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JANUARY Thursday, January 19 Dorit Naaman Queen's University, Film and Media and Gender Studies The "Hyperlink Film" as Effective Subversion of Reel Politics 1-2.30pm, Mackintosh Corry Hall, Room D207 Abstract: Ajami (Shani/Copti 2009), an Israeli-Palestinian co-production, is unique in its style, production method, and its narrative. Ajami is told as a hyperlink film (i.e. non-linear narrative, with several plots, many locations, and a few central characters who share the main role at some point in the film). Using this format, the film is able to portray the Palestinian society as a complex and diffused entity, where class, ethnicity, citizenship, and religion, all mark and define the lives of individuals, a view that transcends trodden representations of the Palestinian nation as a unified being. In addition, Israeli-Palestinian relations are presented as based on class alliances and differences, as much as, or even more so, than along nationalist lines of supposed loyalty. The film joins other films such as Syriana (Paul Gaghan, 2005), Before The Rain (Manchevski, 1994), and to a lesser extent Traffic (Soderbergh, 2000) that use the hyperlink format to bypass binary and simplistic representations of ethnic and nationalist conflicts. About the Speaker: Dorit Naaman is a film theorist and documentarist from Jerusalem, teaching at the dept of Film and Media, Queen's University. Her research focuses on Israeli and to a lesser extent Palestinian cinemas (primarily from post-colonialist and feminist perspectives). Recently she has focused on nationalism, militarism, and gender. Her documentary work is about identity politics, and politics of representation and she developed a format of short videos, DiaDocuMEntaRY. Dorit is now embarking on a video installation project in Jerusalem. To learn more about her work go to www.diadocumentary.ca Thursday, January 26 Faiza Hirji McMaster University, Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia Dreaming in Canadian? Nationalism, Indian Cinema and the Experience of Living in Diaspora 1-2.30pm, Mackintosh Corry Hall, Room D207 Abstract: Research on popular Indian films suggests that they play a significant role in construction and affirmation of identity for youth living in diaspora. This presentation, drawing upon interviews with young Canadians of South Asian origin, validates this suggestion but argues that the consumption of these films involves layers of complexity which are not necessarily acknowledged by the filmmakers, while the process of identity formation for second-generation immigrants remains poorly understood by many members of Canadian society. While the popular Indian film industry has made an effort to reach out to viewers living in diaspora, the interviewees in this research insist that Indian cinema does not reflect the realities of diasporic life and in fact, may portray diasporic youth in a particularly negative light. The diverse responses provided by these interviewees serves as a reminder of the contradictions and layered identities that are hallmarks of diasporic life. Within these layers, media play an important role, yet major gaps remain. The interviewees here identify as fully Canadian, but do not see themselves reflected in all of the institutions of Canadian society. At the same time, they are conscious of the shortcomings of popular Indian cinema, a globalized institution which cannot adequately speak to their cultural needs. About the Speaker: Faiza Hirji is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia at McMaster University. She specializes in research exploring media representation of race, religion, ethnicity and gender, use of media in the construction of identity, popular culture and youth, and the importance of media within diasporic/transnational communities. Her current SSHRC-funded research project examines media depictions of Muslim women. Another research project investigates overlapping musical cultures and their associated politics within South Asian and black diasporas. Her recent book, Dreaming in Canadian: South Asian Youth, Bollywood and Belonging (2010, UBC Press), details her work on audience readings of nationalism and religion in Bollywood cinema. She has published articles on the formation of online communities by Muslim Canadians, the depiction of Islam in Indian cinema, e-health, and feminism in television and music. Her work has appeared in Global Media Journal, Journal of Communication Inquiry, Information, Communication and Society, and the Canadian Journal of Communication. She holds an honours degree in Communication from Simon Fraser University, as well as an MA and PhD from Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication, where she taught courses on gender, television, culture, international communication and communication theory. FEBRUARY Thursday, February 2 - NO SNID TALK THIS WEEK Thursday, February 9 - NO SNID TALK THIS WEEK MARCH Thursday, March 1 Sharry Aiken Queen's University, Law Border Politics, Refugees & Canada's New/Old Policy Agenda 1-2.30pm, Mackintosh Corry Hall, Room D207 Abstract: To follow. About the Speaker: Sharry Aiken is an associate professor of law and associate dean (graduate studies & research) at Queen's University. She is a former president of the Canadian Council for Refugees and currently serves as co-chair of the CCR's legal affairs committee. In addition to teaching international refugee law at Queen's, Sharry has delivered refugee law courses at the University of Toronto, Hebrew University and the American University in Cairo; as well as for decision makers in Uganda, South Africa and the Philippines. Her current research interests include refugee law and its intersection with the national security agenda post 9/11 as well as minority rights.
Thursday, March 8 Theresa McCarthy The State University of New York at Buffalo, American Studies In/Divided Unity: Haudenosaunee Reclamation at Grand River 1-2.30pm, Mackintosh Corry Hall, Room D207 Abstract: Focused at the intersection of academia and the Six Nations of Grand River community, a big part of my work argues for a rethinking of prevailing notions of "tradition" and "factionalism" given the historical legacy of anthropological research and other forms of colonial scholarship on the cultural representation of Haudenosaunee peoples. Since the onset of land negotiations with the Canadian government in 2006 there has been an amplified scrutiny of Six Nations factionalism as well as an increased challenging of the integrity of Haudenosaunee traditionalism in public and legal domains. In my talk we will look at depictions of the Six Nations community and of the Caledonia-Six Nations crisis that have been mobilized as the current impasse in land negotiations continues. Linking these portrayals to historic representations of Six Nations direct action in both scholarship and the media, we will explore how an emphasis on Haudenosaunee intellectual paradigms along with insights from work in settler colonial studies enables us to effectively intervene when depictions of the current conflict converge with colonial agendas. About the Speaker: Theresa McCarthy (Onondaga Nation, Beaver Clan) is an assistant professor of American studies specializing in Native American studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her work focuses on the continuity of Haudenosaunee traditionalism and languages in contemporary Six Nations communities. Her further research interests reside in the areas of Six Nations land rights, Haudenosaunee theories of unity and divisiveness, the historiography of anthropological research on the Iroquois, Indigenous women and anti-violence initiatives and linguistic research methodologies. She received her Ph.D. from McMaster University. Thursday, March 15 Ariel Salzmann 1-2.30pm, Mackintosh Corry Hall, Room D207 Abstract: The Ottoman Empire (1326-1922), a tri-continental dynastic state that ruled peoples from Hungary to Yemen and from Greece to Algeria, represents one of the great, historic experiments in "multi-culturalism." This paper explores the myths and realities of a sociopolitical order (often called the "millet"system) that permitted the peaceful coexistence and cultural autonomy of different religious communities in Middle Eastern cities. How did Muslims, Jews and Christians actually get along in pre-modern Istanbul, the most populous Mediterranean metropolis of the day? To what degree did religious law and state policy set the terms for sociability and cultural exchange? Did truly "cosmopolitan" spaces emerge in late imperial Izmir, one of the empire's main ports of trade with Western Europe? Archival documents offer intriguing snapshots of cross-cultural interactions. Yet many critical questions remain unanswered. Ultimately, all attempts to reconstruct the "multi-cultural" dimensions of Ottoman urbanism, the author concludes, involve a dialogue with the modern [and post-modern] social imaginaries that continue to contest the imperial past. . About the Speaker: Ariel Salzmann's scholarship on the past bridges world regions and disciplines. She began her graduate studies in Persian language and literature at Ferdowsi University in Mashhad, Iran. She studied sociology at Binghamton University and the New School for Social Research before completing a PhD in Middle Eastern History at Columbia University in 1995. An article that summarizes the findings of her dissertation, "An Ancien Regime Revisted: Privatization and Political Economy in the 18th century Ottoman Empire," (Politics & Society 1993) won the Omer Lutfi Barkan Article Prize from the Turkish Studies Association. It remains one of the most influential essays in the field of Ottoman studies and has been cited by sociologists, political scientists and economists interested in aspects of governance and the history of privatisation. In addition to her 2004 monograph on the political sociology of the later Ottoman Empire, Tocqueville in the Ottoman Empire: Rival Paths to the Modern State, Professor Salzmann has published articles on a wide range of subjects, from a sociological analysis of the integration/exclusion of religious minorities in Medieval Christendom and the Islamic World, to an account of the conversion of a Maltese priest to Islam in seventeenth-century Egypt and an analysis of the consumer craze over tulips in eighteenth-century Istanbul. Her scholarship has been supported by fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities/American Research Institute in Turkey Fellowship (1988, 1999), the American Council of Learned Societies (2000), and Queen's University's A.R.C/ S.A.R.C. (2005, 2011). Her current research project, which seeks to document cultural and diplomatic relations between the popes and Ottoman sultans, was the alternate for the American Academy in Rome's Senior Prize in Renaissance and Early Modern Italian Studies in 2010. She was awarded a Senior Fellowship at the Research Centre for Anatolian Civilisations of Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey for Winter Term 2011. Before coming to Queen's in 2003, Professor Salzmann taught graduate and undergraduate students at the Pratt Institute, the University of Cincinnati and New York University. At Queen's University she teaches seminars and lectures on Middle Eastern and world history. Thursday, March 22 Ishita Pande 1-2.30pm, Mackintosh Corry Hall, Room D207 Abstract: This paper revisits child-marriage legislation in colonial India between 1891 and 1929 to re-envision the 'child' as a subject constituted by laws governing sex, rather than as an a priori object requiring protection from patriarchal sexual norms. I draw attention to the 'digital' or census-driven construction of the child in the twentieth century, to scrutinize the biopolitical ends that brought child-protection to the fore at this time. To go beyond debates on the location of rights and culture, and to relocate the idea of child-protection from a history of liberal rights to a critique of colonial government, I draw attention to the new importance of age -- as number -- in the formulation of legal subjectivities and in humanitarian accounting in twentieth-century India. About the Speaker: Ishita Pande is a historian of post/colonial South Asia, particularly interested in colonial governmentality in British India. Her recently-published book Medicine, Race and Liberalism in British Bengal: Symptoms of Empire (Routledge: London and New York, 2010) is a study of the impact of the colonial connection on race science in Britain, the resonances between race science and imperial liberalism, the crucial role played by medical experts in the theory and practice of colonial government, and the use of a medicalized idiom in the fashioning of the Bengali 'modern' in the long nineteenth century. Her interest in a critical understanding of colonial modernity continues to drive her work in a SSHRC-funded project on the politics of childhood, marriage and sexuality in late colonial India. As part of a larger project on the entanglement of culture-specific sexual norms and universal definitions of childhood, as articulated through child-marriage legislation in the twentieth century, she is also studying the 'globalization' of such legislation through the 'webs of empire' and international law in this period.. Thursday, March 29 Bita Amani 1-2.30pm, Mackintosh Corry Hall, Room D207 Abstract: The development of novel food is often rhetorically justified by industry proponents on the promises it holds to feed the world and cure the sick. Scientists have heralded genetic and biological manipulations that enable the creation of plant derived edible vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, and nutrient enriched, resilient, and highly adaptable "improved" varieties of crops. Such food must meet regulatory oversights for market approval. Novel food regulation in Canada is governed by Health Canada with standards that give particular priority to whether there is substantial equivalence between the novel food and its traditional counterpart. Novel Food Regulations in Canada underplay the significance of chemical difference to the safety determination of genetically modified food for consumption. Yet, in the field of biopatenting it is very much the chemical difference that matters for securing private intellectual property rights. Judicial attitudes from the field of intellectual property characterize 'DNA as chemical' and have thereby facilitated bio-patenting by agrochemical, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical firms This talk will examine how intellectual property (IP) may have more to contribute to the development and commercialization of novel food than simply an incentive scheme based on the promise of exclusive rights. Rather, IP can contribute to a gender based analysis of novel food regulation in two meaningful ways. First, intellectual property rights have contributed to the need for gender based analyses by merging the realms of agriculture and business, demonstrating in the process how women are sometimes treated as subjects, objects, or conduits for health delivery. Second, intellectual properties internalize the gains of any new invention while externalizing the costs. Despite promises to the contrary, pesticide and herbicide 'ready' varieties may paradoxically be resulting in the increased use of applied chemicals which in turn have gendered impacts due to different body burdens. Reconceptualizing DNA as chemicals and chemicals as food provides a fresh perspective for policy making in novel food regulation that is consistent with legal attitudes in the biopatenting field and may help broaden the scope of potential reform towards the demand for mandatory labelling of GM foods in Canada. Cross-policy coherence may help to alleviate some of the particular concerns of harm for women, their health, and environments. About the Speaker: Bita Amani B.A. (York University, with Distinction), LL.B. (Osgoode), S.J.D. (UofT) is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. She teaches courses on advanced intellectual property law, copyright, trade-marks and unfair competition, and information privacy and has also taught courses on international aspects of intellectual property governance, and torts. She was a doctoral fellow of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy and the Social Science Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her dissertation "Merchants and Missionaries: Patenting Life, Competing International Obligations, and the Proselytization of a Realistic Utopia" was published as a monograph, State Agency and the Patenting of Life in International Law: Merchants and Missionaries in a Global Society, (Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2009) and is part of the Globalization and Law Series. She has published in all areas of intellectual property and more recently a new course text (co-edited with Carys Craig), Trademarks and Unfair Competition - Cases and Commentary on Canadian and International Law (Toronto: Carswell, 2011). Dr. Amani has served as government consultant on gene patenting for the Ontario Advisory Committee on Predictive Genetic Technologies and on the e-Laws project for the Ministry of the Attorney General, Office of the Legislative Counsel in Ontario and briefly as a legislative drafter. She has also served as legal expert on biopatenting for media including commenting on the Supreme Court of Canada's Harvard mouse decision for CBC's IDEAS program. Professor Amani is of the Bar of Ontario. |
