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PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES
ARCHIVE
2001 / 2002 / 2003 / 2004 / 2005
2001
Gao Xingjian
In corporation with Flamingo Books, we were delighted to begin our public lecture series 8 March 2001 with that year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gao Xingjian.
Photographs of Gao Xingjian: lecture
8 March
Edward Said
We were most honoured to present Edward Said, who gave a lecture on "Criticism and Exile: The Postcolonial Predicament" on 22 March in the Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS. Photographs will be on display here in the near future.
Professor Partha Chatterjee
As part of the first workshop on Narrating and Imaging the Nation, Professor Partha Chatterjee spoke on "The Nation in Heterogeneous Time", 21 June in the Cruciform Building, Lecture Theatre 1, Gower Street, UCL.
In conjunction with the second workshop-conference on Narrating and Imaging the Nation, the Centre hosted three public lectures:
Professor Benedict Anderson
"Narrating the Nation-For Whom? Imagining Readership for "Third World" Novels, 1890-1990". 5.30pm, Wednesday 7 November, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS
Professor Aijaz Ahmad
"Home and the World: Literature in the days of Nation and Empire", 5.30pm, Thursday 8 November, Cruciform Lecture Theatre 1, UCL, Gower Street
Professor Terry Eagleton
"The Poetry of Nationalism", 5.30pm, Friday 9 November, Cruciform Lecture Theatre 1, UCL, Gower Street
2002
Professor Harish Trivedi
"Hindi and the Indian Nation, 1893-2000", Thursday 24 January, 5.30pm, Main School Lecture Theatre, SOAS
"The Nobel Savage?: V S Naipaul, India and the Third World"
Thursday 21 March, 5.30pm Main School Lecture Theatre, SOAS"The 'Postcolonial' and 'South Asia': A Confusion of Categories?"
Thursday 25 April 5.30pm Main School Lecture Theatre SOASPhotos of Professor Harish Trivedi: lecture, 25 April
Professor Richard Bauman
In conjunction with the second workshop-conference on "Literature and Performance", the Centre hosted a public lecture by Distinguished Professor of Folklore, Richard Bauman. Professor Bauman has made important contributions to a number of fields of study, including Folklore, Anthropology, History, and Linguistics.
" 'Fellow Townsmen and My Noble Constituents!' Representations of Oratory on Early Commercial Recordings"
Wednesday, 17 April, 17:30 in the Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOASDownload the abstract of Professor Bauman's lecture in pdf
Ama Ata Aidoo
Renowned Ghanaian novelist Ama Ata Aidoo spoke on "African Languages and Gender", 5.30pm, Thursday, 2 May 2002, AV Hill Lecture Theatre, University College London.
Ama Ata Aidoo is best known for her novels Changes: A Love Story and Our Sister Killjoy. Her work Anowa was recently selected as one of Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century.Photos of Ama Ata Aidoo: lecture 2 May
Zoe Wicomb
South African writer Zoe Wicomb gave a reading and answered questions on her novel, David's Story, at 5.00pm, Monday, 20 May 2002 in the SOAS Main School Lecture Theatre.Wicomb's You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town was published to critical acclaim in 1989. David's Story has received rave reviews in the US, where it appeared last March. In comparing the novel to You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town, The Washington Post wrote, "she has delivered an even richer, denser and troubled tale from the 'new' South Africa, no longer as isolated from the world."
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
In conjunction with the workshop on "Gender, Sexuality, and the Nation, we were most honoured to present Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who gave a lecture entitield "Sexuality Is Not in the Mantra,"5.30pm, Thursday, 20 June 2002, in the Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre,SOAS.
Hélène Cixous
The Centre also welcomed Hélène Cixous, who spoke on "Primal Scenes in Algeria (1940-1956): Hélène Cixous's Algeriances," 5.30pm, Friday, 21 June 2002, in the Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS.
2003
Ann Laura Stoler
Friday 21 February 2003, 5.30pm Main School Lecture Theatre, SOAS
In association with the Institute of Romance StudiesÕ conference on "Culture, Colonisation and Decolonisation in South East and South Asia: French, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch Perspectives," the Centre will host a public lecture by Professor Ann Laura Stoler of the University of Michigan. Stoler will speak on Habits of a Colonial Heart: The Affective Grid of Racial Politics. A renowned scholar of race, gender, and sexuality in colonial South East Asia, Stoler is currently completing a book entitled Along the Archival Grain: Colonial Cultures and Their Affective States. She is the author of Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things (1995), and her articles have appeared in a variety of historical, anthropological, and gender studies journals, including Representations and Comparative Studies in Society and History.
Suresh Pillai
FILM SCREENING "ANATOMY OF A MIGRATION"
Thursday 27 February 2003, 2pm Main School Lecture Theatre, SOASThe Centre and The Centre of South Asian Studies (SOAS) will be screening Anatomy of a Migration, a film researched, filmed, directed and produced by Suresh Kumar Pillai. The screening will be followed by a question and answer session with Suresh.
Anatomy of a Migration is the first film in a three-part series entitled Jahaji Bhai. The series looks at the history of the Indian communities of the Caribbean. Anatomy of a Migration is a journey from the origins of European colonialism to the genesis of post-emancipation ethnic conflicts in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. The narrative begins with the colonial European myth of "new lands", the extermination of native people in the Americas, and the history of slavery and of the sugar industry. The film traces the abolition of slavery and the introduction of Indian indentured labourers: the methods of recruitment, the terms of indenture and the journey across the Kala Pani (dark waters). The film tracks the emergence of an Indian middle class through an analysis of the migrants' strategies for sustaining and adapting ethnic, religious, caste and linguistic communities, and the tensions arising from racial, regional and religious differences within the islands. Suresh Kumar Pillai edited the film with the support of a fellowship at the Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick.
Abdulrazak Gurnah
Friday 21 March 2003, 5.30pm Main School Lecture Theatre, SOAS
The Centre in collaboration with the Centre of South Asian Studies (SOAS) and with sponsorship from the Graduate Studies Department of the Institute of Ismaili Studies will host a reading by Abdulrazak Gurnah, author of Paradise, Admiring Silence and By the Sea.
Buchi Emecheta
Wednesday 2 April 2003, 5.30pm Main School Lecture Theatre, SOAS
Nigerian-born writer Buchi Emecheta will give a public lecture as part of "Gender, Myth, and Spirituality" (2-4 April), the third workshop for the CentreÕs project on "Gender and Literature in Cross-Cultural Contexts". She will speak on ÒWomen's Spirituality in Nigeria.Ó Best known for The Joys of Motherhood (1979) and The Slave Girl (1977), Emecheta began her literary career after emigrating to Britain with the publication of In the Ditch (1972), a set of stories chronicling the autobiographical Adah, a single mother struggling with life on a council estate in London. Other works include Head above Water (1986), Kehinde (1994), and The New Tribe (2000). Emecheta is considered one of the foremost African writers in English, and the Centre is delighted to honour her contribution to modern literature with a reception, which will follow her presentation.
Harish Trivedi
On Thursday 15 May 2003 at 5.30pm, B202, Brunei Gallery , SOAS, Leverhulme Visiting Professor Harish Trivedi spoke on "Translating Culture vs. Cultural Translation: Literature, Anthropology and the Postcolonial". The lecture was following by a seminar (Professor Trivedi in conversation with Professor Theo Hermans from UCL) on the themes of this lecture. This was held at 2.30pm on Friday 16 May in Brunei Gallery Room B111.
Nadine Gordimer
On 27 May 2003, 6pm, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS, the Centre, in conjunction with Bloomsbury Books, was pleased to host a talk/reading by Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer.Luce Irigaray
On 28 May 2003, 5.30pm, AV Hill Lecture Theatre, UCL, renowned feminist scholar Luce Irgaray will speak on the topic of "The Time of Becoming Human." A reception and book sale will follow.
Robert Young
On Thursday 19 June 2003, 5.30pm in the AV Hill Lecture Theatre, UCL and in connection with the final workshop of the Centre's project on "Translations and Translation Theories East and West" which focuses on "Cross-Cultural Translation in Theory and Practice". Robert J.C. Young, Professor of English and Critical Theory at Oxford University, spoke on "Translation, Traitor: Postcolonialism As Translation."
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
Also as part of the fourth translation workshop, Professor Ngugi wa Thiong'o of the University of California at Irvine spoke on the subject of "Languages in Conversation: The Role of Translation in the Making of a Global Community." This lecture took place on Friday 20 June 2003, 6pm Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS
The Kenyan-born writer and scholar is the director of the University of California-Irvine's Center for Writing and Translation and is a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature there. Born in 1938 and of Gikuyu origin, Ngugi is famous for his commitment, articulated in Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), to writing literature in his own language, rather than solely in English, as a means of breaking away from the imperial British heritage in Africa. His Gikuyu works include The Black Hermit (1968), a play, and Devil on the Cross (1982), a novel. A prolific writer of criticism and fiction, Ngugi's first novel, Weep Not Child, was published in 1964, and he is best known for A Grain of Wheat (1967) and Petals of Blood (1977). Petals of Blood, written while he was a professor at the University of Nairobi, details the corrupt government of post-independence Kenya. His outspoken views on contemporary politics led to his arrest in 1977, and he chronicled his experiences of imprisonment in his 1981 work, Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary. After his release, Nugi entered self-imposed exile, and he has taught at several American universities, including New York University and Yale.
Isaac Julien
Wednesday 5 November 2003, 5.30pm, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS
The Centre is pleased to welcome filmmaker Isaac Julien, who will give a presentation in association with the Centre’s workshop on “Cities across Time,” 5-7 November entitled “An Artist’s Presentation: Territories: Black Space, the City and the Cinematic Imaginary in the Films of Isaac Julien”.
2004
Merle Collins
Thursday 12 February 2004, 5.30pm, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS
In conjunction with the final workshop of the "Gender and Literature in Cross-Cultural Contexts," the Centre is pleased to host a public lecture by Merle Collins entitled "Hold you hen; me cock outside: Narratives on the shaping and performance of gender roles". Collins, who is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland, is an acclaimed writer of fiction and poetry, as well as a specialist in Caribbean Studies.
Carol Gluck
Friday 12th March 2004, 6pm, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS
The Centre is pleased to welcome, in joint collaboration with the Japan Research Centre (SOAS), Prof Carol Gluck. She will be speaking on "Past Obsessions: War and Memory in the Twentieth Century." Carol Gluck is George Sansom Professor of History at Columbia University. She specializes in modern Japan, from the late nineteenth century to the present.Click here for photos of Carol Gluck
Click here to visit the Japan Research Centre website
Vikram Chandra
Wednesday 12 May 2004, 6pm, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS
The AHRB Centre for Asian and African Literatures (SOAS/UCL) is pleased to welcome the fiction writer Vikram Chandra, who will give a presentation and reading in conjunction with the third workshop of the "City and Literature" project. Chandra, who teaches creative writing at George Washington University in the US, is the author of the novel Red Earth and Pouring Rain (1995, Faber & Faber), which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book and the David Higham Prize for Fiction. Red Earth and Pouring Rain is a tale told by a young Indian student and a typing monkey, and also a novel about exile, about Indians abroad and foreigners in India, about the processes of national and cultural and personal redefinitions implicit in these juxtapositions.
Manjushree Thapa
Thursday 14 October 2004, 5.30pm, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS
Annual lecture of the Britain-Nepal Academic Council, organised in collaboration with the AHRB Centre for Asian and African Literatures. Manjushree Thapa will be speaking on the topic of 'Women Writers and the Enlightenment in Nepal'.
Manjushree Thapa is a leading Nepali author, columnist and literary and sociopolitical commentator. She is the author of an acclaimed travel book, Mustang Bhot in Fragments (1992), the translator of a wide range of Nepali short stories and poems (see, for instance, A Leaf in a Begging Bowl (2000), a collection of her translations of stories by Ramesh Vikal), and, most notably, the author of The Tutor of History (Viking India, 2001) which is the first really world-class novel published in English by a Nepali. She has contributed a literary column to the Nepali Times on and off for the past few years and has also provided some very courageous journalistic coverage of the Maoist insurgency in the western hills of Nepal.
Ma Jian
Thursday 21 October 2004, 6pm, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS
Chaired by Dr Bernhard FuehrerBilingual literature reading events organised by the AHRB Centre for Asian and African Literatures in collaboration with the SOAS Department of the Languages and Cultures of China and Inner Asia and the Centre of Chinese Studies, SOAS.
The "Chinese Literature in London" events aim to give reading audiences a chance to meet with some of the Chinese writers who live in London and to listen to readings from their work, both in the original Chinese and in English translation. Ma Jian is the author of the highly acclaimed novel Red Dust.
Specialists in Chinese literature from SOAS will introduce the authors, who will then read from their work, followed by readings of English translations.
Hadia Said
'Voices of Diaspora: Arab Author Series'
Wednesday 24 November, 6PM
Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS
* This is a bilingual event *
Hadia will read from her works on IraqHadia Said is a Lebanese writer living in London today. She is an
active public intellectual who divides her time between writing and
editing an Arabic journal and hosting a BBC Arabic radio programme on
the Arabic short story. She has made films, written articles for
various Arabic newspapers and journals, and published short stories
and novels. Her fictional works, reflecting her sojourn in many Arab
cities and London, provide interesting insights into the ways
migration, exile and crossing cultures affect an immigrant's sense of
self.HU DONG
Thursday 2 December 2004
Chaired by Prof Michel Hockx
6pm, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOASBilingual literature reading events organised by the AHRB Centre for Asian and African Literatures in collaboration with the SOAS Department of the Languages and Cultures of China and Inner Asia and the Centre of Chinese Studies, SOAS.
In recent decades, Chinese literature has firmly established itself as a vital branch of world literature. Countless Chinese novels, stories, poems and plays have been and are being translated into other languages, especially English. Chinese writers have become frequent participants in international literary events, some of them travelling to and from China on a regular basis, others settling down abroad and joining the ranks of the Chinese diaspora. London, especially, has become one of the major centres of Chinese literature outside China. The "Chinese Literature in London" events aim to give reading audiences a chance to meet with some of the Chinese writers who live in London and to listen to readings from their work, both in the original Chinese and in English translation.
2005
CHEN DANYAN & TOBY LITT
Date: Tuesday 15 March 2005
Time: 5pm - 6.30pm
Venue: British Council, 10 Spring Gardens,
London, SW1A 2BNChen Danyan and Toby Litt will talk about their impressions and experiences of the 'Writers' Train', a British Council project developed with the Chinese Writers Association as part of the THINK UK initiative in November 2003. Four Chinese and four British writers travelled across China a sixteen-day train journey taking in Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Kunming, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Each day the writers completed an online diary of their experiences and delivered lectures, workshops and readings. The aim of the event was to create a new brand of cultural exchange and literary style using the Internet, targeted at the young generation in China, and to lay the foundation for future literature exchange projects between the two countries. More information about Chen Danyan and Toby Lit and their e-diaries, as well as information on the other authors on the train, can be found at http://www.britishcouncil.org/china-arts-ukinchina-literature-writerstrain.htm
YO YO
Monday 25 April 2005
Chaired by Prof Michel Hockx
6pm, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOASBilingual literature reading events organised by the AHRB Centre for Asian and African Literatures in collaboration with the SOAS Department of the Languages and Cultures of China and Inner Asia and the Centre of Chinese Studies, SOAS.
After the success of the first two events last term, we are proud to announce the next two "Chinese Literature in London" events which will take place during the coming term. The first event will be in early March (exact date to be confirmed) and will feature the work of the popular post-feminist writer Hong Ying, author of Summer of Betrayal, Daugher of the River, and K: The Art of Love. The second event, on Monday 25 April, will introduce the work of another woman writer, Yo Yo, whose first novel in English translation is due to be published this year.
FINAL PUBLIC LECTURE
SUSAN BASSNETT
(Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies,
University of Warwick)
"Influence and Intertextuality: A Reappraisal"
6pm, Tuesday 7th June 2005
Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOASThis is the last event we will be hosting at the Centre this year and we would like to invite you to celebrate the completion of the Centre's five-year research programme with us.
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ahrblit@soas.ac.uk
