Online Conference: Art History, Postcolonialism, and the Global Turn (SESSION I)

Join RISD and Brown University for a free, online conference, film screening, and conversation entitled "Art History, Postcolonialism, and the Global Turn" September 25–October 23, 2020.

This conference asks whether, or to what degree, postcolonial discourses stand to be recuperated and revised in 21st century art history, architectural history, visual studies, and art criticism. In cases where political alliances have frayed and nascent national governments foundered, radical politics have sometimes given way to disillusionment, while transnationalism, hybridity, and self-fashioning settle in as new norms. For some in the Global South, “postcolonial” may indeed appear misleading as an overall designation. Nevertheless, what could be the implications of moving past postcolonialism as we arguably celebrate a cosmopolitan world that has yet to be fully realized? With neoliberalism giving rise to what art historian Anthony Gardner has called “a resurgent focus on North Atlantic relations,” what would be the cost of letting the postcolonial slip away?

Registration is required and is limited to 300 per session.

Detailed schedule, speaker bios, paper abstracts, and registration for panels and film-screening: pococonf.risd.edu

Schedule:

Panel one
September 25, 11am EST
Tammer El-Sheikh (York University)
Sonal Khullar (University of Pennsylvania)

Film screening
October 2–9: Register online.
Un-documented: Unlearning Imperial Plunder
Written and directed by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay

Panel two
October 9, 11am EST
Diana Martinez (Tufts University)
Jennifer Bajorek (Hampshire College)
Anthony Gardner (Oxford University)

Film conversastion
October 10, 11am EST
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay in conversation with Vazira Zamindar (Brown, History) and Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa (RISD, Photography)

Panel three
October 23, 11am EST
Ijlal Muzaffar (RISD)
Alexander Alberro (Barnard College / Columbia University)

Organizers: Foad Torshizi (RISD), Joshua I. Cohen (CCNY), and Vazira Zamindar (Brown).

Sponsors: RISD Division of Liberal Arts; RISD MA Program in Global Arts and Cultures; RISD Associate Provost for Social Equity and Inclusion; RISD Global; Brown University, Center for Contemporary South Asia; Brown University, Art History from the South; Brown University, Department of History; Brown University, Brown Arts Initiative; Brown University, Department of History of Art and Architecture; Brown University, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Brown University, Decolonial Collective on Migration of Objects and People.

Contact: pococonf@risd.edu