The Social Theory Program invites faculty and graduate students to a lunch workshop with our Fall Distinguished Speaker Dr. Jean Comaroff. We are delighted to provide this intensive and intimate opportunity to have a conversation with Dr. Comaroff , discussing her recent work (based on articles she has recommended) , in the context of broader conversations about her research or about the subjects at hand. Because Dr. Comaroff has worked on a range of issues, the workshop can be of interest to anyone in Social Theory; those working on questions of the State, colonialism, criminal justice, religion, body, AIDS, global health issues, modernity, South Africa, History or Anthropology might be particularly interested.
The Social Theory Program will provide pizza for lunch. We ask of participants that they peruse the reading assignments recommended by Dr. Comaroff (ranging from order/disorder in the post/colony, to faith and neoliberalism, to AIDS and biopolitics) posted on the Social Theory site at http://www.as.uky.edu/academics/departments_programs/SocialTheory/SocialTheory/Lectures/Pages/default.aspx and come prepared to have a lively discussion.
The lunch workshop takes place on Nov. 30 at 12 noon-2pm in POT 245. Space is limited to 20, so we are taking names as they come in. Please sign up as soon as you can with Naomi Norasak at nnora0@uky.edu; for questions about the workshop or Dr. Comaroff's visit, please contact Dr. Srimati Basu at srimati.basu@uky.edu. We look forward to seeing you there!
Jean Comaroff, renowned anthropologist and social theorist, is one of the leading contemporary scholars of colonialism, modernity, law, and the State, and the Bernard E. & Ellen C. Sunny Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. A prolific researcher and writer, she has authored 5 monographs (some co-authored with John Comaroff) and numerous anthologies, including the 2 volume Of Revelation and Revolution (Vol 1. Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa; Vol. 2 The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier), Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism, Law and Disorder in the Postcolony, Picturing a Colonial Past: The African Photographs of Isaac Schapera , and Ethnicity, Inc . Her latest monograph, Theory from the South: or, How Euro-America is Evolving toward the World Formerly Known as Third, is currently in press. Raised in South Africa, Comaroff has conducted fieldwork in southern Africa and Great Britain, where her foci have included the religion of the Southern Tswana peoples; colonialism and Christian evangelism and liberation struggles in southern Africa; healing and bodily practice, and the making of local worlds in the wake of global "modernity" and commodification. Her current research concerns problems of public order, state sovereignty and policing in postcolonial contexts, and asks about the relation between legitimacy and force.
