Events

Ciacoe in tocio: conversazioni e sughi per mangiare con la Laguna
In collaborazione con Ocean Space
Domenica 20 giugno, ore 15.00-18.00
presso Ocean Space, Campo San Lorenzo, Venezia

PRENOTAZIONE: L’evento è gratuito, è necessaria la prenotazione al seguente link

Venice, 10 June 2021

Call for expressions of interest for Postdoctoral Fellowships in Environmental Humanities

The Center for the Humanities and Social Change at Ca’Foscari University of Venice is seeking candidates for a maximum of four Postdoctoral Fellowships in Environmental Humanities. This program allows applicants to launch a successful research-intensive career while working on a project that aligns with the host institution’s strategic priorities. 

The Center for the Humanities and Social Change is an intellectual community with strong links with the The New Institute in Hamburg, privileged interactions with the European Center for Living Technology, all University departments, and many other cultural institutions in Venice. The fellows are expected to work in residence in Venice and actively contribute to the Center activities (e.g. offering seminars for the M.A. in Environmental Humanities and/or organizing academic and outreach events). They will be offered office space and full access to the university libraries and research facilities. 

Ca’ Foscari Center for the Humanities and Social Change Postdoctoral Fellows in Environmental Humanities are scholars who have received their degrees in the humanities, social science, or other areas relevant to the Environmental Humanities. Applicants must either have worked in the area of Environmental Humanities or show potential for research interest in this field. Evidence of active research and publications in peer-reviewed journals will be an added advantage. The Center seeks to provide a stimulating scholarly environment in which to pursue research, develop new interdisciplinary connections, and network with others. Fellows join lectures and conferences as appropriate to their research and may play a role in the planning of working groups and events. The Postdoctoral Fellowship will provide an annual stipend of  € 27, 770 euros before tax. The fellowship may be renewed for a second year.

Your expression of interest should include a Curriculum Vitae (max 3 pages), the names and contact information of two referees, and a two-page research project focused on one (or more) of the following areas:

• the blue humanities: humanistic perspectives on water, the ocean, rising sea levels, water politics and cultures; (in collaboration with TBA21/Ocean Space); 
• the city of Venice as both an object of study and a point of observation on global environmental issues;
• the roots and routes of Asian environmental thought and/or the Medical Humanities (with particular reference to Buddhism);
• the role of the arts in the construction and transformation of the environmental imagination;
• environment and intersectional inequalities, with particular attention to issues of labour, migration and social justice;
• the environmental crisis and the future of democracy, with special emphasis on the issue of public environmental discourse, the use of social media and online communication.

For all these areas we encourage projects that engage non-western and indigenous cultures; address issues of minority, gender, ethnicity, disability; suggest pedagogical and activist practices; engage with the tangible and intangible heritage of Venice and its contemporary art scene; formulate strategies of environmental communication.

Please direct expression of interest and queries by 15 July 2021 to:

Dr. Barbara Del Mercato, Project Manager – E-mail: hsc@unive.it (Subject: HSC_EOI2021)

After the closure of the present call for expressions of interest, HSC will issue a formal Call for Applications in August. Fellowships will begin on 1 October, 2021.

11th June 2021, 3.00 PM (CEST)

A ECLT / HSC Joint Seminar: the European Centre for Living Technology and the  Center for the Humanities and Social Change

present:

Exploring Sonic Environments

with Heather Contant (HSC), Daniel Finch-Race (HSC), Maria Mannone (ECLT)

Abstract
This investigation of sounds in spheres ranging from physical environments to music will connect research in the arts and sciences with the aim of constructing an interdisciplinary language around the specificities of Venice.

– Topic 1: Soundscapes of Pollution > What are the acoustic dimensions of ecological problems, including the perception of certain sounds as problematic noises?

– Topic 2: Rhythm > Which sounds constitute the rhythms of the places where we live?

– Topic 3: The Mathematics of Sounds in Nature > To what extent is a mathematical framework fruitful for understanding crossmodal correspondences between auditory effects in nature and music, as well as listeners’ internal visualizations of sonic forms such as a melodic line?

Bio sketch
Heather Contant
explores the collectivist tendencies of media arts through her research, teaching, and creative endeavors. Her research on the history of wireless media has gained recognition in multiple publications, such as Leonardo Music Journal, Soundscape, and Journal of Sonic Studies, and she was awarded the 2018 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Higher Degree Research for her PhD thesis from the University of New South Wales Art and Design in Sydney, Australia.

Daniel Finch-Race
researches creative representations of environmental change in French and Italian culture since the mid-1800s. His doctoral work at the University of Cambridge focussed on ecocritical approaches to Charles Baudelaire’s urban poetry of 1857-61. Before joining the Center for the Humanities and Social Change at Ca’ Foscari, he held teaching fellowships at the University of Southampton and Durham University, an Environmental Humanities Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, and a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellowship at the University of Bristol.

Maria Mannone
earned her Master in Theoretical Physics as well as three Masters in Composition, in Conducting, and in Piano in Italy. In Paris, at IRCAM – UPMC Paris 6 Sorbonne, she earned her Master 2 ATIAM in Acoustics, Signal Processing, and Informatics applied to Music. In the US, at the University of Minnesota, she achieved her Ph.D. in Composition. She is a member of the editorial board and editor in training of the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts.

To participate via Zoom, please use this link

This event is part of the Environmental Humanities Seminar and Lecture Series – V 

Donne sem terra e la lotta contro l’agrobusiness

(scroll down for English abstract)
Modera: Valentina Bonifacio, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia

15 June 2021, 5.00 p.m. CEST, on Zoom (https://unive.zoom.us/j/84861746457)

Lo scopo di questo intervento è discutere come le donne del Movimento dei lavoratori in Brasile hanno portato avanti la propria sfida al modello egemonico dell’agrobusinnes brasiliano attraverso una particolare pratica femminista conosciuta come “Feminismo Camponês Popular com Identidade e Revolucionário”, ossia un femminismo che è apertamente contadino, popolare, rivoluzionario e che riconosce le diversa identità che lo compongono. In questo incontro, Adriana Rodrigues Novais, ricercatrice e attivista nel Movimento, introdurrà l’organizzazione delle donne contadine e presenterà I quattro pilastri del loro approccio contro l’agrobusiness: lotta diretta, formazione politica, contrasto alla violenza e agroecologia.

Adriana Rodrigues Novais
Laureata in Scienze Sociali presso la Facoltà di Scienze e Lettere dell’Università Statale Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho. Ha completato il suo master presso l’Università Federale di São Carlos con una tesi su: Cinema e memoria della dittatura civile-militare in Brasile: un’analisi dei film “Pra Frente Brasil” (1982) e “Açao entre Amigos” (1998).
È dottoressa di ricerca in Scienze Sociali presso l’Università Statale di Campinas, (tesi “Contadini e popoli indigeni e la lotta per la memoria della verità e della giustizia in Brasile” – sulla memoria politica, la giustizia transizionale e i diritti umani, concentrandosi su contadini e popoli indigeni in Brasile). Attualmente sviluppa ricerche sulla violenza contro le donne contadine e su genere e nuova estrema destra in Brasile. È una militante del Movimento dei lavoratori rurali senza terra.

Landless Women and the fight against Agribusiness
Abstract
The aim of this talk is to discuss how the women of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement in Brazil “Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra” have been building ways to challenge Brazil’s hegemonic agribusiness model by developing a particular feminist posture known as “Feminismo Camponês Popular com Identidade e Revolucionário”, in other words, a feminism that is overtly peasant, popular, revolutionary, and which recognizes the diverse identities of its members. In this lecture, I will introduce this women’s peasant movement and present the four pillars of their approach to challenging agribusiness: direct struggle, political training, combating violence and agroecology. The talk draws on my own 12 years of experience, both as an active member of the movement, and as a sociological researcher.

Adriana Rodrigues Novais
Graduated in Social Sciences from the Faculty of Sciences and Letters of the Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho State University.
She has completed your master’s degree from the Federal University of São Carlos. The title of the dissertation is: Cinema and memory of the civil-military dictatorship in Brazil: an analysis of the films “Pra Frente Brasil” (1982) and “Açao entre Amigos” (1998).
She is a PhD in Social Sciences at the State University of Campinas, the title of the thesis is “Peasants and indigenous peoples and the struggle for the memory of truth and justice in Brazil” – on political memory, transitional justice and rights humans, focusing on peasants and indigenous peoples in Brazil.
Currently develops research on violence against peasant women and on gender and the new far right in Brazil.
She is a militant of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement.

ONLINE, June 15th, 5.00 p.m. CEST

LINK: https://unive.zoom.us/j/84861746457

Evento in italiano/This event is in ITALIAN, part of  Environmental Humanities Seminar and Lecture Series – V

4th June 2021, 3.00 PM (CEST)

A ECLT / HSC Joint Seminar. The European Centre for Living Technology and the Center for the Humanities and Social Change

present:

Contemplating Borders: From Machine Learning to the Environment

with  Ifor Duncan (HSC), Francesca Foffano (ECLT), Emiliano Guaraldo (HSC), Teresa Scantamburlo (ECLT)

To participate via Zoom, please use this link.

Abstract

This joint seminar intends to critically address the common ethical problem of bordering from different disciplinary perspectives. Firstly, the session will consider how geophysical environments have been co-opted, both directly and indirectly, as infrastructures of the border. Secondly, by considering how biometric data and machine learning is used to categorise minority groups. Finally, by presenting recent work by artist-researcher Hito Steyerl, the session will address the limits and political implications of the introduction of AI-based technologies as policy-making tools. By considering borders in these ways we intend to critically question what is meant by borders and ask how the humanities and computer sciences can contribute to a common discourse regarding borders, migration and asylum.

Bio sketch

Ifor Duncan
is a writer and inter-disciplinary researcher whose research concerns the relationships between political violence and watery spaces and materialities. He completed his PhD at the Centre for Research Architecture (CRA), Goldsmiths, University of London, where he developed the concept of necro-hydrology, which addresses the ways hydrologic properties are instrumentalised through border regimes, as technologies of obfuscation, and weaponised against marginalised communities. His current research project, Submergences, proposes to explore the ways hydrologic knowledges and practices can be mobilised to imagine alternate strategies of resistance against such forms of environmental weaponisation.

Francesca Foffano
received her Master in Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Trento, and previously her Bachelor in Psychology at the University of Padua. During her studies, she collaborates with the research centre for Analysis and Design of Intelligent Agents at Reykavik University. Her research interest is in the user’ understanding and perception of AI, social and ethical influences, and a definition of more human-centric design approaches.

Emiliano Guaraldo
Emiliano Guaraldo’s research focuses on the visual culture of the Anthropocene, with a particular interest in the relationship between contemporary art and the production of technical and scientific images. He obtained a PhD in Italian Studies from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Before joining the Center for the Humanities and Social Change at Ca’ Foscari, Emiliano worked at the University of St. Gallen as a research assistant and public lecturer in Italian literature and culture.

Teresa Scantamburlo
Her main research interests lay at the intersection of Computer Science and Philosophy and include the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on human-decision making, the role of data and algorithms in social regulation, and the ethical assessment of AI systems. She is also interested in studying AI from the point of view of epistemology and the philosophy of science (e.g. some topics of interest include the problem of induction, the problem-solving approach and the notion of progress).

This event is part of the Environmental Humanities Seminar and Lecture Series – V 

May 28, at 3.00 p.m. CEST, online (email hsc@unive.it to receive link)

A seminar with L. Sasha Gora, Post-doc Fellow at the Center for the Humanities and Social Change

Happy as a Clam: Clichés, Climate, and Cuisine

ABSTRACT  

Eating is one of the most direct ways humans interact with environments by literally digesting them. Food history, thus, reveals how everyday eating practices not only reproduce cultural imaginations of landscapes but also shape actual environments. Narrowing in on seafood, this seminar asks: how do human appetites transform, harm, but also perhaps heal watery worlds? It aims to serve examples of the kinds of stories that food can tell. Spotlighting both Venice and Venice-in-the-world, it assembles a cast of fish and shellfish to consider the relationship between food and place, between ritual and cliché, and between cuisine and climate. 

BIO

Sasha Gora is a cultural historian and writer with a focus on food studies and contemporary art. She received a PhD from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Rachel Carson Center on the subject of Indigenous restaurants in Canada. Before joining the Center for the Humanities and Social Change at Ca’ Foscari, she was a Lecturer at LMU’s Amerika-Institut and spent spring 2019 as a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley. 

http://www.lsashagora.com/

To request access link, please email hsc@unive.it

This event is part of the Environmental Humanities Seminar and Lecture Series – V 

Ursula Clayton, ‘Base Tick, call’st thou me host?’: An Introduction to Shakespeare’s Parasites,
In collaborazione con/In collaboration with ECLS Seminars of Warwick University (ENG)

18 May 2021, 5.00 p.m. CEST, please email hsc@unive.it to receive link

Abstract

This is the paradox of the parasite. It is very simple but has great import. The parasite is the essence of relation
Michel Serres

Defined as the ‘essence of relation’, yet ‘loathed and … detested’ by those who have experienced its insidious symbiosis first hand, the parasite is found hidden at the intersection between early modern self and other (Tim. 3.6.94-5). Since their arrival in the comedies and satires of classical antiquity, parasites have been identified by their quick wit, insatiable appetite, self-interest, and their expertise in the art of deception and transformation. In early modernity, parasites are understood to be generated from either the quagmire of unfixed social origins, or the rotting matter of a humoral ecology which inextricably links the early modern body to its earthly surround. Parasites are lice, fleas and worms, and they are also flattering courtiers, freeloading soldiers, and – due to the unavoidability of literary patronage – poets. This paper will situate William Shakespeare’s use of parasitic trope in its wider context, in order to demonstrate how Shakespeare’s poems and plays create a conceptual web of exchange between scientific and literary discourses in order to explore what can happen when humans relate to one another.

Ursula Clayton is Teaching Fellow in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies of Warwick University, where she also  teaches on the English and Comparative Literary Studies program. Full speaker bio here

ONLINE, May 18th, 5.00 p.m. CEST

To receive the Zoom link, please email hsc@unive.it

This event is in English, part of  Environmental Humanities Seminar and Lecture Series – V

(scroll down for English)

Martedì 11 maggio alle ore 17.00 si terrà, sulla piattaforma Zoom, la presentazione del libro di Stefano Liberti Terra bruciata. Come la crisi ambientale sta cambiando l’Italia e la nostra vita (Rizzoli, 2020), organizzata dal Center for the Humanities and Social Change in collaborazione con Ca’ Foscari Sostenibile.

———–

Tuesday 11 May, 5 p.m. CEST

Stefano Liberti, in conversation with Shaul Bassi (director, Center HSC) and Martina Gonano (Ca’ Foscari Sostenibile), presents his book Terra bruciata. How the environmental crisis is changing Italy and our lives, organised by the Center for the Humanities and Social Change in collaboration with Ca’ Foscari Sostenibile.

Stefano Liberti will take us on a journey through Italy to understand what is happening to our climate: glaciers are retreating, the coasts are being eroded by rising seas, and cities are becoming increasingly hot. But the alarm does not only concern the landscape: it involves agriculture, tourism, the safety of our homes and the availability of hydroelectric energy. It affects the daily life of each and every one of us.

To request access link, please email hsc@unive.it

This event is part of the Environmental Humanities Seminar and Lecture Series – V 

ONLINE, May 11th, 5.00 p.m. CEST

To receive Zoom link, please email hsc@unive.it

Evento in italiano/This event is in Italian

Call for Papers: Postcolonial publics: art and citizen media in Europe

We are delighted to invite contributions to a conference paper  on the topic of postcolonial publics expressed and engaged through “citizen media” (Rodriguez 2001; Baker & Blaagaard 2016) and art, in a postcolonial Europe. The conference papers will also serve as chapters for an edited volume which will be published soon after.

We want to interrogate the proliferation of digital media and global culture, and the changes happening in public intellectual engagements. From the adoration of the single (often male, often white) genius to the anonymity of diverse, affective publics, a postcolonial perspective invites contemporary public engagement to have many faces and multiple voices, and addressing new issues such as the environmental crisis and the resurgence of racism. Creativity and art can play a significant role in this development. Performance and visual expressions in the European space interpellate the situated public, but also produce transnational political dialogue and travel across digital space. Embodied performances challenge the cerebral stereotype and classical conception of what public engagement is and should be. Moreover, digital platforms have made available space for expressions that break the form and formulas of public and political speech. However, despite the expansion of public participation, social divisions based on race, gender, sexuality and able-bodiedness still hold sway and begs the question of positionality in relations to institutions, in the different fields of art and media, when it comes to political and social change.

The edited volume and conference envision postcolonial citizen media and art as practices and products encompassing a wide range of expressions: from poetry to journalism to Twitter-writing; from art to graffiti to Instagram-activism; and from celebrity activism to the uprising of “affective publics” (Papacharissi 2015).

Topics for contributions may include but are not limited to:

• Migrant social media narratives (visual, aural, performative)

• Exiled artists’ political expressions of citizenship and belonging

• Social movements’ visual tactics and digital strategies

• Celebrity activism and co-optation on gender, race and postcolonial issues

• Citizen journalism and postcolonial counterpublics

• Street art, performance and public engagement in postcolonial Europe

• Questions of citizenship, voice and witnessing, in a postcolonial perspective

• Media activism, academic activism, artivism for a postcolonial Europe

• Postcolonial media and art interventions in the environmental crisis

The publication and conference is part of the Postcolonial Intellectuals and Their European Publics Network, (PIN), which is funded by the NWO. The network brings together international and interdisciplinary scholars, activists, and artists to explore the changing face and voice of the European intellectuals in a postcolonial Europe. This publication and conference are jointly organized by Shaul Bassi and Sabrina Marchetti (Centre for the Humanities and Social Change), Bolette Blaagaard (Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University, Copenhagen) and Sandra Ponzanesi (Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University).

The conference will take place in Venice on the 26-27th of May 2022. Keynote speakers will be announced in due time. The publication based on the conference papers will follow soon after. Authors selected for the volume will be invited to the conference to present the final drafts of their papers. Final chapters will be 7,000 words all included. The volume will be published by Ca’ Foscari University Press as Open Access eBook in the Summer 2022.

May 2021 edit – Confirmed speakers: Lilie Chouliaraki (London School of Economics)

If you are interested in contributing, please submit your abstract (max. 500 words) by the 15th of June at the following email address: pocopublics@unive.it

Deadlines

• 15 June 2021 Abstracts submission
• 30 June 2021 Notification of selections
• 15 January 2022 First draft of full chapters
• 9 May 2022 Final chapters
• 26-27 May 2022 Conference in Venice
• 15 June 2022 Submission to Publisher

Previous conferences of the PIN Network:

• Utrecht University (5-6 February 2019): info
• University of Muenster (5-6 September 2019) – In collaboration with the University of Lisbon: info
• University of Leeds (21-22 and 28-29 January 2021): info

May 4th 2021, 2.00 p.m. CEST
Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim in conversation with T.H. Barrett and Francesca Tarocco on: ReOrienting Histories of Medicine: Encounters Along the Silk Roads
In collaboration with MaP

ReOrienting Histories of Medicine (Bloomsbury, 2021) is the product of many years of research with rare manuscripts in a variety of languages. It shows how much of premodern Eurasian medicine was predicated on multidirectional interactions and knowledge traffic across cultures. This is an important study for anyone interested in the medical humanities and global history. It has been labelled as an “impressive breakthrough in Silk Road studies” (Prof. Valerie Hansen, Yale University).

T.H. Barrett is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Religions and Philosophies at SOAS University of London and a leading scholar of medieval China. His research interests focus on the history of Chinese religion, notably Taoism and Buddhism, and pre-modern Chinese history, especially the Tang period. He is the author of Taoism under the Tang: Religion and Empire during the Golden Age of Chinese History (1996) and The Woman who discovered Printing (2008).

Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim is Reader in History at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. She is the co-editor of Rashid al-Din: Agent and mediator of cultural exchanges in Ilkhanid Iran (2013), Islam and Tibet: Interactions along the Musk Routes (2010) and Astro-Medicine: Astrology and Medicine, East and West (2008).

Francesca Tarocco is an Associate Professor of Chinese Religious History at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and in the Board of the Center for the Humanities and Social Change . She is the author of The Cultural Practices of Modern Chinese Buddhism (2011) and Altar Modern: Buddhism and Technology in Modern China (forthcoming).

HERE is a link to the Preface and Introduction of Yoeli-Tlalim’s ReOrienting Histories of Medicine: Encounters along the Silk Roads

This event is part of the Environmental Humanities Seminar and Lecture Series – V 

ONLINE, May 4th, 2.00 p.m. CEST

To receive Zoom link, please email hsc@unive.it

This event is in English