CURRENTS: María Célleri and Fan Yang

CURRENTS: Humanities Work Now lunchtime series showcases exciting new faculty work in the humanities in a dynamic and inter-disciplinary setting.

La Virgen del Panecillo: Quito’s (Neo)Colonial Urban Transformation & Decolonial Future Imaginaries

María Célleri, Assistant Professor, Gender, Women’s + Sexuality Studies

Dr. Celleri will discuss her current book project, Uncovering the Virgen del Panecillo: Quito’s (Neo)Colonial Urban Transformation & Decolonial Future Imaginaries. The book traces the political and symbolic importance of the monument of the Virgen del Panecillo in a (post)colonial cultural research study of how public monuments come to represent and often reproduce national imaginations which are then mapped onto national territories. She will focus on two chapters of the book, which demonstrate the complex, and often contradictory ways the Virgen del Panecillo has been adapted and re-appropriated to either reinforce and challenge national discourses around proper womanhood.
 
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Ecological Chimerica: Rethinking Media, Politics, and the State in the Time of COVID-19

Fan Yang, Associate Professor, Media and Communication Studies; Dresher Center Fall 2020 Residential Faculty Research Fellow

America has become the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis, which began in Wuhan, China. The pandemic as an ecological event invites us to reflect on the connections between place and space, media and environment, nation-states and global communities. Engaging ecologically informed scholarship in media studies and international relations, this presentation argues that recognizing the multifarious entanglements of the two presumed superpowers is crucial for imagining global politics anew.