Events

Announcements

Harvard Institute for World Literature: Call for Applications

The Harvard Institute for World Literature is now accepting applications for its 2025 Summer Program through the GCLR!

The 2025 program will take place in July at Harvard University and is slated to feature esteemed scholars such as David Damrosch, Jennifer Wenzel, and our very own Dominique Jullien!

Two of the successful UCSB student applicants are automatically accepted into the HIWL and will receive a 50% reduction of their fees. Applications will be processed on a rolling basis from November 15th to December 15th. For more information visit our How to Apply Page. 

 

"Culturalism: A Weapon of Empire" — A talk by Prof. Jennifer Ponce de León

The tendency to treat reified cultural or ethnic features as the key for explaining social conflicts is a cornerstone of bourgeois ideology and useful weapon of imperialism. Yet, such an approach characterizes many Western academic discourses that purport to combat ‘coloniality’ and racism, including decolonial theory. This talk addresses important differences between culturalist approaches to analyzing imperialism, racism, and ideology, and the historical materialist and dialectical orientation of Marxism, particularly in the forms it has taken in the Global South.

This event will take place November 14th on Zoom (https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/83259571366) from 12-1:15pm as part of the GCLR's new Interdisciplinary Brown Bag Lunch series, co-sponsored by the departments of Comparative Literature, French and Italian, and German and Slavic Studies.

Prof. Sara Pankenier Weld, "Miniature Revelations: Childhood in Nabokov's Writings"

In her book project Miniature Revelations: Childhood in Nabokov’s Writings, Sara Pankenier Weld argues that attention to childhood and the often neglected and inscrutable child, who might be mistaken for a marginal figure, in fact offers a miniature revelation and key to Vladimir Nabokov’s novels. Looking through the lens of childhood also allows for pointed critiques of the solipsism of brilliant but flawed protagonists and reveals ethical dimensions of the text that may be ignored by the protagonist or obscured by the author, who frequently offers interpretive challenges for the reader and creates texts that are not what they seem to be. 

Thursday, October 24, 12-1:15pm in Phelps 6206C

This new series is offered jointly by the GCLR, the Comparative Literature Program, the Dept. of French and Italian, and the Dept. of Germanic and Slavic. Two brownbag lunches per quarter with speakers from UCSB and beyond will be organized. Everybody is welcome!

 
 
Public Lecture "The Expansion of Muslim Atheism in 1960s Central Asia." Prof. Eren Tasar
Prof. Tasar will discuss the second chapter of
his book in progress, Muslim Atheism in
Central Asia. The chapter, entitled
"Expansion," charts the dramatic growth in
atheistic literature in languages spoken by
Central Asian Muslims throughout the 1960s,
a decade that witnessed Khrushchev's
antireligious campaign as well as a
subsequent effort to rein in that campaign's
excesses.
 
Friday, October 18
4:00 p.m. HSSB 4020
 
 
 
Eren Tasar is Associate Professor of History at UNC Chapel Hill.
Call for Papers: 2024 Fall Roundtable "Technology and the Humanities"

The GCLR is pleased to announce that we are currently accepting submissions for our 2024 Fall Roundtable "Technology and the Humanities" to be held on October 17th from 6-8pm in Phelps 6206C!

Interested applicants are encouraged to submit short papers/works-in-progress alongside an abstract and brief author biography to complit-gclr@ucsb.edu.

Deadline: October 13th, 2024. Selected presenters will be notified the following day. 

Refreshments will be served

Fall Quarter Weekly Writing Group

The GCLR is pleased to announce that the Weekly Writing Group will be continuing this quarter on Thursdays from 10am-1pm in Phelps 6206C.

 

We hope that you'll stop by for a comradely environment, writing accountability, and of course: coffee and snacks!