The CALAMEGS Student-Run Working Group will be meeting Thursday, February 20th from 5:30-6:30 pm in Rm 305 of 19 University Place for a discussion on the introduction to Jessica A. Krug's Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom.
This year we will be exploring notions of “archive” as they relate to Africa, the Middle East and the Global South and intersect with the issues that we work on (such as, but not limited to, (under)development, neoliberalism, (trans)nationalisms, gender, etc.). Challenging the epistemic authority of colonial and neo-colonial archives, we will explore other archives within and beyond textual registers (such as food, orality, film, etc.) that circulated in private, unconventional or peripheral institutional and non-institutional spaces as contestations to records of power and foundations for South-South comparative paradigms. Each month, we consider an archival form in relation to a theoretical issue. We invite students working in all fields to join for multidisciplinary discussions.
Housed in NYU’s Department of Comparative Literature, this working group seeks to complement the new certificate program “Comparative Approaches to the Literatures of Africa, the Middle East, and the Global South” (CALAMEGS). Our principal aim is to extend the geographic, linguistic and literary scope of Comparative Literature beyond its Eurocentric tendencies by tapping into the fields and work of Area Studies, History, Performance Studies and other programs. Further, we seek to explore the notion of the “Global South” as a paradigm for comparative research that moves beyond geographically-based programs of study. In addition to discussing theoretical texts and primary sources, we seek to be a platform for knowledge production where participants engage in translations, host interdisciplinary events and present their works-in-progress. We invite all students, faculty and others interested in such approaches to join. If you have not joined our mailing list and would like to stay up to date with readings and upcoming meetings and events, please sign up here!