Engagement, Resistance and Imagination

Through lectures, conversations, and artistic performances, the session will examine how cultures and peoples of the South have resisted imperialism in today’s world as well as in the past. A Southern perspective will figure prominently as contributors reflect on practices spanning from knowledge production to the search to redefine emancipatory theories, to the creation of radical new imageries—not least in literature and film, which Said dealt with extensively in his discussion of Late Style.

17h Lectures & Conversation

Said, Imperialism and Marx: A View from the South

Akeel Bilgrami The Enlightenment: A View from the South

Prabhat Patnaik Imperialism: A View from the South

18.30h Lecture Performance

Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme

The Incidental Insurgents: The Part about The Bandits

This lecture performance takes up the figure of the bandit in exploring the artist’s own position and the common search for a language for the present moment. The imagery created by Abbas and Abou-Rahme aims to broaden the horizon for new ways of becoming and being in the world.

19.30h Talks & Discussion

From Imperialism to Late Style

Michael Wood Dynamics of Dependence: Film and Empire

Fawwaz Traboulsi On Said’s Late Style

Participants:

Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme are based in Ramallah and incorporate a range of sound, image, installation and performance into their artistic practice. Their joint work explores issues connected to the politics of desire and disaster, spatial politics, subjectivity and the absurdities of contemporary practices of power.

Akeel Bilgrami is the Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and a founding member of its Committee on Global Thought. He is the author of several books, amongst them "Secularism, Enchantment, and Identity" (2013), "Self-Knowledge and Resentment" (2006), and "Belief and Meaning" (1992).

Prabhat Patnaik is an Indian Marxist economist and political commentator. He was a professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Among his most influential publications is "The Value of Money" (2008).

Fawwaz Traboulsi is associate professor of Political Science and History at the American University of Beirut. His numerous publications deal with history, politics, liberation and social movements, and art in the Arab World. Among others, he has published "A History of Modern Lebanon" (2007) and translated Edward Said’s "Out of Place and Humanism" and "Democratic Critique".

Michael Wood is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Princeton University and a member of the American Philosophical Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the editor of the late Edward Said’s last book "On Late Style" (2006).