Haunted futurities
9:30 am – 5pm, 4 June 2009
Humanities Building, Room G7
The University of Manchester
Symposium organisers: Adi Kuntsman (RICC, Manchester University) and Debra Ferreday (ICR, Lancaster University).
Keynote speaker: Avery Gordon, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
In the recent years haunting has surfaced as a way of exploring the ways in which the past and in particular, past events of extreme violence, such as colonialism, slavery or genocide, haunt contemporary socialiaties. But instead of focusing solely on the past, this symposium opens up the notion of haunting to questions about ghosts of the future, about haunted futurities: be it about ways in which the past casts a shadow over (im)possible futures; or about horrors that are imagined as 'inevitable'; or about our hopes and dreams for difference, for change. Inspired by Avery Gordon's famous Ghostly Matters (1997), this symposium brings together scholars working in the arts, social sciences and humanities, in order to open up a dialogue between different disciplines and theoretical perspectives. In particular, the symposium focused on intersections between art and social research, between people and 'things', and between the social and the psychic.
The speakers' abstracts can be downloaded by following the links in the programme outlined below.
Programme
9.30 – 10.00 Registration
10.00 – 10.15 Introduction
10.15 – 11.15 Conversation 1: Shadows of the Past
Darien Jane Rozentals, ‘Presence and Absence: Reimagining the Industrial Ruin’
Nayanika Mookherjee, ‘Melancholic Hauntings: “Feeling” the Raped Woman in Dhaka’
11.15 – 11.30 Coffee break
11.30 – 12.30 Conversation 2: Living with the Dead
Debra Ferreday, ‘The Eschatology of the Flesh: Digital Culture and the Spectacle of Suicide’
Adi Kuntsman, ‘The Cybersociality of Living with Ghosts: Troubled Pasts, Burning Presents, Haunted Futures’
12.30 – 1.30 Lunch
1.30 – 2.30 Conversation 3: Ghosts of the Future
Yehudit Kirstein Keshet, ‘The Once and Future Ghost(s): Reflections on Memory Work in Israel-Palestine’
Amal Treacher, ‘Looking Back to the Future: On Turning Ghosts into Ancestors’
2.30-3.00 Coffee break
3.00-5.00 Keynote and Discussion
Avery Gordon, ‘Some Thoughts on Haunting and Futurity’
Les Back, response
Discussion
During the symposium Tim Edensor's British Industrial Ruins photography project was digitally exhibited.
For more information please email Adi.Kuntsman@manchester.ac.uk.
Haunted Futurities is sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust.
Download the Haunted Futurities Poster