Is the University Still a Site of Critical Thinking: Critical Thinking in the Ruins is Panel Two of a 4-panel series which is part of Working in the Traces of Area Studies hosted by faculty emeriti Brett DeBary (Asian Studies, Cornell) and Naoki Sakai (Asian Studies, Cornell).

One legacy of the discourse of the West and the Rest can be found in the fetishized idiom “Western theory,” as if theory were a capacity exclusive only to European or Western humanity. Above all else, we have to acknowledge that at present we do not know who and what is indexed by the West; we are not certain of who the Westerners are or where the West and its polar opposite being the Rest can be mapped. What is at stake is what kind of critical and transformative capacity we designate by “theory.” What should we pursue? What do we mean by “theory,” seeking the general patterns in empirical and positive knowledge, attending to the operations of power in knowledge production, or a critical assessment of the disciplinary formation in knowledge production?

The panelists are:

Jon Solomon, Department of Languages, Lyon III University, Jean Moulin, France Junyoung Verónica Kim, Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, University of PittsburghAndrea Bachner, Comparative Literature, Cornell University is stepping in for Peter Osborne, School of Creative and Cultural Industries, Kingston School of Art, London; Director, Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy due to a sudden inability to attend.Discussant will be: Gavin Walker, Departments of History and East Asian Studies, McGill University, MontrealThis symposium is co-sponsored by the Department of Asian Studies.

Registration Link: https://cglink.me/2cm/r2042285

The Cornell S.C. Johnson College of Business Emerging Markets Theme, in collaboration with China Institute for Economic Research (CICER), the Cornell China Center, and the Emerging Markets Institute, brings together scholars to provide thought leadership on the role of emerging markets – and emerging market multinationals – in the global economy.

On 5/9, Ruth Aguilera, Northeastern University

Dr. Dolors Armenteras will present her analysis of the patterns and impacts of forest degradation in the Colombian Amazon for more than 20 years. Her presentation will share insights and updates from the remote sensing of forest dynamics and land use patterns following the 2016 peace process in Colombia.

About the Speaker

Dr. Dolors Armenteras is a geographer and biodiversity conservation expert. She is a biologist from the Universitat de Barcelona, holds an MSc in Environmental Forestry from the University of Wales, and a PhD in Geography from King’s College London, UK. Most of her scientific and research work has been developed over the last 20 years in Colombia.

She is currently a Professor of Landscape Ecology at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Before that, she worked in the environmental sector, where she developed the first integrated spatial geographic information system for monitoring Colombian ecosystems and biodiversity in the early 2000s and coordinated the first ecosystem services assessment undertaken in Colombia in 2005. Her experience and knowledge of tropical ecology include work on fire ecology, biodiversity conservation, deforestation, land use changes, and sustainability scenarios.

Co-Sponsors: Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, Department of Natural Resources, Einaudi Center

In this seminar, we will explore promising avenues to improve the science policy interface in Africa. The seminar will cover multiple themes under this broad umbrella, including (a) reviews of productive modes of interfacing science and policy, (b) detailed explorations of the policy-making process in the region, including current obstacles to building strong S/P interfaces, (c) efforts to train the region’s scientists in policy communication, (d) the role of mass media, new media and civil society in the process, (e) the role of national and regional think-tanks, (f) advocacy efforts directed at policy-makers to promote an evidence-based culture.

Eleana Kim (Anthropology, UC Irvine)

This book talk discusses Eleana Kim’s recently published ethnography of the ecologies of the South Korean borderlands, in areas adjacent the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Based on fieldwork with ecologists, environmentalists, and residents who live along the border, this book reframes the Korean DMZ and the national division around more-than-human peace. It also argues that militarized ecologies deserve greater attention in the context of climate crisis and the convergence of militarization and privatization at a planetary scale. BIO: Eleana Kim is a sociocultural anthropologist and professor of anthropology and Asian American Studies at University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Making Peace with Nature: Ecological Encounters along the Korean DMZ (2022) and Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging (2010), both published by Duke University Press. She currently serves as the president of the Society for Cultural Anthropology.