Handel Kashope Wright interview

Handel Kashope WrightCCSR Co-director Mica Nava recently conducted a public interview with Handel Kashope Wright, Canada Research Chair of Comparative Cultural Studies, David Lam Chair of Multicultural Education, Director of the Centre for Culture, Identity and Education and Professor in the Educational Studies Department at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Professor Wright is also on the CCSR Advisory Board. The interview was conducted as part of the Learning Lab series, sponsored by FOMACS and the British Council in Ireland. The Director of FOMACS, Aine O’Brien, is also a member of the CCSR Advisory Board. Video of the interview can be viewed here.

Maggie Humm at Edinburgh International Book Festival 2010

CCSR co-director Professor Maggie Humm has been invited to speak at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2010 on August 22nd in Peppers Theatre. The talk is about her recently published The Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf and the Arts, EUP that was launched on May 20th, 2010 at a very successful seminar and wine reception hosted by CCSR and University of Notre Dame London Centre.

Marshall Berman gives CCSR’s 2nd annual lecture

Marshall BermanOur second annual lecture, on 16th June, 2010 featured Marshall Berman, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at City University of New York and CUNY Graduate Center and author of All That is Solid Melts Into Air, Adventures in Marxism, The Politics of Authenticity and, most recently, On The Town (all published by Verso).

Professor Berman’s speech, ‘Urban Ruins: City Life with Urbicide’, explained the phenomena of ‘urbicide’ – the distinct form of violence against the built environment. Full report here

Debra Benita Shaw at University of Surrey Conference on the Emergence of the Posthuman Subject

On 3rd July, 2010, CCSR committee member Debra Benita Shaw spoke at the University of Surrey Institute of Advanced Studies conference The Emergence of the Posthuman Subject. She delivered a paper entitled ‘Posthuman Remains: Contemporary Biopolitics and the Consumption of Undeath’ which interrogated the fascination with life extension techniques and how they can be understood in terms of the way that neoliberalism constructs contemporary subjectivities.

ACS Crossroads in Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, 2010

CCSR committee member Debra Benita Shaw and Sarah Baker, a former doctoral candidate at UEL, attached to CCSR, who was recently awarded her PhD, presented papers at the 8th Crossroads in Cultural Studies conference at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, June 17th – 21st, 2010. Sarah’s paper, called ‘Retro Homes and the Value of ‘Authentic’ Iconicity’ discussed the results of ethnographic research among ‘retro’ enthusiasts in the UK. Debra’s paper, ‘Investment Strategies in the Genomic Domain: The Life Cycle of homo oeconomicus’ presented the results of ongoing research into the connection between evolutionary psychology and contemporary neo-liberalism.

Started in 1996 in Tampere, Finland, the Crossroads Conferences were to fill what was felt to be a gap in the international cultural studies community. Since then it had become one of the most important international conferences in cultural studies where scholars from all five continents get together to exchange their scholarly insights as well as to get in touch with different cultures. Organized by the Association for Cultural Studies (ACS), Crossroads conference is now held every two years in different parts of the world: Birmingham in UK, Illinois in US, Istanbul in Turkey and Kingston in Jamaica. This was the first time it had been held in East Asia