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This year marks our 3nd annual colloquium series, American Studies in the 21st Century. It is co-sponsored by African American & African Studies, Sociology, English, and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. We are inviting colleagues from other universities, as well as from the University of Minnesota, to discuss their research. We look forward to thinking with them and with one another about the important research issues that will confront us in the decades ahead.
We encourage faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students to participate in these colloquia. Our intention is to create a lively forum for discussion and exchange, and the colleagues we have invited anticipate that sort of engagement. Most of our speakers are presenting work in progress and are interested in discussion and responses to new ideas and problems that they are considering.
We look forward to seeing you at our series.
Schedule of American Studies in the 21st Century Speakers
Monday, March 31, 3:30 pm
125 Nolte Center
Omar Jamal
The Impact of "War on Terror" on the Somali Community Omar Jamal is a Somali native and a graduate of University of Memphis in Tennessee. He worked under Governor Jesse Ventura as well as with the Minnesota Agricultural Department. Today, Jamal is the Executive Director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center and is active in the national discussion of Somali justice issues. He has spoken to the National Press Club in Washington D.C., and gives numerous radio and media interviews regarding U.S. policy towards Somalis in the post 9/11 world. Jamal argues that the ?War on Terror? is truly a ?War on Ideas?, which affects the Somali community both locally and nation-wide. For the ?American Studies in the 21st Century: A Colloquium Series,? Jamal will discuss the impact of the War on Terror on the Somali community within Minnesota and within a larger social context.
Monday, February 25th, 3:30 p.m.
101 Walter Library
Prof. Anouar Majid
Anouar Majid is a Professor of English at the University of New
England. He received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University. His work is
in the areas of American literatures and cultures, postcolonial
theory and studies, non-Western literatures, and intellectual history
in general. His newest book is A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent is
Vital to Islam and America, published by the University of Minnesota
Press in the Fall of 2007. Majid's other publications include Freedom
and Orthodoxy: Islam and Difference in the Post-Andalusian Age
(Stanford University Press, 2004), Unveiling Traditions: Postcolonial
Islam in a Polycentric World (Duke University Press, 2000), and the
novel Si Yussef (Quartet, 1992; Interlink, 2005). He is also the
co-founder and editor-in-chief of Tingis, a Moroccan-American
magazine of ideas and culture.
Monday, April 21st, 3:30 p.m.
Location: TBA
Prof. Jasbir Puar
Jasbir Puar is a Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers
University. Her research interests include gender, sexuality,
globalization; postcolonial and diaspora studies; queer theory; South
Asian cultural studies; and tourism studies. Puar's publications
include "On Torture: Abu Ghraib," in Radical History Review (Fall
2005), "The Remaking of a Model Minority: Perverse Projectiles under
the Specter of (Counter)Terrorism," with Amit Rai, in Social Text 80
vol. 22 no. 3 (Fall 2004); "Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on
Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots," with Amit Rai, in
Social Text 72 vol. 20 no. 3 (Fall 2002); "Circuits of Queer
Mobility: Tourism, Travel, and Globalization," in GLQ vol. 8 nos. 1-2
(2001); "Global Circuits: Transnational Sexualities in Trinidad," in
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society vol. 26 no. 4 (Summer
2001); "Transnational Configurations of Desire: The Nation and its
White Closets" in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness edited by Matt
Wray et al (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001). Puar is currently
working on a book manuscript on queer biopolitics, race and
sexuality, and discourses of counter/terrorism.
Fall 2007 Speaker
Monday, October 29th, 3:30 p.m.
125 Nolte Center
Prof. Zine Magubane
"White Girls Behaving Badly: Reality TV and Gender Politics Post 9/11"
Zine Magubane is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Boston
College. She received her PhD from Harvard University. Postcolonial
theory has shown that women function as 'boundary markers' of empire.
This talk will draw a link between the proliferation of images of
'out of control' young white women on reality TV and the manner in
which gender and gender roles are being discussed in this new age of
empire. It will focus on the reality TV shows My Super Sweet Sixteen
and Bridezilla, showing how anxieties about gender and power are
continually produced and reproduced in these shows about what we have
now come to understand as iconic female rites of passage. The talk
will conclude with a discussion of the ways in which, to quote Toni
Morrison, an 'Africanist presence' gets deployed in these discussions
of white female rebellion, by contrasting images of white 'out of
control women' with images of African American women who are engaged
in seemingly similar behavior.
Colloquium Series Archive
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