Program of Events

Bordered Life and the Right to Move: April 25 - 26, 2025,  UC Berkeley

April 25 - 26, 2025

Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall

Bordered Life and the Right to Move

Maude Fife room

Friday 12 - 5pm, Saturday  10 - 5:30pm

FRIDAY

12:00-12:15 Opening remarks

Debarati Sanyal, Professor of French, Zaffaroni Family Chair of Undergraduate Education, and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry, UC Berkeley

Rhiannon Noel Welch, Associate Professor of Italian Studies, Giovanni and Ruth Elizabeth Cecchetti Chair of Italian Literature, UC Berkeley

12:15 - 3:00 PM |  Panel 1: Writing Rights: Intersections of Law, Literature, and Policy

Border Touch
Lyndsey Stonebridge
Professor of Humanities and Human Rights, University of Birmingham

Fashioning Imaginaries for a Better World, from Treaty Law Negotiations to Repurposed Railway Tracks
Robert Barsky
Professor of French, European Studies, and Jewish Studies; Professor of Law; Director of the W.T. Bandy Center, Vanderbilt University

Signs of Bordered Life
Leti Volpp
Robert D. and Leslie Kay Raven Professor of Law, UC Berkeley

3 - 3:30 pm COFFEE BREAK

3:30 - 5 pm UC Berkeley Faculty Keywords Roundtable

Stephanie Canizales  (Futures)
Assistant Professor of Sociology; Director, Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative

Deniz Göktürk (Transit)
Professor of German

Courtney Desiree Morris (Utopia)
Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies

Iggy Cortez (Atmosphere)
Assistant Professor of Film & Media

Moderator: 
Shannon Jackson
Cyrus and Michelle Hadidi Professor of the Arts & Humanities; Department Chair of History of Art


SATURDAY

10 - 12 pm PANEL 1: Body as Flow

Sperm-Smuggling and the Labor of Life in Palestine (joining remotely)
Layal Ftouni 
Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and Critical Theory, Utrecht University

Expanded Autochthony
Christina Varvia 
Lecturer of Forensic Architecture at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London

12:00 - 1:30 pm LUNCH

1:30 - 2:45 pm PANEL 2: Poetry and Insurgency 

Opacity in the Age of Fascism: Poetry and Notes 
Cathy Park Hong
Professor and Class of 1936 First Chair, Department of English, UC Berkeley

Borders as Counterinsurgency: Anti-Migration Politics and the Arts of Liberation
T.J. Demos
Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture; Director, Center for Creative Ecologies, UC Santa Cruz

2:45 - 3:15 pm COFFEE BREAK

3:15 - 5:25 pm PANEL 3: Moving/Mobilizing Images

Waiting
Dagmawi Yimer, 2020
Film Screening 

Bordered Life in Suspense
Artist talk by Dagmawi Yimer

Graduate Student Panel/ Closed Q&A  
João Pedro Rangel Gomes da Silva (Italian Studies), Ari Gizzi (Italian Studies)

Qu’Ils Reposent en révolte (May They Rest in Revolt)
Sylvain George, 2010
Film Screening 

Night Shapes: Fugitivity and Capture
Artist Talk by Sylvain George

Graduate Student Panel/ Closed Q&A  
Ben Beitler (French), Jonathan Makriss (Film and Media)

General discussion with artists and panelists

5:30 pm CLOSING RECEPTION
330 Wheeler Hall