MINOR COSMOPOLITAN ASSEMBLY
November 10-12, 2022
All photos by David Debrah.
The Minor Cosmopolitan Assembly took place at silent green Kulturquartier in Berlin over the course of three days from November 10 to November 12, 2022. The event was open to the public and free of charge.
MINOR COSMOPOLITAN ASSEMBLY CATALOGUE available here.
Centered on the concept and practice of assembly as a gathering of heterogeneous entities, the Minor Cosmopolitan Assembly brings together a series of academic, artistic, and activist interventions over the course of three days. The Assembly seeks to facilitate lively encounters and exchange across disciplines, based on the core values of conviviality, geopolitical decentering, and social commitment of the research training group minor cosmopolitanisms.
The RTG minor cosmopolitanisms seeks to establish new ways of studying and understanding the cosmopolitan project against and beyond its Eurocentric legacies. While the cosmopolitan ideally articulated during the European enlightenment embraced the social promises of a globalizing economy, it has remained oblivious to, and even complicit with, capitalist exploitation, slavery, and colonialism. Yet should we abandon the cosmopolitan idea because of this corrupt history? Or should it rather be reviewed and rethought in the face of rising nationalist and far-right movements, escalating military conflict, and ongoing economic and environmental crises? Which alternative traditions and practices of the cosmopolitan can be found across the globe? The members of the minor cosmopolitanisms RTG grapple with these questions in their research and teaching across the humanities and social sciences, united by a commitment to social justice within and outside academia. Through lectures, panels, talks, workshops, installations, films, and performances, the Assembly explores these urgent issues, experimenting with interventions in doing, undoing, and redoing the cosmopolitan project by challenging its neoliberal, neocolonial, racist, heterosexist, ableist, late capitalist configurations.
The Minor Cosmopolitan Assembly was organized by the RTG minor cosmopolitanisms with funding from the DFG (German Research Foundation).
[Click on the photos to enlarge] All photos by David Debrah.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Nov 10-12 | INSTALLATIONS | Atelier Room A5
11 AM to 8 PM | Thursday Nov 10 and Friday Nov 11
11 AM to 4 PM | Saturday Nov 12
A River is More Installation | Atelier Room A5
Saltscapes Installation | Atelier Room A5
Plastisphere Podcast Listening Station | Atelier Room A5
Nov 10-12 | COFFEE BREAK TALKS | Atelier Room A5
Spontaneous coffee break talks with Baldeep Kaur, Anne Mikkelsen and Rasmus Maabjerg
Nov 10-12 | PODCAST INSTALLATION | Atelier Room 4
Minor Constellations Podcast Installation and Listening Station
By Yael Attia and Kathleen Samson
Thursday Nov 10
11am WORKSHOP | Atelier Room A2
A Newspaper is a Newspaper is a Newspaper Workshop with Corinne Sandwith
2pm PANEL | Atelier Room A2
Transmitting the Archive: Minor Cosmopolitan Spaces and Erased Histories
With Anandita Bajpai, Promona Sengupta, Netta Weiser
Moderated by Tori Sinanan
Organized by Priyam Goswami Choudhury
4pm PANEL | Kuppelhalle
Black and Brown Fat Liberation: Legacy, Joy, and Resistance
With Ginnie Bekoe, Caleb Luna, and Fatima Warsame
Moderated by Hodan Warsame
Organized by Sofia Apostolidou
5pm LIVE RECORDING | Atelier Room A4
Rethinking Jewish Diaspora: In Conversation with Ben Ratskoff | A Minor Constellations Podcast Live Recording
Co-hosted by Yael Attia and Kathleen Samson
8pm KEYNOTE ARTIST TALK | Kuppelhalle
The Sermon of the Weeds performance lecture by Luiza Prado
Moderated by Sara Morais dos Santos Bruss
Friday Nov 11
11am–8pm INTERKONTINENTAL BOOK TABLE | Atelier Room A2
11am ROUND TABLE | Atelier Room A2
The Future University Roundtable
Moderated by Zeynep Türkyılmaz and Zairong Xiang
2pm CONVERSATION | Atelier Room A2
Freeing the Mind from Binaries into Cultural Freedoms
With Kadija George Sesay and Rajeev Balasubramanyam
3pm SCREENING | Atelier Room A1
The Sound of Friendship: Warm Wavelengths in a Cold, Cold War? (2021) by Anandita Bajpai
Organized by Priyam Goswami Choudhury
Please register for the film screening here: https://forms.gle/2DaRftbtFgCRPgNW9
4pm PANEL | Atelier Room A2
Working In/With Archives: Alternative Approaches
With Niya Bates, Irene Hilden and Chet'la Sebree
Organized by Johanna Heide and co-moderated by Johanna Heide and Nicole Waller
5pm ARTIST TALK | Atelier Room A1
Artist Talk with Hu Wei
Moderated by You Feng
6pm TALK | Atelier Room A2
Violence and Resistance in Translation
With Maaza Mengiste and Patricia Klobusiczky
Moderated by Anna von Rath
Organized by Lucy Gasser and Anna von Rath
8pm POETRY NIGHT | Kuppelhalle
With Enana Alassar, Ginnie Bekoe, May Joseph, Emelihter Kihleng, Caleb Luna, Patty Nash, Chet'la Sebree
Co-organized by Priyam Goswami Choudhury and Sofia Varino
Saturday Nov 12
11am | GUIDED WALKING TOUR | African Quarter
Free guided walking tour of Wedding's historical African Quarter by deSta.
Meeting Point: U-Bahn station on the corner of Afrika Straße and Müllerstraße.
https://www.dekolonialestadtfuehrung.de/
1pm BOOK LAUNCH | Atelier Room A5
Lunchbreak Book Launch of Aquatopia: Climate Interventions by May Joseph and Sofia Varino
2pm-2am MCA FILM PROGRAM | Betonhalle Kino
12 hours of non-stop films by Luiza Prado, Hu Wei, Vicensia Shule, and Harmattan Theater
2pm DEEP CONVERSATION | Atelier Room A2
Critical diversity work and hope for a decolonial university
With Aki Krishnamurthy, Rahab Njeri and Christine Vogt-William
Organized by Luci Wagner
2pm WORKSHOP | Betonhalle Bar
Transmedia Storytelling: Engaging Embodied Experience within Digital Space Workshop with Einav Katan-Schmid
CANCELLED 3:30pm SCREENING | Kuppelhalle
Selected films by Vicensia Shule
Organized by Jan Dammel
4pm LISTENING SESSION | Atelier Room A1
Plastisphere Podcast Listening Session with Anja Krieger
Organized and moderated by Baldeep Kaur
5pm CALL AND RESPONSE | Kuppelhalle
Listening for Black Feminism
A conversation as mixtape with Romi Ron Morrison and Layla Zami
Organized by Layla Zami and Jan Dammel
~CANCELLED: A Conversation with Vicensia Shule ~
6:30pm BOOK LAUNCH | Atelier Room A1
The Politics of Vibration by Marcus Boon Book Launch
Moderated by Siddhartha Lokanandi
8pm KEYNOTE LECTURE | Kuppelhalle
Frequencies of Care Keynote Lecture by Tina Campt (via Zoom)
Moderated by Marcia Schenck
9:30pm CLOSING NIGHT PARTY | Betonhalle and Betonhalle Kino
DJ Makossiri soundcloud.com/makossiri
Sunday Nov 13
3:30pm | GUIDED TOUR | Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Curator-led guided tour of Ceremony (Burial of an Undead World) exhibition
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 10557 Berlin
Free tickets available here: https://tickets.kbb.eu/hkw.webshop/webticket/bestseatselect?eventId=13451
Guided Tour of the exhibition Ceremony (Burial of an Undead World) at the HKW: