Creative Destruction: Area Knowledge and the New Geographies
of Empire, April 15 to April 17 2004

Center for Place, Culture and Politics Conference, at The Graduate Center, The City University of New York

THURSDAY April 15, Proshansky Auditorium

1.30-2.00 Introduction

2.00-4.00 Plenary Session: New Geographies

Arjun Appadurai, Provost, New School University
Geographies of Anger

Swapna Banerjee-Guha, Geography, University of Mumbai
Shifting Space and Changing Identities: Creating New Urban Geographies

David Harvey, Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction

4.15-6.15 Plenary Session: After Area Studies?
Tim Brennan, Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, UMN Twin Cities
The World Historical Individual

Masao Miyoshi, Literature, University of California, San Diego
Area Studies as a Force of Resistance

David Nugent, Anthropology, Colby College
Geographies of Knowledge: The Social Sciences and U.S. Imperial Expansion,
World War I - World War II

FRIDAY April 16, Martin Segal Theatre

10.00-12.00 Another “New Arc of Crisis”

Gilbert Achcar, Politics and International Relations, University of Paris
Self-deception and Selective Expertise: The "Cakewalk" of the Bush Administration into the Iraqi Quagmire

Moustafa Bayoumi, English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
A Bloody Stupid War

Joel Beinin, History, Stanford University
The Rise, Decline, and Resurrection of Middle East Area Studies: Imperial Projects and the Production of Knowledge.

1.00-2.30 Dissolving Development
Piero Gleijeses, Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University
A Different Perspective: Cuba's Role in Southern Africa, 1975-88

Gill Hart, Geography, University of California, Berkeley
Denaturalizing Dispossession: Critical Ethnography in the Time of Resurgent Imperialism

3.00-4.30 Environmental Scales

Carolyn Cartier, Department of Geography, University of Southern California

Central Frontier: China’s Internal Colonialism and US - PRC Relations after September 11

Diana Liverman, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
Environmental Scales and Neoliberalization in Latin America

5.00-6.30 Cultural Imperialism and Its Landscapes

Jeff Derksen, English, Simon Fraser University
Ends of Culture (or, Cultural Imperialism and Creative Practice)

Erik Knutzen, Center for Land Use Interpretation
An Introduction to the Center for Land Use Interpretation

SATURDAY April 17, Martin Segal Theatre

10.30-12.00 Borders, States and the Geopolitics of Knowledge

Jose Palafox, Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Roberto Martinez: Memories of Border History and the Geopolitics of Knowledge

Victoria Sanford, Institute on Violence and Survival, Virginia Foundation
 for the Humanities & Public Policy

Violence and the Everyday Life of the 21st Century Peasant

1.00-3.00 Atlantic Violence

Peter Gowan, International Relations, London Metropolitan University
Coercive Structures, Competing Logics and Incipient Cleavage Lines
in the Euro-Atlantic Zone

Peter Linebaugh, History, University of Toledo

The Despard Conspiracy of 1802 and the Atlantic Horizon of the Commons:

Or, the "Backs" and "Cutters" within the Sedimentary Strata of the Earth Machine

This is a free conference at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave (cnr 34th St), New York, NY 10016.  Register at continuinged@gc.cuny.edu or call 212 817 8215.  Arrive early to ensure a seat.

For more information call 212 817 1880, email pcp@gc.cuny.edu.