Presente! The politics of presence
Presente! can be understood as a war cry, an act of solidarity and/or witnessing, a way of being in the world, compliance to roll call, a showing, display, or declaration of presence. Presente! announces a different way of being present, physically and politically, an act of embodied form of engagement with others and “situated knowledge” (Haroway) that takes us beyond the disciplined and restrictive ways of knowing that our Eurocentric traditions offer us. In this talk, I join fellow travelers fleeing from disciplines, the academy, to search for alternative epistemic practices elsewhere—in art, performance, and other forms of world-making. Presente! envisions knowledge not as something to be harvested and commercialized but, rather, as an engaged knowing, as a process of being with, walking and talking with others with all the pitfalls, complications and contradictions that entails. Can presence help us re-imagine our disciplinary practices so that we collectively participate in the decolonialization of knowledge production? The talk invites us to think together.
Prof. Dr. Diana Taylor
Diana Taylor is University Professor and Professor of Performance Studies and Spanish at New York University. She is the author of numerous books [Theatre of Crisis (1991), Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's 'Dirty War' (1997), The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (2003) and Performance (2016)], edited books, and articles. She is also the recipient of several major awards, including the Guggenheim. Taylor is Founding Director of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics that brings artists, activists, and scholars together from throughout the Americas to work collaboratively for progressive social change (hemisphericinstitute.org). In January, 2017, Taylor becomes President of the Modern Language Association.
Colloquium
Prof. Dr. Diana Taylor, New York University
Prof. Dr. Christina Thurner, Universität Bern
Date: April 7, 2017
Time: 10:15 am - 05:00 pm
Room: Universität Bern, Unitobler, Lerchenweg 36, Raum F-106
Part 1 of the colloquium is dedicated to the discussion of the lecture and the texts suggested by the guest. In Part 2, a core group present their PhD thesis, speaking for about 20 minutes on how the concept of "presence|embodiment" (and/or similar concepts and terms such as body politics, performativity etc.) connect to their research questions and which aspects of the texts are of particular relevance to their own work. The presenters raise questions for the discussion with their peers, which should contribute to the development of their thesis. Finally, in Part 3, the conversation will open up again so that the other PhD or advanced MA-students have an opportunity to address issues related to their projects.
Prof. Dr. Christina Thurner
Prof. Dr. Christina Thurner ist Professorin für Tanzwissenschaft am Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität Bern. Ihre Forschungsschwerpunkte sind Tanzgeschichte und -ästhetik vom 18. bis 21. Jahrhundert, Zeitgenössischer Tanz und Performance, Historiografie, Tanzkritik. Buchveröffentlichungen: Tanzkritik. Materialien (1997-2014), Zürich: Chronos 2015; Beredte Körper – bewegte Seelen. Zum Diskurs der doppelten Bewegung in Tanztexten, Bielefeld: Transcript 2009; Original und Revival. Geschichts-Schreibung im Tanz, hg. mit Julia Wehren, Zürich, Chronos 2010.
Organization and Contact:
Dr. des. Michael Toggweiler mike.toggweiler@unibe.ch
Application:
bis zum 15.02.2017 an mike.toggweiler@unibe.ch und in KSL.
