About
Join us for the 24th annual Comparative Literature Graduate Student Conference (CLIFF) at the University of Michigan, with keynote speaker Ariella Azoulay.
Theme The polemic around narratives of migration, the medium in which they evolve and the events they correspond to, expose a deep contradiction. We see globalization and digital media accelerating the circulation of ideas, people and material goods. But at the same time, governments across the world are making ever bolder attempts to delimit this circulation through state-sanctioned xenophobia and censorship. This year, CLIFF hopes to investigate the visibility, narratives, and media of migration. We aim to explore circulation in all its forms—bodies, ideas, and material goods—through its various manifestations in the arts, critical theory, and new media. Keynote speaker Ariella Azoulay is a Professor of Modern Culture and Media and the Department of Comparative Literature at Brown University. Her recent books include Aïm Deüelle Lüski and Horizontal Photography, Leuven University Press and Cornell University Press, 2013, From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950, (Pluto Press, 2011), Civil Imagination: The Political Ontology of Photography (Verso, 2012) and The Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books, 2008); co-author with Adi Ophir. The One State Condition: Occupation and Democracy between the Sea and the River. Stanford University Press, 2012. She is Curator of the archive "Act of State 1967-2007" ( Centre Pompidou, 2016), Enough! The Natural Violence of the New World Order (F/Stop festival, Leipzig, 2016), "The Natural History of Rape," Pembroke Hall, Brown University, “The Body Politic” [in Really Useful Knowledge, curated by What, How & for Whom / WHW], Reina Sofia, Madrid; When The Body Politic Ceases To Be An Idea, Exhibition Room - Manifesta Journal Around Curatorial Practices No 16 (folded format in Hebrew, MOBY, 2013), Potential History (2012, Stuk / Artefact, Louven), Untaken Photographs (2010, Igor Zabel Award, The Moderna galerija, Lubliana; Zochrot, Tel Aviv), Architecture of Destruction (Zochrot, Tel Aviv), Everything Could Be Seen (Um El Fahem Gallery of Art). She is also a director of documentary films, including Civil Alliances, Palestine, 47-48 (2012), I Also Dwell Among Your Own People: Conversations with Azmi Bishara (2004), The Food Chain (2004). CLIFF CLIFF is organized entirely by graduate students in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. It has been the central event of our department since its inception in 1996. With its dedication to interdisciplinarity and intellectual rigor, it embodies the values that form the basis of Comparative Literature. Each year, the conference brings together faculty and graduate students across different institutions, disciplines and fields of interest, in order to facilitate a productive and meaningful dialogue on that year’s theme. CLIFF 2020 is organized by Luiza Duarte Caetano, Amanda Kubic, Júlia Irion Martins, Marina Mayorski, and Dylan Ogden. |