CCSRE Hosts Yearly Symposium

On Thursday, Feb. 28 and Friday, March 1, the Center for Comparative Studies of Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE) will host its annual symposium. The theme for this year’s event is “No Place Like Home? Imagining Race, Ethnicity and Migration.”

The symposium will kick off at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday with a roundtable panel discussing North to South migration. Presenters will include Sharlene Mollett, an assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth College, Robert Prasch, a professor of economics at Middlebury and Nina Berman, a professor of comparative studies at Ohio State University.

The panel will be followed by a screening of the film Paraiso for Sale by Anayansi Prado at 6:30 p.m. The film also discusses North to South migration, focusing on reverse migration between Latin America and the U.S.

Associate Professor of American Studies and Director of the CCSRE Susan Burch explained that North to South migration “often receives less attention [than South to North migration],” so the organizing committee opted to explore an unfamiliar topic.

Friday will start with a workshop titled “Refugee Migration and its Reception,” led by Director for the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program Judy Scott.

Following the workshop, beginning at 2 p.m., will be another roundtable panel featuring Scott, Assistant Professor of South Asian Studies at Hampshire College Uditi Sen and the Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of Government at Smith College Gregory White. This second panel will discuss the differences between migrants seeking the benefits of education or economic opportunity with refugees, who are forced to move from their homes.

The day and symposium will finish with the keynote address at 4 p.m., presented by award-winning author and Lannan Chair of Poetics at Georgetown University Dinaw Mengestu. Mengetsu has written two novels and has had work published in Rolling Stone, Jane Magazine, Harper’s and The Wall Street Journal. His talk, titled “The Making of an Immigrant,” will discuss how the vocabulary of migration affects the reading and construction of immigrant narratives.

Burch said that she is excited about the diversity of the participants in the symposium.

“The presenters reflect our interest in global as well as local contexts,” she wrote in an email. “The diversity of the disciplines and ideas showcased in this program reflect the many people who helped dream this event into action.”

Members of the faculty began discussing plans for the 2013 CCSRE symposium back in the spring of 2012. The organizing committee, consisting of Prasch, Assistant Professor of German Natalie Eppelsheimer, Assistant Professor of Portuguese Fernando Rocha and Events Coordinator of the economics department Vijaya Wunnava, finalized the plans for the symposium this past fall.

The first annual CCSRE symposium was held back in the 2009-2010 academic year and focused on the theme of citizenship, race and ethnicity.

Burch feels that the annual symposia serve to strengthen the mission of the CCSRE.

“Symposia provide a rich space for exchanging ideas [and] stretching the ways we learn and share information,” she wrote in an email. “Members of the College appreciate the opportunity to meet leading figures in our areas of interest, and to foster collaborations that often extend far beyond the symposia. Having signature annual events, like symposia or distinguished speaker series, enables us to sustain and deeper our engagement with issues of race and ethnicity.”

Overall, Burch is excited about every aspect of the upcoming symposium.

“It’s going to be an amazing two days,” she said.

Check out middleburycampus.com for up-to-date coverage of the symposium events.