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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><b>WISER and the University of Michigan
Mellon Collaboration Workshops</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“<b>The Global South as a Source of
Theory”</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><b>5-19 May 2014</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The Mellon Foundation has provided
funding for collaboration between the African Studies Center,
University of Michigan, and the Wits Institute for Social and
Economic Research (WISER), Johannesburg. The title of this
collaboration is “Joining Theory and Empiricism in the Remaking of
the African Humanities: A transcontinental Collaboration.” Our main
goal is to strengthen research relationships between scholars at the
two institutions.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The core of this collaboration will be
a series of ten Workshops that will alternate between Johannesburg
and Ann Arbor. The first of these will be held in Johannesburg from
May 5 to May 19 under the theme “The Global South as a Source of
Theory.” A significant part of the first workshop will focus on
in-depth discussions of this theme. The Workshop will be held at
WISER in Johannesburg and at the Wits Rural facility in the Lowveld.
It will consist of combined reading sessions, break-out thematic
discussions, ample time for writing and the discussion of writing,
and presentations of work in progress. We intend to use the
Workshop to sponsor a series of publications that follow from the
discussions. We will also take some time to plan future workshops.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">May 5: introductions</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">May 6-9: combined and break-out reading
sessions at WISER</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">May 10-11: weekend off
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">May 12-15: writing and discussion at
Wits Rural</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">May 16-17: presentations at WISER
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><b>Those who wish to participate in
this Workshop should:</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">1. Submit a 500 word statement about
how you would like to engage with the workshop’s theme. This
statement should be biographical as well as interpretative. It
should explain how your research is linked to the theme, but also
what you understand the theme to mean. For example, how does, or
might, your work contribute to an understanding or imagining of the
Global South as a concept or approach? What is distinctive about the
Global South? Are there theoretical lines of inquiry that are opened
up as well as foreclosed by identifying with “the Global South”?
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Note: It is vital to keep this
submission short. We will have plenty of time to expand during the
workshop; for now, the idea is to produce short texts that we can all
read in advance, and that can serve to initiate conversation.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">2. Submit suggestions for common
readings. It would be most helpful if you could add a brief
annotation explaining the relevance of the reading for our workshop.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">To apply, please fill out this simple
online form:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><a href="http://wiser.wits.ac.za/page/sugarman-workshop-1-registration">http://wiser.wits.ac.za/page/sugarman-workshop-1-registration</a>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><b>The application deadline is February
21.</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Proposals will be read by a team of
scholars at the University of Michigan and at Wiser to make the final
determination of participants. Our expectation is that any faculty
member whose statement addresses the workshop’s theme and who can
commit to participating in at least one of the subsequent workshops
will be able to attend this initial, planning workshop.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><b>Future Workshops</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Each year for the next five years, two
2-week workshops alternating between Johannesburg and Ann Arbor (for
a total of 10 including the initial workshop in May 2014). These
Workshops will be interdisciplinary in nature, focusing on
significant questions that inform scholarship in the Humanities
broadly conceived. Their focus will be determined through a
competitive call for proposals at the University of Michigan and
WISER each year. Each workshop will be run by a different committee
consisting of faculty from both WISER and University of Michigan.
Participants will include faculty and graduate students from both
institutions. Graduate students and junior faculty from other
African and American institutions may also be invited to participate.
The workshops will combine research presentations, critical readings
in the literature, and field trips (to heritage sites, museums,
performances, art exhibitions, etc – as appropriate to the theme).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The next workshop -- to be held Ann
Arbor -- will address the theme of “Digital Humanities.” Derek
Peterson and Danny Herwitz have agreed to coordinate this workshop at
University of Michigan. This will take place in early November.<br></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The ten workshop themes funded by
Mellon are listed below. While there is a binding expectation on the
part of the Mellon Foundation that we work with these topics, there
is room for each workshop’s planning committee to shape the event,
and we might envision combining these themes in a variety of ways.
</p>
<ol><li><p style="margin-bottom:0.35cm">The Global South as an idea and
a source of theory</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom:0.35cm">Legacies of the imperial
archive in post-colonial history, museums, and performance</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom:0.35cm">Textual analysis, visual
culture and the state in the making of African publics
</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom:0.35cm">Interrogating Neoliberalism as
idea and explanation</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom:0.35cm">The politics of literacy,
legibility and expert knowledges in Africa</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom:0.35cm">Narrative, visual forms and
biopolitics in the medical humanities</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom:0.35cm">Cultural studies of science and
technology in Africa</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom:0.35cm">Intellectual property and
curatorship in the digital humanities</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom:0.35cm">Public spaces, informality and
infrastructures in the desegregating city</p>
</li><li><p style="margin-bottom:0.35cm">Vernacular literatures in the
making of transnational movements and subjects
</p>
</li></ol>
<br>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div style="text-align:left">Keith Breckenridge <b><span style="color:rgb(153,0,0)">W I S E R</span></b><span style="color:rgb(102,102,102)"> - The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of the Witwatersrand | Pbag 3, PO Wits, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2050 | Tel: +27117174272 | Fax: 0867654213 </span>| <span style="color:rgb(102,102,102)">Web</span>: <font><a href="http://wiser.wits.ac.za" target="_blank">wiser.wits.ac.za</a></font></div>
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