Hosts: Bauman Institute and the Institute for Colonial and
Postcolonial Studies
Keynote speakers
‘Liquid modernity’
is the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s celebrated term for the present condition
of the world, which he sees as being characterized by uncertainty and
contingency. Four years after Liquid
Modernity (2000), Bauman also
published Europe: An
Unfinished Adventure, an equally prescient commentary on the dangerous
fragility, but also the continuing cosmopolitan potential, of the European
idea. These landmark works resonate as much today as they did then, both
individually and in tandem; for contemporary Europe is nothing if not a liquid
space, precariously buoyed by fluctuating economic assets and challengeable
social and political foundations––fluid to a fault.
This one-day
international symposium brought together established and emerging academics
from a number of different countries (Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the
Netherlands) to discuss the possibilities and perils afforded by ‘liquid
Europe’. At its heart, it involved a three-way conversation between
cross-disciplinary research groups: the Dutch-funded ‘Postcolonial Europe’
network, featuring partners from LSE and the Universities of Leeds, Naples,
Roskilde, Utrecht and Munich; and the two regionally based but internationally
oriented water research networks, water@leeds and ‘Hydropolitics: Community,
Environment and Conflict in an Unevenly Developed World’. One aim of the
symposium was to use Bauman’s double-edged concept of ‘liquid modernity’ to
account, both for the unmaking
of Europe as a space of exemplarity, exception and privilege and the remaking of Europe as a
convivial space of inclusiveness, transcultural ferment and openness to the
rest of the world. A further aim was to move between metaphorical and literal
understandings of fluidity in the contemporary European context by looking, for
example, at the centrality of the sea to the enterprise of modernity, or by
enquiring into political ecologies of water as these impact upon the different
communities that use it: in landlocked Europe, at Europe’s Mediterranean edges,
and beyond.
The symposium was
organized in two parts. In the morning, there was a discussion of three
pre-read papers: the Foreword to Bauman’s Liquid
Modernity, Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell’s 2006 essay ‘The
Mediterranean and “The New Thalassology”’, and Iain Chambers’s 2010
speculations on ‘Maritime Criticism and Lessons from the Sea’, followed by a
keynote address by the distinguished sociologist Prof. Zygmunt Bauman. In the
afternoon, there was a keynote address by the internationally renowned water
management expert Prof. Tony Allan (SOAS), followed by discussion and brief
presentations by the three postgraduate members of the White Rose
‘Hydropolitics’ network.
*************************************************
Schedule
9.30
- 9.45: Tea/coffee available at the LHRI
9.45
- 10: Symposium opens: introductory remarks (Graham Huggan)
10
- 10-45: Open discussion of the following: Zygmunt Bauman, ‘On Being Light and
Liquid’ (Foreword to Liquid Modernity); Iain Chambers, ‘Maritime
Criticism and Lessons from the Sea’; Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell,
‘The Mediterranean and “the New Thalassology”’ (Discussion led by Graham
Huggan; the pieces mentioned above should be pre-read)
10.45
- 11.00: Tea/coffee/biscuits
11.00
- 12.00: Keynote address: Prof. Zygmunt Bauman, ‘A brief (unfinished) history
of the nation-state, European invention’ (30-minute talk followed by
discussion)
12
- 1.30: Lunch (provided at the LHRI)
1.30
- 2.30: Keynote address: Prof. Tony Allan, ‘Co-existing conflict and
cooperation over water resources: how we have coped despite increasingly
intense competition’
(30-minute
talk followed by discussion)
2.30
- 2-45: Tea/coffee/biscuits
2.45
- 4.15: Presentations by doctoral members of the White Rose network: Hannah
Boast, Christine Gilmore, Will Wright (3 x 20-minute talks followed by
discussion)
4.15:
Symposium closed
*************************************************
From the left: Astrida Neimanis, Sarah Fekadu, Michaela Quadraro,
Koen Leurs, John McLeod, Sandra Ponzanesi, Lars Jensen, Graham Huggan
thanks for post
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