on the role of bonded…
Reparations for Colonization Carbonization 3.3
Given the intertwined history of industrial capitalism, extraction and colonialism, this symposium will explore the pending reparations to their victims from a multidisciplinary perspective. Acknowledging the accountability of the first industrializing countries of the Global North to the previously colonized countries of the Global South, the symposium will address the importance of material and moral…
Iftikhar Dadi, Lahore Cinema: Between Realism and Fable 3.1
IFTIKHAR DADI Lahore Cinema: Between Realism and Fable Wednesday, March 1, 2023, 4:45 p.m —6:15 p.m. Goldwin Smith Hall, G22
Campus rallies to support Syria, Turkey earthquake survivors
With about 70 students on campus from Syria and Turkey affected by the devastation in their countries, students, faculty and administrators have mobilized to create relief efforts.