This is the first speaker for the Committee on Social Theory's Spring 2023 Speaker Series on the theme of Debility and After/ Alterlives: 

Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez is associate professor of Afro-Diaspora Studies in the department of English at Michigan State University. She is the author of the award-winning Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature (Northwestern University Press, 2020) which examines the long history of Atlantic crossings between Equatorial Guinea and the Latinx Caribbean. In her talk, Dr. Figueroa-Vásquez will discuss parts of her forthcoming book, The Survival of a People (Duke University Press) which traces the disappearances and excesses of Afro-Puerto Ricans in the colonial archive and in contemporary cultural memory from the late 19th century to the present. For more on Dr. Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, please visit www.yomairafigueroa.com.

Eunjung Kim’s research and teaching interests include transnational feminist disability studies; theories of vulnerability and human/nonhuman boundaries; Korean cultural history of disability, gender, and sexuality and anti-violence feminist disability movements; Asian feminisms and women’s movements; critical humanitarian communications and human rights; asexuality and queer theories. She is currently working on a book-length manuscript on violence against people with disabilities and illnesses, health justice activisms, posthumous care, and the ecology of aging and dying in South Korea and beyond.

Zomm Link: TBD

"Necropolitics, Border Walls, and a Murder of Jim/Juan Crow in the Mexico-US Frontera"

Across the Mexico-US borderlands, overlapping white supremacist and Anglo-nationalist movements are building private walls as monuments to Donald Trump. Many social justice activists and ecological stewards have warned that these Trumpist border walls present specific and new threats to social and ecological landscapes, particularly along the riparian sections of the borderlands. To slow their building and, even, topple these walls, many activists and ecological caretakers are working to fortify networks with similar efforts elsewhere. In an effort to provide analyses useful to such justice endeavors, I employ Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics to situate the borderland activist struggles against the Trumpist walls within a broader context of struggle against the commemoration of racist terror in the US South. Specifically, I use Mbembe’s theorization of necropolitical deathworlds to illustrate some potential common cause linking protests against Trumpist walls in the Paso del Norte region of the Mexico-US border with a Black Lives Matter/Say Her Name coalition that is bringing down Confederate monuments in central Texas. In placing these movements in connection with each other, I highlight a synergy of the white supremacy of Jim Crow with the Anglo nationalism behind a Juan Crow variant of racist terror and anti-immigrant hatred driving the Trumpist wall constructions. Recognition of this convergence is one way, I maintain, for identifying opportunities for making common cause across Americas’ myriad struggles to destroy the racist monuments that glorify the necropolitical legacy of racist colonialism and its ongoing social and ecological devastation.

A native of Puerto Rico, Yomaira was born and raised in Hoboken, NJ and is a first-generation high school and college graduate. She is Associate Professor of Global Afro-Diaspora Studies in the department of English at Michigan State University. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and her B.A. in English, Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick (Douglass College).

Zoom Link: TBD

The Dimensions of Political Ecology Conference (DOPE) is organized and hosted entirely by an interdisciplinary group of graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Kentucky. Since its inception in 2010, this student-organized conference has become one of the largest, most highly regarded international forums for critical discussions at the intersection of ecology, political economy, and science studies. DOPE 2020 welcomes Dr. Alaka Wali, Dr. Diana Ojeda, Dr. Justin Dunnavant, Dr. Macarena Gómez-Barris, and Dr. Rebecca Elmhirst as our speakers, along with many professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students. The DOPE Conference offers a platform for both established and emerging scholars to present research and engage in political ecology scholarship. Registration is free for UK graduate and undergraduate students! Register here!

The Committee on Social Theory wants to invite everyone back for the 2016-2017 academic school year!

The fall meeting will feature introductions and information about this years upcoming events, including the Fall Distinguished Speaker, Dr. Elizabeth Shove. There will also be plenty of time for conversation and Q&A over a provided lunch. 

Please RSVP by September 16th to Eva Hicks at eva.hicks@uky.edu