News

Contesting the Public Space: Artistic Networks, Cultural Movements, and Literary Icons in North Africa Today

Driss Ksikes

The North African public space is highly contested. While the states attempt to monopolize public space, civil society constituencies fight against statal, hegemonic tendencies. Art, cultural movements and literature are at the forefront of Maghrebi civil society that works tirelessly to expand ordinary North Africans’ access to their public arena. This lecture will show how art, literature and cultural action form a whole in the strive to establish democracy and civic-oriented polities in the Maghreb through the contestation of the public space. ❖ Tue. November 5, 2019 (4:15-5:30pm)| Hollander 241 Continue reading »

Power and Powerlessness in European Mosques

Niels Valdemar Vinding

In the politically contested reality of Mosques in Europe, Vinding’s Danish research project is looking at the resources, competences and abilities of Mosques in context, in order to understand the challenges that Mosques are facing in a proportionate and power-critical way. In the political myths that are produced in Europe these years, Mosques and Muslim leadership have been portrayed as subversive, counter-culture places and agents that threatens social cohesion, integration efforts, public order, and rule of law. ❖ 30 October, 12pm - 1pm | Hollander 317 Continue reading »

Dark Futures: Science Fiction from Germany and Austria

This year’s annual German/Austrian Filmfest at Images Cinema focuses on science fiction. The festival, titled “Dark Futures,” presents three recent films that take place in imaginary future worlds, but tackle issues that face us here and now: fear of change, deep trauma, family conflict, and loneliness. ❖ Sept. 16 Endzeit / Ever After by Carolina Hellsgard ❖ Sept. 23 Die kommenden Tage / The Days to Come by Lars Kraume ❖ Sept. 30 Die Wand / The Wall by Julian Pölsler 7pm @ Images Cinema Free admission. All movies are in German with English subtitles Continue reading »

Due North: Living, Researching, Writing the Russian North Pacific in an Era of Climate Crisis

The Kamchatka Peninsula, along the Western side of the Bering Strait, is home to an ecosystem that has long sustained human beings. Yet for the past two centuries, the area became the site of an experiment where the modern ideologies of production and consumption, capitalism and communism, were and continue to be subject to the pressures of Arctic scarcity and Indigenous culture. Bathsheba Demuth, Assistant Professor of Environmental History at Brown University and Julia Phillips, writer and author of the novel Disappearing Earth (Alfred A. Knopf 2019) will join Yana Skorobogatov, Assistant Professor of Russian and Soviet History at Williams College, for a conversation about the place of the Russian North Pacific in the modern world. ❖ Thu, October 3rd, 2019, 4:15 pm - 5:45 pm | The Williams Bookstore Continue reading »

Two Written Languages & Three Spoken Codes: Language Policy & Practices in Hong Kong

Hong Kong at Night

With examples from the linguistic reality in Hong Kong, Dr. Weiping Wu, Director of the Yale-China Chinese Language Center at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, will present facts and interpretations related to the use of languages in Hong Kong. He will explore topics such as the logic and application of the language policy in Hong Kong, differences before and after 1997 (from the perspective of campuses and local communities) and how Hong Kong's language policy influences its Basic Law with relation to the “One-country, two-system” frame. ❖ Wednesday, October 9, 4 PM | Griffin 6 Continue reading »

Photography of Citlali Fabián

Citlali Fabián

❖ Mestiza Portrait Series February 4 – May 10, 2019 | Hollander Hall 1st and 2nd floor lobbies ❖ Artist’s talk › Opening Reception | March 4 , 4PM | Hollander Hall lobby › March 6, 4PM | Hollander Hall 1st and 2nd floor lobbies ❖ “Indigeneity” and the Cultural Production of Mexico’s Pueblos Originarios A Panel Discussion with Citlali Fabián, Ana Daisy Alonso Ortiz, Isaura de los Santos Mendoza and Amal Eqeiq; moderated by Roxana Blancas-Curiel March 5, 7PM | Griffin 7 ❖ I'm from Yalálag Photographic Series February 4 – May 10, 2019 | WCMA, Object Lab Continue reading »

Legacy in Stone: Syria Before War

Monumental Arch, Palmyra,Syria 2003_4_1

Seven months after the start of the US war in neighboring Iraq in 2003, Kevin Bubriski was on two magazine assignments in Aleppo, Syria. At this time of conflict, he sought out assignment work in Syria because he wanted to photograph the deep cultural history there and the human face of Syria, its ordinary people and their daily lives. After his assignments in Aleppo he stayed on in Syria to photograph independently throughout the northern early Christian Dead Cities, the basilica of San Simeon, the Christian pilgrimage sites of Serjila, al Bara, Kharab Shams, Mushabak, Baqirha, Qalb Loze, Resafe, early Islamic sites near Raqqa, and the ancient Roman trade cities of Apamea, and Palmyra. ❖ Wed, April 3rd, 2019, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm | Hollander Hall 241 Continue reading »

Anti-Muslim Racism in Europe

Farid Hafez

Farid Hafez will give a talk on race and racism in Europe. He connects his expertise on contemporary Islamophobia with larger questions of colonialism, anti-Semitism and the imagination of a post-racial post-Holocaust era in Europe following the end of World War II. Hafez will especially focus on relevant issues of the rising far-right in today's Europe. ❖ April 18, 6 – 7PM | Griffin 3 Continue reading »

Philosophy for Life: Ideas that Matter

Evgenia Cherkasova

Evgenia Cherkasova who is a professor and chair of Philosophy at Suffolk University (Boston) will give a talk entitled “Philosophy for Life: Ideas that Matter”. The oldest, most perplexing existential questions are as relevant today as they were in ancient times. What do we live for? Why do we suffer? Which beliefs, values, and experiences sustain meaningful, fulfilling existence? The speaker will discuss “Philosophy as a Way of Life”—an engaged, existentially-charged approach to the Big Questions. Diverse examples will be drawn from Western and Eastern philosophical and literary texts. ❖ Fri, April 5th, 2019 @ 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm | Hollander Hall, 241 Continue reading »

This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia

Joan Neuberger, Professor of Russian History at the University of Texas, Austin, will speak about her new book on Sergei Eisenstein's film masterpiece Ivan the Terrible on Friday, April 12 in the Williams College Bookstore. Professor Neuberger's book, titled This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible in Stalin's Russia, explores how one of the world's greatest filmmakers and one of the 20th century's greatest artists observed the world around him and experimented with every element of film art to explore the psychology of political ambition, uncover the history of recurring cycles of violence, and lay bare the tragedy of absolute power. ❖ Friday, April 12, 2019 at 4:15 pm | Williams College Bookstore Continue reading »