The Dartmouth South-South Forum’s First Annual Workshop
Home Lost
August 12-16, 2019, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
Inside that city was our home,
inside the home was our garden
not separated from the neighbors even by a wall,
and inside that garden was a razqi flower
I will never smell again[1]
The last several years have witnessed a global rise in the number of people uprooted from their homes and homelands through war, environmental devastation, xenophobic immigration policies, and ethnic cleansing. While their historical and political circumstances are different, these populations and peoples share the trauma and experiences of becoming homeless and nationless. The Dartmouth South-South Forum’s inaugural interdisciplinary workshop will explore this issue under the title of “Home Lost.”
For the workshop, we aim to bring together a number of scholars, writers, and artists to discuss the various ways through which the trauma of losing one’s sense of home – be it physical, emotional, or psychological – manifests in the everyday lives of those affected as well as in their artistic expressions. In lieu of traditional panel sessions, the forum will be organized around daily roundtables for workshopping works-in-progress. Participants will circulate their drafts three weeks prior to the session. In addition to roundtables, the forum will host a number of film screenings and art exhibits.
The South-South Forum is an interdisciplinary group that seeks to bring scholars, artists, and activists from Africa, Asia, and Latin America into direct conversation with each other. Our objective is to promote conversations across disciplines that would prioritize theoretical frameworks from the "South." We do not refer to the "South" solely in terms of geography, but also in terms of subject positionality vis-a-vis a hegemonic "North," broadly defined. In doing so, we endeavor to center the scholarly contributions of the world's majorities within the American academy and to encourage a more egalitarian exchange of ideas. The Forum is committed to cultivating intellectual alliances and political solidarities across regions and continents, as well as to advancing comparative and transnational methodologies through a praxis that is feminist, collaborative, and anti-hierarchical.
In order to decenter Anglophone scholarship, the workshop will be multilingual and we will provide translation at all events. We are especially interested in the works of scholars, writers, and artists located outside of North America and Europe. We also plan to make participation more accessible by providing funding for all participants (travel, meals, and hotel) as well as official invitation letters for securing visas to the US for those who need them.
Submissions and Deadlines
We welcome works-in-progress papers from graduate students, independent researchers, and academics of all ranks and all disciplines. Given the cross- and trans-regional emphasis, applicants who work on more than one region within the same continent or across multiple continents will be given priority.
Our focus on the theme of “Home Lost” could include these and other channels of inquiry:
- Displacement, dislocation, and trauma,
- Migrants, exiles, and refugees
- Diasporas and reconstructions of home
- Mobilities and immobilities,
- Temporary-permanent encampments,
- Carceral Geographies/Prison as Home,
- Border geographies and ecologies,
- Climate change and unnatural disasters,
- Gender, sexuality and intimacies of home,
- Indigeneity and home/land,
- Material culture, aesthetics, home as everyday world-making
To submit a proposal, please send a paper abstract (max. 500 words) and a recent curriculum vitae to dartmouthssf@gmail.com by March 1. Decisions will be emailed out by March 15.
We are eager to nominate a week-long residency for an artist and/or host film screenings and performances as part of the workshop. Please submit an artist statement, curriculum vitae, and short statement about engaging with the theme and a plan for the residency.
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with the forum conveners Eman Morsi, Mingwei Huang, and Golnar Nikpour with any questions at dartmouthssf@gmail.com.
Timeline
March 1: Abstracts due.
March 15: Decisions emailed out.
July 20: Full drafts due
August 12-16: The Workshop
[1]From “Excerpt" by Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail, translated by Elizabeth Winslow