Nostalgia for one’s homeland, and memories – good, bad or ambivalent – are often overlooked when thinking about the global, geopolitical impacts of migration.The title of the next event in the Migration Matters panel series “Migration, Memory and Nostalgia” explores these issues from a variety of disciplinary, artistic and conceptual perspectives.
Julia Creet
“Migration, Memory and Nostalgia” will take place on Thursday, Jan. 29, from 3 to 5pm in 519 Kaneff Tower. Speakers in the panel are York Professors Othon Alexandrakis, Julia Creet and Lily Cho.
English Professor Lily Cho will present “The Passport: Citizenship and Memory.” Her research focuses on diasporic subjectivity within the fields of cultural studies, post-colonial literature and theory, along with Asian North American and Canadian literature. Cho is currently conducting research on Chinese head tax certificates known as “C.I. 9’s” where she explores the relationship between citizenship, photography, and anticipation as a mode of agency.
Lily Cho
Julia Creet, English professor and film director, will present, “Remigration: Genetic Genealogy and Ancestral Identification.” Creet is the producer of MUM:A Story of Silence (2008), a documentary about a Holocaust survivor who tried to forget, along with Need to Know: Ancestry and the Business of Family (2015) a feature-length documentary about the industry behind the “innate” need to know one’s past. She is also the co-editor of Memory and Migration: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Memory Studies with York humanities Professor Andreas Kitzmann.
Othon Alexandrakis
Othon Alexandrakis, anthropology professor, will present, “Athenian Intensities: Trauma, Connection, and Crisis Politics.” Alexandrakis’ forthcoming monograph is titled, Crisis Ordinary: Hellenic Topographies of a Coming Politics, and focuses on the precocity and political emergence in Athens, Greece.
For more information, visit the Migration Matters website.