Join the Institute for African Development for our conversation hour in Tumbuka on 10/5! Learn about traditional and cultural norms in Malawi as well as greetings, basic vocabulary and phrases in Tumbuka! (No previous knowledge of Tumbuka or African languages necessary!)

Registration Link: https://cglink.me/2cm/r1635976

The Cornell S.C. Johnson College of Business Emerging Markets Theme brings together scholars from Cornell and beyond to provide thought leadership on the role of emerging markets – and emerging market multinationals – in the global economy.

The Emerging Markets Institute in collaboration with China Institute for Chinia Economic Research (CICER), the Cornell China Center, and the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute is hosting a PhD Research Day on Thursday, November 3. The workshop will be held at Cornell’s Cornell Tech Campus in New York City.

We will also feature a number of presentations from eminent faculty during the workshop. If you are interested in presenting your research, please send a half page abstract of the paper you wish to present to Andrew Foley (ajf283@cornell.edu). Limited funding is also available for presenters. Applications will be accepted through October 1, 2022.

The link to register is here. Your registration will be complete upon confirmation message. If you have issues, contactemi@cornell.edu.

A three-day, international conference bringing together communities, scholars and policymakers.

We will present our research findings from Indigenous and rural societies in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, as well as the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and Oneida Lake Watershed in the United States of America. These Indigenous and rural communities have contributed least to the anthropogenic climate crisis but are facing its harshest consequences. While these peoples are largely ignored, we are creating an enabling environment for their voices to be heard at our three-day conference. Rhythms of the Land Conference will present findings from the Ecological Calendars for Climate Adaptation Project (ECCAP) undertaken by a team of students and scholars from the USA, Germany, Italy, and China.

Oct. 11
To include presentations of our research findings on building local level anticipatory capacity for climate change through implementable ecological calendars. Our research will also be communicated through works of art presented by prominent Indigenous artists from around the world. The diverse calendars for each community will be presented within an artistic aesthetic. Preview the community reports.

Oct. 12
Will be devoted to policy formulation, communication of climate adaptation strategies, and next steps in applied research.

Oct. 13
Will identify specific initiatives for action. Collective insights from presenters offer a sustainable roadmap for climate change adaptation – and hope - for all, regardless of political ideology.

COVID-19 event public safety requirements:

RSVP for public events required by Oct. 10 (Registration is full)Wear masks at all times during the event.Every participant is expected to be fully vaccinated.
Oct. 11 public programming to include:

Nevin Welcome Center, Cornell Botanic Gardens

9 a.m. - 10 a.m.
Environmental Justice and Indigenous Communities
James Ross, Teetl’it Gwich’in, Past Chief of Fort McPherson and
Negotiator of the Gwich’in Land Claim Agreement

10 a.m - 10:40 a.m.
Methodology of Hope – The Role of Ecological Calendars in Responding to the Challenge of Climate Change
Dr. Karim-Aly Kassam, International Professor of Environmental & Indigenous Studies, Dept. of Natural Resources & the Environment

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art

3:15 p.m. - 3:55 p.m.
Measurements meet human observations:integrating distinctive ways of knowing in the Pamir Mountains to assess local climate change
Professor Cyrus Samimi, University of Bayreuth, Germany

4:00 p.m. - 4:50 p.m.
Artists and Communities Panel Conversation: Environmental Justice
Frederick McDonald, Past-Chief Executive Officer Fort McKay First Nation
Natani Notah, Navajo interdisciplinary artist and educator
Tony David, Director, Environmental Division, Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe

Oct. 12 public programming to include:

Nevin Welcome Center, Cornell Botanic Gardens

8:30 a.m. - 9:10 a.m.
What Are the Challenges for Climate Change Adaptation for Indigenous and Rural Communities?
James Ross, Teetl’it Gwich’in, Past Chief of Fort McPherson and Negotiator of the Gwich’in Land Claim Agreement

Schwartz Performing Arts Center

5:55 p.m. - 6:35 p.m.
Where Do We Go from Here? Concrete Outcomes for Climate Adaptations
James Ransom, Past Chief Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, Past Director, Environment Program, SRMT

6:45 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Dance Performance: Blood, Water, Earth
Chancellor Santee Smith

Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' people, past and present, to these lands and waters.

Summary: Emmanuel Levinas’s concept of ‘alterity’, a term for absolute difference, has influenced a number of scholars who have recently come to be grouped under the label of ‘decolonial’ thinking, such as Enrique Dussel and Nelson Maldonado-Torres. In this talk, I argue that Édouard Glissant’s framing of an ethical relation as emerging from ‘contacts’ with others, defending the ‘opacity’ of others, and ultimately standing in solidarity with others, is more fruitful for decolonial and other Left political pursuits than Levinas’s framing of an ‘encounter’ with a single Other, whose difference is understood in terms of ‘alterity’, and who is ultimately served through reverence. By suggesting a politics through his language of a ‘right to opacity’, Glissant provides actors a path forward.

Bio: Benjamin P. Davis is Postdoctoral Fellow in Ethics at the University of Toronto, Centre for Ethics. Influenced by how thinkers such as Claudia Jones and Édouard Glissant leveraged rights claims to demand fair labor standards, preserve distinct cultural practices, and call for the self-determination of colonies, his work investigates the potential of human rights to challenge enduring inequities rooted in colonial projects.

Artist, poet, and musician José Montoya (1932–2013) was a leading figure of the Chicano movement, producing iconic works in many genres, cofounding the art collective Royal Chicano Air Force, and helping to organize for the United Farm Workers, while also teaching at California State University, Sacramento, and establishing the Barrio Art Program there.

In a live, virtual Chats in the Stacks book talk, Ella Maria Diaz, associate professor of Latina/o Studies and Literatures in English, will discuss her recently published book on the life and work of this prominent artist, educator, and activist: José Montoya (Volume 12 of the A Ver Series, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2020). Utilizing oral histories, archival, and digital humanities research, Diaz examines Montoya’s long and diverse career while proposing a new model for the study of Latina/o/x artists who transcend boundaries between art, education, and activism. José Montoya is also a visual delight, richly illustrated with reproductions of Montoya’s art from his collections at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives at UC Santa Barbara and other institutional collections.

A live Q&A will follow the talk. The audience is encouraged to submit their questions in the chat.

In this talk, we will present an orthographic and lexical analysis of three of the first printed documents in Papiamentu, a Portuguese-based Creole spoken in Curaçao: Prefecto Apostolico di Curacao na Cristian di su mision and Catecismo Corticu, both by M. J. Niewindt (1833, 1837, respectively), and Kamiena di Kroes, by J. J. Putman (1850). Our goal is to show that, even though two contemporary Dutch missionaries wrote them, the texts display significant variations, suggesting a quest for an orthographic standard in Papiamentu's earliest stages.

However, these orthographic standards were divergent. On the one hand, Niewdindt's Prefecto Apostolico and Catecismo contain a Hispanicized etymological orthography. On the other hand, Putman's Kamiena shows some influence from Dutch orthography. Consequently, we defend that both writers tried to establish unique orthographic systems for Papiamentu, forming the basis for the models that would end up as the official standardization of the language at the end of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, using a more Hispanicized orthography or one influenced by Dutch reflects its author's world view on Curaçao and the Netherlands as a political unit. At the same time, these two missionaries were able to propose innovations regarding methodology, objectives, recipients and pedagogical strategies that affected profoundly that society. To analyze the convergent and divergent characteristics of the Niewindt and Putman orthographies, we concentrate on the formal relationships between the graphemes in the texts. Our second objective is to study the lexicon of these documents and evaluate the degree of Iberian or Dutch influence on Papiamentu. From the socio-historical viewpoint, in the context of the nineteenth century Curaçao, Niewindt and Putman were living under an increasing influence from The Netherlands, as the influence from Iberia was fading away whilst Curaçao was also becoming more relevant to the Dutch state. However, Curaçao's society remained divided, marked by the scourge of slavery. It should be understood that within the segregated system in Curaçao in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Jews and the Calvinists neither obliged nor permitted slaves to follow any Jewish or Calvinist rites. Therefore, the Catholic religion practised by slaves was closely linked to their language, Papiamentu (Lampe 2002: 110-3). Thus, we consider that the lexicon of the three texts in Papiamentu is principally Iberian, with an irrelevant number of items of Dutch origin. Hence, the influence of Catholicism on Curaçao was also a linguistic one.

Zoom link: https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_k5ce9mxUS1uw2S5puZSfRg

References

Lampe, Armando. 2001. Mission or submission? Moravian and catholic missionaries in the Dutch Caribbean during the 19th century. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht.

Niewindt, M. J. 1833 [2001]. Prefecto Apostolico di Curacao na Cristian di su mision. Fac-simile edition. Bloemendaal/Curaçao: Fundashon pa Planifikashon di Idioma/Stichting Libri Antilliani.

Niewindt, M. J. 1837 [2001]. Catecismo corticu pa uso di catolicanan di Curaçao, pa M.J. Niewindt. Curaçao. Fac-simile edition. Curaçao/Bloemendaal: Fundashon pa Planifikashon di Idioma/Stichting Libri Antilliani.

Putman, Jacobus Josephus. 1850 [2001]. Kamiena di kroes: ku historia, meditasjon i orasjon kortiekoe, pa J. J. Putman. Fac-simile edition. Bloemendaal: Stichting Libri Antilliani.