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MINOR COSMOPOLITAN ASSEMBLY

November 10-12, 2022

 

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]


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:

https://hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/2022/ceremony/start.php