Speaking as the 'Other' is organised by the ERC-funded project Calliope: Vocal Articulations of Parliamentary Identity and Empire (University of Helsinki). This multidisciplinary conference seeks to examine performative, embodied and acoustic histories of articulating political representation and colonial ‘otherness’. To that end, we intend to extend the focus beyond established Anglophone analyses of the metropole and colony, and indeed, beyond the disciplinary pre-eminence of Anglophone postcolonial studies.

Presentation

Speaking as the 'Other' is organised by the ERC-funded project CALLIOPE: Vocal Articulations of Parliamentary Identity and Empire (University of Helsinki). This multidisciplinary conference seeks to examine performative, embodied and acoustic histories of articulating political representation and colonial ‘otherness’. To that end, we intend to extend the focus beyond established Anglophone analyses of the metropole and colony, and indeed, beyond the disciplinary pre-eminence of Anglophone postcolonial studies.

Owing to the current world health situation, the conference will be held fully online from 10th-12th May 2021. Please view the full programme on the CIC2021 website!

Speakers

Keynote speakers include

• Arthur Asseraf (University of Cambridge), 
• Barnita Bagchi (Utrecht University), 
• Ananya Jahanara Kabir (King’s College London), 
• Sophie White (University of Notre Dame).

In addition, the programme comprises two guest sessions, namely a musical intermezzo by sonic-based artist-researcher, Sergio Castrillón, and a special edition of Le Thinnai Kreyol, featuring Oslo-based Franco-Pondicherrian author, Ari Gautier, in conversation with Ananya Jahanara Kabir.

Registration and attendance

The conference registration is free of charge for everyone, regardless of the duration of attendance, and can be completed via our online registration tool on the CIC2021 website.

The registration will be open until 12th May 2021, the last day of the event. The Zoom link will be sent to all registered attendees, via email, on 7th May 2021. Those registering after 7th May will receive the link as soon as possible after registration.

Programme

NB! All times are Helsinki local times (UTC +03:00 Eastern European Summer Time)

Monday, May 10th

• 12.15 – 12.30: Conference begins
• 12.30 – 12.45: Welcome address by conference organisers Esha Sil and Karen Lauwers

12.45 – 14.45: PANEL 1: Language learning, translation and epistolary practices

Chair: Soile Ylivuori (University of Helsinki)

• 12.45 – 13.05: Gert Huskens (Université libre de Bruxelles and Ghent University), “Breaking the barriers in diplomacy. Dragomans, translators and interpreters and diplomatic practice in Egypt ca. 1800-1914”
• 13.05 – 13.25: Cécile Van den Avenne (Sorbonne Nouvelle University), “Eloquence in wartime. Epistolary skills and agency. (Exploring a corpus of letters sent by Dahomean tirailleurs during World War I)”
• 13.25 – 13.45: Mikko Toivanen (LMU München), “Between the spoken and the written word: transcription practices, speech ‘errors’ and ethnicity in mid-nineteenth-century colonial travel writing”
• 13.45 – 14.05: Jakob Zollmann (WZB Social Science Center, Berlin), “Language (learning) and Desperation. Albert Memmi and the Challenges of Speaking in Colonial Tunis (1920s–1930s)”
• 14.05 – 14.45: Discussion

14.45 – 15.10: break

15.10 – 16.30: PANEL 2: Subalternity on display

Chair: Janne Salminen (University of Helsinki)

• 15.10 – 15.35: Diana Natermann (Leiden University), “The Intentional Muting of the African Other in German Colonial Photography (1910-1911)”
• 15.35 – 16.00: Karina Lukin (University of Helsinki), “Provincializing Human Zoos (1911)”
• 16.00 – 16.30: Discussion

16.30 – 17.00: break

17.00 – 18.00: KEYNOTE speech by Sophie White, Professor, University of Notre Dame, "Testifying While Black: Recovering Voices of the Enslaved"

(40-minute presentation and 20-minute discussion)

Session to be introduced and chaired by Ludovic Marionneau (CALLIOPE, University of Helsinki).

Tues­day, May 11th

10.45 – 11.00: Day 2 begins

11.00 – 12.20: PANEL 3: Alternative vocal articulations in the 20th century

Chair: Friederike Lüpke (University of Helsinki)

• 11.00 – 11.25: Mazuba Kapambwe (independent researcher), “The Significance of Amzariwoch, the traditional Ethiopian War Cry in Maaza Mengiste’s novel The Shadow King”
• 11.25 – 11.50: Elise Mazurié (CRH/EHESS, Paris), “‘Insolent to our [European] ears’: Moroccan tirailleurs' military band in post-Nazi Germany between French imperialist exhibitionism and intercultural spaces, 1957-1958”
• 11.50 – 12.20: Discussion

12.20 – 12.50: break

12.50 – 14.20: PANEL 4: Notions of race and nation in subaltern discursive spaces

Chair: Janne Lahti (University of Helsinki)

• 12.50 – 13.10: Rosa Beunel (King’s College London), "Foundational Creole Narrative: Paul et Virginie and Race in the Old Colonies”
• 13.10 – 13.30: Imran Parray (University of Delhi), “Between ‘colonial’ governmentality and ‘oriental’ despotism: Metaphor, satire, and humour in early twentieth-century periodical press in princely India”
• 13.30 – 13.50: Esha Sil (CALLIOPE, University of Helsinki), “Speaking as the Eurasian ‘Other’: Henry Derozio, Antony Firingi, and a Creole Bengali Modernity”
• 13.50 – 14.20: Discussion

14.20 – 14.40: break

14.40 – 16.40: PANEL 5: Female voices and colonial bodies

Chair: Liesl Yamaguchi (Fulbright Finland Foundation Fellow, CALLIOPE, University of Helsinki)

• 14.40 – 15.00: Rhitama Basak (Delhi University, India), “De-constructing the Gaze: The Self and the Other in Women’s Travel Writing (to and from Colonial Europe)”
• 15.00 – 15.20: Rehnuma Sazzad (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London), “Colonial Modernity in India, Woman-Centrism, and a Feminist Utopia: Begum Rokeya through the Lens of Gayatri C. Spivak”
• 15.20 – 15.40: Himanshu Kumar (Hansraj College, University of Delhi), “The Colonised Body in Nineteenth-Century Bengal”
• 15.40 – 16.00: Geetha Ramanathan (West Chester University), “Gendered Historiography and Colonial Euro-Modernist Aesthetics”
• 16.00 – 16.40: Discussion

16.40 – 17.00: break

17.00 – 18.00: KEYNOTE speech by Arthur Asseraf, lecturer, University of Cambridge, "Nafissa Sid Cara, or, the End of Representation"

(40-minute presentation and 20-minute discussion) Session to be introduced and chaired by Karen Lauwers.

18.00 – 18.20: break

18.20 – 19.20: Special session

• Le Thinnai Kreyol with Ari Gautier and Ananya Jahanara Kabir (a project supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and King’s College London)
• Chairs and discussants: Esha Sil and Karen Lauwers (CALLIOPE Conference Team)

Wed­nes­day, May 12th

10.45 – 11.00: Day 3 begins

11.00 – 12.30: PANEL 6: The hills and the plains: alternative appropriations of space

Chair: Xenia Zeiler (University of Helsinki)

• 11.00 – 11.20: Athira Sreedevi Prasenan (University of Hyderabad), “Scholarship, Caste and the Histories of Sanskrit Learning in Kerala”
• 11.20 – 11.40: Brinda Kumar (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), “An Abor Subject in Colonial Northeast India?”
• 11.40 – 12.00: Rubani Yumkhaibam (independent researcher), "The Poetic Other: Manipur in the Writings of the British"
• 12.00 – 12.30: Discussion

12.30 – 12.50: break

12.50 – 14.20: PANEL 7: The imperial ear

Chair: Lotta Vuorio (University of Helsinki)

• 12.50 – 13.10: Oleksandr Polianichev (Södertörn University, Stockholm), “Imperial Ears: Soundscape and the Civilizing Mission in mid-nineteenth-century South Caucasia”
• 13.10 – 13.30: Sabrina Nordlund (Lakehead University), “Scottish imperialism in Canada”
• 13.30 – 13.50: Karen Lauwers (CALLIOPE, University of Helsinki), “From textual representation to political mobilization. French stereotypes of Arab and Berber leadership in colonial Algeria (late 1840s-1860s)”
• 13.50 – 14.20: Discussion

14.20 – 14.40: break

• 14.40 – 16.10: KEYNOTE discussion between Barnita Bagchi (Associate Professor, Utrecht University, "An Unfinished Song: Listening to Less Heard Voices of Utopia") and Ananya Jahanara Kabir (Professor, King’s College London, "The Song, the Ship, the Dance (and the Text): Indentured Labour’s Alegropolitical Body")
• Session to be introduced and chaired by Esha Sil.

16.10 – 16.30: break

16.30 – 18.30: PANEL 8: Music and voice of the colonial subaltern

Chair: Meri Kytö (University of Eastern Finland)

• 16.30 – 16.50: Eva Schalbroeck (University of Utrecht), “A memory cacophony? The contested remembrance of the ‘Congolese choirs’”
• 16.50 – 17.10: Niklas Pelizäus-Gengenbach (Göttingen University), “Singing but silent: Sound recordings from the African diaspora in Imperial German phonographic collections”
• 17.10 – 17.30: Irfan Ahmad (South Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia), “The Involvement of British Intellectualism in the Indian Classical Music”
• 17.30 – 18.00: Discussion

18.00 – 18.30: break

18.30 – 19.30: Special session

Musical intermezzo by Sergio Castrillón (University of Helsinki)

Session to be introduced by Josephine Hoegaerts (CALLIOPE, University of Helsinki)