International Forum 2023: Un/thinking the “Crisis” - Knowledge, Art, Politics

International Forum 2023: Un/thinking the “Crisis”: Knowledge, Art, Politics

November 6th - 17th, 2023 (Online)

Download Program: Un/thinking the “Crisis”: Knowledge, Art, Politics

unthinkingthecrisisspam prevention@gmail.com

Organizers: Bani Gill, Louis Nana, and Edivaldo González (all University of Tübingen)

Un/thinking the “Crisis”: Knowledge, Art, Politics

The Interdisciplinary Centre for Global South Studies at the University of Tübingen in cooperation with its partner universities invite scholars, activists, and artists to present their work at the International Forum 2023. This year, the Forum encourages epistemological, theoretical, artistic, and practice oriented interventions that explore various notions and dimensions of “crisis”.

In recent years the concept of “crisis” has been increasingly invoked in various debates and reflections across diverse disciplines to address a paradigm shift that not only questions the approach to study phenomena or the validity of regulating institutions, but also the self-critique we apply to interpretive frameworks themselves. Yet, it seems as if “crisis” is only ‘discovered’ and attains urgency when theorised from dominant perspectives. Bringing into dialogue temporal and scalar dimensions of “crisis” across different disciplines and geographies, the Forum seeks to “un/think the crisis” as a pivotal moment for reconsidering analytical categories, exposing new actors, and exploring novel ways of thinking about practices and knowledges of everyday living. In other words, beyond using the term “crisis” merely as an adjective applicable to economic, geopolitical, sociocultural, aesthetic or ecological matters, the Forum seeks contributions that address the contestation(s) within “crisis” that rearrange, establish, and ultimately sets in motion transformation(s).

“Crisis” lays bare pre-existing structures and redistributes practices and ways of acting in the commons. In major scholarships, the crisis has been seen in relation to the production of political violence (Mbembe and Roitman, 1995) and violence on imagination as concepts as of afrodystopia (Tonda, 2021) suggest. In this way, “crisis” provokes us to explore the vulnerability of humankind in various ways; but it is equally an opportunity to think in terms of possibilities of the pluriverse (Arturo Escobar, 2020) and the creation of another culture of the arts (Ladagga, 2006). In this sense the Forum seeks to engage in dialogue with the propositions that have emerged in recent years to rethink relationships and the formation of subjectivities, communities and agencies, and invites proposals from across disciplines that address the “crisis” through questions such as:

How is “crisis” experienced, explored and conceived from the Global South (for example, in relation to rapid urbanism, migration and mobility, or in ecological “crisis” and climate change, etc.)?
What new actors, processes, concepts and perspectives have been imagined to propose new modes of action in relation to "crisis" (for example, rights of nature)?
What have been the products, representations and artistic proposals emerging in relation to "crisis", both in their reflection on cultural institutions and in the proposal of new aesthetic paradigms?
What subjectivities, affects, and ways of living are set in motion during times of “crisis”? How do these influence the formation of communities and patterns of socialization?
How can we “un/think crisis” in terms of the socio-economic conflicts and power dynamics that have developed in contemporary societies (for example, war, conflict, rising costs of living)?
How have disciplines articulated and, in turn, been rearticulated given the paradigm shift of “crisis”? What are the challenges and transformations emerging in and through possibilities of “un/thinking crisis”?

Call for Panels

We invite scholars, practitioners, activists, and artists to submit their proposals, which should not exceed 400 words. The accepted languages are Spanish, English, or French.

Call for Papers (english)

Convocatoria (español)

Appel à panels (français)

Call for Papers Release: August 28, 2023.

Deadline for proposals: September 18, 2023.

Approval information: September 29, 2023.
Format: Online

Languages: French, English, and Spanish.

Proposal submissions: unthinkingthecrisisspam prevention@gmail.com

Organizers & Contact

Bani Gill, Louis Nana, and Edivaldo González (all University of Tübingen)

unthinkingthecrisisspam prevention@gmail.com

MONDAY, 06th November

Welcome address and Introduction

14.00 - 14.45 (CET)

Susanne Goumegou, Tübingen University

Ivonne Sánchez, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Edivaldo González, Tübingen University

Bani Gill, Tübingen University

Louis Nana, Tübingen University

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Keynote (English): Reflections on Cultural Work in the Present: Policy, Institutions, and the Aesthetics of Suffocation

15:20 - 16:50 (CET)

Prof. Anita Cherian Ambedkar, University, Delhi

Chair: Bani Gill, Tübingen University

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Panel 1: La pensée africaine face à la crise

17:10 - 18:10 (CET)

1. « L’intelligence de la crise » chez les philosophes Fabien Eboussi Boulaga et Yves-Valentin Mudimbe

Ibrahima Ndiaye, Tübingen University / UCAD

2. Face à la crise, réactiver l’archive africaine

Louis Nana, Tübingen University

Chair: Prof. Bacary Sarr, UCAD

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TUESDAY, 07th November

Objets africains en Allemagne: conversation sur un patrimoine

10.00 - 12.00 (CET)

Table ronde avec:

Jean-Marie Teno (cinéaste)

Mèhèza Kalibani (Tübingen University/SHMH)

Mikaél Assilkinga (TU Berlin)

Chair : Louis Nana, Tübingen University

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Panel 2 : The Everyday Crisis of Citizenship in Contemporary India

15.30 - 17.00 (CET)

1. National Borders among Families: Removal and ‘Bare Life’ in India

Salah Punathil, University of Hyderabad

2. Living through Crisis: Unpacking the ‘lasting scars’ of the Registry test of Citizenship in Assam.

Debasreeta Deb, University of Hyderabad

3. Documented Yet Fearful: A Crisis on the Loom at the India-Bangladesh Border

Ritapriya Nandy, University of Hyderabad

Chair: Bani Gill, Tübingen University

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Panel 3: ¿Futuros en crisis? Panoramas desde la Ciencia Ficción latinoamericana

17.00 - 18.45 (CET)

1. La crisis siempre ha estado allí. Las recreaciones ficcionales en Ustedes brillan en lo oscuro de Liliana Colanzi y Semente exterminadora de Pedro Neves Marques

Mtra. Susana del Rosario Castañeda Quintero, Autonomous University of Querétaro (UAQ)

2. La ficción especulativa como vía para repensarnos desde el “mundo en crisis”

Mtra. Carla Alicia Suárez Félix, Autonomous University of Querétaro (UAQ)

3. Tecnocolonialismo y neoextractivismo en La mirada de las plantas

Dr. León Felipe Barrón Rosas, Autonomous University of Querétaro (UAQ)

4. Todavía el fin del mundo. Los apocalipsis de larga duración en la Ciencia Ficción afrocaribeña. El caso de La mucama de Omicunlé

Dr. Samuel Lagunas Cerda Autonomous, University of Querétaro (UAQ)

Chair : Prof. Dr. Armando Velázquez, UNAM

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WEDNESDAY, 08th November

Panel 4: Documenting and narrating the crisis

15.00-16.30 (CET)

1. “We are unable to count the bodies”: Analysis of the Photographs of Hunger and Yanomami

Gabriela Mendes, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF-PPGCOM)

2. Experiences of Crisis in the Bildungsroman of the Global South

Ana Vallarta, Tübingen University

3. The Myth of Feminist Solidarity in the Global South: Reading Women-Centric Protests as Text

Dr. Fathima M, Jyoti Nivas College, Bangalore, India

Chair: Prof. Dr. Felipe Trotta, UFF

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Panel 5: Repensar los paradigmas desde el feminismo decolonial

17.00-18.30 (CET)

1. Cuerpo-territorio como formas de lucha anticapitalista y antineoliberal: reflexiones desde el feminismo comunitario boliviano

Elkin Fabián Martínez, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

2. “La crisis del paradigma eurocéntrico en los movimientos sociales: El feminismo como terreno de transformación descolonizadora”

Viridiana Espinosa Hernández, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

3. Crisis de paradigmas: María Lugones, espacio, movilidad y colonialidad de género

Dra. Gabriela González Ortuño, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

Chair: Ximenta Taborga, UNAM

Watch on YouTube

THURSDAY, 09th November

Im memoriam Cyprien Bidy Bodo

13.00 -14.00 (CET)

Prof. Jean-Marie Kouakou, Prof. Dr. Susanne Goumegou, Dr. Nicolas Heslault, et d’autres collègues rendront hommage au Prof. Cyprien Bidy Bodo, décédé le 19 octobre 2023.