Archive for March 2011

“Writing Difference” dissertation workshop, U of Copenhagen and NYU

03/30/2011 FYI No comments

Looks inter­est­ing!

Writing Difference

Dissertation Workshop
5-6th June 2011  |  New York
University of Copenhagen and New York University

In an increas­ingly glob­al­ized world said to be marked by sim­i­lar­i­ties and fluid cir­cu­la­tions, dif­fer­ence appears both as an object of desire and con­tempt. Globality sug­gests a sys­tem of signs that can be read, rec­og­nized and trans­lated across national bound­aries and cul­tural divides, and it is pre­cisely in this uni­verse of famil­iar­ity that the specter of dif­fer­ence haunts and seduces us. How to nego­ti­ate uni­ver­sal­ity with­out los­ing the spe­cific dif­fer­ence that con­sti­tutes iden­tity? This clas­sic ques­tion has gained a par­tic­u­lar urgency in a con­text where global stan­dards and scales are fre­quently deployed to enu­mer­ate, mea­sure and rank nations; polit­i­cal for­ma­tions of democ­racy, free­dom and diver­sity are deemed as uni­ver­sal ideals even though the same are seen as weak imi­ta­tions of the ‘orig­i­nal’ in the global south; mass mar­keted cul­tural sym­bols of con­sump­tion col­o­nize the remotest of loca­tions; and even the ‘exotic’ is dis­played within a global frame of aes­thet­ics. The old debates of homogeneity/heterogeneity, universality/particularity and self/other have resur­faced in the cur­rent moment in new forms and configurations.

In this dis­ser­ta­tion work­shop, we explore the notion of ‘difference’ – as iden­tity, oppo­si­tion and even resem­blance – in its mul­ti­ple mean­ings and set­tings, and the ways in which it plays out in the social-political land­scapes. Moving away from the idea of dif­fer­ence as nat­ural or essen­tial, we explore how dif­fer­ence is con­structed, man­i­fested and obscured. We will not only focus on the the­o­ret­i­cal and con­cep­tual debates on dif­fer­ence, we will pay atten­tion to the modes of writ­ing and rep­re­sen­ta­tion of dif­fer­ence in the pro­duc­tion of his­tor­i­cal, anthro­po­log­i­cal, lit­er­ary works as well as that of pop­u­lar cul­ture. How are traces of sim­i­lar­ity and dif­fer­ence woven in the trans­ac­tions between the self and the other? And how to make sense of cul­tural dif­fer­ence that is often offered as a sim­ple expla­na­tion of the Other? In other words, how is dif­fer­ence writ­ten about and how does dif­fer­ence write? These ques­tions will lead the two day work­shop where we aim to dis­cuss the modes of writ­ing dif­fer­ence – iden­tity, inequity, inequal­ity and uneven­ness within Asian soci­eties (class, race, gen­der, caste, geog­ra­phy to name a few) across tem­po­ral­i­ties and dis­ci­plines.

We invite ongo­ing projects at doc­toral level engaged with any or more of these themes. The projects will be sub­jected to com­ments and dis­cus­sions led by peers as well as the par­tic­i­pat­ing fac­ulty mem­bers and invited observers. The dis­ser­ta­tion work­shop is col­lab­o­ra­tion between Asian Dynamics Initiative, Copenhagen and Institute of Public Knowledge, New York University.

How to apply:

The prospec­tive can­di­dates should send a let­ter describ­ing their moti­va­tion for par­tic­i­pa­tion in the work­shop together with CV and a short descrip­tion of their project. Deadline 4th April 2011. The appli­ca­tions should be sent to

Prof. David Ludden ludden.​david@​gmail.​com at New York University

Dr. Ravinder Kaur rkaur@​hum.​ku.​dk at University of Copenhagen

AAA2011 — Cold War Christianity, Islam, and the Neoliberal Gospel of Prosperity

03/30/2011 Research No comments

Looks like I’ll be attend­ing the anthro­pol­ogy meet­ing in Montreal in November 2011. I sub­mit­ted the fol­low­ing abstract to a ses­sion on the cold war and neolib­er­al­ism, and I have to say, I’m excited about this research direc­tion — still broadly within the cul­tural pol­i­tics of reli­gion but involv­ing Islam and oil more explic­itly. Sure, it’s an abstract for a paper that will not mate­ri­al­ize for quite a while, and in about 6 months when I start writ­ing that paper, I’ll be curs­ing and mis­er­able, squint­ing as I won­der, what the hell am i say­ing? :-)

Cold War Christianity, Islam, and the Neoliberal Gospel of Prosperity

ABSTRACT. In a remark­ably short period of time, Islam and “ter­ror­ism” have replaced Communism as the enemy of the Free World. In con­ser­v­a­tive evan­gel­i­cal cir­cles through­out South Korea, where anti-Communism was once dom­i­nant and per­va­sive, Islamophobia is now rou­tinely ratio­nal­ized as the­o­log­i­cally jus­ti­fied and geopo­lit­i­cally judi­cious. Ordinary evan­gel­i­cals of all ages, occu­pa­tions, and degrees of reli­gious con­vic­tion are urged to vol­un­teer for over­seas mis­sions to counter the world­wide “rise of Islam” and to pro­mote Korea’s advance­ment on the world stage. As it was evi­dent in the mis­sion­ary hostage case in Afghanistan in 2007, some even tar­get Muslim-majority areas where pros­e­ly­tiz­ing is not only ille­gal but gen­er­ally unwel­come. Closer to home, the domes­tic side of Korean-led world evan­ge­liza­tion con­cerns the grow­ing num­ber of Muslims in South Korea — the Korea Muslim Foundation esti­mates there are 120,000 to 130,000 Muslims cur­rently liv­ing in South Korea, many of whom are for­eign work­ers and migrants from South and Southeast Asia, par­tic­u­larly Pakistan and Bangladesh. As such, Korean evan­gel­i­cal dis­courses have come to address Islam both as a domes­tic fac­tor and a global force. This paper aims to locate the emerg­ing evan­gel­i­cal atti­tudes towards Islam in the legacy of Cold War Christianity and the neolib­eral gospel of pros­per­ity. In par­tic­u­lar, I focus on the evan­gel­i­cals’ vehe­ment oppo­si­tion against the 2011 Islamic Bond Legislation in Korea, the so-called “Sukuk bill” which was intro­duced to grant enor­mous tax ben­e­fits for for­eign investors from the Middle East. The tim­ing was uncanny — the leg­is­la­tion coin­cided with South Korea secur­ing a record-breaking US$40 bil­lion con­tract to build nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates. Explaining how evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers sought to mobi­lize pub­lic sen­ti­ments regard­ing Islam’s influ­ence on reli­gious free­dom and cap­i­tal­ist polit­i­cal econ­omy, I dis­cuss the mul­ti­ple tra­jec­to­ries that con­verge in the polit­i­cal the­ol­ogy of Cold War Christianity and mar­ket tri­umphal­ism, and the com­plex­i­ties of evan­gel­i­cal Christian under­stand­ings of finance, wealth, and prosperity.

I mean, check out this sen­sa­tion­al­is­tic illus­tra­tion from the right-wing Chosun Ilbo, pit­ting the Ministry of Strategy and Finance against Protestants. See my trans­la­tion below the image.
Chosun20110216_sukukDebate.jpg

The “Islamic Bond Legislation” debate between the Ministry of Strategy and Finance (MoSF) and Protestants:

Concern MoSF Protestants
Excessive tax exemptions? There are no spe­cial exemp­tions in com­par­i­son to US Dollars or Japanese Yen. When only the UK, Singapore, and Ireland grant sim­i­lar tax exemp­tions, Korea’s con­ces­sions are excessive.
Possibilities of a “finan­cial Jihad”? It is nearly impos­si­ble that Islamic bonds will be mis­ap­pro­pri­ated towards fund­ing terrorism. Nobody knows where the bond prof­its go, so it is entirely pos­si­ble that they will finance terrorism.
Jumpstart spread of Islam in Korea? Finance and reli­gion are unre­lated. It is not pos­si­ble that this will have such wide influence. Because the Islamic Sharia Council will influ­ence the man­age­ment of the bonds, they will be able to influ­ence Korea.

How to Write Less Badly

03/27/2011 FYI No comments

The Chronicle of Higher Education pub­lished Michael Munger’s “10 Tips on How To Write Less Badly” back in September 2010, and more than 6 months later, it’s still one of the top most viewed arti­cle online. It’s no sur­prise, given how many of us strug­gle with all aspects writ­ing, on a daily basis. Here’s the gist of the 10 tips. For more details, read the orig­i­nal article.

1. Writing is an exer­cise. You get bet­ter and faster with practice.

2. Set goals based on out­put, not input. “I will work for three hours” is a delu­sion; “I will type three double-spaced pages” is a goal.

3. Find a voice; don’t just “get pub­lished.” If all you are try­ing to do is “get pub­lished,” you may not pub­lish very much. It’s eas­ier to write when you’re inter­ested in what you’re writ­ing about.

4. Give your­self time. Don’t pro­cras­ti­nate, and keep working.

5. Everyone’s unwrit­ten work is bril­liant. And the more unwrit­ten it is, the more bril­liant it is. Don’t be fooled: You are the win­ner here. When you are actu­ally writ­ing, and work­ing as hard as you should be if you want to suc­ceed, you will feel inad­e­quate, stu­pid, and tired. If you don’t feel like that, then you aren’t work­ing hard enough.

6. Pick a puz­zle. Portray, or even con­ceive, of your work as an answer to a puz­zle. There are many inter­est­ing types of puzzles:

  • “X and Y start with same assump­tions but reach oppos­ing con­clu­sions. How?”
  • “Here are three prob­lems that all seem dif­fer­ent. Surprisingly, all are the same prob­lem, in dis­guise. I’ll tell you why.”
  • “Theory pre­dicts [some­thing]. But we observe [some­thing else]. Is the the­ory wrong, or is there some other fac­tor we have left out?”
  • Don’t stick too closely to those for­mu­las, but they are help­ful in pre­sent­ing your work to an audi­ence, whether that audi­ence is com­posed of lis­ten­ers at a lec­ture or read­ers of an article.

7. Write, then squeeze the other things in. Put your writ­ing ahead of your other work. Don’t do it as an after­thought or tell your­self you will write when you get a big block of time. Squeeze the other things in; the writ­ing comes first.

8. Start small. It is hard to refine your ques­tions, define your terms pre­cisely, or know just how your argu­ment will work until you have actu­ally writ­ten it all down.

9. Your most pro­found thoughts are often wrong. Or, at least, they are not com­pletely cor­rect. Precision in ask­ing your ques­tion, or pos­ing your puz­zle, will not come eas­ily if the ques­tion is hard.

10. Edit your work, over and over. Have other peo­ple look at it. The dif­fer­ence between a suc­cess­ful scholar and a fail­ure need not be bet­ter writ­ing. It is often more editing.

Full-time faculty position in Social Geography in Belgium

03/22/2011 FYI No comments

The Department of Geography, Faculty of Science and Bio-Engineering Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel has a vacancy for a

Full-time fac­ulty posi­tion in Social Geography

Starting Date: 01/10/2011

Reference: WE/2011/003

Teaching:

The selected can­di­date will con­tribute to teach­ing in social geog­ra­phy both at Bachelor and Master level, in Dutch and English pro­grammes. At Master level the courses focus on urban stud­ies. He/she will also be part­ner in new cur­ric­ula devel­op­ment in col­lab­o­ra­tion with exist­ing programmes.

Research:

The suc­cess­ful can­di­date will take up a lead­ing posi­tion in the activ­i­ties of the urban research group COSMOPOLIS, City, Culture & Society, and will develop new research ini­tia­tives within that frame­work. Research in the COSMOPOLIS group is broadly focused on urban social, eco­nomic and cul­tural issues in the frame of glob­al­i­sa­tion, urban­i­sa­tion and rescal­ing. The COSMOPOLIS research agenda com­bines fun­da­men­tal research with con­sul­tancy and research by design. Acquaintance with the Belgian, Flemish and Brussels con­text is a plus.

The appli­cant should have a strong research record in social geog­ra­phy and urban stud­ies and is expected to be involved in national and inter­na­tional net­works. He/she has the capa­bil­ity of defin­ing new research strate­gies and pro­vid­ing inno­v­a­tive lead­er­ship. The selected can­di­date will be encour­aged to inter­act with other depart­ments and research groups in the frame­work of exist­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ments such as the Urban Studies Network and/or the Brussels Studies Institute.

  Read more

Financial support for MA students in Korean Studies at Leiden University

03/22/2011 FYI No comments

Financial sup­port for MA stu­dents in Korean Studies at Leiden University

Thanks to a gen­er­ous grant from the Academy of Korean Studies, which has selected Leiden University as a cen­tral insti­tu­tion for the study of Korea in Europe, in the aca­d­e­mic year 2011 – 2012 some finan­cial sup­port will be avail­able again for a lim­ited num­ber of stu­dents who intend to obtain a MA degree in Korean Studies.

Support equal to the fee for one year will be avail­able to two stu­dents from the European Union, Switzerland or Surinam who pos­sess qual­i­fi­ca­tions equiv­a­lent to a basic train­ing in Korean Studies (BA) or equiv­a­lent knowl­edge of Korea and the Korean language.

The Leiden MA degree in Korean Studies aims to pro­vide fresh per­spec­tives to the study of Korean his­tory and cul­ture, break­ing down dis­tinc­tions between mod­ern and pre-modern and between high cul­ture and low cul­ture, while at the same time devel­op­ing the lan­guage skills needed for such study. In accor­dance with the research project “History as Social Process” the MA pro­gramme will be focused on the com­plex inter­ac­tions between his­to­ri­og­ra­phy and var­i­ous forms of cul­ture, includ­ing lit­er­a­ture, film, tv drama and dig­i­tal media. Leiden University has been des­ig­nated as a “hub-library” by the Korean Film Council and con­se­quently pos­sesses ample resources for the use of film for such pur­poses. The research project also devotes atten­tion to the role of reli­gions in Korean his­tory and soci­ety. One part of the project is the pub­li­ca­tion of the online jour­nal Korean Histories, the first issue of which was pub­lished in December 2009. (www​.kore​an​his​to​ries​.org)

For stu­dents with suf­fi­cient lan­guage skills (equiv­a­lent to those of grad­u­ates of at least the sixth level of the lan­guage courses of Korean uni­ver­si­ties) the MA pro­gramme lasts one year. Students who have not yet achieved this level are expected to study an addi­tional year in Korea (in the sec­ond semes­ter of the first year and the first semes­ter of the sec­ond year) within the frame­work of exchange agree­ments con­cluded between Leiden University and a num­ber of promi­nent Korean universities.

The dead­line for appli­ca­tions for the MA pro­gramme by stu­dents from abroad is 1 April 2011, but there is some flex­i­bil­ity in this regard.

Students from a num­ber of European coun­tries may receive addi­tional sup­port from their home coun­try. For an overview of grant options please con­sult http://​www​.lei​de​nuniv​.nl/​e​n​/​p​r​o​s​p​e​c​t​i​v​e​/​i​n​d​e​x​.​p​h​p​3​-​c​=​1​3​.​htm

Inquiries should be directed to the Deputy Director of pro­gramme, Dr.
Remco Breuker: R.​E.​Breuker@​hum.​leidenuniv.​nl

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