Beyond Iberian Colonialism: One Day Conference

"Beyond Iberian Colonialisms: Spanish Arabs and the Fate of the Western Sahara"
Conference
Friday, April 4
9:00 a.m. - 4:00p.m.
Nolte 125
For more info please click here.

Key note speaker: Aminatou Haidar, "Saharawi Women and Peaceful Resistance"
2:15-3:15
Nolte 125

Film Screening of Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony (Hijos de las nubes, la última colonia)(2012)
6:15 p.m.
St. Anthony Main Theater
As part of the Mpls/ST. Paul Film Society's International Film Fest
For tickets and more information click here.

K-16 Educator Workshop
Saturday, April 5
9:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.
125 Nolte
For more information please click here.




This conference will illuminate and draw together the histories of Iberian colonialisms with the present realities of African immigration and cultural production. International scholars, poets and speakers will explore why contemporary poets from the Western Sahara write poetry in Spanish, what the conflict between contemporary Moroccan policy and human rights of Saharans has to do with Spain's colonial past, and why contemporary Iberian and American artists have rallied behind the Saharan cause.

Key note speaker Aminatou Haidar is a Saharawi human rights activist, an advocate of the independence of Western Sahara, and president of the Collective of Saharawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA). Known as "Saharawi Gandhi" for her nonviolent protests, she was imprisoned from 1987 to 1991 and from 2005 to 2006 on charges related to her independence advocacy. In 2009, she attracted international attention when she staged a hunger strike after being denied re-entry into Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. Haidar has won several international human rights awards for her work, including the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and the 2009 Civil Courage Prize. In 2012 she was nominated to the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sponsored by: Iberian Studies, the Institute for Global Studies, European Studies Consortium, The Imagine Grant Special Events Fund, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, African Studies Initiative, The Human Rights Program, Gender Women Sexuality Studies.

Funds Still Available Faculty Travel Grants in European Studies

New deadline for applications April 15, 2014

Funds still available!

The European Studies Consortium is able to provide funds for travel to University of Minnesota Twin Cities Campus faculty. These grants are for projects that further development of new curricular content or the building of partnerships in Western, Central or Eastern Europe. Grants will be made on a competitive basis. Successful applications will receive up to $1000 in travel support. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of the competition by email.

Applications will be judged on the following criteria:

Projects that internationalize or expand opportunities to integrate foreign languages into the curriculum. Funding to be used for the collection of materials to update courses on Europe or European cultures, or for the collection of curricular resources that would allow students to utilize their foreign language skills in area studies courses.

Travel to develop collaborative research and (or) curriculum for sustainable partnerships with European institutions or colleagues.

For application and complete details please click here.

From Social to Communicative Construction: Transatlantic Developments in Interpretative Sociology

A lecture by Bernt Schnettler
Professor and Chair for Sociology of Culture and Religion, University of Bayreuth, Germany
Tuesday, March 25
12:00p.m.-1:30p.m.
Room 710 Social Sciences
Lunch provided by reservation



In the late 1960s, the 'new' sociology of knowledge opened up a path of stimulating academic collaboration between European and American currents of thought. Roughly half a century later, the 'New' Sociology of Knowledge has evolved in different directions. Professor Schnettler will focus on the vibrant debate in Europe. Special attention will be paid to the recent development of three cognate approaches: The Theory of Communicative Genres, the Social Constructionist Approach to Discourse Analysis (SKAD) and Sociological Hermeneutics, now jointly developing a research program under the programmatic title "Communicative Constructionism."

To reserve lunch email marydrew@umn.edu

Sponsored by: The European Studies Consortium and the Department of Sociology