Emilio Spataro–from the Guardianes del Ibera movement, Corrientes, Argentina–joins us in a discussion on bringing students, environmental and social justice activists in the USA together with rural communities in Argentina to stop Harvard University from destroying one of the world’s largest wetlands and exploiting indigenous communities.

April 9, 2014
7:00-9:00pm
Room C202, CUNY GC

A reception will be held at 9:00pm in Room 6107.

The SHAME (Stop Harvard’s Argentine Mismanagement and Exploitation) Tour is coming to New York City to educate Harvard Alumni, environmental and social justice activists, as well the general public about how one the United States’ premier universities is exploiting workers, farmers and communities in Argentina.  Harvard owns two industrial forestry companies that are causing huge problems for communities in the Ibera wetlands. From environmental degradation to exploiting workers, these Harvard owned companies are having a negative impact on the area and on people’s lives.  The SHAME Tour is bringing two local activists from the area to the US to tell their story and the story of Harvard’s involvement in the area.

This event will feature Emilio Spataro, an organizer working with local farmers and low-income people in Corrientes Argentina and Adrian Obregon, a resident of Montaña who is a leader in the local small producers association and a liaison to the larger Argentine campesino movement. This event is being organized and facilitated by Paul Getsos a long-time organizer and author who met Emilio and other leaders from Corrientes, when he was on a Ford Foundation/Social Justice Infrastructure Grant studying social movements in Argentina.  The event is co-sponsored by the Responsible Endowment Coalition (REC).

Join Ruth Milkman in celebrating the launch of her new edited volume, New Labor in New York: Precarious Workers and the Future of the Labor Movement.

Panelists: Professor Bill Mullen (Purdue), Radhika Sainath (Palestine Solidarity Legal Support), Sherry Wolf (International Socialist Review), Professor Ashley Dawson (College of Staten Island/Graduate Center, CUNY)

Moderator: Christopher Stone (Hunter/Graduate Center, CUNY)

April 2, 2014
7:00-9:00pm
Room C202-205, CUNY GC

This event will be livestreamed and recorded here: http://videostreaming.gc.cuny.edu/videos/channel/66/

Following the official endorsement of the American Studies Association of the call from Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israel, concerns over “academic freedom” have been repeatedly invoked as reasons to oppose academic boycotts. Moreover, official statements by university presidents, attempts by New York, Maryland state legislatures, and now the US Congress, to outlaw such political affiliations demand that the significance of “academic freedom” and its functionality in the US university system be interrogated and reaffirmed.

This panel discussion specifically addresses the question of academic freedom and political affiliation from the different perspectives of academics and activists working with and around BDS in the US academe today. Panelists interrogate how the pursuit of “academic freedom” has been used to both open and close debate, how it frames the call for solidarity with Palestinian students and scholars, structures relationships with dissenting opinions, and how it applies in a US university system increasingly dependent on a contingent workforce of graduate students and adjunct labor.

Professor Bill Mullen is Professor of American Studies and English at Purdue.  He is a member of the Advisory Board for USACBI (United States Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) and faculty adviser to Purdue Students for Justice in Palestine.

Radhika Sanaith is a staff attorney at Palestine Solidarity Legal Support and Cooperating Counsel at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She is a contributor and co-editor of Peace Under Fire: Israel / Palestine and the International Solidarity Movement (Verso 2004).

Sherry Wolf  is associate editor of the International Socialist Review, a member of Adalah-NY, the NY Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, and Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. She is also the author of Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation (Haymarket 2009).

Co-sponsored by: The Adjunct Project; American Studies Certificate Program; the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics; Critical Palestine Studies Association; Haymarket Books; International Socialist Organization at the Graduate Center; Latino and Latin-American Students Association (AELLA); Middle Eastern Studies Organization (MESO); Mise en Scene; Post-Colonial Studies Group; RevAmStudies Group; QUNY; Social and Political Theory Students’ Association; the Space Time Research Collective; and Thought Club.

Paolo Novak argues that fruitful points of contact and articulation between Marxist and postcolonial border studies can be found by focusing our gaze on ontological as opposed to epistemological questions.

Panel discussion with Laurence Cox, Jeff Goodwin, and John Krinsky.

Talk by activist and lawyer Albertina Almeida on the costs of ‘development’ in Goa and their effects on local economies, livelihoods, and cultures.

Join Anthony Greco in a panel discussion with Ellen Schrecker and Stephen Shalom on his book Chomsky’s Challenge to American Power. Ida Susser will moderate.

Join us for a celebration of a new book of poems by Meena Alexander with panel discussion on poetic process, cultural translation, and aesthetic collaboration together with a reading of selected poems.