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An IGS Conversation: Creative Careers in Global Media, Arts, and Philanthropy

Wednesday, April 4

7 pm (6:30 for pizza)

Mandel Center Reading Room (3rd floor)

In a tough job market we are all wondering: what can a college graduate do with a liberal arts degree?  And yet it turns out that companies and organization like liberal arts graduates – especially those with international experience.  A broad education seems to encourage employees to make the creative leaps that drive innovation.

So for our final IGS Conversation we ask: how can studying literature, history, art, politics, and foreign languages help you to launch a career, make your mark – maybe even change the world?

Our featured guest speaker is Michelle Young—blogger, philanthropist, and new media CEO.  Ms. Young studied art history in college and has since carved out a career that blends her interests in fashion, music, urban history, art, and travel.

Ms. Young is the founder and CEO of Untapped Cities, a fast-growing global media brand with offices in New York, Paris, and San Francisco. Ms. Young blogs for The Huffington Post, and has written for The New York Times, Pitchfork, Architecture Daily, Kill Screen, NPR, Business Insider, and the International Business Times. She also works on projects with the social philanthropy division at Liquidnet Holdings, Inc., an electronic marketplace that specializes in equity securities trading.

Our panel will also include two Brandeis seniors, Sara Robinson and Bryan Flatt.  Sara, a double IGS and business major, is finishing a senior thesis on the global proliferation of Harry Potter – a project that contributes to her work as an analyst at Sandbox industries, a startup incubator in San Francisco.  Last year, at the height of Britain’s phone-hacking scandal, Bryan was helping a media law firm in London prosecute tabloid journalists.  He will talk about how experiences abroad and a double major in history and IGS are helping him pursue a career in media and entertainment.

Come join the Conversation and share ideas!  You can leverage your experiences in and out of the classroom to launch interesting, meaningful careers.

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Y’en a marre (Enough is Enough)

Grace Killian

Y’en a marre or ‘Enough is enough’ are words written on walls all across the capital city of Dakar, Senegal.  But these are notjust words. Y’en a marre is a youth movement led by rappers and journalists.  As I took my hour-long walk down a main road to school every day, these words were put in context when I passed beggars and groups of lean-tos built on the side of the road.  These images would reappear in my consciousness when there was a power cut again, as there was everyday for several hours. The sight of my neighborhood darkened by a power cut was particularly striking against the backdrop of the African Renaissance Monument in the distance. This 164ft monument was meant to symbolize Africa rising from a history of oppression yet its construction was estimated at $27 million while the majority of the population constantly struggled with poverty.  The frustration towards these contradictions and life in Senegal was palpable as well.  I could see it when my host mother would sigh, “What kind of country is this?!” or when we would meet a demonstration in the streets and be forced to find a different route.

This movement and these frustrations were also coming at a critical time in Senegalese history: a highly contested election. Then president, Abdoulaye Wade, was running for a third term despite the fact that he had passed a law restricting presidents to serving only two terms earlier in his presidency. Wade also faced widespread criticism and accusations of corruption. In many ways, Y’en a marre and the people of Senegal seemed to be dissatisfied with Wade and his presidency and considered this to be the cause for most problems. The preparations of the coming election were everywhere: walls were also graffitied with names of candidates and expressions of hope for 2012 and there were nightly debates on TV discussing the legality of Wade’s bid for candidacy. Continue reading “Y’en a marre (Enough is Enough)”

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Interview with IGS Faculty: Dr. Janet McIntosh

What is your current research about?

My past research was based on ethnic tensions in East Africa and my first book was on Islam and ethno-religious boundaries on the Kenya coast. My second project that is a book in progress is about White Kenyans and their peculiar dilemmas because just as they try and fit in as good Kenyan citizens in this post-colonial world, it seems like the colonial unconscious rears its head. However, when they try to be good Europeans, it turns out they have in fact been more acculturated to African life ways than they are necessarily comfortable with. So I am writing about the interesting dilemmas that they face.

How does your research speak to contemporary global issues?

There has been quite a lot of scholarly attention paid to subaltern groups particularly colonized groups. My research is a slightly unusual perspective on the post-colonial condition because I am looking at elite Whites who used to be in power and held sway across much of the globe. However, now they find themselves a foundered elite and I am wondering how they try and find a place in a world that has judged colonialism so negatively. My work speaks to the currents of liberal humanism moving across the globe and challenging old regimes, by asking what happens to the former destabilized elites. White Kenyans think of themselves as capaciously multicultural but it is their very multiculturalism that is considered a problem from the vantage point of some Kenyans who think citizenship is linked to race. So White Kenyan dilemmas and identities are intricately linked up with contemporary global questions about national identity and race and ethnicity. Continue reading “Interview with IGS Faculty: Dr. Janet McIntosh”

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Soli Sorabjee Lectures in South-Asian Studies: Bina Agarwal

March 19, 2012

5:30 pm, Rapaporte Treasure Hall

Bina Agarwal is a prize-winning feminist economist who studies gender, development, and agriculture in India and throughout South Asia. She writes about changing the framework of traditional economics to include women and implicit power relationships in decision making found in patriarchical societies.

The Soli Sorabjee lecture series engages with themes of “justice” — broadly defined to include the interrogation of human rights, historical narratives, literary and political representations, gender and social justice, citizenship and democracy, and cross-border connections between the nations of South Asia. Our goal is to expose students at Brandeis (and the larger public) to the scholarship being conducted in the multidisciplinary fields of South Asian Studies, both in the United States and in South Asia itself, as well as to the vast range of South Asian intellectual and artistic traditions. The series is sponsored by the South Asian Studies Programand the Brandeis-India Initiative. It was named after the honorable Soli J. Sorabjee, former attorney general of India and a friend of Brandeis University.

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Improvisations: Raga in Afghanistan and North India

Intercultural Residency Series, Spring 2012

March 6-10, 2012 

Concert: Saturday, March 10, 8:00 p.m.

Pre-Concert Talk: 7:00-7:45

Speaker: Theodore Levin, Arthur R. Virgin Professor of Music at Dartmouth College; Raga residency curator.

Slosberg Recital Hall

Master performers virtuosically reunite two historically kindred stringed instruments through the common language of raga and tabla. Improvisations is a group of three extremely talented men who bring to Brandeis a taste of culture that is part of not only the world music scene, but also part of the Music Unites Us program.

Homayun Sakhi is the outstanding Afghan rubab player of his generation. His performance style has been shaped by traditional Afghan and Indian music and by contemporary music from around the world. Born in Kabul into one of Afghanistan’s leading musical families, Sakhi studied rubab with his father, Ustad Ghulam Sakhi. He performs around the world is active in teaching rubab to young Afghans, both in Afghanistan and in the West.

American, Ken Zuckerman is internationally acclaimed as one of today’s finest sarod virtuosos, is also known as a master of improvisation. He completed 37 years of training under the rigorous discipline of India’s legendary sarod master, the late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. He has performed with Maestro Khan in Europe, India, and the United States and with some of India’s finest tabla virtuosos.

Salar Nader, born in Germany in 1981, is one of his generation’s leading performers on the tabla. A disciple of the great tabla master Zakir Hussain, Salar Nader frequently accompanies Homayun Sakhi as well as other performers of Afghan and North Indian classical music. A resident of San Francisco, Nader recently appeared as an on-stage musician in an American theatrical adaptation of the best-selling novel The Kite Runner.

This residency is supported in partnership with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

Full Residency Schedule Here

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The Snow Revolution and the Thaw of Putin’s Regime

Elections this past Sunday returned Vladimir Putin to Russian presidency; more than 60 percent voted to give Putin back the office he held for most of the past decade.  International and domestic observers, however, claim the election was marred by fraud; right now thousands of protesters are filling Moscow’s Pushkin Square, promising a prolonged demonstration.

A Brandeis twist: there’s an alum right at the heart of the protest movement and she’s speaking on campus tomorrow night!

Tuesday, March 6, come hear Olga Golovanova ’10, a political activist just returned from demonstrations against the Putin regime inMoscow.

Golovanova’s talk, “The Snow Revolution and the Thaw of Putin’s Regime,” will take place in Rapaporte Treasure Hall at 7 p.m on Tues, March 6.  Russian refreshments will be served.

The talk is part of Russian Culture Week, with events all week.