May 17 and 18, 2013
Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton, Seattle

The two-day sym­po­sium seeks to the­o­rize and his­tori­cize racial cap­i­tal­ism in the mod­ern world. Build­ing on Cedric Robinson’s insight that cap­i­tal­ist devel­op­ment has been pur­sued and orga­nized fun­da­men­tally around race, speak­ers will strive to uncover the mul­ti­ple lay­ers of cap­i­tal­ist expansion—ideological, cul­tural, eco­nomic, and social—to reveal and com­pre­hend the ten­sions and con­tra­dic­tions of racial cap­i­tal­ism in the past and in the present and across the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Fri­day, May 17
Petersen Room, Allen Library
1:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Open­ing Round­table
Lisa Lowe, Tufts Uni­ver­sity, “Sugar, Tea, Opium, Coolies: The Inti­ma­cies of Four Con­ti­nents”
Com­men­ta­tors: Moon-Ho Jung, Chan­dan Reddy, Stephanie Small­wood, and Alys Wein­baum (Con­fer­ence Organizers)

3:30 – 5:00 p.m.          Ses­sion 1
Jen­nifer Mor­gan, New York Uni­ver­sity, “Par­tus Sequitur Ven­trem: Slave Law and the His­tory of Women in Slav­ery”
Michael Wit­gen, Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan, “See­ing Red: The Pol­i­tics of Crime and Pun­ish­ment on the North­ern Bor­der­lands of the Early Amer­i­can Republic”

Sat­ur­day, May 18
Husky Union Build­ing, Room 334
10:30 a.m. – Noon      Ses­sion 2
Shel­ley Streeby, Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego, “Hubert H. Harrison’s Scrap­books, Racial Cap­i­tal­ism, and the Black Rad­i­cal Tra­di­tion”
Manu Vimalassery, Texas Tech Uni­ver­sity, “Native and Black Visions of Self-Determination”

Noon – 1:30 p.m. Lunch Break*

1:30 – 3:30 p.m.          Ses­sion 3
Peter James Hud­son, Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­sity, “Black Sov­er­eignty and Racial Cap­i­tal­ism: The National City Bank in Haiti and Liberia, 1910–1935”
Jodi Kim, Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, River­side, “Debt Impe­ri­al­ism, Set­tler Moder­nity, and the Necrop­ol­i­tics of the Promise”
Andrew Fried­man, Haver­ford Col­lege, “Merid­i­ans and Par­al­lels: Racial For­ma­tions on the Global Grid”

3:45 – 4:15 p.m.          Clos­ing Reflections

The sym­po­sium is free and open to the public.

*If you will be join­ing us for a light lunch on Sat­ur­day, please RSVP to cspn@uw.edu or 206–543-8656 by Tues­day, May 14.

Spon­sored by the Cen­ter for the Study of the Pacific North­west, the Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton Libraries, the Depart­ment of His­tory, the Depart­ment of Eng­lish, the Jack­son School of Inter­na­tional Stud­ies, and the Simp­son Cen­ter for the Humanities.

Thurs­day, May 2, 2013
4:00 pm
Com­mu­ni­ca­tion 120

Comu­nidades afec­tadas por la min­ería: el caso CONACAMI y su impacto en América
In Novem­ber 1998, com­mu­nity lead­ers from the Peru­vian Andes came together in a sem­i­nar to dis­cuss the effects of min­ing in their com­mu­ni­ties. This could have sim­ply been one more meet­ing, but the con­clu­sions and agree­ments of this his­toric gath­er­ing opened a new chap­ter in the long strug­gle of Andean com­mu­ni­ties to defend their rights against the min­ing indus­try and state min­ing poli­cies. This new stage is marked by the lead­er­ship of the National Con­fed­er­a­tion of Com­mu­ni­ties Affected by Min­ing in Peru (Con­fed­eración Nacional de Comu­nidades del Perú Afec­tadas por la Min­ería – CONACAMI) and the emer­gence of a move­ment to denounce the neg­a­tive impacts of min­ing and orga­nize oppo­si­tion to it. This move­ment is con­sid­ered one of the iconic artic­u­la­tions of resis­tance to min­ing in Latin Amer­ica. Its most impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion is gen­er­at­ing a pub­lic debate over the impacts and ben­e­fits of mining.

Luis Vit­tor is a Peru­vian econ­o­mist and adviser to the Coor­di­nadora And­ina de Orga­ni­za­ciones Indí­ge­nas (Andean Coor­di­na­tor of Indige­nous Orga­ni­za­tions). He has also advised the Con­fed­eración de Comu­nidades del Perú Afec­tadas por la Min­ería (CONACAMI, the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Peru­vian Com­mu­ni­ties Affected by Min­ing) since its found­ing. He is of Quechua ori­gin and was born in Cerro de Pasco, Peru. From 2008–2009 he was a Fel­low in the Indige­nous Peo­ples, Human Rights, Gov­er­nance & Inter­na­tional Coop­er­a­tion pro­gram at the Uni­ver­sity Car­los III of Madrid (Spain). He is the author of Resisten­cias comu­ni­tarias a la min­ería: la expe­ri­en­cia de CONACAMI (Com­mu­nity Resis­tance to Min­ing: the CONACAMI expe­ri­ence) (2008) among numer­ous other pub­li­ca­tions.
Pre­sen­ta­tion will be in Span­ish with Eng­lish trans­la­tion by José Anto­nio Lucero (Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Studies).

Pre­sented as part of B/ordering Vio­lence: Bound­aries, Gen­der, Indi­gene­ity in the Amer­i­cas, a John E. Sawyer Sem­i­nar in Com­par­a­tive Cul­tures gen­er­ously funded by the Andrew W. Mel­lon Foun­da­tion and co-sponsored by the Latin Amer­i­can & Caribbean Stud­ies pro­gram, the Jack­son School of Inter­na­tional Stud­ies, the Simp­son Cen­ter for the Human­i­ties, and the Insti­tute for the Study of Eth­nic­ity, Race, & Sex­u­al­ity (WISER).
For more on the B/ordering Vio­lence Sem­i­nar Series, visit depts.washington.edu/uwch/programs/initiatives/bordering-violence and www.borderingviolence.com.

Fri­day April 12, 2013
10:00 am
Loca­tion: Com­mu­ni­ca­tions 206

Con­tact:  lasuw@uw.edu or 206.685.3435

Bor­der­lands Grad­u­ate Stu­dent Cof­fee hour with Audra Simp­son and Ofe­lia Zepeda. Come meet Profs. Simp­son and Zepeda for an infor­mal chat with other grad­u­ate stu­dents inter­ested in bor­der­lands research.

Pre­sented as part of B/ordering Vio­lence: Bound­aries, Gen­der, Indi­gene­ity in the Amer­i­cas, a John E. Sawyer Sem­i­nar in Com­par­a­tive Cul­tures gen­er­ously funded by the Andrew W. Mel­lon Foun­da­tion and co-sponsored by the Latin Amer­i­can & Caribbean Stud­ies pro­gram, the Henry M. Jack­son School of Inter­na­tional Stud­ies, the Simp­son Cen­ter for the Human­i­ties, and the Insti­tute for the Study of Eth­nic­ity, Race, & Sex­u­al­ity (WISER).

For more on the B/ordering Vio­lence Sem­i­nar Series, visit depts.washington.edu/uwch/programs/initiatives/bordering-violence and www.borderingviolence.com

Thurs­day, April 11, 2013
4:00 pm, recep­tion to fol­low
Com­mu­ni­ca­tions 120
Uni­ver­sity of Wash­ing­ton, Seat­tle Campus

Audra Simp­son (Anthro­pol­ogy, Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity) “Indian Ter­ri­tory, the Racial­ized Life of Treaty and Set­tler Sovereignty”

Hau­denosaunee – or “The Iro­quois” – are an Indige­nous Con­fed­er­acy of Six Nations that inter­rupt the nar­ra­tives that attempts to explain them as well as the states that pur­port to law­fully own and admin­is­ter their land. Nowhere is this made clearer than in Iro­quois inter­pre­ta­tions of the Jay Treaty of 1794 and Iro­quois move­ment across the US-Canada border—an inter­na­tional bor­der that cuts through their his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary ter­ri­tory and is, sim­ply, in their space and in their way. It is through their actions, and in par­tic­u­lar, their mobil­ity on their own terms, that Indige­nous bor­der crossers enact their under­stand­ings of his­tory and law, under­stand­ings that are then received in par­tic­u­lar ways – racial­iz­ing, crim­i­nal­iz­ing, and delim­it­ing. Nonethe­less, Hau­denosaunee push against all of this as they move across var­i­ous bor­ders: ter­ri­to­r­ial, tem­po­ral and juridi­cal, in their active rela­tion­ships to land and to each other.  Audra Simp­son explores the his­tor­ica! l, legal, polit­i­cal and ethno­graphic life of Iro­quois nation­hood across bor­ders, and con­tends that their con­tin­ued life and action calls into deep ques­tion the con­ceit of ter­ri­to­r­ial cer­tainty and set­tler sov­er­eignty itself.

Ofe­lia Zepeda (Amer­i­can Indian Stud­ies, Uni­ver­sity of Ari­zona) “The Tohono O’odham and the Bor­der: A Per­sonal Perspective”

Ofe­lia Zepeda is a mem­ber of the Tohono O’odham Nation. She con­tends, “Early on we were not really aware of an inter­na­tional bor­der since move­ment between the U.S. and Mex­ico was fairly free, espe­cially for the Tohono O’odham. The under­stand­ing of a polit­i­cal bor­der is some­thing fairly recent and does not come into play when one moves with fam­ily and kin back and forth in this desert space, where the polit­i­cal bor­der is sit­u­ated is all one great exten­sion of a people’s home, cul­ture, lan­guage and land. This in a sense is my per­spec­tive as a mem­ber of the O’odham Nation. But, things have changed.” In her talk, she shares her per­sonal per­spec­tive, mov­ing back and forth from the time before the true real­iza­tion of a bor­der and today when things are mag­ni­fied by the bor­der.
Pre­sented as part of B/ordering Vio­lence: Bound­aries, Gen­der, Indi­gene­ity in the Amer­i­cas, a John E. Sawyer Sem­i­nar in Com­par­a­tive Cul­tures gen­er­ously funded by the Andrew W. Mel­lon Foun­da­tion and co-sponsored by the Latin Amer­i­can & Caribbean Stud­ies pro­gram, the Jack­son School of Inter­na­tional Stud­ies, the Simp­son Cen­ter for the Human­i­ties, and the Insti­tute for the Study of Eth­nic­ity, Race, & Sex­u­al­ity (WISER).
For more on the B/ordering Vio­lence Sem­i­nar Series, visit depts.washington.edu/uwch/programs/initiatives/bordering-violence and  www.borderingviolence.com.

Sat­ur­day, March 2
12:30–2:30pm
El Cen­tro de la Raza
2425 16th Ave S
Seat­tle, WA 98144

What is Fan­dango / Que es el Fandango

Sat­ur­day, March 2
7:00pm
Youngstown Cul­tural Arts Cen­ter
4408 Del­ridge Way Sw Seat­tle, WA 98106

Fri­day, March 1
6:00pm
Union Cul­ture Cen­ter
803 S. King St. Seat­tle, Wa 98104. Cor­ner of S. King St. + 8 Ave. S., Inter­na­tional District

Please join the Seat­tle Fan­dango Project and Union Cul­tural Cen­ter in a con­ver­sa­tion about com­mu­nity music as a site of resis­tance and heal­ing. Potluck style This event is free and all ages. Dona­tions grate­fully accepted.

Fea­tur­ing scholar and dancer, Raquel Rivera; Chican@ Artivist@s Martha Gon­za­lez (who is also a doc­toral can­di­date in Fem­i­nist Stud­ies at UW) and Quet­zal Flo­res of the Grammy award win­ning East L.A. band, Quet­zal; and Kali Niño, fan­dan­guera of Toronto and San Andres Tuxt­las and mem­ber of Cafe con Pan.

Fri­day, March 1
3:30–5:00pm
School of Music Fishbowl

William Ner­ic­cio
Eng­lish & Com­par­a­tive Lit­er­a­ture, and Chi­cana & Chi­cano Stud­ies San Diego State University

Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 28, 2013
4:00 pm
Com­mu­ni­ca­tions 120

What hap­pens to the mind of a rel­a­tively sane Mex­i­can Amer­i­can aca­d­e­mic when doused with the deri­sive laugh­ter of an East Coast under­grad­u­ate stu­dent? What mad­ness ensues once that self-same “scholar” uses his aca­d­e­mic super­pow­ers to cat­a­logue Mex­i­can stereo­types in the United States? Mex­tasy! Stu­dents and fac­ulty are in for a MEXSTATIC mul­ti­me­dia pre­sen­ta­tion exam­in­ing dom­i­nant trends in the 21st cen­tury rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Lati­nas and Lati­nos in Amer­i­can pop­u­lar cul­ture. From Hol­ly­wood to Madi­son Avenue, spe­cific and dam­ag­ing visions of Latina/o sub­jec­tiv­ity have infected the synapses of Amer­i­cans, and Mex­i­cans alike. “Eth­nic man­nequins” (such as William Levy, Eva Lon­go­ria, and Sophia Ver­gara) infect con­scious­ness even as they enter­tain. Nor are they divorced from the talk-radio fueled renais­sance on racial­ized hatred. If Lou Dobbs screams hys­ter­i­cally that Mex­i­cans are “dis­eased” and Rush Lim­baugh encour­ages his lis­ten­ers to tell “Mex­i­cans” to go back to “their coun­try,” what are the effects? Research sug­gests that these col­lec­tive efforts have led to a resur­gence of anti-Latino hate and hate crimes at the very moment that the U.S. becomes more demo­graph­i­cally and decid­edly Latino/a. The pre­sen­ta­tion will fea­ture excerpts from Tex[t]-Mex, Eye­giene, the Tex[t]-Mex Gallery­blog and art from Mextasy.

William Ner­ic­cio is Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish & Com­par­a­tive Lit­er­a­ture and Chi­cana & Chi­cano Stud­ies, and Direc­tor of the Mas­ter of Arts in Lib­eral Arts and Sci­ences pro­gram at San Diego State Uni­ver­sity. He is the author of Tex[t]-Mex: Seduc­tive Hal­lu­ci­na­tions of “Mex­i­cans” in Amer­ica (2007), and edi­tor of The Hurt Busi­ness (2008), and Homer from Sali­nas: John Steinbeck’s Endur­ing Voice for Cal­i­for­nia (2009). Ner­ic­cio blogs at http://textmex.blogspot.com/.

Pre­sented as part of B/ordering Vio­lence: Bound­aries, Gen­der, Indi­gene­ity in the Amer­i­cas, a John E. Sawyer Sem­i­nar in Com­par­a­tive Cul­tures gen­er­ously funded by the Andrew W. Mel­lon Foun­da­tion and co-sponsored by the Latin Amer­i­can & Caribbean Stud­ies pro­gram, the Jack­son School of Inter­na­tional Stud­ies, the Simp­son Cen­ter for the Human­i­ties, and the Insti­tute for the Study of Eth­nic­ity, Race, & Sex­u­al­ity (WISER).

For more on the B/ordering Vio­lence Sem­i­nar Series, visit www.borderingviolence.com.

Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 28
6:30–8:30pm
Kane Hall 120

Where does artis­tic prac­tice and spir­i­tual belief inter­sect with grass­roots activism? This ques­tion will be at the heart of Raquel Z. Rivera’s dis­cus­sion on art and spir­i­tu­al­ity, The Lib­er­a­tion Mytholo­gies: Quests for Roots, Spirit and Jus­tice in Afro-Puerto Rican, Afro-Dominican, and Mex­ica Music and Dance. Dr. Rivera will look at myth-making through the prisms of eclec­tic North Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties. She will exam­ine how groups try to explain the unex­plain­able, from Afro-Puerto Rican bomba dancers in New York to com­mu­ni­ties of New Mexico-based concheros and Mex­ica dancers. Rivera will con­nect the tra­di­tions these groups honor while explor­ing how they build a bet­ter future. Dr. Raquel Z. Rivera is an author, scholar, and singer-songwriter