You Say You Want a Revolution: Revolutions in Historical Perspective
Autumn 2018
Fri., Sept. 28, Wang Zheng, University of Michigan, “A Socialist Feminist Revolution in the Early People’s Republic of China” (Location: Dulles Hall, Room 168) This talk is sponsored in part by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.
Prof. Wang Zheng presents the hidden history of the socialist state feminists who maneuvered behind the scenes in the Chinese Communist Party to promote women’s liberation. Her research focuses on the tenacious struggles of these CCP women who joined the revolution in the early 1920s and 1930s and became part of the state power holders after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Investigating their visions, strategies, triumphs and failures, the lecture engenders the high politics of the CCP and raises fundamental questions about male dominance in movements that aim to pursue social justice.
Fri., Oct. 26, James McDougall, University of Oxford, “Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions from Anticolonialism to the Arab Spring: Algeria, Africa, Islam” (Location: Dulles Hall, Room 168)
Fri., Nov. 30, Louis Pérez, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, “A Past to Look Forward To: The Cuban Revolution as History Foretold” (Location: Thompson Library, Room 165)
Social scientists look to economic and social structures to find the root causes of revolutions, but what about history itself as a rationale for radical change? Professor Louis A. Pérez will explore Fidel Castro’s use of history and national identity in mobilizing Cubans for revolution. This talk is co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies and the U.S. Department of Education through a Title VI grant.
Spring 2019
Fri., Jan. 18, David P. Fields, University of Wisconsin–Madison, “The Three Revolutions of Syngman Rhee” (Abstract) This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Korea Studies and a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center. (Location: Dulles Hall, Room 168)
In the pantheon of authoritarian strongmen of the Cold War, it is tempting to think of Syngman Rhee as the one we know the best. Prior to his return to Korea in 1945—courtesy of a War Department transport plane—Rhee spent nearly forty years in the United States. He earned degrees from Harvard and Princeton, spoke English fluently, and was a dedicated Christian to boot. He seemed tailor-made for the task of assisting the U.S. Army to occupy a country that did not want to be occupied. But Rhee was not returning to Korea as an American miracle man, but as a Korean revolutionary hero who had struggled against the power structures of the traditional Korean state and the Japanese occupation. Back on Korean soil he would lead a third revolution against both the last vestiges of the Chosun state–which the Japanese had largely left in place–and what he believed was a Soviet effort to subjugate the entire peninsula. This lecture will examine Syngman Rhee’s role as a revolutionary and what it can teach us about the Korean Independence Movement, the Division of Korea, and the Korean War.
Thurs., Feb. 21, 3:30 p.m., Ludivine Bantigny, Université de Rouen, “1968: General strike, practices and hopes” (blog site) (Location: 120 Mershon Center, 1501 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH)
The current “Yellow Vest” movement in France owes something to its predecessors: Prof. Bantigny reveals that 1968 in France mobilized 10 million people, including more than 7 million employees and workers who engaged in a general strike for goals that went far beyond the economic. Protesters occupied factories, companies, offices, stations, harbors, post offices, theaters, cultural centers and schools in the hope of creating a more just, emancipated, and egalitarian society. This talk is cosponsored by the Mershon Center and the Department of French and Italian.
Fri., March 1, Zara Anishanslin, University of Delaware and John Lear, University of Puget Sound, “Art in a Time of Revolution: Reconsidering the American Revolution and the Mexican Revolution,” Comment by Byron Hamann, History of Art. Co-sponsored by History of Art. (Location: 165 Thompson Library) (more info about Prof. Anishanslin)
Professor Lear’s talk will focus on Diego Rivera as an artist/political figure in the Mexican Revolution and the Cold War. Professor Anishanslin will speak on the interplay of art and material culture in the American Revolution. Byron Hamman of the History of Art Department will offer comments and we hope for a robust discussion across time, geography, and discipline with these great scholars. Co-sponsored by History of Art and the Center for Latin American Studies.
Thurs., March 7, 2:30-4:00 p.m., Ann Garland Mahler, Univ. of Virginia, “Race and Empire from the Tricontinental to the Global South” (Location: Hagerty Hall, Room 0062) CHR is a co-sponsor of this presentation.
(This presentation was not filmed.)
This talk traces the history and intellectual legacy of the understudied global justice movement called the Tricontinental — an alliance of liberation struggles from eighty-two countries, founded in Havana in 1966. Focusing on racial violence and inequality, the Tricontinental’s critique of global capitalist exploitation has influenced historical radical thought, contemporary social movements such as the World Social Forum and Black Lives Matter, and a Global South political imaginary. The movement’s discourse, which circulated in four languages, also found its way into radical artistic practices, like Cuban revolutionary film and Nuyorican literature. In this talk, Mahler guides us through the Tricontinental’s geography of Cold War radicalism and revolution ¾ from Harlem to Havana, Hanoi, and Cape Town ¾ sharing this movement’s innovative cultural production and reflecting on its relevance today.
Anne Garland Mahler is Assistant Professor of Latin American cultural studies at the University of Virginia. She is author of From the Tricontinental to the Global South: Race, Radicalism, and Transnational Solidarity (Duke, 2018) and director of the online publication Global South Studies. Mahler frequently publishes and speaks in the areas of histories of radical internationalism, racial discourses, cold war politics, and postcolonial and Global South theory.
Fri., April 5, Marcella Echeverri Munoz, Yale University, “Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution” (Location: Dulles Hall, Room 168) Co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies.
Fri., April 12, Gil Joseph, Yale University, “Border Crossings and the Remaking of Latin American Cold War Studies: Transnational Approaches to Revolution and Counterrevolution” (Location: Dulles Hall, Room 168) Co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies.