Presidential Plenary: “Illuminating the Darkness: Practices of Belief and Disbelief”

Session Submission Type: Presidential Plenary Session

Brief Description

Can belief be a transformative practice? Are there practices of belief that do the work not only as theoretical alternatives to dark realities past and present but create real change. As theorists of “utopia” have suggested, can belief be a method, a refusal to accept “the tyranny of the now,” a disruption of normativities? Through explorations of visual, literary, historical, performative, and social practices, this panel will explore such questions. Socialism, capitalism, heteronormativity, and ideology are among the questions that may be scrutinized—for our region and beyond, past and present. And belief itself may be interrogated for its own hazards.

Sub Unit

• ASEEES-Organized Events

Chair

• Mark D. Steinberg, U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Plenary Speakers

• Eliot Borenstein, New York U

• Laurie Essig, Middlebury College

• Joan Neuberger, U of Texas at Austin

• Ronald Grigor Suny, U of Michigan