Browse Title Index
Caribbean Unbound
Biennial Lugano Conference of Caribbean Literature and Culture. Previous keynote speakers include Antonio Benítez-Rojo, J. Michael Dash, Maryse Condé and Jean-Claude Fignolé.
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Caribbean Unbound V
April 7, 2011 – April 9, 2011
"Vodou and Créolité"
April 6-9, 2011Franklin College Switzerland will be hosting the fifth biennial Lugano Conference on Caribbean Literature and Culture, “The Caribbean Unbound V – ”Vodou and Créolité,” from April 7 to April 9. The conference will be held on the Sorengo (Lugano) Kaletsch campus of the College. The three-day conference will officially kick off with Claudine Michel’s keynote address, “Mama Lola’s Triplets, Haiti’s Sacred Ground and Vodou’s Quintessential Lesson” at 18:30 on Thursday evening, April 7. The keynote address will be followed by a reception in her honor and a film after the reception. The following two days will offer a wide selection of inter-disciplinary topics exploring the history, politics, art, literature, religion, film, music of the Caribbean. Panels will be primarily held in English, but with many in French and some in Spanish.
This year’s keynote speaker, Dr. Claudine Michel, is currently Professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and served as Director of the Center for Black Studies Research from 1996-2002 and again from 2005-2009. She formerly served as Chair of the Department of Black Studies and Acting Chair of the Department of Chicana/o Studies. Her research has appeared in many scholarly journals and academic venues. Dr. Michel is the author of Aspects Moraux et Educatifs du Vodou Haitien and a forthcoming book, Offerings: Continuity and Transformation in Haitian Vodou. She co-edited, among other volumes, Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth and Reality and Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture: Invisible Power. Also forthcoming are an anthology on Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat, Crossing Waters and Re-Membering, and two co-edited volumes, God in Every Woman: Gender, Power and Politics in Haitian Vodou and Doktè Gede, Struggles of Life and Death in Haiti. She is editor of the peer-reviewed journal on Haiti, The Journal of Haitian Studies, published by the UCSB Center for Black Studies Research for the Haitian Studies Association, and also serves on their board of directors. Dr. Michel is a member of the new UC Haiti initiative developed by the ten UC campuses in response to the January 12, 2010, earthquake and has served as a chief consultant for the Direct Relief International community grants program developed after the quake.
The Franklin College Conference on Caribbean Literature and Culture was first organized some eight years ago by Dr. Robert H. McCormick, Jr., Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Franklin College. At previous conferences, keynote speakers were Antonio Benítez-Rojo, J. Michael Dash, Maryse Condé and Jean-Claude Fignolé. Multi-cultural in conception, the conference has grown to global dimensions. This year, literary and cultural scholars from prestigious academic institutions as near as Milan and as far away as Australia, Brazil, Israel, Canada, Poland, England, Romania, Turkey, Greece, Martinique, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
Key Conference Facts and Information:
Pre-Conference Registration and Film
Wednesday, April 6, 19:00-21:00
Franklin College Auditorium FoyerConference Registration
Thursday, April 7, 16:00-18:30
Friday, April 8, 8:15 - 9:30
Franklin College Auditorium FoyerOpening Ceremonies and Keynote Address—Claudine Michel
Thursday, April 7, 18:30-19:30
Franklin College Auditorium. Reception will follow in Holman Hall.
Registered conference attendees are invited to participate in all panels and events including the student and staff prepared Caribbean dinner (Friday night) for a fee of 175 Swiss francs (175 US dollars). Graduate students benefit from a reduced rate of 60 Swiss francs (60 US dollars). Additional meal tickets for non-conference participants can be purchased at the registration desk for 15 Swiss francs.The conference is free of charge to all Franklin students, faculty and staff with the exception of the Caribbean dinner which carries an entrance fee of 15 Swiss francs.
Only cash will be accepted at the registration desk.
For more information on Caribbean Unbound IV or a complete conference agenda and program, please see the Conference Program page, write to caribbean_unbound@fc.edu, or contact Consuelo Grieco at +41 91 986 36 09 or Marta Leto at +41 91 986 36 01.
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Caribbean Unbound IV
April 1, 2009 – April 4, 2009
Franklin College Switzerland will be hosting the fourth biennial Lugano Conference of Caribbean Literature and Culture, “The Caribbean Unbound IV - Reconceiving Hispaniola”, from April 2 to April 4. The conference will be held on the Sorengo (Lugano) Kaletsch campus of the College. The three-day conference will officially kick off with Jean-Claude Fignolé’s keynote address, “Marvelous Realism, or the Metamorphosis of the Real?” at 18:00 on Thursday evening, April 2. The keynote address will be conducted in French and translated into English. That will be followed by a reception in his honor and a film after the reception. The reception is generously sponsored by the Franklin College Alumni Council. The following two days will offer a wide selection of inter-disciplinary topics exploring the history, politics, art, literature, religion, film, music of the Caribbean and more specifically of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Panels will be primarily held in English, but with some in French and Spanish.
This year’s keynote speaker will be the acclaimed Haitian novelist Jean-Claude Fignolé. Fignolé, together with the Haitian writers Franketienne and René Philocète, is the co-founder of the Haitian literary movement, “Spiralisme.” Besides his first two novels, Les Possédés de la pleine lune (Seuil, 1987) and Aube tranquille (Seuil,1990), he also published Moi, Toussaint Louverture in Montreal (Plume & Ancre) in 2004. From 1990 to 2000, Fignolé wrote a column for Haiti’s oldest and largest daily newspaper, Le Nouvelliste. In January, 2008, Fignolé published Une heure pour l’éternité with Parisian publisher Sabine Wespieser. Having been a teacher as well as an art critic, Jean-Claude Fignolé is also the mayor of Les Abricots, a small village in southwestern Haiti.
The Franklin College Conference on Caribbean Literature and Culture was first organized some six years ago by Dr. Robert H. McCormick, Jr., Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Franklin College. At previous conferences keynote speakers were Antonio Benítez-Rojo, J. Michael Dash and Maryse Condé. Multi-cultural in conception, the conference has grown to global dimensions. This year, literary and cultural scholars from prestigious academic institutions as near as Bern and as far away as Louisiana and Martinique will be participating.
Key Conference Facts and Information:
Pre-Conference Registration and Film
Wednesday, April 1, 19:00-21:15
Franklin College Auditorium FoyerConference Registration
Thursday, April 2, 16:00-17:45
Friday, April 3, 8:30 - 9:30
Franklin College Auditorium FoyerOpening Ceremonies and Keynote Address—Jean-Claude Fignolé
Thursday, April 2, 18:00-19:15
Franklin College Auditorium. Reception will follow in Holman Hall.Registered conference attendees will be allowed to participate in all panels and events, including the student and staff prepared Caribbean meal Friday night, for a nominal fee of 110 Swiss francs (100 US dollars). Students will have a reduced rate of 55 Swiss francs (50 US dollars). Additional meal tickets for non-conference participants can be purchased at the registration desk for 15 Swiss francs.
Only cash will be accepted at the registration desk. If you would like to pay in advance by credit card, you can do so from the Franklin College web site in the online payments section.
For more information on Caribbean Unbound IV or a complete conference agenda and program, please see the Conference Program page, write to caribbean_unbound@fc.edu, or contact Belma Dizdarevic de Marchi at +41 91 986 36 09 or Marta Leto at +41 91 986 36 01.
Intersections of Law and Culture
A conference hosted by the Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Intersections of Law and Culture aims to investigate law’s place in culture and culture’s place in law.
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Intersections of Law and Culture 2011
September 23, 2011 – September 25, 2011A cross-disciplinary conference hosted by the Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Franklin College Switzerland
September 23 - 25, 2011 in Lugano, Switzerland
Submission of abstracts accepted until March 31, 2011Keynote Speakers
Sidonie Smith
Martha Guernsey Colby Collegiate Professor of Women's Studies and English, University of MichiganPeter Rosenblum
Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein Clinical Professor of Human Rights Law at Columbia Law SchoolIntersections of Law and Culture aims to investigate law’s place in culture and culture’s place in law. This focus proceeds from the twin premise that law, itself a cultural form, reacts to and is shaped by the cultural context in which it operates and that culture in turn is shaped by the regulative forces of law. Moreover, the operations of law—its processes and decisions—have entered the realm of popular culture, media and the arts as plot devices and narratives used in sit-coms, films and pulp fiction. These in turn have begun to change the way law operates. Together law and culture help to determine the ways in which we inhabit both our local contexts and the global stage.
The focus of this second Intersections of Law and Culture conference is on human rights. What are the philosophical, literary and cultural points of references for the management of human rights? How have current notions and framings developed historically? What are the mechanisms by which cultural narratives and popular representations of human rights find their way into legal processes? How does law in turn bleed into and influence cultural practices and conceptions of human rights? What is the relationship between international efforts and framings of human rights and their local implementations?
Clearly there are no simple, monolithic answers to these complex questions: a dialogue concerning the effects of the interplay between law and other forms of knowledge in the area of human rights can only proceed from a genuinely interdisciplinary point of departure. We welcome papers and panels from all cultural contexts and disciplinary perspectives, as well as from music and the arts. We envision the groupings of the papers not so much as distinct streams but as an interconnected matrix that acknowledges the overlap and mutual influence of modes of knowledge.
Organizers
Sara Steinert Borella
Dean of the College and Professor, Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Franklin College SwitzerlandCaroline Wiedmer
Professor and Chair, Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Franklin College SwitzerlandAdvisory Board
Dave Cowan
Professor of Law and Policy, Faculty of Social Sciences and Law, Bristol University, Great BritainLieve Gies
Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester, Great BritainGianni D’Amato
Professor of Migration and Citizenship Studies, and Director of the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies, University of Neuchâtel, SwitzerlandBrigitte Schnegg
Professor of History and Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies, University of Berne, SwitzerlandFor more information contact:
Caroline Wiedmer
cwiedmer@fc.edu -
Intersections of Law and Culture 2009
October 2, 2009 – October 4, 2009A cross-disciplinary conference hosted by the Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Franklin College Switzerland
October 2 - 4, 2009 in Lugano, Switzerland
Submission of abstracts accepted until March 31, 2009Keynote speakers
Richard K. Sherwin, New York Law School
Melanie L. Williams, University of ExeterConfirmed participants
Professor Michelle Cottier, Law, University of Basel
Professor Jeanne Gaakeer, Law, Erasmus University, Rotterdam
Dr. Dominique Grisard, History, Center for Gender Studies, University of Basel
Professor Elisabeth Holzleithner, Law, University of Vienna
Professor Greta Olson, English, University of Giessen
Dr. Thomas Scheffer, Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt University, Berlin
Intersections of Law and Culture aims to investigate law’s place in culture and culture’s place in law. This focus proceeds from the realization that law, once one of society’s most powerful discourses in both its secular and religious forms, has become increasingly influenced by intersecting and competing discourses in medicine, ethics, education and politics. Moreover, the operations of law—its processes and decisions—have entered the realm of popular culture, media and the arts as plot devices used in sit-coms, films and pulp fiction. These in turn have begun to change the way law operates.
Given this increasing porosity and interpermeability among prominent areas of knowledge, the focus of this conference is precisely on the interstices between law and other discursive practices. What are the mechanisms by which popular representations and cultural practices find their way into legal processes? How does law in turn bleed into and influence cultural processes? Does law act as a buffer against societal assumptions about, and constructions of, gender, age, ability, sexuality and ethnicity, or does it re-enforce and re-inscribe existing social norms? Clearly there are no simple, monolithic answers to these complex questions; answers will be historically and culturally contingent, and will change shape depending on the case or the context at hand.
We are especially interested in work that reflects on the differences in law and culture in the European and the Anglo-American contexts. What are the differences between the legal cultures in these distinct but interdependent spheres, and what are the consequences of these differences for the relationship between law and culture? We also want to know what the philosophical, literary and cultural points of reference are for the European and the American systems, and to what extent these distinct frames of reference shape our work in law and literature, and in law and culture. In this same vein we welcome papers that reflect on issues of methodology, or that offer a comparative focus on interdisciplinary methodologies in the study of law and society, law and literature, law and the performing arts, and law and popular culture.Organizers
Priska Gisler
Collegium Helveticum, ETH Zürich
Goldsmiths College, LondonSara Steinert Borella
Franklin CollegeCaroline Wiedmer
Franklin College
Mosler Economic Policy Center Symposium
Mecpoc is the Mosler Economic and Policy Center newly established at Franklin College Switzerland. The center promotes and encourages education and research in new concepts and methods of economic policy analysis.
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3rd Annual Mecpoc Symposium
April 20, 2010 – April 20, 2010The Mosler Economic Policy Center at Franklin College Switzerland promotes and encourages education and research in new concepts and methods of economic policy analysis. Activities include an annual symposium, a summer scholarship and other opportunities for undergraduate students to explore alternative views in economic policymaking. Mecpoc is a member of EPIC, a nonpartisan forum dedicated to promoting research and public discussion of issues related to macroeconomic and monetary policy.
Mecpoc was founded thanks to the generous support of Warren Mosler, who is the President of Valance Co., Inc., and founder and principal of AVM, a broker/dealer that provides advanced financial services to large institutional accounts. He is also the founder of EPIC – A Coalition of Economic Policy Institutions.
For more information about the Mosler Economic Policy Center, please see www.mecpoc.org.
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2nd Annual Mecpoc Symposium
April 21, 2009 – April 21, 2009The Mosler Economic Policy Center at Franklin College Switzerland promotes and encourages education and research in new concepts and methods of economic policy analysis. Activities include an annual symposium, a summer scholarship and other opportunities for undergraduate students to explore alternative views in economic policymaking. Mecpoc is a member of EPIC, a nonpartisan forum dedicated to promoting research and public discussion of issues related to macroeconomic and monetary policy.
Mecpoc was founded thanks to the generous support of Warren Mosler, who is the President of Valance Co., Inc., and founder and principal of AVM, a broker/dealer that provides advanced financial services to large institutional accounts. He is also the founder of EPIC – A Coalition of Economic Policy Institutions.
For more information about the Mosler Economic Policy Center, please see www.mecpoc.org.
