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Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Thursday, January 24, 2019
New MALAS Seminar, Spring 2019, "The Mestizo Metropolis: Latinx and African Cultural Landscapes in the American Global City" with History Professor Angel Nieves
Latinx and African Cultural Landscapes
in the
American Global City
Dr. Angel Nieves
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The Simpsons Visit “Little Ethiopia”
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This hybrid lecture class will focus on the strategic roles
that emerging Latinx and African communities play in various urban centers
across the U.S. – including cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and
New Orleans – by exploring how both groups establish and maintain distinctive
social and cultural identities in the American metropolis. Beginning our
investigation in the 19th century, we will develop a broad historical approach
to evolving community realities, and will focus on the continuing demographic
changes of the present generation. We will study this present-day process using
current interdisciplinary theories of globalization, diaspora, and
nation-building. The varying forms of cultural expression, production, and
representation of both groups will be explored through film, literature, art,
architecture, and the media. In small groups students will develop a cultural landscape report for a
building, place, neighborhood, region, or city with a growing Latinx and/or
African immigrant community. For their final project, students will develop a
Google Site for public display and dissemination.
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Spring 2019: New MALAS Seminar at SDSU | Torture and Service to the Modern State with Dr. Geoff West
Dr. Geoff West
The rise of the modern nation-state was predicated on the willingness of citizens to sacrifice their lives for the state. It also demanded loyalty and a commitment to carry out the state's will. But how have those demands intersected with the rise of liberalism, individualism, and the idea of human rights? Using literary texts, historical records, and philosophical debates on violence and human rights, this course aims to critically examine how torture has been envisioned both by the state and its critics through the lens of torture. Does service to the state preclude the rights of others to their bodies?
Geoffrey is a doctoral candidate in the History Department at the University of California San Diego. He studies citizenship and service to the state in the late nineteenth century. He focuses on the relationship between gender, race, and subject status and how they relate to military service in a global imperial context. Geographically, his work is centered on the Northern Great Plains but connects with North, East, and South Africa, as well as Southeast Asia. He teaches in the Humanities Program at Revelle College at UCSD. The program combines a classical Western Liberal Arts focus on the Great Works with a five part writing sequence. Geoffrey has lived in San Diego since 2006 when he, his partner, and his dog moved from New York City to the West Coast. In his free time, he enjoys snow-free winters and frequent trips to Disneyland.
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
MALAS Spring 2019 Seminar! World Cities with Professor Kate Swanson
Course MALAS-600C
WORLD CITIES
Professor K. Swanson
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
New Spring 2019 MALAS Seminar: Women in Muslim Societies with Professor Amira Jarmakani
Women in Muslim Societies Professor Amira Jarmakani
Grounding itself in the theoretical frameworks and foundational questions of Islamic feminism, or questions of gender justice both in relation to Islam and in Muslim-majority contexts, this course is interested in exploring the following questions: What is Islamic feminism? What is a Muslim society? Is Islam modern? How does colonialism inform all of the previous questions? We will both look at the way in which Islamic feminisms articulate with the concerns of other feminisms indigenous to the global south and the way in which Islamic feminisms have emerged as oppositional discourses to colonialism, patriarchal nationalism, and Western feminism. We will read literary, historical, and ethnographic texts with the aim of exploring the following topics (among others): colonialism, neocolonialism, and neoliberal globalization in relation to Islams and feminisms; Muslim feminist interpretations of Islamic texts; the notions of emancipation and agency within Islamic feminisms; Islamic feminisms and/as transnational feminisms; feminist engagement with fundamentalisms (including neoliberal market fundamentalism); and gender justice and sexuality in Islamicate societies.
New Spring 2019 MALAS Seminar on International Relations with Professor Jonathan Graubart
Seminar on International Relations
Professor Jonathan Graubart
'If there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, it’s existence has been kept a well-guarded secret."
"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
One useful bit of information you have already learned or will learn soon is that there is no consensus view on what is regarded as proper “Political Science” or proper “International Relations,” though you will likely encounter certain academics convinced that their approach is the only acceptable one. Regrettably, there seems to be an unwritten consensus throughout much of the Political Science discipline that political ideas and historical development are of secondary concern. Focusing on the subfield of International Relations, the beginning Ph.D. student is confronted with a series of leading theoretical approaches within the discipline. These typically feature “Classical Realism,” “Structural Realism,” “Liberalism,” “Neoliberal Institutionalism,” “Constructivism,” and perhaps a few weeks at the end on “IR Feminism,” “Post-Structuralism,” “Post-Colonialism,” and some variant of “Marxism.” To be sure, all of these theoretical approaches have their uses, leaving it to individual discernment on which approach or approaches are most valuable. But the problem with immediately immersing oneself into a specialized academic discipline is that most students have not yet adequately reflected on international politics in general. Lacking sustained exposure to the evolution and nature of world politics and to the contentious struggles that have shaped the global order, one is hardly in position to form second-order disciplinary perspectives on how to study global politics.The aim of this course is to examine closely global politics. Our focus will be on important historical developments and broader normative ideas and struggles that have profoundly shaped modern global politics over the past two centuries. To be sure, this course will not, in itself, give you comprehensive expertise on the gamut of historical events, ideas, and struggles in global politics. But the course will acquaint you with several major themes and provide depth on a few pivotal themes, such as the rise and evolution of modern nationalism and the nation-state. You will then be much better equipped to engage theoretical approaches to International Relations and develop your own normative voice. Moreover, you will gain a more sophisticated perspective on what theoretical and empirical issues most interest.
Professor Jonathan Graubart
'If there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, it’s existence has been kept a well-guarded secret."
Noam Chomsky, “the Responsibility of Intellectuals.”
"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
George Orwell, “Notes on Nationalism.”
One useful bit of information you have already learned or will learn soon is that there is no consensus view on what is regarded as proper “Political Science” or proper “International Relations,” though you will likely encounter certain academics convinced that their approach is the only acceptable one. Regrettably, there seems to be an unwritten consensus throughout much of the Political Science discipline that political ideas and historical development are of secondary concern. Focusing on the subfield of International Relations, the beginning Ph.D. student is confronted with a series of leading theoretical approaches within the discipline. These typically feature “Classical Realism,” “Structural Realism,” “Liberalism,” “Neoliberal Institutionalism,” “Constructivism,” and perhaps a few weeks at the end on “IR Feminism,” “Post-Structuralism,” “Post-Colonialism,” and some variant of “Marxism.” To be sure, all of these theoretical approaches have their uses, leaving it to individual discernment on which approach or approaches are most valuable. But the problem with immediately immersing oneself into a specialized academic discipline is that most students have not yet adequately reflected on international politics in general. Lacking sustained exposure to the evolution and nature of world politics and to the contentious struggles that have shaped the global order, one is hardly in position to form second-order disciplinary perspectives on how to study global politics.The aim of this course is to examine closely global politics. Our focus will be on important historical developments and broader normative ideas and struggles that have profoundly shaped modern global politics over the past two centuries. To be sure, this course will not, in itself, give you comprehensive expertise on the gamut of historical events, ideas, and struggles in global politics. But the course will acquaint you with several major themes and provide depth on a few pivotal themes, such as the rise and evolution of modern nationalism and the nation-state. You will then be much better equipped to engage theoretical approaches to International Relations and develop your own normative voice. Moreover, you will gain a more sophisticated perspective on what theoretical and empirical issues most interest.
03
22080
SEM INTERNATION RELATION
3.0
Seminar
1600-1840
W
2/3
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Wendelmoot Symposium: The CRISIS Crisis! Featuring Mark Dery on Edward Gorey
(All images on this page expand to full size when clicked!)
MALAS is proud to be co-sponsoring this lecture with SDSU English and Comparative Literature and SDSU Press:
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2018
@ 11AM IN GMCS 333
“The Screams We Make In
Other People’s Dreams”
Edward Gorey, the Gay Gothic,
and the Camp Macabre
Mark Dery
Edward Gorey (1925-2000)—the incomparably eccentric author and illustrator of more than a hundred-odd little picture books with titles like The Loathsome Couple, The Beastly Baby, and Neglected Murderesses—always claimed to be asexual. (“Reasonably undersexed,” is how he put it.) Yet his mauve-ish aesthetic is steeped in the pre-Stonewall gay sensibility of camp, the Aestheticism of 19th-century gay writers such as Oscar Wilde and the Decadent artist Aubrey Beardsley, the nonsense verse of the gay writer of limericks Edward Lear, and the cutting irony of ‘20s queer novelists such as Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett. At the same time, Gorey’s “hand-drawn engravings” and darkly droll writing are indebted to gothic literature, Victorian penny dreadfuls, and true crime—genres whose literary conventions and artistic clichés Gorey uses to hint not only at his buried sexuality but to problematize allnotions of identity and normalcy. In this lecture, cultural critic Mark Dery will draw on queer theory, literary criticism, art history, and cultural studies to explore the Freudian shadows lurking in the corners of Gorey’s whimsically macabre art and writing. As well, he’ll reveal the seminal role played by Gorey in the postwar mainstreaming of the gay aesthetic and, together with children’s authors like Maurice Sendak, the transformation of American visions of childhood and the popularization of the darker, queerer children’s literature familiar from Lemony Snicket’s YA novels the twee-goth movies of Tim Burton. | |||
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Check out the October 30, 2018 review of Dery's New Gorey Biography in The New York Times.
Sponsored by the Department of English and Comparative Literature @ SDSU—additional support provided by MALAS, the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences; San Diego State University Press; and the students of Robotic Erotic Electric, English 220, Fall 2019
About the Origins of the Wendelmoot Symposium Series
An Interview with William Nericcio, Wendelmoot Curator, 2018-19
• What are your plans for the series (e.g., what events do you envision)?
I am planning to coordinate a series of lectures/presentations/
• What organizes your vision for the series (e.g., what are your motivating interests and reasons; how does this series strengthen or steer the department as a whole)?
Never before has fear and loathing, crisis and crisis management, been so near and dear to the hearts and minds of our faculty and our students. The realities of our current context— political and economic—coupled with the tenuousness of the entire academy (especially the Humanities) means that the subject of crisis is right at hand for ourselves and our colleagues. Developing a lecture series focused on “Crisis” allows us to convert a negative anxiety filled with the unknown, into an intellectual project that will assuage as it enlightens, relieve pressure as it illuminates the current cultural conundrums roiling Literature, to be sure, but a host of disciplines across the humanities and sciences. I envision the lecture series as serving to further allow for the evolution and strengthening of English and Comparative Literature ties to the Digital Humanities Initiative.
Meet Mark Dery at 11am, Thursday, November 29, 2018
Department of English and Comparative Literature
Wendelmoot Symposium Author Makes PBS Great Reads List, 2018
Meet Mark Dery at 11am, Thursday, November 29, 2018
GMCS 333 at 11am--free and open to the SDSU Community!
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Ernest Hogan @ SDSU | Author of HIGH AZTECH and CORTEZ ON JUPITER, Brings His Unique Brand of Chicana/o Literary Magic to SDSU
MALAS is proud to co-sponsor an on-campus reading/book-signing presentation by Ernest Hogan at SDSU. Click the poster for more info!
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Friday, November 2, 2018
MALAS! Your Favorite West Coast Cultural Studies MA Program is proud to co-sponsor a symposium on Human Rights Abuses & Central American Families on the U.S./Mexico Border
Hit the image to enlarge it and get the details!
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
MALAS! Proud Co-Sponsor of the IBERO-AMERICAN (y LATINX) Film/Cinema Extravaganza @SDSU
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Monday, October 29, 2018
Back Again! Spring 2019: MALAS 600D/RWS 730 RHETORIC OF GENDER with Professor Suzanne Bordelon
MALAS 600D/RWS 730
Seminar
RHETORIC OF GENDER
Professor Suzanne Bordelon
Section 1: M 3:30-6:10 pm
Section 1: M 3:30-6:10 pm
This graduate seminar explores the intersection of gender, rhetoric, and the body. As Jack Selzer explains, in recent years scholars have noted the “rhetorical turn,” in both the liberal arts and the sciences. Although this turn has made various fields more reflective about disciplinary practices, particularly in terms of language, “it has consequently deflected scholarly attention from material realities and toward the way those realities are represented in text” (4). However, scholars, especially those in Rhetoric and Composition, have stressed that the material and the body matter: they contribute to rhetorical action and, thus, deserve our attention.
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NEW MALAS CLASS! Spring 2019 MALAS-600C SEMINAR ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS with J. GRAUBART | 4pm to 6:40pm on Wednesdays in Nasitir Hall 131
One useful bit of information you have already learned or will learn soon is that there is no consensus view on what is regarded as proper “Political Science” or proper “International Relations,” though you will likely encounter certain academics convinced that their approach is the only acceptable one. Regrettably, there seems to be an unwritten consensus throughout much of the Political Science discipline that political ideas and historical development are of secondary concern. Focusing on the subfield of International Relations, the beginning Ph.D. student is confronted with a series of leading theoretical approaches within the discipline. These typically feature “Classical Realism,” “Structural Realism,” “Liberalism,” “Neoliberal Institutionalism,” “Constructivism,” and perhaps a few weeks at the end on “IR Feminism,” “Post-Structuralism,” “Post-Colonialism,” and some variant of “Marxism.” To be sure, all of these theoretical approaches have their uses, leaving it to individual discernment on which approach or approaches are most valuable. But the problem with immediately immersing oneself into a specialized academic discipline is that most students have not yet adequately reflected on international politics in general. Lacking sustained exposure to the evolution and nature of world politics and to the contentious struggles that have shaped the global order, one is hardly in position to form second-order disciplinary perspectives on how to study global politics.
The aim of this course is to examine closely global politics. Although we will dabble in a few International Relations theories, our focus will be on important historical developments and broader normative ideas and struggles that have profoundly shaped modern global politics over the past two centuries. To be sure, this course will not, in itself, give you comprehensive expertise on the gamut of historical events, ideas, and struggles in global politics. But the course will acquaint you with several major themes and provide depth on a few pivotal themes, such as the rise and evolution of modern nationalism and the nation-state. You will then be much better equipped to engage theoretical approaches to International Relations and develop your own normative voice. Moreover, you will gain a more sophisticated perspective on what theoretical and empirical issues most interest.
The course is broken up into two sections. The first surveys a range of historically informed arguments on the nature of global politics. Collectively, they present a range of analytical and ideological views with each summoning extensive historical evidence to advance their arguments. The second section takes an in-depth look into the emergence of contemporary nationalism. We will use Hannah Arendt’s magisterial Origins of Totalitarianism to set up the big themes and historical developments. We then delve into the emergence of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism in the 20th century. The idea is not to gain expertise on the contemporary dividing issues but to gain a historical and normative deep appreciation of the dynamics that have shaped both nationalisms and their contentious interaction over the years.
Here's a preliminary book list:
· E.H. Carr, The Twenty Year’s Crisis, 1919-1939. Harper Perennial, 1964.
· Michael Doyle, Liberal Peace: Selected Essays, First Ed., Routledge Press, 2011.
Hedley Bull, Anarchical Order: A Study of World Politics
· Noam Chomsky, The Chomsky Reader (edited by James Peck). Pantheon, 1987.
· Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1973.
· Edward W. Said, The Question of Palestine. Vintage Books, 1992.
Edward Said, Orientalism
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