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NCA Public Program
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How do we think, teach, live, and most importantly hope, through the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in the U.S.?
This public program brings together refugee and immigrant scholars to ask how we think through concepts such as
memory, resistance, refusal, desire, and pain when our established systems of knowing and living are collapsing.
The program considers hope as a communicative practice that shapes our response to oppression and violence.
By centering immigrant and refugee epistemologies, the program asks how the rise of authoritarianism in the United States
can be understood from perspectives of those who have survived the worst.
The program suggests that the epistemology of hopeless hope is necessary if we are to effectively address the crisis of
violence and oppression.
Learning Outcomes
- Learn how to think through the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in the U.S. through new modes of theorizing memory, resistance, desire, and pain.
- Examine what refugee and immigrant experiences contribute to our understanding of authoritarianism and fascism.
- Explore hope as a communicative practice essential to responding to authoritarianism and fascism.
Speakers
Dr. Godfried Asante (he/him) is an Associate Professor of Communication at San Diego State University.
His research focuses on transnational sexual politics, queer postcolonial studies, and Black identity politics.
Dr. Ekaterina Haskins is Professor of Rhetoric and Visual Studies and Director of the Center for Democratic Deliberation at Penn State.
Her work focuses on rhetorical theory, public memory, and visual culture.
Dr. Mai Nou Xiong-Gum is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Furman University whose research examines
media, movement, and belonging within contested political spaces.
Dr. Oscar Alfonso Mejía researches migration and indigeneity using rhetorical and critical cultural methods.
Dr. Marina Levina is Professor of Communication and Film at the University of Memphis and editor of
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.
Moderator: Dr. Marina Levina — University of Memphis
Program Outline
Topic & Speaker Introduction (10 minutes)
Presentation One — The Power of Hopeless Hope (12 minutes)
Speaker: Dr. Marina Levina
Presentation Two — Memory, Community, and Hope in Desperate Times (12 minutes)
Speaker: Dr. Ekaterina Haskins
Presentation Three — An Obstinate Homecoming and Hopeful Continuations (12 minutes)
Speaker: Dr. Oscar Alfonso Mejía
Presentation Four — Intercultural Pedagogy as Survival (12 minutes)
Speaker: Dr. Godfried Asante
Presentation Five — Resistance and its Discontents (12 minutes)
Speaker: Dr. Mai Nou Xiong-Gum