Conference | Women Mobilizing Memory

September 10, 2015
9:30am-6pm

Buell Hall at Columbia University
515 West 116th Street
New York, NY 10027

Examining the politics of cultural memory from the perspective of social difference, the Women Mobilizing Memory conference will analyze strategies by which artists, scholars and activists have succeeded in mobilizing the memory of political and social violence to promote redress, social justice, and a democratic future. The international conference features members of a multi-year transnational and interdisciplinary working group that is bringing to New York discussions generated in Chile and Turkey. Roundtables will address protest actions and their efficacy, ranging from the “Saturday Mothers” to “Black Lives Matter;” strategies for mobilizing political action around memory sites in Istanbul, Santiago and New York; and the ways in which lives touched by political violence and social death can be reanimated through writing and art. Exploring resonances and connections among divergent histories of violence, the conference will also explore the limits of such comparative work, while attempting to forge a feminist practice of solidarity and co-resistance. The Women Mobilizing Memory conference, co-directed by Marianne Hirsch, Jean Howard, and Diana Taylor, is part of the Women Creating Change initiative at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Social Difference.

Please see below for the conference schedule. 

COFFEE AND REMARKS | 9:30am
Safwan Masri | Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development

INTRODUCTIONS | 9:45am
Marianne Hirsch, Jean Howard, Diana Taylor | Women Mobilizing Memory Co-directors

PERFORMANCES OF PROTEST | 10am-12pm                 
Alisa Solomon | Columbia Journalism School, Moderator
Meltem Ahiska | Sociology, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul
Nancy Kricorian | Writer and Activist
Diana Taylor | Performance Studies, NYU
Andrea Crow & Alyssa Greene | Graduate Students, Columbia
Carla Shedd | Sociology and African-American Studies, Columbia

LUNCH AND EXHIBIT VIEWING | 12-1:30pm

MOBILIZING MEMORY SITES: SANTIAGO, ISTANBUL, NEW YORK | 1:30-3:30pm
Andreas Huyssen | German and Comparative Literature, Columbia, Moderator
Ayse Gul Altinay | Anthropology and Gender Studies, Sabanci University, Istanbul
Bürge Abiral | Graduate Student, Johns Hopkins University
Maria José Contreras | Theater School, Catholic University, Santiago
Deborah Willis, Photography and Imaging, NYU
Nicole Gervasio | English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
Marita Sturken | Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU

COFFEE BREAK | 3:30- 4pm

COLLABORATIVE ARCHIVES: CONNECTIVE HISTORIES | 4-6pm
Saidiya Hartman | English and Comparative Literature, Moderator
Hazel Carby | African-American  and American Studies, Yale
Milena Grass | Theater School, Catholic University, Santiago
Dilara Caliskan | Graduate Student, Sabanci University, Istanbul
Kellie Jones | Art History, Columbia
Leo Spitzer | History, Dartmouth College

WISHING TREE COMMEMORATIVE PUBLIC EVENT | 6-7pm

Women Mobilizing Memory is co-sponsored by Columbia University Seminars; School of the Arts; Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Columbia Global Centers; Oral History Research Office; Heyman Center for the Humanities; Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality; Institute for Comparative Literature and Society; Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race; Department of English and Comparative Literature; Department of Iberian and Latin American Studies; Armenian Center; Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion; Institute for the Study of Human Rights; Barnard Center for Research on Women;  The Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics; New York State Council for the Humanities; and Sabanci University.

Collaborative Archives: Connective Histories Exhibition and Opening Reception

Opening:
Tuesday, September 8, 2015 | 5-7pm

Exhibition On View:
September 8-18, 2015, 9am-5pm (Mon-Fri)

The Leroy Neiman Gallery
310 Dodge Hall, Columbia University
2960 Broadway (at 116th Street)
New York, NY 10027

Curated by Katherine Cohn and Isin Onol,“Collaborative Archives: Connective Histories” reveals unexpected connections and resonances between divergent histories. Confronting legacies of political violence in their own communities and in the lives of others, the artists in this exhibition bear witness to the power of art to combat injustice and forgetting. They mobilize intimate and collective archives to reveal individual and communal acts of resistance and survival and thus their work enables us to imagine more open and progressive futures. Featured artists in the exhibition include Silvina Der-Meguerditchian, Paz Errázuriz, Simone Leigh, Susan Meiselas, Lorie Novak, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Aylin Tekiner, and an installation of testimonies collected by the Truth Memory Justice Center in Istanbul.