http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/ Student events in Cambridge en-gb http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/logo.png http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3002/territorial-phantom-pains-and-other-cartographic-anxieties/
Abstract

The study of borders has traditionally been the remit of political geography. Territorial disputes in particular have frequently been approached in terms of their economic and geopolitical significance. However political geography has found it notably difficult to account for a nation’s strong emotional attachment to territories that are often small, with little material or geopolitical value. In fact, if territorial disputes are conceptualised as disputes at state level, resolutions are frequently hampered by the emotional attachment of ordinary citizens to these ‘tiny specks of largely uninhabited and essentially useless isles or peaks’ (Chung 2004). State leaders are forced to play a two-level game of negotiations, with the other country as well as with their domestic constituents.

Such emotional responses bear testimony to the intimate melding of individual and national identities. Socialised into seeing themselves as inherently tied to the nation in its current physical incarnation, individuals frequently perceive the loss of national territory as an assault on bodily integrity. In revisiting the common trope of the nation-as-body through inclusion of valuable insights from neuroscience, my paper will explore what happens when a lack of fit intervenes between the physical geographical extent of the nation and the mental map held by its inhabitants. Such a disconnect becomes especially visible when a nation loses part of its territory. ‘Lost’ territories, no longer included within the national body, remain nonetheless part of a previous national incarnation. As such, they frequently draw national sentiments and affect, producing what can be labelled ‘phantom pains’. Similar disconnects can also occur when a nation finds itself in rapid expansion: as the borders of the nation extend outwards to include more and more territory, the divide between self and Other becomes clouded, and the mental map of that nation’s citizens requires constant reframing.

The event is free to attend but registration is required. Please click on the link on the right hand side of this page: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2022/

About Franck Billé

Franck Billé is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Social Anthropology, and member of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit, Cambridge. His current project focuses on representation and mimicry in the twin cities of Blagoveshchensk and Heihe, on the Sino-Russian border. He previously carried out research in Mongolia where he investigated the prevalence of anti-Chinese sentiments. He has published articles in Inner Asia, Cambridge Anthropology and Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. He is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Spectral Presences: Anxiety, Excess and Anti-Chinese Speech in Postsocialist Mongolia.]]> arts http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3002/territorial-phantom-pains-and-other-cartographic-anxieties/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3046/what-is-media-archaeology/ Abstract

Dr Jussi Parikka will offer an introduction to the emerging field of media archaeology and analyse the innovative theoretical and artistic methodology used to excavate current media through its past.

What is Media Archaeology examines the theoretical challenges of studying digital culture and memory and opens up the sedimented layers of contemporary media culture. The author contextualizes media archaeology in relation to other key media studies debates including software studies, German media theory, imaginary media research, new materialism and digital humanities.]]> arts http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3046/what-is-media-archaeology/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3047/what-is-media-archaeology/ Abstract

Dr Jussi Parikka will offer an introduction to the emerging field of media archaeology and analyse the innovative theoretical and artistic methodology used to excavate current media through its past.

What is Media Archaeology examines the theoretical challenges of studying digital culture and memory and opens up the sedimented layers of contemporary media culture. The author contextualizes media archaeology in relation to other key media studies debates including software studies, German media theory, imaginary media research, new materialism and digital humanities.]]> arts http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3047/what-is-media-archaeology/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/2729/applied-urban-modelling-aum2012/
AUM2012 is the second of a planned series of annual symposia for discussing applied urban simulation models that offer insight into complex dynamics of urban change and inform practical initiatives.]]> arts http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/2729/applied-urban-modelling-aum2012/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3035/mindfulness-and-meditation/ other http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3035/mindfulness-and-meditation/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3044/a-conversation-with-adam-thorpe/ arts http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3044/a-conversation-with-adam-thorpe/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3049/beowulf-v/ arts http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3049/beowulf-v/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3045/the-tastes-of-wine-towards-a-cultural-history/ arts http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3045/the-tastes-of-wine-towards-a-cultural-history/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3007/erasing-memories/ quirky http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3007/erasing-memories/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3036/mindfulness-and-meditation/ other http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3036/mindfulness-and-meditation/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3001/a-little-ghost-in-natural-colors-nabokov-and-the-reproduction-of-colour/
Abstract

In writing in 1971 that ‘a bad memoirist re-touches his past, and the result is a blue-tinted or pink-shaded photograph’, Nabokov locates himself on the snobbish side of a contemporary debate about the merits of colour photography. The problem with photographic colour has always been that the effect can seem artificial. But it was in the 1950s and 1960s, when coloured images in magazines and films, and later in polaroid snapshots and on television screens, were gradually becoming normal that their ‘bepop and electric blues, furious reds, and poison greens’ – to borrow the photographer Walker Evans’s sneering phrases – came to suggest a lack of cultural sophistication. As Evans writes: ‘There are four words which must be whispered: colour photography is vulgar.’ In reading the self-consciously artificial colours of Lolita (1955) and Pale Fire (1962) as an aspect of the larger interest in misrepresentation which characterises Nabokov’s post-war work, this paper will consider his sense of the ‘vulgarity’ of garishness as a mode of inspiration. In both these novels, I will argue, unnatural or ‘natural’ colour is crucial to the conception of fictional worlds.

The event is free to attend but registration is required: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2023/

About Beci Dobbin

Beci Dobbin is in the fourth year of her junior research fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. She works on Modernist literature and popular culture, with an emphasis on photography and film. She is currently gathering material for a book on Nabokov's shallowness.]]> arts http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3001/a-little-ghost-in-natural-colors-nabokov-and-the-reproduction-of-colour/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3037/mindfulness-and-meditation/ other http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3037/mindfulness-and-meditation/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3048/this-project-will-self-destruct-in-five-years/
A Cambridge Digital Humanities for Early Career Researchers Workshop

The Cambridge Digital Humanities Network for Early Career researchers team is holding a workshop for postgraduates and early career researchers engaged in, or looking into, digital humanities, including the arts and social sciences. If you are an early career digital humanities researcher at Cambridge and you wish to present your project in this workshop, please click here: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2034/

The event is free to attend but registration is required online http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2034/

Confirmed speakers

Dr Stewart Brookes (DigiPal)
Dr Charles Crowther (Vindolanda project)
Dr James Brown (Cultures of Knowledge)
Chris Martin (CARET, University of Cambridge)
Dr Alison Pearn (Darwin Correspondence project, University of Cambridge)
Professor Andrew Prescott (King’s College London)
Professor Alison Sinclair (Wrongdoing in Spain project, University of Cambridge)

& lightning presentations by Cambridge Early Career Researchers]]> arts http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3048/this-project-will-self-destruct-in-five-years/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3053/free-racing/ sport http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3053/free-racing/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3050/summer-drewry-dance/ With tricky dances by John Drewry - please come to Monday dancing first if you're planning on coming to the Summer Dance!
Please bring a plate of food to share.
Mayflower Jig J8x32
Ferla Mor R8x32
Cherrybank Gardens S3x32
Tappie Toorie R96
The Wallace S8x32
Bees of Maggieknockater J4x32
Oompah, Oompah, Shove it Up Your Joompah! R8x32
Bridge of Sighs S8x32
Midsummer Madness J8x32
Elegant Lassies of Elgin W8x32
Flight Over Fraser Island R8x32
Haunt of the Gnomes S2x64
Alex Doig's Jig J8x32
John of Bon Accord R8x32
Cradle Song S8x32
Caldercruix J8x32
The Byron Strathspey S8x32
Glayva J8x32
Mrs MacPherson of Inveran R8x32]]> party http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3050/summer-drewry-dance/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3020/annual-dinner-black-tie/ arts http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3020/annual-dinner-black-tie/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3038/mindfulness-and-meditation/ other http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3038/mindfulness-and-meditation/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/2994/valuing-sustainability-in-the-built-environment-symposium-2012/
The main objective of the symposium is to explore how sustainability is valued in the built environment, and gain a better understanding of how the values of different stakeholders, from developers and government bodies to everyday users, can affect the integration of the principles of sustainability into the built environment. The event will cover a broad range of sustainability topics under four main themes, thus generating innovative thinking and allowing researchers to explore environmental, financial, socio-economic, behavioural, cultural and regulatory aspects.

The symposium will include paper and poster presentations, as well as interactive roundtable debates and workshop sessions. The sessions will also seek to apply the outcomes of the event to real life case studies, including in the context of educational buildings, building on the findings of the GreenBRIDGE summer school 2011.]]> environment http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/2994/valuing-sustainability-in-the-built-environment-symposium-2012/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3008/invisible-lives-thinking-critically-about-transgender-issues/
Consequently, transgender people became an object of fascination, and plenty was written about them – by the mainstream media, feminists and the medical establishment whose management of transsexualism has proved especially controversial – with transgender people themselves frequently excluded from the conversation, with their identities erased or discounted, or having their experiences framed by people or outlets with no lived experience of being transgender.

Juliet Jacques, author of the Guardian’s Transgender Journey series which documents the gender reassignment process from a first-person perspective, critically examines some of the ideas and myths that grew around transgender people, and the gulf between mainstream political and media discussions of transgender issues and the autonomous transgender theory and identities that developed in response.]]> quirky http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3008/invisible-lives-thinking-critically-about-transgender-issues/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3010/annual-general-meeting/ other http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/3010/annual-general-meeting/ http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/add.html cusu http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/events/add.html