About this seminar
Join us for the second seminar of this exciting new series "The Object Seminar: Breaking Boundaries" led by Raphaël Liogier, titled "The New Challenge of Apprehending Global Identities." The seminar is free and open to the public, but to attend, please RSVP here.
The New Challenge of Apprehending Global Identities
The Internet is an object that is in one way non-human (even being the very ground in which so-called Artificial Intelligence grows) but is also filled with human narratives, and that is in another way empty but also filled with an in-finite amount of information (images, desires, discourses, etc.). Facing globalization in today’s digital age, advanced industrial societies seem to be put in jeopardy by an identity crisis fueled by individual and community-based frustrations, which seems to be related to the following paradox: human beings have never been so look-alike on a global scale—sharing for instance the same aspiration to modern comfort—but they have never been so different on a local scale, even within the scope of a single neighborhood, partly because global micro-global-communities based on Internet social networks (from manga enthusiasts to LGBTQ activists to neo-Salafists) create territory-less identities (that we could call Global Identities), interfering with traditional territory-based identities (family, ethnicity or nation). It is urgent to study them and the complex interactions between traditionally based and territory-less identities. And for that aim, it is therefore necessary to construct and implement a new social sciences discipline in its own right that can be named Global Identity Studies.
About The Object Seminar: Breaking Boundaries
What happens when we incorporate the non-human material world into academic conversations? As part of the Object Library's ongoing inquiry into routes to knowledge beyond traditional methods and existing discourses, this series of seminars co-presented with Henri Peyre French Institute invites the public to join us in study once again, taking material culture as our point of departure. With topics ranging across new areas of research, each presenter is encouraged to bring-a-thing-along or propose an object that might sit in creative tension with the seminar discussion. All are welcome, but a commitment to attend is necessary, as is reading in advance any materials supplied.
The final event, held in the Object Library, will lodge seminar-related objects—both suggested by seminar attendees in response to our conversations or brought along to the final session—into our temporary installation, 365 Things.
The Henri Peyre French Institute is proud to organize this seminar series in conjunction with the Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY and its Object Library project. The Henri Peyre French Institute is dedicated to promoting a broad, transdisciplinary, and transnational understanding of major cultural issues across French and Francophone studies through public programs concerning the arts, history, society and politics. This current seminar series seeks to showcase work in these areas that breaks disciplinary boundaries, asks new questions, and alters current paradigms.
All events take place at the Graduate Center, CUNY from 5-7PM.
March 8: Frédéric Baitinger, room 9207
March 22: Raphaël Liogier, room 9207
May 3: Nathalie Etoke, French Lounge
May 8: Stephanie Grace Petinos, room 9206
May 10: Jasmine Narcisse, Object Library, followed by special event
For more information about this seminar series, click here.
The Object Seminar: Breaking Boundaries series is co-organized and sponsored by the Henri Peyre French Institute, and The Object Library from the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
