Migration has defined human activity for millennia, illustrated by the fact that it constitutes the basis of many foundational texts: the Sanskrit Ramayana, the Old Testament, Homer’s Odyssey, the Aeniad, Icelandic sagas. In Poetics of Relation (1990), Martinican philosopher and poet Édouard Glissant distinguishes…

“Priming the Canon: Ananda Coomaraswamy and Sri Lankan Art”

There has been much discussion about how to understand Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) as an influential voice in art history. This talks considers the place of Sri Lanka in his intellectual process, and therefore in the underlying energies of…

The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918 and on the morning of 13 November 1918, a mighty fleet of battleships from Britain, France, Italy and Greece sailed to Istanbul, and dropped anchor without encountering resistance. This day marked the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire, a dissolution…

It has long been recognized that the legacies of Japanese imperialism have continued to impact the production of an East Asian regional imaginary throughout the postwar years, and it has primarily been the U.S.-Japan alliance under Anpo that has exerted pressure to make the Japanese nation and the region coheres.…

Lund Critical Debate

Democracies worldwide—even many wealthy democracies long considered safely consolidated—are at risk today. Governments, policymakers, and voters face new conflicts over democratic institutions, checks and balances, which citizens can compete for office or deserve representation, and what…

Talk by Anushay Malik (History, Simon Fraser University)

Before 1947, the working classes in the province of Punjab imagined themselves as part of a world much bigger than the one they would find themselves in after Punjab was partitioned to carve out the new states of India and Pakistan. This time (in the…

This two-day conference, organized by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Institute for Comparative Modernities, and Polson Institute for Global Development, brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars conducting innovative research on the topic of racial capitalism across the globe.…

As in years prior, this conference provides an opportunity for graduate students to critically engage with the particularities of Sri Lanka and its diasporas; particularities often sacrificed to make our work speak clearly to non-specialist audiences. While we acknowledge the many benefits of such generalized…

Scholars, artists, and organizers who understand the violence of displacement deeply and intimately narrate and theorize how borders, militarized imperialisms, and their colonial genealogies shape people’s lives and foreclose right to both home and refuge. Featuring presentations, performances, films, installations…

Reading by V. V. Ganeshananthan (Novelist)

Jaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, a vicious civil war tears through her home, and her dream spins off course as she sees her four beloved brothers and their friend K swept up in the mounting violence. Desperate…

Xingke tiben: A Murder Case from 1762

CCCC with Matthew Sommer (History, Stanford)

The Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium (CCCC) 古文品讀 is a reading group for scholars interested in premodern Sinographic (古文) text. The group typically meets monthly during the semester to explore a variety of classical…

To the Academy is a multimedia performance work inspired by Kafka’s short story, A Report for an Academy, and the ancient Sanskrit treatise on performance, The Natyashastra. The piece weaves a tale about an ape couple rehearsing a music hall show for a group of scholars. As the apes grapple with how to entertain…

This two-day conference, organized by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Institute for Comparative Modernities, and Polson Institute for Global Development, brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars conducting innovative research on the topic of racial capitalism across the globe.…

Director Michèle Stephenson’s documentary follows Elena and her family through their despair and small joys, as they struggle to remain in the country they’ve called home for generations. In 1937, tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army, on the basis…

Matthew Sommer (History, Stanford University)

This talk presents three case studies from the Qing dynasty of people assigned male at birth who lived as women, while carefully concealing their assigned sex from others. One presented themself as a widow and had a successful career as a midwife for thirty…

A Keynote Event for Displaced. Detained. Undeterred: A Critical/Creative Symposium

Thursday, April 20, 2023, Physical Sciences Building 401

4.30 Opening Remarks
Saida Hodžić (Cornell University)

4.45 KEYNOTE DIALOGUE

In this keynote, speakers Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi and Yến Lê…

In this seminar, we will explore promising avenues to improve the science policy interface in Africa. The seminar will cover multiple themes under this broad umbrella, including (a) reviews of productive modes of interfacing science and policy, (b) detailed explorations of the policy-making process in the region,…

Gatty Lecture Series

Join us for a talk by Risa J. Toha, (Assistant Professor of Political Science, Wake Forest University), who will speak about national identity in Singapore.

This Gatty Lecture will take place at the Kahin Center, but people are also welcome to join us on Zoom. Lunch will be served…

The United States stands at a crossroads in international security. The backbone of its international position for the last 70 years has been the massive network of overseas military deployments. However, the U.S. now faces pressures to limit its overseas presence and spending.

Carla Martinez Machain argues…

Host Nation by Ko-woon Lee (2016, 116 minutes)

“Do you want to work in Korea?” Thus begins twenty-six-year-old Filipina woman Maria’s two-year journey into the sex industry in South Korea, which mainly caters to American soldiers stationed there.

Host Nation chronicles Maria’s hopes, dreams, and…

Jouvay, the midnight jamboree heralding the start of carnival on West Indian islands transposed to the Neerlandophone world, presents an ongoing conversation about how to human in singular-multiple ways which are sensitive to relations between so-called species, spirits, saints, mythical characters, and devils.…

Celebrating Teatrotaller’s 30th Anniversary!

Cornell alum, Isabel Ramos ’96 and founder of Teatrotaller, and theater director at the University of Puerto Rico will be joining us via zoom zoom after the performance run of her new post Hurricane Maria meditation, “Antigona frente al mar” .

Join us by…

Perspectives in Global Development: Spring 2023 Seminar Series

Distinguished speaker: Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted

Global hunger and malnutrition rates have been increasing, exacerbated by disruptions, including climate change, conflicts and COVID-19. Over the past three years, these disruptions…

Cornell’s Migrations initiative and the Centre for the Study of Migration at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) invite you to join a discussion on global migrations, featuring postdoctoral fellows and early career scholars from both universities. This virtual symposium will include presentations and faculty-led…

Hosted by GETSEA

A community book read with Teren Sevea, author of Miracles and Material Life: Rice, Ore, Traps and Guns in Islamic Malaya and winner of the 2022 Benda Prize.

Open to current graduate students at GETSEA institutions (which includes Cornell), click here to register.

Sevea’s book…

In his new book “Contemporary State Building: Elite Taxation and Public Safety in Latin America” (Cambridge University Press 2022) Professor Flores-Macías discusses experiences of elite taxation in Latin America, in the context of the public-safety crises facing several countries in the region.

Contrary to…

Medical Deserts in France

“87% of France is a medical desert,” declared the Deputy Secretary of the French Department of Health and Prevention in December of 2022. Although medical deserts are currently a hot topic in France, the debate has been going on and off the news for decades. In 1979, Simone Veil,…

The South Asian Imaginary: Exploring the region through image-making practices

A lecture by Rahaab Allana, curator and publisher at Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi, to introduce the foundation's latest reader, Unframed: Discovering Image Practices in South Asia, co-published with…

The question of diversity and integration has occupied public debates, political agendas and social sciences for decades. In Europe, an important issue pertains to the settlement of post-immigrant ethno-religious groups, along with the expression and organization of collective identities; claims for participation/…

Talk by Amina Yaqin (Associate Professor in World Literatures and Publishing, University of Exeter)

In this talk, I look back at the literary history of feminism in Urdu poetry through the voices of selected twentieth-century women poets. The aim is not to establish a canon of feminist poetry but to trace…