Oct 28, 2016 | 2:50 PM - 4:50 PM | MAIN LOFT

Ms. Mariah Postlewait, MA in Art History

"We Always Lie to Strangers":  Strategies of Subverting Stereotypes and Recasting Identity in the Ozarks

The Ozarks have been assigned essential characteristics—poverty, “white trash” social/economic/cultural status, “hillbilly” stereotypes, etc.  These ascribe traits are a part of the reductive and historicizing politics of representation that entrap its occupants.  However, strategies of resistance allow members of this region to occupy a space on the edges of a sociocultural system and still combat it; the Spook Light Chronicles engenders one such arena of defiance. The Spook Light Chronicles, a three-volume set of artist books published from 2013-2014 by Ozark natives and photographers Lara Shipley and Antone Dolezal, investigates and contributes to understanding the people, place, religion, culture, and folklore surrounding the Spook Light phenomenon. 

Shipley and Dolezal combine their own contemporary photography with found images, print matter, collected anecdotes and stories, in addition to fictionalized narratives and “doctored” images to recreate and elaborate on the Spook Light mythos. The Spook light is a glowing ball of light that appears along a rural road called the Devil’s Promenade near the border of Missouri and Oklahoma. While legends of the Spook Light vary, Shipley grew up understanding that should you go looking for the light, you either find it or find the devil; you will either have a wish granted or your soul stolen. The Spook Light becomes an allegory for the limited options/opportunities/representations life offers inhabitants of the region. Theory developed by Kathleen Stewart in A Space on the Side of the Road makes it possible to negotiate the space between sign and referent to challenge dualities of self/other and subject/object and ultimately arrive at the in-between spaces that become arenas for critical engagement and social change. The requisite tools and strategies for Ozark inhabitants (and scholars) operating on/within marginal spaces are truly significant and require investigation and acknowledgement.

Dr. Lindsey Freeman, PhD

Atomic Appalachia, or, What I Knew about Oak Ridge before I Was Trying to Know It

In On Hashish, Walter Benjamin writes that he would “like to write something that comes from things the way wine comes from grapes.” In this paper, I try a similar project by squeezing things from my past that have been fermented over time with memory. I take as the starting point various objects and spaces from my childhood experiences in and around the atomic city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which may or may not be shared by others who encountered atomic Appalachia. I use my own eccentric archive and queer methodologies, including sociological poetry, to theorize perceptions of memory and the atomic spaces of my youth—spaces that have been shaped by a particular relationship to secrecy and to the American atomic project. Stretching beyond my own experience, this paper seeks to add to the growing body of sociological thinking about the connections between materiality and memory by adding the atomic as a dynamic example of matter’s vibrancy and effects on individual and collective memories.

Mr. Praveen Sewgobind, MA

Demasking Black Pete: Resisting Colonial Amnesia in the Netherlands

In this paper I trace and analyse recent acts of defiance against the festival of Sinterklaas in the Netherlands. Particularly known for his blackfaced servants, or Black Petes, the phenomenon of Sinterklaas has sparked unprecedented discursive and activist polarisation in the Netherlands. As proud proponents of the tradition of blackfacing are being strengthened by extreme-right forces, anti-racist activists have been arrested and attacked, both verbally and physically. Moreover, racist politicians have tried to elevate Sinterklaas as an official representation of national cultural heritage, thereby legalising imagery of what many feel is a direct and utterly degrading continuation of Dutch slavery practices.

The violent and sustained endeavours to prolong humiliating depictions of Black Pete, however, are embedded in dominant narratives of colonial amnesia: racism itself is often perceived as something that is "non-Dutch", and consequently, slavery as an event that is situated in a distant, contained history, most notably connected to the U.S. By analysing the birth of the new protest movement against Black Pete, after the violent arrest of black activist Quinsy Gario, I want to show how the power of indignation of being labelled racist often overshadows and even nullifies claims of racism. I will argue that this obstacle is carefully crafted to perpetuate an unblemished white power structure.

By exposing these processes, I wish to contribute to a better understanding of Dutch colonial amnesia, and to transform narratives of protest into forms of resistance, geared towards the abolition of the subordinating tradition of Sinterklaas and a realisation that the Netherlands is not a postcolonial society, but a colonial continuity. I will come to terms with theory advanced by Frantz Fanon, Sara Ahmed, and Philomena Essed, in order to enrich the conceptual realms of resistance discourses and critical race theory.

Ms. Mariia Alekseevskaia, M.A. in Philosophy

Faith-based schools: truth of religious system and tolerance to Others

According to some researchers, religion has two faces: “one that produces a sense of compassion, brotherhood and concern for others, and another darker face that leads to intolerance, bigotry and violence” (Powell and Clarke, 2013, p.44). After the change of Canadian migration policy in the 1960s, there has been a rise in the number of religious schools of different faiths. During the last decades there are intense philosophical and juridical debates about the limits of tolerance which should be delineated towards these institutions; and the limits of isolation and freedom of choice of curriculum which can be allowed to this religiously diverse education system.

Thus, there is a crucial inquiry: how are religious truth and tolerance compatible? ‘Harm principle’ has become challengeable for both scholars and policy-makers. On the one hand, there are religious parents who as Canadian citizens have a right to “religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions” (the United Nation’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). On the other – the curriculum of some faith-based schools might be harmful to the health or academic potential of a student. Such topics as: contraception, evolution theory, homosexual relations, etc. are under restriction in some religious schools; intolerance to some ethic/religious groups can be maintained within schooling process. I use the case of Dutch Reformed immigrants and their descendants to trace whether faith-based schools have a tendency to breed intolerance and division in their students and graduates. Interviews with teachers, members and ex-members of Reformed Churches, community’s mass media, and also social media serve as main sources of this research.

Biographies

Mariah Postlewait

Born in northern Pennsylvania, Mariah Postlewait conducted her BFA and MA studies in Michigan and Ohio at Adrian College and Bowling Green State University, respectively.  Postlewait is currently studying in Binghamton, NY at Binghamton University in the Art History PhD program.  Her research interests include the intersections of photography, agency and affect, identity, memory, and critical and cultural theory.  She has contributed written material to several exhibition efforts including a permanent display at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, at University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, MI, and the catalog essay for “With a Little Help from My Friends:  Photographs from the Teaching Collection of Glenn Rand" at Valade Gallery, at Adrian College, in Adrian, MI.

Dr. Lindsey Freeman

Lindsey A. Freeman (Ph.D.) is a sociologist who teaches, writes, and thinks about cities, memory, art, and the atomic bomb. She studied at the New School for Social Research (formerly the University in Exile), where she received a dual degree in Sociology and Historical Studies. She is the author of Longing for the Bomb: Oak Ridge and Atomic Nostalgia (University of North Carolina Press, 2015). Lindsey is currently at work on a project about growing up in and around atomic Appalachia.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Monograph

• Longing for the Bomb: Oak Ridge and Atomic Nostalgia, The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.

Edited Volumes

•  Forthcoming. The Bohemian South. An edited volume project with Shawn Bingham, The University     of North Carolina Press.

• Silence, Screen, & Spectacle: Rethinking Social Memory in the Age of Information. Berghahn Books. Edited by Lindsey A. Freeman, Benjamin Nienass and Rachel Daniel, 2014.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

• “Catastrophic Snow Globes as Oneiric and Mnemonic Gadgets.” Space and Culture. (Online first.          Print forthcoming, lead article). 19 (May 2016): 116 – 126.

•  “Atomic Childhood around 1980.” Memory Studies 9.1 (Jan 2016): 75 – 84.

• “Memory | Materiality | Sensuality” Lindsey A. Freeman, Benjamin Nienass, & Rachel Daniell.     Memory Studies 9.1 (Jan 2016): 3 – 12.

•  “Screen Memory,” Lindsey A. Freeman, Benjamin Nienass, & Laliv Melamed, in the       International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 26.1 (Mar 2013): 1- 7.

Praveen Sewgobind

Praveen Sewgobind is a PhD-candidate at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. Praveen holds a bachelor's degree in English, and a research master's degree in Cultural Analysis (both at the University of Amsterdam). In his dissertation project “Beyond Dissemination: Hindustani Identifications at the Nexus of Tradition and Modernity” - supervisors prof. dr. Ernst van Alphen (Leiden University) and prof. dr. Chan Choenni (VU University) -  Praveen explores the complex processes that have resulted from the Hindustani double migration (from India to Suriname to the Netherlands), which inform contemporary processes of identification. He argues that Indian, Surinamese, and Dutch cultures influence a fluidity of affiliations, which bring about questions regarding the relation between tradition and modernity, terms that are often juxtaposed. By critically assessing the (re-)production, circulation, and consumption of Hindustani cultures in the Netherlands, he problematises categorisations of tradition and modernity. His research interests lie in the field cultural and social analysis, as well as critical theory. In particular, Praveen focuses on contemporary instances of (post) coloniality in the Dutch context. The Hindustani double migration (from India to Suriname to the Netherlands) serves as way to reconsider and reconceptualise notions of identity and cultural affiliation, as well as the alleged juxtaposition of tradition and modernity. In order to do so, he has introduced and is developing the concept of meandericity, a tool with which to better understand multiple cultural affiliations in our globalising and digitising world. Moreover, Praveen is a dedicated (conference) organiser and is a member of the organising committee of the upcoming 2017 LUCAS Graduate Conference.

Mariia Alekseevskaia

Maria Alekseevskaia is a second-year PhD student in Sociology in the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies (University of Ottawa). Her research interests are closely connected with the study of how ethnicity and religion define the way immigrants integrate into Canadian society. Also, she examines various issues which Canadian religiously diverse education system faces today.

Publications:

•   Alekseevskaia, M. (2015). Book review: Kivisto, Peter, Religion and Immigration: Migrant Faiths in North America and Western Europe. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 40 (2), 279 – 282.
•  Alekseevskaia, M. (2013). The coverage of Eastern Orthodox in Canadian mass media. In M.A. Berezhnaya & E.A. Korolev (Eds.), Contemporary media sphere: functional, thematic, professional aspects. Young researchers’ view (pp. 142-150). St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University.
•  Alekseevskaia, M. (2013). Neo-Calvinism of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd. VERBUM journal, 15, 132-135. Retrieved from http://philosophy.spbu.ru/library/8544
•  Alekseevskaia, M. (2012). The Orthodox life of St. Petersburg and the city’s mass media. In M.A. Berezhnaya (Ed.), Actual problems of mass media and mass communications. Young researchers’ view (pp. 97-107).  St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University.
•  Alekseevskaia, M. (2012). Religious mass media in Russia: development tendencies. In M.P. Prisazhnuy (Ed.), Ukrainian mass media: Traditions and Challenges of Modernity (pp. 123-125). Lviv: Ivan Franko Lviv National University.
• Alekseevskaia, M. (2012). The audience of Russian Orthodox mass media. In V.V. Kluvak & E.O. Zvolska (Eds.), Ukrainian mass media: Traditions and Challenges of Modernity (pp. 38-40). Lviv: Ivan Franko Lviv National University.