Moroccan artist Mohamed Arejdal will be speaking with students about his experience as a clandestine migrant and the graphic novel that he co-wrote describing his journey and his turn to art: Amazigh. ❍ September 30th, 2021 | 11:30AM — 12:30 PM via Zoom, in French Contact: kpieprza@williams.edu for zoom link Continue reading »
September 16 @ 4:15pm | Bernhard Music Center, Room 30 Continue reading »
Deserts have long acted as spaces of political tension and asymmetrical power, functioning as testing grounds for nuclear weapons, zones of indefinite detention and death, spaces of ecological disaster, and sites of geopolitical threat. The desert today continues to evoke problematic imaginaries of narcotraffickers, “illegal” immigrants, smugglers, and Islamist militias, images that have prompted justifications for policing, securitization, gridding, exploiting, and even (re)fertilizing projects in this supposedly dead space. Most recently, the flow of sub-Saharan African immigrants out of “desert space” into European territories has led many Western commentators to interpret current migrant patterns as a type of ‘encroachment’ of the Sahara, a socio-political desertification that has placed this vast land at the center of Europe socially, politically, and culturally. Yet such dialogues collectively eclipse deeper connections and exchanges that have taken root between desert inhabitants for millennia and have ignored the interplay of imperialist agendas, venture capitalist initiatives, and necropolitics (Mbembe) in the desert that have long shaped the cultural and socio-political contours of this landscape as a real and imagined space. This two-day conference, which runs on May 20-21, 2021, aims to open “the desert” up for robust comparative discussions about desert spaces across the world and across different media and modes of representation. Continue reading »
This two-day symposium and student workshop aims to open “the desert” up for a robust discussion about how such factors are playing out not only in the Sahara, but in different desert landscapes across the world. Please send a 300-word abstract to comparativedesertsconference@gmail.com by March 15, 2021. Continue reading »
In a recent essay, the award-winning Haitian author Évelyne Trouillot writes, “…my writings, stemming from my lived experience and my aesthetic and social vision for a more beautiful and just world, are presented to readers who are not always acquainted with my reality…” The same can be said of the internationally acclaimed author Edwidge Danticat whose writing set in Haiti and in the Haitian diaspora reflects a commitment to humanity, beauty, and justice. During this International Women’s Day conversation moderated by W. Ford Schumann Faculty Fellow in Democratic Studies Régine Jean-Charles Trouillot and Danticat will read from their fiction and share their unique perspectives about Haiti’s past, present, and future. Continue reading »
Join us for our first spring semester alum talk with Katherine Huang ('08)! Thursday, March 4 at 4:30pm on ZOOM Continue reading »
This year the Chinese program plans to invite a few alumni to come back to Williams (through Zoom) and give talks to students about how they have used the skills that they have learned at Williams in their career path. The second talk will be Thursday, December 3, 7-8 pm and the speaker is Mr. Jonathan Isaacs ('00). The title of his talk is " Interesting Times: Being a China Lawyer in a Time of Rapid Political & Economic Change." Click here for the Zoom link! Continue reading »
RB Smith ’20 received first prize in literary category for the American Association of Arabic Teachers Translation Contest! He worked with Professor Radwa El Barouni on this translation last year. The official announcement from AATA can be found here. Current Arabic Studies students Max Chayet, Sam Gollub, and Rachel Morrow interviewed RB about his work, the challenges of studying Arabic, and his future plans. Continue reading »
In contrast with a long history of Western representations of Japan as inferior and irrational, Michele Monserrati's Searching for Japan identifies a positive overarching attitude toward the Far East country in modern Italian culture. Expanding the horizon of Italian transnational networks, normally situated within the Southern European region, this book reinstates the existence of an alternative Euro-Asian axis, operating across Italian history. Continue reading »
This year the Chinese program plans to invite a few alums to come back (though Zoom) and give talks to students about how they have used the skills that they have learned at Williams in their career path. The first talk will be next Thursday (Oct. 22) at 7-8 pm and the first speaker is Mr. Brian Connors ('00). The title of his talk is "A Career Using Chinese, From Beijing to the State Capitol and Back." * Register here to receive the Zoom link! Continue reading »