This year’s ASCA workshop takes place 5-7th June, on the timely topic of Resistance, Refusal, and Fugitivty. Questions of political power and its expression in social relations between different groups define the fundamental struggles of our moment. We invite you to participate in a riotously eclectic program that connects transnational scholars from different traditions and disciplines. ‘

Our keynote panellists are Layal Ftouni (University Utrecht), Nicholas Thoburn (University of Manchester), and Jia Tan (Chinese University of Hong Kong). There will also be space for less traditional conference activities, including film screenings, a skill share on carbon divestment at universities, and a room for reflection regarding Palestinian solidarity. Scholars at all levels are encouraged to join for robust but self-reflective presentations and discussions, and moments to socialise and meet thinkers from across the globe. The workshop is supported by ASCA and NICA.

Keynotes:

Layal Ftouni  (Utrecht University) - June 5, 9:30-10:45

Keynote title: Affirming Life in Colonial Death-Worlds in Palestine

Layal Ftouni is an Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and Critical Theory at the Graduate Gender Programme, and a research affiliate at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry (ICON) at Utrecht University.  She is currently working on an NWO Veni  (2022-2025) funded research project entitled Ecologies of Violence: Affirmations of Life at the Frontiers of Survival. The research explores the politics of life and living at the boundaries with death (both human and environmental) in conditions of war and settler colonialism, focusing on Palestine.

Nicholas Thoburn  (University of Manchester) - June 6, 15:30-17:00

Keynote title: A Fugitive Book? Anti-Blackness, Anti-Books, and Uprising

Nicholas Thoburn is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, where he conducts research on architecture and social housing, material cultures of publishing, and social and political theory. He is author of three books, Brutalism as Found: Housing, Form and Crisis at Robin Hood Gardens (2022), Anti-Book: On the Art and Politics of Radical Publishing (2016), and Deleuze, Marx and Politics (2003). He is currently collaborating on a project about ‘minor publishing’ and writing a book about Deleuze’s planned but unwritten final work, 'The Grandeur of Marx'.

Jia Tan (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) - June 7, 15:30-17:00

Keynote title: Reframing resistance: illiberalism, feminism, and queer activism

Jia TAN is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is currently a Clare Hall Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and she was a Global Fellow at the University of St. Andrews and a Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam in 2023. Jia Tan obtained her doctoral degree in Cinema and Media Studies from the University of Southern California. She is the author of Digital Masquerade: Feminist Rights and Queer Media in China (New York University Press, 2023). She is also interested in fantasy media and environmental humanities. Her research has been funded by Social Science Research Council, Hong Kong Research Grants Council, Harold Lloyd Foundation, and so on. She is on the editorial boards of Communication, Culture, and Critique as well as Journal of Chinese Cinemas. She is also one of the founding members of Hong Kong Scholars Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity.

Film Screenings:

June 6, 17:30-19:00: Spectres Beyond the Past – With films by Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, Aylin Kuryel, and Bo Wang
June 7, The collectors – Organized by Documenting Audibilities (Emily Clark, Luc Marraffa, Layan Nijem, and Otto Stuparitz)

Exhibition:

La Visite Collective: Possible, Persistent, Common, Severe is the name of a multidisciplinary project exploring the (side) effects of hormonal contraceptives and the lived experiences around them.

Call for Papers:

Asymmetries of power continue to be felt, lived in, and subverted. Where there is power there is resistance, but the forms of these counteractions are myriad and various (e.g. Foucault; Fraser; Scott; Feldman; Bargu). Understanding these struggles, whether they come from the resurgent decolonial movements, the embattled struggles that have emerged as we face the Anthropocene, or the re-composition of our media-landscape through the whims of the billionaire class, is one of the most pressing tasks of our time. This workshop will bring together theorists, historians, practitioners, and media researchers to understand the multiplicities contained within contemporary resistance.

At the same time, the fugitive, a figure of the subaltern is making their presence known (M'Charek; Harney and Moten; Spivak). Networks of actors whose very life is made illegal are forced to seek refuge outside of systems of control and surveillance. In response, large-scale civil society organising, from migration to abortion networks, have made significant impact on Dutch, European, and global society through strategies of resistance, refusal, and fugitivity (Emejulu; Lewis). The aesthetics of these defiant and subversive practices colour our cultural and media landscapes like never before. Authors, artists, content creators, and cultural institutions continue to reconstitute gender, sexuality, adulthood, nationality, coloniality, and capitalism in response to the constraints of the past.

This workshop aims to provide an interdisciplinary platform for a pressing and multifaceted investigation of resistance, refusal and fugitivity, including but not limited to:

• Historical perspectives: analysing resistance movements and fugitive acts throughout history, from enslaved individuals escaping captivity to contemporary political and civil society struggles.
• Theoretical frameworks: examining the rich tapestry of academic theories that underpin the concepts of resistance, refusal and fugitivity, encompassing fields such as sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and critical race studies, as well as media analysis, ethnography, and auto-theory.
• Contemporary applications: investigating the relevance of resistance and fugitivity in the contemporary context, including discussions of social movements, grassroots activism, and their impact on policy and social change.
• Object analysis: specific sites of resistance have formed the nodes of these conflicts and tensions, from housing estates, 5G network towers, forests, prisons, message boards, advert display panels, to films, literature, artworks and popular culture.

Possible themes or lines of enquiry might include:

• Ecological breakdown – Managing, resisting, and survival in the climate collapse. We particularly welcome contributions that consider ecology and land back struggles.
• Digital Activism – How do online spaces and cultures act as nodes of resistance?
• (Counter/Anti) Violence – What are the scopes and possibilities of counter-conduct amid state-sanctioned violence, ever expanding abandonment, and racial necropolitics?
• Undercommoning – What strategies are employed to challenge dominant systems of power and knowledge, and create alternative spaces and ways of existence?
• Anarchives (Brozgal) – What are the possibilities of archives beyond sterile and fixed conceptions of historical narratives? How should we approach the lacunas in knowledge, the hidden and invisible knowledge that has been lost to colonial violence?
• Hidden transcripts (Scott) – How do critiques of power take place ‘offstage’, beyond the direct control of the powerholders, particularly in repressive settings?
• Aesthetics and politics – How do cultural objects and artistic practices disrupt dominant discourses?
• Gentrification – How are the gentrification of places of refuge and domiciles resisted?
• Affect and subjectivity – How can resistance be understood in terms of affects and as a mode of subjectivity?
• Activist-scholarship – How do activism and scholarship intersect? What does it mean to be an activist-scholar?
• How can we see these acts of resistance and moments of refusal as parts of decolonial struggle?

General information

ASCA Workshop 2024 is a three-day in-person event taking place in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Please note that we cannot accommodate virtual presentations.