Third International Graduate Conference:
“States of Emergency – Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Dynamics of Crisis”
June 11-12, 2010, at the John F. Kennedy Institute/Berlin
Friday, June 11
8:00 - 9:00
Registration and Coffee
Conference Opening by Ulla Haselstein (Director of the GSNAS) and the Conference Committee
9:00 - 11:00
Opening Address by Keynote Speaker Linda B. Miller(Wellesley College and Brown University) "Revisiting the U.S. and the Middle East in Theory and Practice Since 9/11" Introduction TBA
11:00 - 11:15
Coffee Break
11:15 - 12:45
Session 1
Panel I: Theorizing States of Exception
Chair: Ida Jahr (GSNAS)
Karin Loevy
NYU Law School, U.S.
An Introduction to the Question of
Normative Containment
Christina Mohr
Graduate Center for the Study of Culture, Giessen, Germany
The Cognitive Cultural Dynamics of Crisis:
Between Chaos and Premediation
Simon Schleusener
JFK Institute
Sovereignty at Sea: Power and Affect in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
Panel II: Crisis and Representation
Chair: Frank Mehring (JFK Institute/Culture)
Sophia Frese
GSNAS
Literary Representations of the Middle East Conflict
Christoph Raetzsch
GSNAS
"All the News That's Fit to Circulate" - Reframing Journalistic Practices after Journalism
Reel Representations of Cultural Traumata: Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as National States of Emergency
Sarah Wasserman
Princeton University, U.S.
English Dept.
No Place Like Home: 9/11 and the Crisis of Nostalgia
Panel IV: Perspectives on Genocide
Chair: Hanno Scheerer (JFK Institute/History)
Shashi Thandra
Wayne State University, U.S.
English Dept.
“The Same Bodies Everywhere”: Returning to Post-Genocide Rwanda in Murambi’s The Book of Bones
Edvins Snore
University of Latvia, Latvia
History Dept.
Attitudes towards Foreign Genocide in Times of Domestic Economic Crisis: Case Study of the U.S. Reaction to the Holodomor
Norbert Finzsch
University of Cologne, Germany
Anglo-American History Dept.
Genocide and Settler Imperialism in the United States and Australia
15:30 - 15:45
Coffee Break
15:45 - 17:15
Session 3
Panel V: Narratives and Counternarratives of Crisis
Chair: James Dorson (GSNAS)
MichałRóżycki
University of Warsaw, Poland
Government Goons with Death Rays: The Depiction of Natural Disasters in Conspiracy Narratives
Michael Butter
Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies,
School of Language and Literature, Germany
The Crisis of Representation and the Representation of Crisis: American Conspiracy Theories from Salem to 9/11
Panel VI: Invisible Enemies
Chair: Thomas Greven (JFK Institute/Political Science)
Sonja Schillings
GSNAS
The Founding Myth of Somali Piracy. U.S. Constructions of Pirates and the
Question of Legitimate Violence
Jacob Parakilas
London School of Economics and Political Science, U.K.
Drugs and the New War: American Counter - Drug Policy and the Shape of Violence in Mexico
Mattia Toaldo
University of Rome III, Italy
International Studies Dept.
Attack and Withdrawal: The American Reaction to the Attack Against the Marines in Beirut and the Beginning of the War on Terror
17:15 - 18:00
Break
18:00 - 20:00
Keynote Address by Hayden White(Stanford University) “Crisis: A Deception” Introduction by Ulla Haselstein (JFK Institute/Literature)
from 20:00
Reception
Saturday, June 12
9:30 - 11:30
Keynote Address by Walter Benn Michaels (University of Illinois/Chicago) "Homo Sacher-Masoch: Agamben's American Dream" Introduction by Winfried Fluck (JFK Institute/Culture)
11:30 - 11:45
Coffee Break
11:45 - 13:15
Session 4
Panel VII: Precarious Others
Chair: Harald Wenzel (JFK Institute/Sociology)
Kathy-Ann Tan
University of Tübingen, Germany
American Studies Dept.
Sleeping Rough: Homelessness in a State of Exception
Katharina Motyl
GSNAS
The Trouble with Essentialism – The Arab and Muslim American Experience after 9/11
Catherine Lejeune
Université Paris Diderot
Paris 7, France
Borderland Encounters: Mexican Immigrants and Law Enforcement
Panel VIII: The New Wars
Chair: Andreas Etges (JFK Institute/History)
Caroline Varin
London School of Economics, U.K.
Department of International Relations
Niche Warfare: The Rebirth of Mercenaries in America’s New Wars
Jarema Drozdowicz
Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań, Poland
Human Terrain System and the Anthropology of Crisis
13:15 - 14:30
Lunch Break
14:30 - 16:00
Session 5
Panel IX: Masculinities
Chair: Michaela Hampf (JFK Institute/History)
Jan Kucharzewski
University of Hamburg, Germany
American Studies Dept.
“Only after Disaster Can We Be Resurrected” – Hollywood’s Recent Representations of Masculinities in Crisis
Nina Mackert/
Felix Krämer
Erfurt University, Germany/
University of Münster, Germany
Crisis as a Productive Signifier? Masculinity, Adolescence, and Hegemony
Robert Reid-Pharr
City University of New York (Graduate Center), U.S.
English Program
(un)Sexing/(de)Nationalizing Federico García Lorca
Panel X: Modes of Control
Chair: TBA
Beatrice de Graaf/
Coreline Boot/
Constant Hijzen
Leiden University, The Hague Campus (Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism), Netherlands
The Performative Power of Security Politics: The Construction of a Security State in Postwar Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S. (1945-1950)
Boris Vormann
GSNAS
Divide and Conquer – The Separation of Uses in post-9/11 North American Port Cities
16:00-16:15
Coffee Break
16:15 - 17:45
Session 6
Panel XI: Environment at Risk
Chair: Catrin Gersdorf (JFK Institute/Literature)
Karen Smith Stegen/
Patrick Gubry
Bremer Energie Institut, Germany
Climate Checkmate: The Energy Policies of the U.S. and China and the post-Copenhagen World
Ralph Stern
University of Manitoba, Canada
Faculty of Architecture
Las Vegas and the Dynamics of Crisis: Economic and Environmental Perspectives
Panel XII: Deconstructing Blackness
Chair: Elisabeth Engel (GSNAS)
Christopher Young
University of Freiburg, Germany
North American Studies Dept.
A Tiger in the White House, an Enemy in Your Own Backyard: Racialization and the Neoconservative Crisis
Jonathan Gaboury
Queen’s University, Canada
Diffuse Monomania in Martin Delany's Blake
Kim Singletary
Northwestern University, U.S.
Rhetoric and Public Culture Dept.
Opposing Blackness: Black American Women and Questions of Citizenship in the U.S. Media
