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CO-SPONSORED EVENTS HELD AT THE HUMANITIES CENTER
What is the Contemporary?
Monday May 21, 2012 | 09:00 AM -07:00 PM | Stanford Humanities Center
An international colloquium, in collaboration with Université Paris 8
Open to the public
No RSVP required
Panelists
Lionel Ruffel - Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Université Paris VIII
Julio Premat - Professor of Hispanic Literature at Université Paris VIII
Diego Vecchio - Argentine author based in Paris
Alejandro Zambra - Chilean poet, fiction writer and literary critic
David William Foster - Professor of Spanish at Arizona State University
Idelber Avelar - Professor of Spanish and Portugese at Tulane University
Odile Cisneros - Professor of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at University of Alberta
Paola Cortes-Rocca - Professor at San Francisco State University
Valeria de los Rios - Assistant Professor at Universidad Santiago de Chile
As a critical category and an object of study, “the contemporary” is often taken for granted or entirely omitted from academic discussion. We often assume it is the purview of journalistic criticism, and wait for consensus to arise before considering it a viable subject of analysis. Higher learning favors the study of the past over the present, which adds institutional blindness to the inherent difficulty of considering a changing object “in real time.” This is all the more pervasive in the case of Latin American culture, which does not circulate in mainstream American humanistic discourse, and is thus relegated to an always-already past condition in our academic milieu.
The premise of the colloquium is simple and enormously thought-provoking: we seek answers –from world-class Latin American, U.S. and European intellectuals, writers, and scholars– to the question of what is the contemporary. Participants follow three main lines of inquiry, addressing questions of comparative modernities, emerging canonicity, and conceptual elucidation of contemporaneity.
Sponsored by the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages; the Cultural Synchronization and Disjuncture Working Group; the Tangible Thoughts for Luso-Brazilian Culture Research Unit; the Center for Latin American Studies, the Department of French and Italian, the Europe Center, and the Humanities Center at Stanford University
Agenda:
Monday, May 21
9:00 Breakfast
9:30 Welcome by Gabriella Safran, Chair of the DLCL
9:45 Opening remarks by Héctor Hoyos and Marília Librandi-Rocha, organizers (ILAC).
10:00-12:00 Panel 1: Time and Concept
Lionel Ruffel, Paris 8: “What is the Contemporary? Brief Archeology of a Question”
Idelber Avelar, Tulane U: “Contemporary Intersections of Ecology and Culture”
Discussant: Juan Poblete, U. California at Santa Cruz
Lunch
2:00-4:00 Panel 2: Emerging Canonicities I
Paola Cortés Rocca, San Francisco State U: “Debates contemporáneos sobre estética y política en la Argentina del nuevo milenio”
Diego Vecchio, Paris 8: “Luis Gusmán y el inconsciente bruto”
Valeria de los Ríos, U. Santiago de Chile: “Mapa cognitivo, memoria y medialidad: contemporaneidad en Alejandro Zambra y Pola Oloixarac”
Discussant: Ximena Briceño, ILAC
Coffee
4:30- 6:00 Public reading by Alejandro Zambra, Diego Vecchio, and Guadalupe Nettel (in Spanish), in conversation with Jorge Ruffinelli, ILAC
6:00-7:00 Reception
Tuesday, May 22
9:30 Breakfast
9:45 Recap by Tom Winterbottom and Victoria Saramago
10:00-12:00 Panel 3: Emerging Canonicities II
Julio Premat, Paris 8: “A contratiempo: notas sobre cultura y época”
Alejandro Zambra, U. Diego Portales: “Computadores”
Discussant: Estelle Tarica, U. California at Berkeley.
Lunch
1:30-3:00 Panel 4: Methodologies of the Transient
David Foster, Arizona State U: “The Contemporary as Immersion: on Being an Argentinist”
Odile Cisneros, U. Alberta: “Contemporary Experimental Poetry in Canada and Brazil: A Contrastive View”
Earl Fitz, Vanderbilt U: “Interdisciplinarity and the Emergence of a New Scholarly Field: Departments of Spanish and Portuguese, French, English, and Comparative Literature, and the Rise of Inter-American Literature":
Discussant: Joan Ramon Resina, ILAC/Comparative Literature
Coffee
3:30-5:00 Roundtable with all participants, closing remarks by Hoyos and Librandi-Rocha
What is the Contemporary?
Monday May 21, 2012 | 09:00 AM -07:00 PM | Stanford Humanities Center
An international colloquium, in collaboration with Université Paris 8
Open to the public
No RSVP required
Panelists
Lionel Ruffel - Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Université Paris VIII
Julio Premat - Professor of Hispanic Literature at Université Paris VIII
Diego Vecchio - Argentine author based in Paris
Alejandro Zambra - Chilean poet, fiction writer and literary critic
David William Foster - Professor of Spanish at Arizona State University
Idelber Avelar - Professor of Spanish and Portugese at Tulane University
Odile Cisneros - Professor of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at University of Alberta
Paola Cortes-Rocca - Professor at San Francisco State University
Valeria de los Rios - Assistant Professor at Universidad Santiago de Chile
As a critical category and an object of study, “the contemporary” is often taken for granted or entirely omitted from academic discussion. We often assume it is the purview of journalistic criticism, and wait for consensus to arise before considering it a viable subject of analysis. Higher learning favors the study of the past over the present, which adds institutional blindness to the inherent difficulty of considering a changing object “in real time.” This is all the more pervasive in the case of Latin American culture, which does not circulate in mainstream American humanistic discourse, and is thus relegated to an always-already past condition in our academic milieu.
The premise of the colloquium is simple and enormously thought-provoking: we seek answers –from world-class Latin American, U.S. and European intellectuals, writers, and scholars– to the question of what is the contemporary. Participants follow three main lines of inquiry, addressing questions of comparative modernities, emerging canonicity, and conceptual elucidation of contemporaneity.
Sponsored by the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages; the Cultural Synchronization and Disjuncture Working Group; the Tangible Thoughts for Luso-Brazilian Culture Research Unit; the Center for Latin American Studies, the Department of French and Italian, the Europe Center, and the Humanities Center at Stanford University
Agenda:
Monday, May 21
9:00 Breakfast
9:30 Welcome by Gabriella Safran, Chair of the DLCL
9:45 Opening remarks by Héctor Hoyos and Marília Librandi-Rocha, organizers (ILAC).
10:00-12:00 Panel 1: Time and Concept
Lionel Ruffel, Paris 8: “What is the Contemporary? Brief Archeology of a Question”
Idelber Avelar, Tulane U: “Contemporary Intersections of Ecology and Culture”
Discussant: Juan Poblete, U. California at Santa Cruz
Lunch
2:00-4:00 Panel 2: Emerging Canonicities I
Paola Cortés Rocca, San Francisco State U: “Debates contemporáneos sobre estética y política en la Argentina del nuevo milenio”
Diego Vecchio, Paris 8: “Luis Gusmán y el inconsciente bruto”
Valeria de los Ríos, U. Santiago de Chile: “Mapa cognitivo, memoria y medialidad: contemporaneidad en Alejandro Zambra y Pola Oloixarac”
Discussant: Ximena Briceño, ILAC
Coffee
4:30- 6:00 Public reading by Alejandro Zambra, Diego Vecchio, and Guadalupe Nettel (in Spanish), in conversation with Jorge Ruffinelli, ILAC
6:00-7:00 Reception
Tuesday, May 22
9:30 Breakfast
9:45 Recap by Tom Winterbottom and Victoria Saramago
10:00-12:00 Panel 3: Emerging Canonicities II
Julio Premat, Paris 8: “A contratiempo: notas sobre cultura y época”
Alejandro Zambra, U. Diego Portales: “Computadores”
Discussant: Estelle Tarica, U. California at Berkeley.
Lunch
1:30-3:00 Panel 4: Methodologies of the Transient
David Foster, Arizona State U: “The Contemporary as Immersion: on Being an Argentinist”
Odile Cisneros, U. Alberta: “Contemporary Experimental Poetry in Canada and Brazil: A Contrastive View”
Earl Fitz, Vanderbilt U: “Interdisciplinarity and the Emergence of a New Scholarly Field: Departments of Spanish and Portuguese, French, English, and Comparative Literature, and the Rise of Inter-American Literature":
Discussant: Joan Ramon Resina, ILAC/Comparative Literature
Coffee
3:30-5:00 Roundtable with all participants, closing remarks by Hoyos and Librandi-Rocha
All events take place at Stanford University, unless otherwise noted.
The Calendar of Events lists events sponsored and co-sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center. For a more comprehensive listing of university-wide events, see the Stanford Event Calendar.
The Calendar of Events lists events sponsored and co-sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center. For a more comprehensive listing of university-wide events, see the Stanford Event Calendar.