Dear Colleagues,
we are very pleased to announce the following conference: "De/Constructions of Occidentalism. A Gender-Critical Intervention in the Construction of the Self through the Other" which has been organized by the graduate research group "Gender as a Category of Knowledge". The conference will take place from June 21st through June 23rd, 2007 in the main building of Humboldt-Universität Berlin (room "Audimax" on Thursday evening and rooms 3038 and 2091/92 on Friday and Saturday).

The revised conference program is posted below. More detailed information concerning the conference venue and the registration process are available under this link:
http://www.okzidentalismus-konferenz.de

We would like to emphasize that activists and/or other persons without institutional affiliation, such as independent scholars, are very much welcome to attend our conference!

And please, feel free to forward this information to anyone who might be interested.

Hope to see you in Berlin.

Sincerely, Gabriele Dietze and the Conference Support Team

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DE/CONSTRUCTIONS OF OCCIDENTALISM.
A GENDER-CRITICAL INTERVENTION IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF THROUGH THE OTHER

A Conference of the Graduate Research Group "Gender as a Category of Knowledge"
Humboldt-Universität Berlin, June 21st-23rd, 2007

Debates about 'parallel societies', the politics of integration and recognition, as well as the perceived degree to which immigrants might be able to submit to democratic organizational structures and values not only reveal anxieties about the presence of 'too many foreigners'. They also serve to stabilize and newly construct the unmarked 'Self'. With reference to the scholarship of Edward Said who has analyzed concepts of an oriental 'Other' as constructions of colonial hegemony, it seems obvious why the aforementioned processes should be linked to his work on 'Orientalism'. In the face of current 'cultural wars' against Muslims and other persons living in European immigration societies who are being identified as 'foreign' or 'not belonging', one can even speak of 'Neo-Orientalism' which must be seen in relation with eurocentrism and ethnocentrism and in conjunction with what postcolonial theorists have also termed 'Occidentalism' (Fernando Coronil). The conference will take up the task of examining new constructions of the 'Occident' in the sense of a 'Critical Occidentalism'. These renewed expressions of 'Occidentality' can be most clearly observed in debates about a seemingly unbridgeable cultural 'difference' which is seen as manifesting itself first and foremost in the arena of gender and sexual politics (patriarchy, headscarf, forced marriage). Therefore, the conference will make a sustained attempt to contribute to a transfer of gender-critical postcolonial theory to German/ European societal contexts. By focusing on three major thematic fields (Knowledge/Religious Belief, Criticizing Hegemony: Theories in Dialogue, and Critical Occidentalism) we hope to encourage discussions about strategies towards a decentralization of Occidentalism which aspires to be (self)-critical of hegemonic structures.

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Confirmed keynote speakers are Rey Chow, Fernando Coronil, Lisa Lampert-Weissig, Jasbir Puar und Yasemin Yildiz. Conference languages are German and English. Unfortunately, translation services cannot be provided.

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Project Director: Gabriele Dietze
Academic Support Team: Edith Wenzel, Claudia Brunner, Elahe Haschemi Yekani, Daniela Hrzán, Jana Husmann-Kastein, Carsten Junker, Karolina Krasuska, Beatrice Michaelis, Simon Strick.

Organization and Administration: Viola Beckmann, Desirée Zwanck, Dörthe Schulz

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Conference PROGRAM

THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2007

4.00 pm Registration (right in front of Audimax)

6.00 pm Conference starts, Audimax

6.15 - 6.30 pm Greeting/ Opening Words: Christina von Braun (Berlin), Audimax

6.30 - 7.30 pm "Not showing." A video program, curated by Nanna Heidenreich (Berlin), followed by a discussion, Audimax

7.30 - 7.45 pm Break

7.45 - 8.45 pm KEYNOTE, Audimax
Yasemin Yildiz (Urbana-Champaign): Agency, Address, Occidentalism: The Discourse of "Muslim" Women in Europe
Chair: Antje Hornscheidt (Berlin)

9.00 pm Reception

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FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2007

9.30 s.t. Gabriele Dietze (Graz/Berlin): Critical Occidentalism (presentation in English)

10.00 - 11.00 KEYNOTE, Room 3038
Lisa Lampert-Weissig (San Diego): Supersession and Redemption: Woman and Jew as Hermeneutic Strategy, Room 3038
Chair: Edith Wenzel (Berlin)

11.00 - 11.30 Coffee break

11.30 - 2.00 pm PARALLEL PANELS "KNOWLEDGE/ RELIGIOUS BELIEF" and "DOGMA/DEMOCRACY"

PANEL "KNOWLEDGE/RELIGIOUS BELIEF), Room 3038
Language: German
Introduction: Edith Wenzel (Berlin)
Chair: Ute Frietsch (Mainz)

Presenters:
Christina Lutter (Wien): Geschichten des Möglichen. Gelehrte Frauen und Männer in mittelalterlichen Reformbewegungen
Isabell Lorey (Berlin): Kritik der Immunisierung. Aussatz und Lepra von der Bibel bis ins Mittelalter
Waltraud Ernst (Hildesheim): Das Erotische zwischen "Zivilisation" und "Evolution"

PANEL "DOGMA/DEMOCRACY", Room 2091/92
Language: English
Introduction: Carsten Junker (Berlin)
Chair: Sabine Grenz (Berlin)

Presenters:
Nanna Heidenreich (Trier/Berlin) und Serhat Karakayali (Frankfurt a.M.): "Phallic Democracy". Claiming Entitlement
Antje Hornscheidt (Berlin): Muslim Curry? How religious and ethnic identity categories are stirred up and conflated into each other
Tina Spies (Kassel): Gender - Ethnicity - Hybridity: Rethinking Public Discourses on Immigrants' Delinquency

2.00 pm - 3.30 pm Lunch break

3.30 pm - 6.00 pm PARALLEL PANELS "HEGEMONY/INTERVENTIONS" and "OTHERING"

PANEL "HEGEMONY/INTERVENTIONS", Room 2091/92
Language: German
Introduction: Elahe Haschemi Yekani (Berlin)
chair: Nanna Lüth (Berlin)

Presenters:
Alexandra Karentzos (Trier): Neu-Besetzungen. Ironisierungen des Okzidentalismus in der Kunst Parastou Forouhars
Kea Wienand (Trier/Oldenburg): Olaf Metzels "Türkenwohnung" - künstlerische Intervention in einen "deutschen" Okzidentalismus
Kien Nghi Ha (Berlin): Das deutsche Integrationsregime als koloniale Pädagogik

PANEL "OTHERING", Room 3038
Language: German
Introduction: Claudia Brunner (Berlin/Wien)
Chair: Ulrike Auga (Berlin)

Presenters:
Stanislawa Paulus (Lüneburg): Fremde Welten und Kartografien des Eigenen. MuslimInnen in TV-Dokumentationen
Sabine Berghahn (Berlin) und Petra Rostock (Berlin): Widersprüchliche Neutralität. Eine geschlechtersensible Analyse der derzeitigen juristischen und politischen
Kopftuchdebatte(n)
Helmut Krieger (Wien): Unerwünschte Patriarchen und die Dialektik des Globalen

6.00 - 6.30 pm Coffee break

6.30 - 7.30 pm KEYNOTE, Room 3038
Jasbir Puar (New Brunswick): Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times
Chair: Elahe Haschemi Yekani (Berlin)

7.30 pm End of Program

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SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 2007

10.00 s.t. KEYNOTE, Room 3038
Rey Chow (Providence): 'Human' in the Age of Disposable People: Humanism, Globalization, and the Chinese Film BLIND SHAFT
Chair: Karolina Krasuska (Berlin/Frankfurt O.)

11.00 - 11.30 Coffee break

11.30 - 2.00 pm PARALLEL PANELS "WHITENESS/OCCIDENTALITY" and "FEMINISM/PATRIARCHY"

PANEL "WHITENESS/OCCIDENTALITY", Room 2091/92
Language: English
Introduction: Daniela Hrzán (Berlin)
Chair: Stefanie von Schnurbein (Berlin/Chicago)

Presenters:
Kristin Ørjasæter (Århus): Feminism and Racism. White Woman in the Aftermath of Colonialism
Ina Kerner (Berlin): Challenges of Critical Whiteness Studies
Susan Arndt (Berlin/ Frankfurt a.M.): The Racial Turn. Whiteness, Critical Occidentalism and Europe

PANEL "FEMINISM/PATRIARCHY", Room 3038
Language: German
Introduction: Jana Husmann-Kastein (Berlin)
Chair: Beate Binder (Hamburg)

Presenters:
Anette Dietrich (Berlin): Konstruktionen weißer Weiblichkeit in der Ersten deutschen Frauenbewegung
Nazli Hodaie (München): Vom Orientalismus zur Patriarchatskritik: Selbst- und Orientwahrnehmung in der deutschen Presse
Daniela Marx (Göttingen): Feministischer Okzidentalismus in Deutschland und den Niederlanden

2.00 pm - 3.30 pm Lunch break

3.30 pm - 6.00 pm PARALLEL PANELS "NATION/RELIGION" und "PUBLIC SPHERE /(GEO)POLITICS

PANEL "NATION/RELIGION", Room 3038
Language: German
Introduction: Beatrice Michaelis (Berlin)
Chair: Dorothea Dornhof (Berlin/Frankfurt O.)

Presenters:
Sigrid Köhler (Münster): Nationale Zungen von Herder bis Zaimoglu
Angelika Neuwirth (Berlin): Okzidentalismus-Konstruktionen? Westliche und östliche Koranforschung als Schauplatz
Susanne Lanwerd (Berlin): Anachronistische Säkularisierungs-Theoreme und Neo-Orientalismus

PANEL "PUBLIC SPHERE/(GEO)POLITICS", Room 2091/92)
Language: English
Introduction: Karolina Krasuska (Berlin/Frankfurt O.)
Chair: Parto Teherani-Krönner (Berlin)

Presenters:
Schirin Amir-Moazami (Frankfurt/Oder): Secular Muslim Feminists in European Public Spheres: Empowerment or Cooption?
Nicole Dörr (Florenz): The Discourse on "Shy Eastern Women" in the European Social Forum
Manuela Boatca (Eichstätt): Long Waves of Occidentalism. Gender, Racial and Ethnic Othering in the Modern World-System

6.00 - 6.30 pm Break

6.30 - 7.30 pm KEYNOTE, Room 3038
Fernando Coronil (Ann Arbor): Darkness in the Heart of Knowledge - Beyond Occidentalism, Room 3038
Chair: Claudia Brunner (Berlin/Wien)

7.30 - 8.00 pm Final Statement, Gabriele Dietze (Graz/Berlin)

8.00 pm End of Conference