Cosmopolitics Program

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COSMOPOLIS /COSMOPOLITICSHumanities and Citizenship Afer Neo-Liberalism?

May 58 2010

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY / HARBOUR CENTRE

515 WEST HASTING S STREE T, VANCOUVER BC


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Now in its 28th year, the Institute for theHumanities at Simon Fraser University is

committed to the idea of studying pressing

contemporary problems; one of these

concerns is the notion of citizenship in a

globalized world where the nation and the

state have changed fundamentally as they are

dominated by transnational corporations.

The conference will conclude the project

called Imagining Citizenship that has focused

on these issues in the last few years. Study

groups comprising academics and members

of the wider community have been meeting

to discuss ideas of citizenship in relation

to the environment, culture, social justice,

religion, modernity and the university fromthe perspective of the humanities.

How can the humanities

reinvigorate and participate in

a new cosmopolitan citizenship

in the age of neo-liberalcrisis and decline?

BACKGROUND

In the framework of the humanities, the city is akey site for thinking through the new conditions

for a cosmopolitan citizenship. Citizenship is not

the narrow and oen violent and exclusionary

horizon of the nation state; rather, the citizen

is the subject of possibility, a subject alive

with the search for meaning, rich in new

directions and new urgencies. This conference

seeks to address the following question:

COSMOPOLIS/COSMOPOLITICS : HUMANITIES AND CITIZENSHIP AFTER NEOLIBERALISM?


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KEYNOTE SPEECHESRamin Jahanbegloo (University of Toronto)

Wendy Brown (University of California

at Berkeley)

PRESENTATIONS

Len Findlay

Lisa Robertson

Sherilyn MacGregorSourayan Mookerjea

Douglas Moggach

Shelagh Day

Dave Diewert

Frank Cunningham

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

SIMON FRASER UNIVER SITY, VANCOUVER BC | MAY 58, 2010

PERFORMANCE AND INSTALLATIONS

The program also includes a performance by

Ali&Ali 7: Hey Brother (or Sister) Can You

Spare Some Hope & Change?and a series

of video installations created as part of a

community-engaged art project at the Purple

Thistle Arts and Activist Centre in East

Vancouver: Finding Home.

[NOTE]This event is free, but registration is required. Please go to

www.sfu.ca/reserveandto http://websurvey.sfu.ca/survey/55848256

www.sfu.ca/humanities-institute


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WEDN ESDAY, MAY 5 RM 1900 FLETCHER CHALLENGE CANADA THEATRE

7:30 pm

KEYNOTE Ramin Jahanbegloo

SCHEDULE

2:30 pm 4 pm

PERFORMANCE: Ali and Ali 7:Hey Brother (or Sister)

Can You Spare Some Hope & Change?

1900 FLETCHER CHALLENGE CANADA THEATRE

4:30 pm 5 pmDISCUSSION OF THE PERFORMANCE

6:30 pm 7:30 pm

KEYNOTE Wendy BrownRM1900 FLETCHER CHALLENGE CANADA THEATRE

7:30 pmRECEPTION


THUR SDAY, MAY 6 RM 7000 EARL & JENNIE LOHN

9 am 10:30 amSESSION 1 Citizenship and the University

SPEAKER :Len FindlayRESPONDENTS:Richard Day,Michelle Pidgeon

11 am 12:30 pm

SESSION 2

Citizenship and the MediaSPEAKER: Sourayan MookerjeaRESPONDENTS: David Beers,Stuart Poyntz

ENQUIRIESEmailKaren Meijer at [email protected] /


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FRIDAY, MAY 7 RM 14001430 SEGAL CENTRE

10 am 11:30 am

SESSION 3 Citizenship and Domestic Space

SPEAKER:Lisa RobertsonRESPONDENTS: Derek Simons, Jordan Strom

11:30 am 1pm

LUNCH

1 pm 2:30 pm

SESSION 4 Citizenship and Modernity

SPEAKER :Douglas MoggachRESPONDENTS:Lars Rensmann,Peyman Vahabzadeh

3 pm 4:30 pmSESSION 5 Citizenship and the Environment

SPEAKER: Sherilyn MacGregorRESPONDENTS:Michael Hathaway,Hannah Wittman

SATURDAY, MAY 8 RM 14001430 SEGAL CENTRE

9 am 10:30 am

SESSION 6 Citizenship and Social Justice

SPEAKER:Shelagh DayRESPONDENTS: Darcie Bennett, Margot Young

11 am 12:30 pm

SESSION 7 Citizenship and ReligionSPEAKER:Dave DiewertRESPONDENTS: Libby Davies, Itrath Syed

1:30 pm 2:30 pm

SESSION 8 Citizenship and the City

SPEAKER:Frank Cunningham

2:45 pm 4:30 pm

ROUNDTABLE The Right to the City

WITH:Nick Blomley, Trevor Boddy, FrankCunningham, Manisha Singh

4:45 5:15 TECK GALLERY LOUNGE

INSTALLATIONS Finding Home (discussion)

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSI TY, VANCOUVER BC | MAY 58, 2010

ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONwww.sfu.ca/humanities-institute / REGISTRATIONwww.sfu.ca/reserve


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[KEYNOTES]

Ramin Jahanbegloo is a well-known

Iranian-Canadian philosopher. He taught in

the Department of Political Science at the

University of Toronto from 19972001. He

later served as the head of the Department

of Contemporary Studies of the Cultural

Research Centre in Tehran. Presently he is a

Professor of Political Science and a Research

Fellow in the Centre for Ethics at University

of Toronto. Professor Jahanbegloo regularly

addresses both scholarly and general public

audiences through his lectures and essays

on tolerance and dierence, democracyand modernity, and the dynamics of Iranian

intellectual life.

Wendy Brown; professor of Gender &

Womens studies and Political Science at

the University of California, Berkeley. She

is best known for intertwining the insights

of Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Frankfurt

School theorists, Foucault, and contemporary

continental philosophers to critically

interrogate formations of power, political

identity, citizenship, and political subjectivity

in contemporary liberal democracies. Browns

current research focuses on the relationship

of theories of political sovereignty to global

capital and other transnational forces.

[SESSIONS]

Len Findlayis known for working at the

intersection of literary studies, cultural

studies and the humanities. He specializes

in cultural studies and critical theory, critical

pedagogy and collaborative research, at

the University of Saskatchewan. Currently,

he is endeavouring to establish in a number

of dierent settings how critical theory,

combined with critical pedagogy and

collaborative research, can help decolonize

Canadian universities while repoliticizing

them in ways more receptive to the needs

and knowledge of dierent communities.

Sourayan Mookerjea is Associate

Professor in Sociology at the University

of Alberta. He teaches cultural studies

and writes on racism, empires, migration,

and class in Canada. He was a member

of the artists collective Basic Research,

which constructed the public space The

Spectacular State: Fascism and the Modern

Imagination held in Vancouver in 1995. His

research interests also include postcolonial

studies, contemporary social theory,

language, dialectic image, communication,

global ows, and built space and identity.

SPEAKERS



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Lisa Robertson is the author of several

books of poetry, including The Weather,

Debbie: An Epic, and The Men, along with

numerous reviews of poetry, art, and

architecture, which have been published

widely. Her poetry brings freshness and

vehemence to what are oen formal

examinations. Her work interrogates the

changing shape of feminism, the idea of a

lyric lineage, the canonization of a male-

dominated philosophical tradition, the

daily forms of discourse around which we

organize our lives, and the formative and

plastic possibilities of language itself.

Douglas Moggach holds the Research

Chair in Political Thought at the University

of Ottawa. He is the recipient of a Canada

Council Killam Research Fellowship, and

is a member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. His

research interests include contemporary

political philosophy and political thought,

German philosophy, and the history of

ancient and modern political thought.

Sherilyn MacGregor teaches

environmental politics in the School

of Politics, International Relations &

Philosophy at Keele University, UK. Her

research is rooted in feminist and green

political theory and explores a range of

themes relating to citizenship, social

justice and ecological sustainability. She

is author of Beyond Mothering Earth:

Ecological Citizenship and the Politics of Care

(Vancouver: University of British Columbia

Press, 2006), has recently published articles

on gender justice and the politics of climate

change, and is currently co-editing (with

Timothy Doyle) a two-volume series titled

Global Perspectives on Environmentalism.

Shelagh Day is a founding president of

the Womens Legal Education and Action

Fund (LEAF), editor of the Canadian Human

Rights Reporter (Canadas reporter of

record on anti-discrimination law) and has

co-written two books and numerous articles

on womens equality rights. She is also the

director (along with Gwen Brodsky) of the

Poverty and Human Rights Centre at the

University of British Columbia. In 2008

she received a Governor-Generals Award

for her outstanding contributions to the

advancement of women in Canada.

Dave Diewert is a former professor of

Biblical Languages at Regent College.

He is now a sessional lecturer at Regent

College where he teaches Biblical Greek

and Hebrew as well as courses on Amos

and other Old Testament book studies.

He is the founder of Streams of Justice.

org, a Vancouver network of several faith

communities, chiey Christian, who engage

in social justice reections, forums, and

actions. He is also a community activist in

East Vancouver.

Frank Cunningham is professor

emeritus of Philosophy and Political

Science, University of Toronto. His main

teaching is in the area of urban philosophy,

and contemporary political philosophy

with a focus on democratic theory. He

has also taught environmental ethics

and engineering philosophy. His recent

publications include Citiesa Philosophical

Inquiry. in the Research Bulletin of the

Centre for Urban and Community Studies:

University of oronto, 2007.

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSI TY, VANCOUVER BC | MAY 58, 2010


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Since its inception in 1983, the

Institute for the Humanities

at Simon Fraser University

has been dedicated to the

exploration of the critical

perspectives that relate

social concerns to the cultural

and historical legacy of the

Humanities. The Institute seeksto facilitate the development

of attitudes that lead toward

active engagement in society.

In taking such a role, the

Institute hopes to contribute

reective, contemplative,

and critical public points ofview on the conicts and

contentious issues of our time.

THE INSTITUTE FOR THE HUMANITIES

/ Initiates, plans and supports

interdisciplinary programs, conferences,

seminars and research which bring

together faculty in the Humanities,Social Sciences and Arts, with each

other and with members of the wider

community to discuss and study

areas of common concern, and of

social and intellectual signicance;

/ Encourages, facilitates, and

participates in independent, multi-

disciplinary research on a variety of

themes and issues related to modern

cultural studies;

/ Works closely with the Department

of Humanities in the Faculty of

Arts and Social Sciences in support

of its teaching program;

/ Establishes contacts with

organizations and universities where

similar programs and Institutes exist.

Through these programs and initiatives

the Institute hopes to bring together the

resources and expertise of the University

and the interests and the needs of

groups in the wider community.

HISTORY

The Institute for the Humanities

began in 1983 as a home for research,

public programming and for the

development of ideas concerning

social issues. The Institute was one

of the rst such Institutes in Canada

to pursue these goals. The mandate

to build audiences for the humanities

in the public sphere has been carried

out along four broad interrelated

themes: humanities and modernity;

community education; cultural roots

of violence and non violence; human

rights and democratic development.

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE

THE INSTITUTE FOR THE HUMANITIES

WISHES TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE SUPPORT

OF THE SIMONS FOUNDATION AND THE

J .S. WOODSWORTH ENDOWMENT

INSTITUTE FOR THE HUMANITIES

Simon Fraser University / Harbour Centre / 2444515 West Hastings Street / Vancouver, BC Canada V6B 5K3

T: 778-782-5855 / www.sfu.ca/humanities-institute

Cosmopolitics Program

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