The 14th Illinois EU Studies Conference ("Paradigms of Racialization: Alternative Sources") will be held on April 18-19, 2024. 

Organizing / scientific committee: Claire Bourhis-Mariotti, University Paris 8; Markian Dobczansky, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Heather Duncan, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Mauro Nobili, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Amanda Smith, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Sponsors: Albertine Foundation (formerly FACE Foundation); European Union Center at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; TransCrit at University Paris 8; Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC) at University of Michigan; Center for African Studies at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 

Venue: 300 Levis Faculty Center, 919 W Illinois St, Urbana, IL 61801

Conference Program

Day 1 – April 18, 2024

9:00 Welcome Remarks by the organizers

9:30-12:00 Panel One – Alternative Sources from the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds

Chair: Heather Duncan, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Presenters:

  • Brian Sandberg, Northern Illinois University: “Sources of Islamophobia in Early Modern France and the Mediterranean World.”
  • Said Bousbina, independent researcher, and Mauro Nobili, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: “When Ahmad al-Manṣûr announces the conquest of the ‘Land of the Blacks.’”
  • Cord Whitaker, Wellesley College: “Forbidden Love: Medieval Romance as Critical Race Studies Archive.”
  • Craig Koslofsky: “Dermal marking, Whiteness, and Racialization: Tattooed Servants, Soldiers, and Sailors in the British Atlantic World, c. 1680 to 1750”

12:00-14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 – 16:00 Panel Two – Race and Racialization in Islamic Perspective

Chair: TBD

Presenters:

  • Jonathan Brown, Georgetown University: The Tanbīh al-ṭughyān ʿalā ḥurriyyat al-sūdān: The Argument of a Late-Nineteenth/Early-Twentieth-Century Rebuttal of Views on Race and Slavery in Morocco.”
  • Bruce Hall, University of California, Berkeley: “Race and decolonization in Africa: Muḥammad Maḥmūd ould al-Shaykh’s history of Timbuktu and the Azawad.”
  • Ismael Montana, Northern Illinois University: “Interrogating al-Timbuktawi’s Blacks of Tunis in Nineteenth Century-Tunisia: Racial Others or Enslavable Infidels?”
  • Khaled Esseissah: “The Racial and Cultural Construction of Blackness and Whiteness in the Nineteenth-Century Sahara (now Mauritania)”

16:00-16:30 Coffee break

16:30-18:00 Keynote & Q&A

Yacine Daddi Addoun, University of Kansas: “Race, Color and Slavery: A Perspective from Algeria”

Chair: TBD

 

Day 2– April 19, 2024

9:30-11:00 Panel Three: Race and racism in TV series, Hollywood Movies and Films

Chair: Markian Dobczansky, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Presenters:

  • Flavia Ciontu, Université Paris 8: “The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness: Perspectives from Eastern Europe.”
  • Sébastien Lefait, Aix-Marseille Université: “Introducing New Sources to Understand Hollywood’s Biased Treatment of Racism in the US.”
  • Damani Partridge, University of Michigan: “The Future as Archive: Noncitizen Films from Detroit, Philadelphia, and Berlin.”

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:00 Panel Four – (Moving) images

Chair: TBD

Presenters:

  • Juliette Bourdin, University Paris 8: “Dehumanizing the Chinese to justify their exclusion: the example of George Frederick Keller’s cartoons in the San Francisco Wasp (1876-1883)”
  • Amanda Smith, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: “Race-ing Through Time: An Analysis of Black Women’s Bodies in French History and Now”
  • Vincenzo Bavaro, Università di Napoli: “Navigating Shadows: Black Actors in Blackface – A Study of Identity and Representation in Early Hollywood”

13:00-14:30 Lunch Break

14:30-16:00 Panel Five – The Public and Private in Writing History

Chair: TBD

Presenters:

  • Augustin Habran, Université d’Orléans: “‘He came a long way to see his white brothers the Cherokees and the Creeks’: Indian Territory and the making of Cherokee racial legitimacy in the journal of Elijah Hicks.”
  • Lawrence Aje, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier: “Re-membering: filling the archival voids of the history of slavery with prosopography.”
  • Claire Bourhis-Mariotti, University Paris 8: “‘The fact is, the Saxon and negro are the only positive races on this continent, and the two are destined to absorb into themselves all the others.’ Black Nationalist-Emigrationists’ Paradigm of Race: the Black Manifest Destiny?”

16:00-17:30 Workshop: selection of primary sources to be included in the final deliverable.

Chairs: Claire Bourhis-Mariotti and Mauro Nobili

 

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

This annual conference brings together college faculty, scholars, and graduate students with the aim of advancing research and teaching on the European Union at universities and four-year and two-year colleges in Illinois and the Midwest. It facilitates the building of a dynamic network for educators and scholars with interests in EU studies by presenting them with an intimate venue to share current research and ideas about teaching, develop new professional relationships, and learn about opportunities sponsored by the EU Center.

Paper topics: We invite presentations on any topic relevant to EU studies, although we particularly encourage proposals that relate to the conference’s announced theme. Topics of relevance to European or EU studies range widely from climate change, health sciences, and business, to the cultures, languages, and institutions of Europe and its relations with other parts of the world. Colleagues with a current interest in the EU and issues involving Europe are also invited to join us without being obliged to present.

Previous Conferences 

2023 2022
2021 2020 - cancelled due to COVID-19
2018  2017
2016  October 2015
March 2015 2014
2013 2012
2011 2009