Suffering Bodies, Dance and Transcendence in Caribbean Literature, Jacqueline Couti (University of Kentucky)

In Gisèle Pineau's Macadam Dreams, through the shifting metaphors of the drum and the cyclone, which signify not only sexual crime but also purification and healing, the instable identity of Creole subjectivity emerges. Many characters are in pain. Yet, in the mighty drumbeat of the tambour-ka lurks a power that can make an old and broken woman dance as if her life depended on it. This presentation examines the motif of the dancing body and explores dance as a contemporary site of resistance and healing in traditional and contemporary genres such gwo-ka. Such an approach intends to constitute an archeology of representations of dance and dancers as the expression of creolization and awareness of self in in French and Francophone Caribbean Studies.





Liminality of the Dancing Suffering Body, Gladys M. Francis (Georgia State University)

Liminality of the Dancing Suffering Body is an analysis of painful lived experiences expressed through Caribbean traditional dance performances that present cultural, political and memorial strategies, in addition to interpersonal relations. This presentation focuses on the works of contemporary Black Diasporic filmmakers who challenge traditional gendered spaces and politics while contextualizing the body's states of loss, its displacements, methods of transmission and resistance through innovative representations of the dancing body in pain. "Liminality of the Dancing Suffering Body" introduces the gwo-ka and bigidi dance aesthetic, both explored as a counter-point of history and a Maroon space of (modern) history. It is through the dancing body that I will expose transgressional identities shaping cartographies of pain that distort the perceptions of cultural formations, Creolization and globalization, and problematize notions of self-dependence, self-organization, choice, autonomy, and agency through class, gender, race, and locality.

Dr. Shlossberg’s work documents contemporary danzas, such as the pastorelas, and related masking customs in central Michoacan. His work also examines how knowledge about masks and masking is often falsified in popular and scholarly work through the repetition of colorful myths that envelop the craft and the disavowal of items produced for the tourist and curio markets as inauthentic and low-grade. Debates over the authenticity of tourist and curio arts shed light on how popular and elite, indigenous, mestizo, and Anglo actors in central Michoacan construct and contest relations of class, race, and inequality as they negotiate the meanings of “tradition,” “ethnic authenticity,” “globalization,” and “cultural change.”

El trabajo del Dr. Scholossberg se enfoca en documentar danzas, pastorales y mascaradas el territorio de Michoacán. Su trabajo busca traer cociencia al público sobre cómo las máscaras y bailes han sido glorificados y falsificados a través de mitos coloríficos que buscan atraer atención turística. Como consecuencia, varias máscaras a la venta suelen ser falsas y no piezas de arte. Varios debates han surgido sobre las diferentes perspectivas tomadas entre las imitiaciones y el verdadero arte curio. Schlossberg busca enseñar como la élite social, los indígenas, mestizos y los Anglo actores de Michoacán construyen, mantienen y negocian relaciones de clase social, raza e inequalidad a través de la tradición, auntenticidad étnica, globalización y cambios culturales en el arte.

African American & Africana Studies Social Science Speaker Series. 

Tracy Fisher is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. Her teaching, research, and activist-scholar commitments are situated at the intersections of Women’s, Gender and Feminist studies, critical Race and Ethnic studies, African Diaspora studies, and critical Anthropology. She has published several articles in edited volumes and in journals such as, Small Axe, Social Justice, and Critical Sociology. She has also received fellowships and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. Professor Fisher is the co-editor of Gendered Citizenships, Transnational Perspectives on Knowledge Production, Political Activism, and Culture (Palgrave Macmillan 2009). Her book, What’s Left of Blackness: Feminisms, Transracial Solidarities, and the Politics of Belonging in Britain, was published in the Comparative Feminist Studies Series by Palgrave Macmillan Publishers in 2012. 

Fisher explores 1970s Britain by specifically drawing attention to the ways in which black women in Britain understood their experiences, identities, and social activism in relation to other black women throughout the African diaspora and to other women of color within and outside of Britain. By extension, black women created new solidarities and engaged in an active political struggle—one grounded in the material reality of entrenched forms of discrimination and exclusion.

Co-sponsored by AAAS and Anthropology

Revisiting Rock Fences of the Bluegrass

KENTUCKY, LEXINGTON 40506-0027. The University of Kentucky Department of Geography is searching for a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Geography in the area of political ecology to begin August 2014.  Our goal is to build upon and strategically expand the Department’s strengths in nature-society relations. We welcome candidates conducting research in all aspects of political ecology, including one (or more) of the following research themes: gender and the environment; feminist political ecologies; food security; environmental justice; health and the environment; water; waste; pollution and sanitation; urban nature/metabolisms; resource extraction; environmental governance. The successful candidate also will contribute to the College of Arts and Sciences Environmental and Sustainability Studies program (teaching either ENS201 or 202: https://ens.as.uky.edu/). Evidence of excellence or a strong potential for excellence in research and teaching is required. PhD in geography or related discipline required at time of appointment.  Applicants should submit: a statement describing research interests and future research plans; a teaching statement; a complete C.V.; up to four reprints; and arrange for three letters of reference to be submitted. The formal review process will begin on 6 January 2014, and will continue until the position is filled. Apply to Dr. A. Wood, Chair, Search Committee, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506 [andrew.wood@uky.edu]. Electronic submissions are preferred. For more information on the position and the UK geography program, see http://geography.as.uky.edu/, or contact Dr. Andrew Wood. The University of Kentucky is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity University that values diversity and is located in an increasingly diverse geographical region.  It is committed to becoming one of the top public institutions in the country.  Women, persons with disabilities, and members of other underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply.  The University also supports family-friendly policies.

The Re-enchantment of Photography as a Primanry Geographic Mapping Medium