CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT

RACE AND STATE

MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Department of Sociology University of
Dublin, Trinity College;
in association with  the British Sociological Association's Race and
Ethnicity Study Group, and the Sociological Association of Ireland (SAI) 

EMMET LECTURE HALL, ARTS BUILDING
TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
30-31 March 2005 	

Confirmed  speakers include:

"       Howard Winant, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa
Barbara. 
"       Les Back, Goldsmiths College
"       Gargi Bhattacharyya, Department of Cultural Studies and Sociology,
University of Birmingham. 
"       Robbie McVeigh, Independent researcher, Derry, Northern Ireland.
"       Piaras Mac ?inri, Department of Geography, University College Cork.

'Race' and racism in the post-War era have been largely depoliticised. The
state racism of Nazi Germany has been largely presented as an aberration
from the course of liberal democracy in modern Europe. Colonialism too is
portrayed as an excess or, at least, as not universally murderous. The
racism of populations is explained by recourse to psychologising evocations
of prejudice to be overcome through greater intercultural knowledge. The
official histories of the West at best portrayed racism as a blot on the
memory of the bloody twentieth century rather than, as Zygmunt Bauman
(1989) has shown, as inseparable from the modern project. The work of Eric
Voegelin, Michel Foucault, Frantz Fanon, Aim? C?saire, Hannah Arendt,
George Mosse and, more recently, David Goldberg, Howard Winant, Etienne
Balibar, Enzo Traverso and Ivan Hannaford, stands in stark contrast to the
received tradition in thinking on the history and sociology of modern racism. 

This conference will examine the connection between 'race' and state from
political, sociological and historical perspectives. In the aftermath of
the US elections and in the context of the 'war on terror', we will
question the continued racialisation by the 'racial state' of its 'others'
- be they suspected 'terrorists', immigrants, or indigenous people. As well
as focusing on global racisms and their historical evolution, the
conference will look specifically at the Irish and British contexts. It
will ask in what ways these two differing, yet historically interlinked,
polities fit into both European and more globalised discussions of the
linkages between 'race' and state? For example, does Britain's opposition
to Nazism endow it with a different history from that characterising the
racialisation of the nation-state in Western Europe? Or does Ireland's
position as one of the only European countries to have been colonised
change the nature of the 'race'-state relationship in present-day politics
of immigration in Ireland? What role is played by the legacy of Empire in
shaping the specific construction of the relationship between 'race' and
state in both contexts, the one coloniser, the other colonised? How does
this legacy position these countries, at the westernmost frontier of
Europe, vis-?-vis both the European mainland and the North American context
by which they have often been more greatly influenced? In a time of
increased repression of immigration across the North, what is the place of
racialised histories and legacies within the contemporary global migration
regime, from which, despite the racism it engenders, discussions of the
link between 'race' and state have been all but banished? 

Conference fee:
 €70 waged, €20 unwaged. Please fill the attached application form and send
to MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Department of Sociology, Trinity
College Dublin, Ireland, before 10 March 2005.

Programme:
Conference programme will be available by 1 December 2004. Information
about accommodation and other details will be sent to participants at a
later date.   It is hoped that the conference will result in an edited
collection.

Race and State

EMMET LECTURE HALL, ARTS BUILDING
TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
30-31 March 2005 


APPLICATION FORM


NAME………………………………………………………………………………………..

ADDRESS……………………………………………………………………………………

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EMAIL ADDRESS……………………………………………………………………………

I ENCLOSE CONFERENCE FEE:

"       €70 (waged)

"       €20 (unwaged)

Please make cheques payable to 'Ethnic and racial studies' and send to
MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Department of Sociology, Trinity
College Dublin, Ireland, before 1 March 2005.



        Dr Ronit Lentin
        Course coordinator, 
        MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 
        Department of Sociology, University of Dublin, 
        Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
        Tel: 353 1 6082766. Fax: 353 1 6771300. 
        Email: [log in to unmask]
        http://www.tcd.ie/Sociology/mphil/mphil.htm