April 2011 Archives

Please join as at the Political Theory Colloquium this Friday (4/29),
for a talk by Banu Bargu (Assistant Professor of Political Science,
New School), followed by a discussion. Professor Bargu will present
her work "From the Margins: Materialism of the Encounter and Political
Spectacle."

Abstract
In a piece that dates back to 1962, Althusser discusses El Nost Milan,
a play by Bertolazzi staged by the Piccolo Teatro of Milan under the
direction of Strehler. His discussion of theater, curiously anchored
among the theoretical essays that comprise the groundbreaking
collection For Marx, remains relatively tangential to his overall
philosophical project. However, the analysis of the structure of the
Bertolazzi play contains important indications for the extremely
interesting theory of aleatory materialism Althusser develops in the
1980s. In this paper, I read Althusser's "Piccolo Teatro" as an essay
in which his analysis of a theatrical performance anticipates elements
that make up his aleatory materialism, focusing particularly on the
concept of the encounter. I trace the implications of Althusser's
analysis of El Nost Milan for Althusser's oeuvre and, in the spirit of
an aleatory materialist analysis, to extend this analysis toward the
understanding of our contemporary political conjuncture marked by
spectacular political acts (such as self-immolations in North Africa
and the Middle East). Althusser's "Piccolo Teatro" presents us with a
rich resource for political thinking, not only for understanding
political conjunctures marked by evental ruptures but also for carving
a role for critique in these conjunctures.

As usual, the colloquium will be at 1:30 in 1314 Social Sciences;
coffee will be served.

Verdad, Justicia, y Reparación
Truth, Justice, and Reparation

A talk by Spanish Investigating Judge Baltasar Garzón

Monday, April 25
2:00pm
25 Mondale Hall
University of Minnesota, West Bank

Judge Baltasar Garzón served for many years on Spain's central criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional, which has jurisdiction over the most important criminal cases in Spain, including terrorism, organized crime and money laundering, as well as universal jurisdiction for violations of international law. He first came to international attention in 1998 when he sought the extradition of former Chilean president, General Augusto Pinochet, from England to Spain for the alleged deaths and torture of Spanish citizens by his regime.

In 2008, Garzón initiated an investigation into the crimes committed by the Franco regime in Spain. He has since been temporarily suspended from his position in the Audiencia Nacional, awaiting trial on accusations from right-wing groups of having exceeded his authority. Since May 2010, he has been working in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and he will shortly begin working as an advisor to the Organization of American States mission to Colombia.

Lecture in Spanish with simultaneous translation provided - reception to follow

Talk organized by the Departments of Spanish and Portuguese Studies and Political Science.
Co-sponsors include: European Studies Consortium, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Institute for Global Studies, Human Rights Program, Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, Law School, Global Spotlight

The Black Atlantic: Colonial and Contemporary Exchanges

Stanford University, California
October 28-29, 2011
DEADLINE: June 1, 2011

The Stanford Forum for African Studies (SFAS) invites proposals for papers by graduate
students, scholars, and faculty on the topics of slavery, migration and the African Diaspora, and how each of these affect social, economic, and political development in Africa in the past and present.

Please contact Melina Platas at mplatas@stanford.edu with any further questions.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

More information about the executive officer roles and responsibilities may be found on the IPID web site:

Professor Leon Tikly.pdf

Sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Development student group and Department of Organizational Leadership, Development, and Policy

When: Wednesday, April 20 at 7:00 p.m.

For further information, please contact IARP. For more information about Water for Peace, visit http://reconciliationproject.org.

Please join us this Friday (4/15) for the political theory colloquium.
We will host Professor Paul Rahe (Hillsdale College) who will briefly
present his paper "Montesquieu's Natural Rights Constitutionalism,"
followed by a longer discussion. The colloquium will be in 1314
Social Sciences at 1:30; coffee will be served.

Professor Rahe's visit is made possible by the Tocqueville Fund, a
small endowment administered by the board of the Minnesota Association of Scholars. MAS will also be hosting Professor Rahe for a talk on Thursday, April 14 at 7:30 at the Fort Snelling Officer's Club. To
sign up or ask questions contact Terry Flower at 651-690-6598 or
e-mail contact@intellectualtakeout.org.

What's Wrong With American Education - A Panel Discussion

On Wednesday, April 13th at 6:30 pm in the Rapson Hall Auditorium, Students For Education Reform-Minnesota will be hosting a panel discussion with some of the state's top K-12 education reformers.

Moderator: Daniel Sellers, Teach For America-Twin Cities Executive Director

Panelists:
Brenda Cassellius ,Minnesota Education Commissioner
Rob Clark , Sr. Director of State Government Affairs & MinnCAN Board Member Pat Garofalo ,Chairman of the Education Finance Committee Representative
Al Fan, Charter School Partners Executive Director
Terri Bonoff , Minnesota State Senator (District 43)


Light refreshments will be provided. More information can be viewed at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=201445393221922


Hope to see you there!

There has been much controversy about French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's relation to the Jews and the Holocaust. Godard was recently accused of anti-Semitism. Philip Watts will return to this recent affair by focusing on Godard's filmic representation of WWII, the Middle East conflict and the Holocaust.

Thoughts on Giorgio Agamben's Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive
Jeffrey Mehlman, Professor of French, Department of Romance Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University

Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has argued in several books that the concentration camp has become the paradigm of our life in modern, liberal democracies. His work has a vast influence on many different fields and disciplines: legal scholarship, social sciences (especially political science), and literary studies in the US, Europe and beyond.

Jeffrey Mehlman will examine the perils engaged and not always avoided when Italy's pre-eminent philosopher, perched between Heidegger and Benjamin, Foucault and Arendt, hurls the pre-eminent discourses of European modernity at the pre-eminent catastrophe of the twentieth century in what never quite coheres as the pre-eminent epistemological encounter of modern times.

Event Flyer (PDF)

Dr. Watenpaugh will explore how aspects of Armenian Genocide denial first emerged around a discrete historical moment, in particular international humanitarian relief efforts on behalf of Armenian Genocide survivors in the early interwar period. Thinking about denial in this fashion creates a space in which to reflect critically about how history as both a discipline and practice operates in the spheres of power and public opinion, especially across political and cultural divides.

Professor Watenpaugh will also present "Hate in the Past Tense" in an abbreviated format at 7:00 p.m. at the St. Sahag Armenian Church, 203 North Howell Street, St. Paul.

On Friday, April 15, Professor Watenpaugh will present his paper "Finding the Lost: The League of Nations' Rescue of Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Paradoxes of Modern Humanitarianism" at 3:30 p.m. in room 1210 Heller Hall.

Event Flyer (PDF)

This talk examines the ways in which the servant-employing middle and upper classes in Kolkata produce and reproduce class at home through the maintenance and cultivation of distinction. The operations of distinction make natural and normal the relationship of exploitation which undergirds the institution of domestic servitude in India and elsewhere. In Kolkata's culture of servitude, distinction can take myriad forms, but the trope of distance between employers and servants - be it physical/spatial or metaphorical/emotional - is critical. In the spatiality of the old order - the big house with servants' quarters - servants are said to be everywhere and nowhere, and their presence unobtrusive. In the relatively curtailed space of the flat, servants are considered to be underfoot and infringing on privacy. Employers try to maintain distinction from servants by segregating the servant body through the politics and practices of eating, sitting, sleeping, bathing, and clothing. Employer anxieties and servant aspirations come to the fore as distinctions begin to blur with emerging discourses of democracy and rights in the home and the city.

GEOGRAPHY COFFEE HOUR FRI. 8 APRIL 2011:
Blegen 445, Coffee & Cookies 3:15 pm, Talk 3:30 pm

'The Politics of Piracy in Somalia: The Rich versus the Poor' - Abdi I. Samatar

[Professor and Chair of Geography, The University of Minnesota]Samatar coffee hour poster 4.8.11.pdf

Greetings!

April is Sexual Assault Awareness month. The Women's Center is proud to be a co-sponsor of the Aurora Center's programming that aims to increase awareness of sexual assault on campus and support survivors. Please show your support by attending a variety of the free activities. For more information, please visit: http://www1.umn.edu/aurora/events/index.html

On Our Minds

All campus community members are invited to the grand opening of a new lactation room in Appleby Hall, Rm 220, on April 21 at 12:30! This much-needed resource for staff and student mothers is the result of the joint efforts and funding from the Student Parent HELP Center, the Women's Center and the Office for Student Affairs. Thanks to the Office for Equity and Diversity for an additional contribution. Research shows that workplace lactation spaces positively influence the health of the mother and the child , and are a cost-saving measure for employers by: reducing health insurance premiums and health care costs; decrease absenteeism; increasing job satisfaction, productivity, and employee retention (http://www.breastfeedingworks.org/econ.htm). We can assume this is also true in terms of the positive impact on student attendance and academic performance.

The Appleby Lactation Room is available on a first come, first served basis. Contact the SPHC at 6-6015 or the Center at 5-9837 for a key, and/or to join the Lactation Committee which supports women who elect to breastfeed. For more information: http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/worklife/lactation.

See you there,

Susan Warfield, SPHC Program Director

Women's Center Awards & Scholarships

*The Carol E. Macpherson Memorial Scholarship:* A private family scholarship that was established in the 1970's in Carol's memory to assist "non-traditional" women in completing their education at the University. The scholarship deadline is 4:30 PM, Wednesday, April 27th, 2011. Please visit: http://www1.umn.edu/women/awardsMacpherson.html for more information and to obtain an application.

The exhibition "A Heart Connects Us" will close on Friday, April 8. Make sure to view the gallery before then!

Thursday, April 14, 12-1:30 p.m., 120 Andersen Library. Global REM Seminar will feature Richard Black presenting "Migration Futures in a Warmer World." Beverages will be served.

Tuesday, April 26, 4-5:30 p.m., 120 Andersen Library. Global REM Seminar will feature IHRC Showcase on Undergraduate Research. Presenters will be: the Collective SHEEKO Project, Mia Overly, Keit Osadchuk & John Ziegler. Graduate student commentators: Virgil Slade, Arta Ankrava & Ilze Garoza.

Thursday, April 28, 12-1:30 p.m., 308 Andersen Library. Global REM Seminar will feature Michele DeGregorio presenting "Arditi Rossi, Legionaries and Blackshirts in USA, 1921-1927." Beverages will be served.

Friday, April 29, 4-5:30 p.m., 135 Nicholson Hall. Lily Cho will present "Diasporic Counterpublics: Institutions and Installations." Sponsored by Asian American Studies, co-sponsored by Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature and the Immigration History Research Center.

EVENT RESCHEDULED

The House will be in session during today's scheduled event time, so we are rescheduling the event to accommodate Speaker Zellers' schedule. The new day and time will be next Monday, April 11th, 2011 from 12:30-1:45 p.m.

Before the Negotiations Begin: Minnesota's Budget Deficit and Possible Solutions

Monday, April 11th, 2011
12:30-1:45 p.m.
Cowles Auditorium, Humphrey School
301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis

Minnesota has a projected $5 billion deficit over the next biennium. The House and Senate propose reduced spending without tax increases, while the governor's proposal includes a mixture of spending cuts and an additional tax increase on the state's highest earners.

Is there a common ground to be found between their two plans? Will tax increases drive Minnesotans and Minnesota jobs away? Will spending reductions have a disproportionate affect on lower and middle income individuals? Leaders of the state legislature and governor's cabinet will assess the budget decisions and consequences, in addition to giving us a snapshot of how this great difference in positions can be bridged.

Please join us for a lively conversation with the following panelists:

Amy Koch, Minnesota Senator Majority Leader
Kurt Zellers, Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker
Myron Frans, Commissioner, Department of Revenue
Jim Schowalter, Commissioner, Minnesota Management and Budget

The event will be moderated by Steve Sviggum, legislative fellow with the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

These events are free and open to the public. For more information or to request disability accommodations, please call 612-625-2530 or email cspg@umn.edu.

The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.

Special advance reading by German novelist Eugen Ruge, winner of the 2009 Alfred Doeblin Prize, at the U of M. The reading will be in German and English. The novel tells the history of communism/ socialism as an East German family's history.

What: English/ German reading from In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts
Who: German author Eugen Ruge; translator Jerome Samuelson; and GSD host Matthias Rothe

When: Tuesday, April 12, 12:00-1:15 PM, 125 Nolte (Library)

refreshments will be served

Sponsors: CGES, GSD, the Dept. of English, and IAS

Details:
In 2008, playwright, screen writer, literary translator of Anton Chekhov, and former mathematician Eugen Ruge took a big gamble. He decided to try his hand at a novel to see if he could capture the truth of lived communism in the GDR. The story, he believed, needed the broadest of canvasses. It needed to connect the GDR to the Soviet Union and to other places in the world. It needed to show the range and contradictions of individuals' experiences. It needed to present readers with a mosaic of perspectives. He set to work.

In 2009, Ruge's debut novel won the biennial Alfred Doeblin Prize, one of Germany's most coveted literary awards. Guenter Grass, 1999 Nobel Laureate for Literature, had created the award to honor and support daring new manuscripts by accomplished German novelists. Stylistically, Ruge connects to the tradition of great narrative storytellers. His daring is about what he shows--four generations of a political East German family: a son who flees the Nazis for the Soviet Union, almost dies in one of Stalin's gulags, and returns to the GDR to work as a researcher in a state historical institute; parents who at war's end return from political exile in Mexico to help build socialist East Germany; a grandson who flees the GDR just as the Wall comes down; and a great-grandson for whom the first generation's political struggles are but the stuff of boring history lessons.

CGES invited Eugen Ruge to Minnesota for an advance reading and discussion of his In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts. The German publisher Rowohlt Verlag granted special permission for an English/German reading.The novel will be published in September and is billed as Rowohlt's top new book for the fall season.

On April 13th, 2011 we are launching a groundbreaking partnership that leverages the potential of the local Somali Minnesotan community to enact change in Somalia and here at home. Mayor R.T. Rybak, United Way and the Internally Displaced Somalis Advisory Council will join us in forging this innovative initiative that is quickly gaining both local and global support.

I invite you to join me as a special guest for this exciting event that will draw community leaders from across the Twin Cities. The event will be held at Minneapolis City Hall on April 13th at 6pm. Somalia is in crisis right now and our own Somali neighbors have issues living here in the US, please turn out and learn how you can get involved. Thanks!

Center for the Study of Politics and Governance

Getting Americans Back to Work: Why We Need to Do it and How We Can

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
12-1:15 p.m.
Cowles Auditorium, Humphrey School
301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis

Unemployment remains at an extremely high level and is projected to subside only slightly, to about 8%, by the end of 2012. This means that five years after the recession began we would still face unemployment higher than the worst month of the prior two recessions. Yet, both parties seem to want to look the other way, talking about competitiveness and scaling back government, neither of which will help much to fill the current 11.4 million job shortfall. Lawrence Mishel, president of Economic Policy Institute, will explain the path not being taken. The forum will be moderated by Chris Farrell, chief economics correspondent for Minnesota Public Radio.

Before the Negotiations Begin: Minnesota's Budget Deficit and Possible Solutions

Wednesday April 6th, 2011
12-1:15 p.m.
Cowles Auditorium, Humphrey School
301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis

Minnesota has a projected $5 billion deficit over the next biennium. The House and Senate propose reduced spending without tax increases, while the governor's proposal includes a mixture of spending cuts and an additional tax increase on the state's highest earners.

Is there a common ground to be found between their two plans? Will tax increases drive Minnesotans and Minnesota jobs away? Will spending reductions have a disproportionate affect on lower and middle income individuals? Leaders of the state legislature and governor's cabinet will assess the budget decisions and consequences, in addition to giving us a snapshot of how this great difference in positions can be bridged.

Please join us for a lively conversation with the following panelists:

Amy Koch, Minnesota Senator Majority Leader
Kurt Zellers, Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker
Myron Frans, Commissioner, Department of Revenue
Jim Schowalter, Commissioner, Minnesota Management and Budget

The event will be moderated by Steve Sviggum, legislative fellow with the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

These events are free and open to the public. For more information or to request disability accommodations, please call 612-625-2530 or email cspg@umn.edu.