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Ithaca College Kicks Off 'Race And Immigration' Series

ITHACA, NY — The Ithaca College Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity (CSCRE) will host a yearlong discussion series on “Race and Immigration.” The first discussion will take place on Thursday, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m. in Clark Lounge, Egbert Hall. Neferti Tadiar, director of the Center for Critical Analysis of Social Difference at Columbia University, will present “Contesting Imperial Belonging.” It is free and open to the public.

The discussion series will explore the interlocking systems of oppression made apparent by mass migrations, the criminalization of undocumented workers, militarism and the expansion of the prison-industrial complex. It also seeks to address immigrants’ resistance, resilience and social justice work in light of these new global challenges.

Tadiar also serves as a professor of women’s studies at Barnard College. Her academic interests include transnational and third world feminism, postcolonial theory, critical theories of race and subjectivity, literary and social theory, cultural studies of the Asia Pacific region and Philippine studies. Her work concerns the role of cultural practice and social imagination in the production of wealth, power, marginality and liberatory movements in the context of global relations.

Tadiar is currently working on a book entitled “Discourse on Empire: Living Under the Rule of Permanent War.” Her previous books include “Things Fall Away: Philippine Literatures, Historical Experience and Tangential Makings of Globality” and “Fantasy-Production: Sexual Economies and Other Philippine Consequences for the New World Order,” which won the 2005 Philippine National Book Award.

Among other organizations, Tadiar works with the Critical Filipino/Filipina Studies Collective, a group of scholars and activists seeking to challenge the legacies of U.S. and Spanish imperialism for past and present communities both in the Philippines and in the Filipino diaspora; and the Institute for Advanced Feminist Research, which bridges feminist work in the spheres of activism, public culture and academia.

For more information: http://www.ithaca.edu/cscre/discussionseries/.