4th Annual Crossing Borders Convocation: March 28-29, 2003
The term "biopower" is almost exclusively associated with the work of Michel Foucault (1926-84). In essence, Foucault first described a new awareness in modernizing states of eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe that the resources of science, bureaucracy and literature could be used to affect the size, longevity, and internal composition (age, sex, taste) of whole populations--that human communities could be shaped, endowed and bred in ways reminiscent of horticulture and even animal husbandry. While Foucault's demonstration of a new kind of power was situated within his analysis of the transformations accompanying the rise of the nation state, the term can be applied by extension to a range of contemporary global issues such as the politics of AIDS, the shifting projects of development, and the transformation of gender and culture under global capitalism.
The 2003 Crossing Borders convocation, in which students, faculty and guests present research results and wrestle with large themes, proposes to see biopower at the level of bodily fates under differing state and supra-state regimes. The points of entry will include experiences of witnessing, testimony and gendered violence, and the speakers will address the following themes:
- How social bodies get reshaped and re-presented against the backdrop of gendered normalcy in differing national contexts.
- How accounts of the body disrupt social, political and gender constructs.
- How sexuality and health come in and out of focus as epidemics change the way in which cultures and nations interface with the world.
- How large-scale environmental threats spur once isolated groups to transnational action.
Presenter Biographies
Christopher Laird
Christopher Laird, a graduate of London University with post-graduate training in Education, taught for seven years at the John S. Donaldson technical Institute in Port of Spain, is a published poet, has run a theatre in Port of Spain and published a journal of the Arts for five years in Trinidad & Tobago.
Since 1975 he has been working in television and has written, directed and or produced over 400 programmes for Banyan including the first television drama series in the anglophone Caribbean - Who the C.A.P. Fits... (1978). He has worked extensively in the region both in the production of television and the training of broadcasters.
His work has been selected for many international festivals, his awards include: The Commonwealth Film & Television Festival 1980 "Special Award for use of video for community development"; the National Media Awards for Best Series three times for the weekly arts magazine Gayelle; Best Documentary on AIDS and Best Documentary for Crossing Over (a co-production with the National Film & Television Institute in Ghana). Crossing Over also won Best Video Documentary at the 2nd. Caribbean Film Festival in Martinique in 1990.
In 1991 the landmark 13 part series Caribbean Eye on culture in the region, produced by Christopher, won best series at the regional Caribbean Broadcasting Union media awards and a special CARICOM prize for Caribbean integration.
In 1992 Christopher directed And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon, a 50 minute documentary for the BBC/TVE series Developing Stories which won Best Environmental Film and Best Video Documentary at the 3rd. Caribbean Film Festival in Martinique in 1992 and Best Public Affairs Documentary at the 13th. Annual International Film & Video Competition held by the National Black Programmers Consortium in Maryland USA 1993.
In 1996 He won awards for excellence in the National Media Awards for Best Current Affairs Programme (The Pink Mealy Bug in the Caribbean), Best Documentary (Habitat ll - Think Global, Act Local) and for the Best Children's Programme in the Caribbean by the Caribbean Broadcast Union (The Music of the Street). In 1998 he won the Pan American Health Organisation's award for Best Television Programme on Health Matters in the Caribbean for his drama on AIDS in the workplace, After One Time is Two Time.
He is currently Managing Director of Banyan and is working, among other things, on a film about Canadian/Trinidadian author, Harold Sonny Ladoo and two films on Storytelling.
Contact Information
Banyan Ltd.
3 Adam Smith Square
Woodbrook, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, The Caribbean
Tel: (868) 623 9756
Fax: (868) 627 6808
Email: banyan@pancaribbean.com [1]
Website [2]
Vidya Murthy
Vidya Murthy (Karnataka, India) is a graduate student in the Department of History, University of Iowa. Her research interest lies in exploring artisanal practices and understanding how the Modern Nation State shapes the artisan-subjects. She has a Masters in Art History and writes on Contemporary Indian Art. Murthy curated an exhibition of landscapes by a group of young Karnataka artists. The show titled, "Bhoomigeetha (Song of the Earth)" was held in Red Chair Gallery, Spring 2000 in Kansas City. She is also keen on pursuing her drawing practice.
Contact Information
Email: vidya-murthy@uiowa.edu [3]
Ellen Sweeney
Ellen E. Sweeney is a first-year doctoral candidate in the Film Studies program at The University of Iowa. Ms. Sweeney is interested in representations of trauma in fiction films, with a particular focus on Irish and Hindi cinema.
Contact Information
Email: Ellen-sweeney@uiowa.edu [4]
Pankaj Rishi Kumar
Pankaj Rishi Kumar's keen interest in Theatre and photography since school took him to the Film and Television Institute of India. He Graduated from the school in 1992, with specialization in Film Editing. He was an assistant editor on Bandit Queen. He has edited television serials and documentaries, such as Annapurna (1995), You Call This a Ladder (1996), Barf (1997), and Bundelkhand Express (1999). In 1996, he conceived his first film, a documentary, Kumar Talkies.
Working extensively with the new digital technology, Pankaj now Shoots, edits, directs and produces his own films. He is currently working on a few documentaries and writing his first feature film.
Contact Information
Pankaj Rishi Kumar
B/103, Gokul Tower, Thakur Complex, Kandivli (E)
Mumbai 400 101
Phone: 91-22-2854 7585
59 Gautam Nagar
New Delhi 49
Phone: 91-11- 2651 2019
Filmography
Mat / The Vote
Producer, Director, Cameraman and Editor
(DV, 77 min, 2003 )
Official selection competition--Fribourg Film festival, Mar'2003
Pather Chujaeri / THE PLAY IS ON
Producer, Director, Cameraman and Editor
(DV, 44 min, 2001)
Bronze Remi at Houston International Film Festival' Apr 2002
Best film: UNESCO MITIL Prize
Special jury award at Karachi Film Festival
Screened at Berlin, Busan, Mumbai, Nottam, Zanzibar, FSA (Kathmandu), Amascultura (Lisbon) Berlin Ethnofilmfest, Margreat Mead (New york), Docudays (Beirut), Karachi, and International Three Continentes Festival of Documentaries (Argentina).
Kumar Talkies
Producer, Director and Editor
(16mm, 76min, 1999)
Produced with financial support from the Hubert Bals Fund, Rotterdam and India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore
Best Film: L'Alternativa, Barcelona
Special Jury Citation: Zanzibar Film Festival
National Award for Best Audiography, 1999
Screened at 36 international film festivals:
Rotterdam, Visions Du Reel, Sydney, St. Petersburg, Brisbane, Kathmandu, Pusan, Cork, Yamagata, AFI Los Angeles, Hawaii, Nottam, Berlin, Mumbai, Munich, Berlin Ethno Filmfest, Fribourg, Big Muddy, Singapore, Sao Paulo, North Carolina, Minneapolis, Denver, Zanzibar, Palic-Yugoslavia, Nashville, Riga, and Calcutta.
Paul Greenough
Paul Greenough (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1977) History of Modern India;
Environmental and Global Health History.
Director, UI-Ford Foundation Crossing Borders Project.
Selected writings
Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal: The Famine of 1943-1944 (1982);
The Social and Cultural Background to Disease and Health in India (2000);
Editor, Imagination and Distress in Southern Environmental Projects (with Anna L. Tsing, forthcoming);
Editor, Immunization and the State: National Profiles, 1800-2000 (with Veena Das, forthcoming);
Editor, Redefining the Artisan: Traditional Technicians in Changing Societies (1992);
Editor (Symposium), "Immunization and Culture: Compliance and Resistance in Large-scale Public Health Campaigns," Social Science and Medicine (1995);
"Nation, Economy and Society Displayed--the Indian Crafts Museum, New Delhi" (1995);
"Intimidation, Resistance and Coercion in the Final Stages of the South Asian Smallpox Eradication Campaign 1973-75" (1995);
"Hunter's Drowned Land: A Science Fantasy of the Bengal Sunderbans" (1998).
Work in Progress
Medical Detectives from Atlanta: A History of the U.S. Epidemic Intelligence Service, 1951-85 (under contract).
Contact Information
Email: paul-greenough@uiowa.edu [5]
Schedule
All events take place in the Lasansky Room, UI Museum of Art, unless otherwise noted.
Friday March 28, 2003
12:30-1:00 pm Registration
1:00-1:15 Introduction & Annoucements
Paul Greenough (Director, Crossing Borders Program)
1:15-3:00 Panel 1. Constructed Bodies / Global Markets
Chair: Victoria Rovine (Art Museum UI)
- Bridget Sandhoff (Art UI) Female Bodybuilders: Bodies in Crisis
- Kimberly Cleveland (Art UI) Mario Cravo Neto: Questions of Afro-Brazilian History, Culture, and Identity Through Sculptural Photographs
- Vidya Murthy (History UI) Representing the Local Body: Art Works of Ramesh Kalkur
- Brett Van Hoesen (Art History UI) Neocolonialist Agendas and the Scripting of Cultural Policy in Weimar Germany
3:00-3:30 Refreshment Break
3:30-5:15 Panel 2. Violence and the Gendered Body
Chair: Priya Kumar (English UI)
- Jill Moffett (Women’s Studies UI) Moving Beyond the Ribbon: An Examination of Breast Cancer Advocacy and Activism
- Katharina Mendoza (Women's Studies UI) Filipino ‘Comfort’ Women: Sexual Violence, Nation, and the Politics of Apology
- Ellen Sweeney (Film Studies UI) Out of Time in the Wrong Place: Interpellation and the Chronotope in Neil Jordan’s “The Butcher Boy”
- Kamala Visweswaran (Anthropology UT Austin) Title TBA
5:30-6:45 Reception & Dinner
Catered - International Center Lounge
7:00-9:00 Film Session 1
107 English-Philosophy Building
Pather Chujaeri (The Play Is On....)(2002, 44 min)
Pankaj Rishi Kumar, Independent Film-Maker, India
Discussants:
Corey Creekmur (Film Studies UI)
Yung Bin Kwak (Film Studies UI)
Saturday March 29, 2003
All events take place in the Lasansky Room, UI Museum of Art, unless otherwise noted.
9:30-10:00am Registration
10:00-12:00 Panel 3. Enviornmental Fears and Betrayals of Faith
Chair: Denise Powers (Political Science UI)
- Brad Casucci (Anthro UI) Ignoring Aids: Sharing, Modernity and Health in Kenya
- Jeannie Sowers (Political Science UI) Selling Toshka: State, Business, and Environmental Discourse in Egypt
- Richard Mtisi (History UI) The Great Limpopo Trasfrontier Park in Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe
- Eric Hines (Political Science UI) The Greening of Europe: Green Parties and the European Union
- Benjamin Willett (Anthropology UI) Visions of a “Modern” Maya: Ethnicity and Politics in Quetzaltenango
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:45 Panel 4. Witnessing the Caribbean Body
Chair: Mary Lou Emery (English UI)
- Michaeline Crichlow (African-American World Studies UI) LUCIANS! ‘Just a Few Pricks’ or Deep Cuts to the National Body
- Paul Greenough (History UI) Gambling as Social Practice and Metaphor in Trinidad and Tobago
- Jennifer Stokes (Anthropology UI) Music in We Blood
- Catherine Douillet (Anthropology UI) Mixed Couples: Making over Ethnic and National Identities in Trinidad and Tobago
3:00-3:30 Refreshments
107 English-Philosophy Building (EPB)
3:30-5:30 Filme Session 2
107 EPB
Metaphor, Context and Immersion in the Work of Banyan – signs of a Caribbean Television Aesthetic
Christopher Laird, Producer-Director of Television Documentaries, Banyan Production, Trinidad
5:30-6:00 Closing Convocation Remarks
Professor Kamala Visweswaran, Anthropology University of Texas, Austin