Symposium 12-13 March 1999: Migrations, Diasporic Communities, and Transnational Identities
One of the most fundamental transformations of the world has been the movement of peoples across regions and continents, whether voluntarily, forced by political turmoil or economic hardship, or as slaves, serfs and refugees. From the legacies of pre-modern diasporas to the settlement, under colonial rule, of vast territories in the Americas, Africa and Asia, human migration across state and socio-cultural boundaries has been a major historical feature. Such movement has accompanied and influenced efforts to define exclusionary nation-states with fixed territorial and symbolic borders -- a development that has occupied the attention of both dominant and dominated peoples across the globe, from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. The symposium "Migrations/ Diasporic Communities/ Transnational Identities" will explore these and other themes in panel sessions co-chaired by Trinity faculty, students and scholars from throughout the U.S. invited specially for this symposium.
The plan for the symposium is as follows:
Friday, March 12
Panel 1 'Migrations' (3-5pm, Umoja House, Vernon Street)
Student Hosts: Elisaveta Koriouchkina '00, Kerry McKevitt '99
- Elliott R. Barkan, California State University, San Bernardino
"On The Edge of a Rimless World: Immigration In an Age of Globalism"
Julia Rodriguez, Columbia University
"National Science in an Immigrant Nation: The Argentine Fingerprint System"
Su Zheng, Assistant Professor of Music and Women's Studies, Wesleyan University
"Travel: Race, Class, Gender, and History in Chinese (Asian) American Musicking"
Special Event (5:30-7pm, Mather Art Space, 2nd Floor)
"Formed Migrations" Art Exhibit by Taylor Milne '99 and Jocelyn Schneider '99 (The exhibit runs from March 12-29)
Saturday, March 13
Special Performance Workshop (9:30-11:30am, Washington Room)
Student Host: Mellissa Craig '01
- Lee "Aca" Thompson, The Artists Collective Inc. Hartford, CT
- "Ancestral Roots Through Piragramic Dance"
Panel 2 Diasporic Communities (1:30-3:30pm, Hamlin Hall)
Student Hosts: Romae Gordon '00, Elisabeth Okrant '99
- Thomas F. Thornton , University of Alaska
"Driven Out by Glaciers and Governments, Holding on by Spirit and Song: The Story of the Tlingits of Glacier Bay, Alaska."- Hamid Naficy, Rice University
"House"
Gage Averill, New York University
“Music in Diasporic Consciousness: Lessons from Caribbean Case Studies."
Panel 3 Transnational Identities (4:00-6:00pm, Hamlin Hall)
Student Hosts: Kelly Karcher '01, Richard Walker '99
- Alejandro Lugo, University of Illinois, Urbana
"Border Inspections"
Ethel Brooks, Department of Politics, New York University
"Maquilas and Sweated Girls: a Study of Transnational Protest & the Garment Industry in El Salvador"
Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Adjunct Associate Professor of American Studies, Brown University
"Rock, Rap and Race in Contemporary Cuba"
Special Event (8:00pm, Hamlin Hall)
"Voice of the Turtle" Performance, Joanne Rile Artists Management, Inc. Jenkintown, PA