Events - Future Events View

Kaysha Corinealdi, Michael Goebel, and Prita Meier in conversation, moderated by Kenny Cupers

This event features speakers whose work fore- grounds the making of worlds from connections, processes, and peoples other than those in Eu- ro-American accounts of imperialist globalization. It explores how the notion of “worldmaking,” coming from literary studies, can serve to build alternative histories and theories of the global urban. Kaysha Corinealdi speaks about how networks of Afro-Caribbean activists reshaped Panama and New York. Michael Goebel discusses how anti-imperial activism in interwar Paris sowed the seeds of Third Worldism. And Prita Meier discusses how the Indian Ocean, as engaged from Swahili port cities, challenges our understanding of globalization. Together they explore how urban and ecological accounts of anticolonialism may advance theory for our urban planet.

Dipesh Chakrabarty and Stefanos Geroulanos in conversation, moderated by Rosemary Wakeman

In which time(s) are histories of our global ur- ban present to be written? Postcolonial scholarship has emphasized the importance of multiple, entangled temporalities in order to account for the history of our shared humanity. With the notion of “History 2,” Dipesh Chakrabarty proposed subaltern histories that challenge pro- gressive historicism. Stefanos Geroulanos chal- lenges how we interpret history by focusing on power and time, and the invention of historical epochs. Ann Stoler posited the notion of imperial durabilities and colonial reactivations to better account for the multiple times in which people live. Lisa Lowe’s “past conditional temporality,” focuses on the what-could-have-beens erased by the globalization of liberal capitalism. Sociologists and critical theorists have also pointed to the memories and “hauntings” that defy modern and even postmodern temporalities. To what extent can these and other propositions help us to rethink temporality in global urban history?