March 16, 2017
10am-4:30pm
Room 9205
The “narrative turn” in the social sciences, as manifested through the renewed emphasis on human agency, the centrality of language to the negotiation of meaning and the construction of identity in everyday life, has marked a resurgence of interest in narrative as a social act, on storytelling as a social process, and life histories as social objects for investigation. This symposium considers narrative in practice, emphasizing the range of challenges scholars encounter when engaging in storytelling, particularly given our desire to “speak back” and counter hegemonic historical narratives that violently flatten the identities, experiences, and radical possibilities of those we engage in our scholarly and political work. What political work do narratives perform, and to what end? Although narratives can be a site of resistance that can lead to the authoring and promoting of new and potentially transformative stories (local stories, in particular), we must also consider their stubborn ability to feed and maintain power structures. Why do some narratives achieve widespread appeal? This symposium will engage a variety of research and theoretical orientations across the humanities and social sciences threading the notion of narratives into practice to themes of dissonance, encounter, opacity, underground, and erasure.
SPEAKERS
Erika Denisse Grajeda, PH.D.
Marilyn J. Gittell Post-Doctoral Fellow, CUNY Graduate Center
Silence, Narrativity, and ‘The Right to Opacity’: the paradoxes and transformative possibilities of storytelling in contemporary domestic worker organizing in the U.S.
Mamyrah Douge-Prosper, PH.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow, CUNY Graduate Center, The Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC)
Solidarity Economies in Rural Haiti: Praxes of anti-colonial feminist nationalism
Nessette Falu, PH.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow, CUNY Graduate Center, The Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC)
Ethical Encounters: The disjunctures of narrativizing masculinities, race, and “best place” in Brazilian gynecology
Sonia Vaz Borges, PH.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow, CUNY Graduate Center, The Center for Place, Culture, and Politics
Silences in African History: The underground education structures
Evelyne Laurent-Perrault, PH.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow, CUNY Graduate Center, The Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC)
Black Women Litigants: Unveiling narratives of erasure and dis-possession in Spanish America, 1770-1800
This event is sponsored by The Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean, The Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, Gittell Collective and the Anthropology Department.
