Programme

12.15 – 12.30: Conference begins

12.30 – 12.45: Welcome address by conference organisers Esha Sil and Karen Lauwers

Watch the welcome address on Unitube!

12.45 – 14.45: PANEL 1: Language learning, translation and epistolary practices

Chair: Soile Ylivuori (University of Helsinki)

• 12.45 – 13.05: Gert Huskens (Université libre de Bruxelles and Ghent University), “Breaking the barriers in diplomacy. Dragomans, translators and interpreters and diplomatic practice in Egypt ca. 1800-1914”
• 13.05 – 13.25: Cécile Van den Avenne (Sorbonne Nouvelle University), “Eloquence in wartime. Epistolary skills and agency. (Exploring a corpus of letters sent by Dahomean tirailleurs during World War I)”
• 13.25 – 13.45: Mikko Toivanen (LMU München), “Between the spoken and the written word: transcription practices, speech ‘errors’ and ethnicity in mid-nineteenth-century colonial travel writing”
• 13.45 – 14.05: Jakob Zollmann (WZB Social Science Center, Berlin), “Language (learning) and Desperation. Albert Memmi and the Challenges of Speaking in Colonial Tunis (1920s–1930s)”
• 14.05 – 14.45: Discussion

14.45 – 15.10: break

15.10 – 16.30: PANEL 2: Subalternity on display

Chair: Janne Salminen (University of Helsinki)

• 15.10 – 15.35: Diana Natermann (Leiden University), “The Intentional Muting of the African Other in German Colonial Photography (1910-1911)”
• 15.35 – 16.00: Karina Lukin (University of Helsinki), “Provincializing Human Zoos (1911)”
• 16.00 – 16.30: Discussion

16.30 – 17.00: break

17.00 – 18.00: KEYNOTE speech by Sophie White, Professor, University of Notre Dame, "Testifying While Black: Recovering Voices of the Enslaved"

(40-minute presentation and 20-minute discussion) Session to be introduced and chaired by Ludovic Marionneau (CALLIOPE, University of Helsinki).

10.45 – 11.00: Day 2 begins

11.00 – 12.20: PANEL 3: Alternative vocal articulations in the 20th century

Chair: Friederike Lüpke (University of Helsinki)

• 11.00 – 11.25: Mazuba Kapambwe (independent researcher), “The Significance of Amzariwoch, the traditional Ethiopian War Cry in Maaza Mengiste’s novel The Shadow King”
• 11.25 – 11.50: Elise Mazurié (CRH/EHESS, Paris), “‘Insolent to our [European] ears’: Moroccan tirailleurs' military band in post-Nazi Germany between French imperialist exhibitionism and intercultural spaces, 1957-1958”
• 11.50 – 12.20: Discussion

12.20 – 12.50: break

12.50 – 14.20: PANEL 4: Notions of race and nation in subaltern discursive spaces

Chair: Janne Lahti (University of Helsinki)

• 12.50 – 13.10: Rosa Beunel (King’s College London), "Foundational Creole Narrative: Paul et Virginie and Race in the Old Colonies”
• 13.10 – 13.30: Imran Parray (University of Delhi), “Between ‘colonial’ governmentality and ‘oriental’ despotism: Metaphor, satire, and humour in early twentieth-century periodical press in princely India”
• 13.30 – 13.50: Esha Sil (CALLIOPE, University of Helsinki), “Speaking as the Eurasian ‘Other’: Henry Derozio, Antony Firingi, and a Creole Bengali Modernity”
• 13.50 – 14.20: Discussion

14.20 – 14.40: break

14.40 – 16.40: PANEL 5: Female voices and colonial bodies

Chair: Liesl Yamaguchi (Fulbright Finland Foundation Fellow, CALLIOPE, University of Helsinki)

• 14.40 – 15.00: Rhitama Basak (Delhi University, India), “De-constructing the Gaze: The Self and the Other in Women’s Travel Writing (to and from Colonial Europe)”
• 15.00 – 15.20: Rehnuma Sazzad (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London), “Colonial Modernity in India, Woman-Centrism, and a Feminist Utopia: Begum Rokeya through the Lens of Gayatri C. Spivak”
• 15.20 – 15.40: Himanshu Kumar (Hansraj College, University of Delhi), “The Colonised Body in Nineteenth-Century Bengal”
• 15.40 – 16.00: Geetha Ramanathan (West Chester University), “Gendered Historiography and Colonial Euro-Modernist Aesthetics”
• 16.00 – 16.40: Discussion

16.40 – 17.00: break

17.00 – 18.00: KEYNOTE speech by Arthur Asseraf, lecturer, University of Cambridge, "Nafissa Sid Cara, or, the End of Representation"

(40-minute presentation and 20-minute discussion) Session to be introduced and chaired by Karen Lauwers.

18.00 – 18.20: break

18.20 – 19.20: SPECIAL SESSION: Le Thinnai Kreyol with Ari Gautier and Ananya Jahanara Kabir (a project supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and King’s College London)

Chairs and discussants: Esha Sil and Karen Lauwers (CALLIOPE Conference Team)

10.45 – 11.00: Day 3 begins

11.00 – 12.30: PANEL 6: The hills and the plains: alternative appropriations of space

Chair: Xenia Zeiler (University of Helsinki)

• 11.00 – 11.20: Athira Sreedevi Prasenan (University of Hyderabad), “Scholarship, Caste and the Histories of Sanskrit Learning in Kerala”
• 11.20 – 11.40: Brinda Kumar (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), “An Abor Subject in Colonial Northeast India?”
• 11.40 – 12.00: Rubani Yumkhaibam (independent researcher), "The Poetic Other: Manipur in the Writings of the British"
• 12.00 – 12.30: Discussion

12.30 – 12.50: break

12.50 – 14.20: PANEL 7: The imperial ear

Chair: Lotta Vuorio (University of Helsinki)

• 12.50 – 13.10: Oleksandr Polianichev (Södertörn University, Stockholm), “Imperial Ears: Soundscape and the Civilizing Mission in mid-nineteenth-century South Caucasia”
• 13.10 – 13.30: Sabrina Nordlund (Lakehead University), “Scottish imperialism in Canada”
• 13.30 – 13.50: Karen Lauwers (CALLIOPE, University of Helsinki), “From textual representation to political mobilization. French stereotypes of Arab and Berber leadership in colonial Algeria (late 1840s-1860s)”
• 13.50 – 14.20: Discussion

14.20 – 14.40: break

14.40 – 16.10: KEYNOTE discussion between Barnita Bagchi (Associate Professor, Utrecht University, "An Unfinished Song: Listening to Less Heard Voices of Utopia") and Ananya Jahanara Kabir (Professor, King’s College London, "The Song, the Ship, the Dance (and the Text): Indentured Labour’s Alegropolitical Body")

Session to be introduced and chaired by Esha Sil.

16.10 – 16.30: break

16.30 – 18.30: PANEL 8: Music and voice of the colonial subaltern

Chair: Meri Kytö (University of Eastern Finland)

• 16.30 – 16.50: Eva Schalbroeck (University of Utrecht), “A memory cacophony? The contested remembrance of the ‘Congolese choirs’”
• 16.50 – 17.10: Niklas Pelizäus-Gengenbach (Göttingen University), “Singing but silent: Sound recordings from the African diaspora in Imperial German phonographic collections” - CANCELLED!
• 17.10 – 17.30: Irfan Ahmad (South Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia), “The Involvement of British Intellectualism in the Indian Classical Music”
• 17.30 – 18.00: Discussion

18.00 – 18.30: break

18.30 – 19.30: SPECIAL SESSION: Musical intermezzo by Sergio Castrillón (University of Helsinki)

Session to be introduced by Josephine Hoegaerts (CALLIOPE, University of Helsinki)

CLICK HERE to see the performance live on Unitube!

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