From Crisis to Critique: Languages of Resistance, Transformation, and Futurity in Mediterranean Crisis-Scapes

4-5 March 2021

Organizers: Maria Boletsi, Janna Houwen, Liesbeth Minnaard

Today, the term crisis is often ‘hijacked’ by far-right, xenophobic, and anti-democratic agendas that shrink the space of political choice and the imagination of alternative futures. In this workshop we ask if there are ways to salvage crisis as a concept that can do the work of its cognate—critique—and participate in the articulation of alternative languages, literary narratives, and other modes of representation in visual, digital and social media, cinema, and art.

Our rethinking of crisis and critique will take shape through the prism of a region that has become the epicenter of various declared crises in recent years: the Mediterranean. By rethinking contemporary Mediterranean crisis-scapes, we will probe interconnections between new languages of resistance, protest, transformation, and futurity emerging primarily from literary, artistic, and other forms of cultural expression and political activism in the region, both in physical spaces and on the web. Aim of the workshop is to explore how we can move from crisis to critique; from crisis as a restrictive framework to crisis as a form of critique that triggers alternative interpretations of the present and mobilizes these as occasions for social and historical change in Mediterranean societies and beyond.

Program (CET)

Thursday 4 March 2021

13.30: Checking in

13.45: Welcome and introduction of the workshop

14.00 - 16.00: Panel discussion “From Crisis to Critique”

Panel discussions with contributors to the volume Languages of Resistance, Transformation, and Futurity in Mediterranean Crisis-Scapes. From Crisis to Critique:

• Ipek Çelik Rappas, Koç University, Istanbul & Diego Benegas Loyo, National University of General San Martín, Buenos Aires

• Geli Mademli, University of Amsterdam

• Liesbeth Minnaard, Leiden University

• Dimitris Papanikolaou, Oxford University

Chaired by Maria Boletsi and Janna Houwen, Leiden University

16.00 – 17.00: Break

17.00 – 18.30: Nilgün Bayraktar (California College of the Arts, USA): "Refugee Futurity: From Perpetual Crisis to Critical Dystopia in Contemporary Film and Video Art." (keynote lecture)

Respondent: Julian Ross (Leiden University)

20.00: Film program organized in cooperation with Leiden Shorts

• Leaving Syria: Hopes and Dreams, Yara Atz, 30' (2019);

• Oksijan, Edward Watts, 20' (2019);

• City Plaza Hotel, Anna Paula Hönig, Violeta Paus, 14' (2019)

• The Swimmer, Pablo Barce Orellana, 18', Spain

Friday 5 March 2021

14.00-16.00: Master Class for RMA & PhD students by Stijn De Cauwer, KU Leuven, Belgium *

16.00 – 17.00: Break

17.00-18.30: Nicholas De Genova (University of Houston, USA): "Viral Borders." (keynote lecture)

Respondent: Leo Lucassen (Leiden University)

Registration

The lectures and panel discussion are open to anyone who wishes to attend. RMA/PhD students and OSL members should register via this link:

https://www.oslit.nl/osl-workshop-from-crisis-to-critique-languages-of-resistance-transformation-and-futurity-in-mediterranean-crisis-scapes/

If you do not fall into either category, please register through Eventbrite.

* Participation in the Master Class is restricted to Research MA students and PhD candidates. RMA and PhD students can register for this through OSL (please see link above).