Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis University of Amsterdam Bushuis, KloveniersburgwalASCA 48, room F111B, 1012 CX Amsterdam, The Netherlands, [email protected], Nieuwsbrief 211 June 2018 ASCA Borrel ............................................................... 1 Millennium Communities in the Amazonian region; Dissertation Defence: Alejandra Espinosa .................. 1 the Yachay university/technological hub located in the north of the country; and, finally, local monuments NEW ASCA Member: Emilie Sitzia ........................... 1 placed by municipal authorities on the northern coast. IAS Fellowship for Robin Celikates............................. 2 The first three case studies are State-driven and, due to Post Doc Positions at ASCA: Rural Imaginations ..... 2 their high cost and national impact, can be described New PhD Candidates at ASCA .................................. 2 as mega structures or mega projects; the fourth ASCA Events ............................................................ 6 provides an example of public construction driven by Women, Money and Markets ...................................... 6 local interests. Each of these cases, approached Hermeneutics and the Flesh ........................................ 6 through a close reading of planning documents, news The Sublime Rupture of Time ..................................... 7 coverage, interviews with key actors, and a fieldwork- Environmental Justice and Civil Disobedience: .......... 7 based analysis of the projects’ spatial situation and use, reveals aspects of the dynamic relationship between Hermeneutics and deconstruction .............................. 7 urban planning, politics, spatial imaginaries (local, Grounds for Materialism ............................................ 7 national and global) and socio-cultural values. Taken Media Sports and World Building .............................. 8 together, they show how the authorities and Mediating Brutalism: Spectacles of the Abject ........... 8 technicians driving urban construction adapt their The Trade of the Teacher ............................................. 9 projects to what they perceive as a modern and/or Decolonial Aesthesis and Post-Soviet Art .................. 9 globalized context. Each structure, once built, is seen to Media Tactics and Engagement .................................. 9 reflect the imaginaries, dreams and desired futures Other Events ........................................................... 10 authorities and technicians have in mind when Thinking Through Things ........................................ 10 thinking about urban space and its design. Forging Future Families ........................................... 10 Dutch Association for Aesthetics Symposium .......... 10 NEW ASCA MEMBER: EMILIE SITZIA Unschooling the Anthropologist ............................... 11 Calls for Papers ...................................................... 11 Politics of Boredom ................................................... 11 Drawing Yourself In and Out of It ........................... 12 Practices of Listening ................................................ 12 Special Issue Politique Européenne........................... 13 ASCA BORREL All ASCA members and friends are cordially invited to the ASCA Borrel and the announcement of the ASCA Awards in the Bushuis, space F101C on 14 June 2018 at 18:00 hrs. Dr. E. Sitzia (1978) has been named professor by special appointment of Illustration at the University of DISSERTATION DEFENCE: ALEJANDRA ESPINOSA Amsterdam’s Faculty of Humanities. The chair was The Politics of Public Construction in a Globalized established on behalf of the Fiep Westendorp World: Imagining Urban Space in Ecuador Foundation. As professor by special appointment, Supervisors: Christoph Lindner and Esther Peeren. Emilie Sitzia will focus on the history of the Agnietenkapel, 28 June. relationship between word and image and on The study focuses on how projects of Ecuadorian increasing academic attention to the relationship public construction driven by the State and by city between books and art. This will involve working on authorities are entangled with notions of globalization illustrations in books, newspapers and magazines (for and modernity. To show this entanglement, I analyse children as well as adults), as well as on book art and the planning and construction process of four urban artists’ books. projects: the new Mariscal Sucre airport in Quito; the 2 Sitzia has been an associate professor since 2012 and With globalization primarily considered an urban programme director of the Master's programme in phenomenon, its impact on rural areas tends to be ‘Arts and Heritage: policy, management and neglected. Tackling this blind spot is urgent as rural- education’ at Maastricht University since 2016. urban divides persist and rural communities, notably Previously, she worked eight years at the University of in the 2016 Brexit vote and US election, claim their Canterbury in New Zealand, first as a lecturer and concerns about globalization’s effects are being then a senior lecturer in European Art History and ignored. RURAL IMAGINATIONS focuses on the Theory. From 2001 to 2004, she lectured in the French crucial role played by cultural imaginations in department of Åbo Akademi University in Turku determining what aspects of contemporary rural life (Finland), where she also obtained her PhD. Sitzia do and do not become visible nationally and globally, obtained a BA and MA in French literature at which, in turn, affects how the rural can be mobilized Université Paris X (France), as well as a BA and MA in politically. Using a distinctive humanities approach, it Art History at Université Paris X and Goethe examines prominent cultural imaginations of the rural University Frankfurt (Germany), respectively. in film, television and literature in the UK, US, Her areas of interest include the relationship between Netherlands, China and South Africa. The word and image, European art from the 18th to the postdoctoral research projects focus on the contexts of 20th century and art literature (including artist's (mainland) China and South Africa: novels and art criticism). She is also interested in http://www.uva.nl/shared- interdisciplinary methodologies, cultural education, content/uva/en/vacancies/2018/05/18-288-postdoctoral- museology, curation and the history of art museums. researcher-imagining-the-rural-in-contemporary- Her book Art in Literature: Literature in Art in 19th chinese- century France (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, culture.html?origin=IDU2lUJuTL6pmHQa%2FNN%2B Newcastle upon Tyne) was published in 2012. 4g Sitzia is teaching theory and history of http://www.uva.nl/shared- illustration/artists’ books/ book art to Art History and content/uva/en/vacancies/2018/05/18-287-postdoctoral- Book Studies students. She also supervises students researcher-imagining-the-rural-in-contemporary- who are writing their thesis and are conducting PhD south-african- research in these areas. culture.html?origin=IDU2lUJuTL6pmHQa%2FNN%2B 4g IAS FELLOWSHIP FOR ROBIN CELIKATES Robin Celikates (Philosophy/ASCA) has been awarded NEW PHD CANDIDATES AT ASCA a fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, for the 2018-19 Anthi Argyriou, Mediterranean Drift. The Aesthetics academic year. Robin will be a member of the School and Politics of Contemporary Art in Greece in the of Social Science and work on his book project Context of the Refugee Crisis “Democratizing Disobedience: Towards a Critical Supervisors: Maria Boletsi and Esther Peeren Theory of Political Protest”. The proposed research project will focus on how The main aim of this project is to develop a critical artistic practices, exhibitions and cultural institutions theory of ‘democratizing disobedience’ that bridges have dealt with issues of migration in Greece since the gap between the rarely redeemed commitment of 2015. In an attempt to respond to images and critical theory to be grounded in actual social struggles experiences of the refugee crisis and their implications, and the undertheorized transformative potential of individual artists, museums and cultural initiatives civil disobedience. This involves bringing two claims have renegotiated the concepts of dislocation, home together: that disobedience is an essential part of and vulnerability in the framework of globalized struggles for democratization (‘from below’), and thus (forced) displacement and socio-political upheaval. I opens up one way to address the crisis of will explore these aesthetic and theoretical shifts by representative democracies without falling back into analysing specific case studies and employing current the non- or anti-democratic dynamics of right-wing concepts from cultural analysis, globalization and populism, and that theorizing disobedience in a critical migration studies. In addition, I will study audiences’ vein has to be democratized both methodologically reception of and involvement in the analysed and substantially in order to adequately grasp the practices, exhibitions and institutional strategies in democratizing potential of disobedience. order to delineate the social and cultural impact of contemporary art in this context. POST DOC POSITIONS AT ASCA: RURAL IMAGINATIONS Inez Blanca van der Scheer, Human at the Crossroads ASCA has two vacant post-doctoral positions as part of Decolonization and Ecocriticism: a Caribbean of the ERC Consolidator project Imagining the Rural in Discourse a Globalizing