Professor Janet Wilson, Dr Larissa Allwork and CoHaB funded PhD student, Sarah Knor attended the international conference of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network on ‘Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging’ (CoHaB) at WWU Muenster in Germany (22nd – 24th September 2013).

Professor Homi Bhabha at the CoHaB conference.

This major conference on transdisciplinary approaches in Diaspora Studies featured lectures by Professor Homi K. Bhabha (Harvard University), Professor Amitava Kumar (Vassar College), Professor Pnina Werbner (Keele University) and Professor Ihab Hassan (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee).  Unable to make the conference, Professor Hassan’s paper was read by Professor Klaus Stierstorfer. The conference also included a round table discussion on ‘Diaspora Studies in the Twenty-First Century’ which was chaired by Professor Elleke Boehmer (Oxford University) with Professor Avtar Brah (Birkbeck, University of London) and Khachig Tololyan (Wesleyan University).

CoHaB student Sarah Knor

As the University of Northampton is a member of the CoHaB ITN, Wilson, Allwork and Knor actively participated in the conference. Knor attended a special workshop run by Professor Bhabha.   Allwork chaired a panel on ‘Jewish Perspectives on Home and Belonging’, while Wilson introduced Amitava Kumar’s lecture and chaired a panel on ‘Spaces of Displacement’. All members of the Northampton CoHaB team were also present at a series of CoHaB ITN meetings on Wednesday 25 September. Here Knor gave a progress report on her CoHaB funded doctorate, ‘Performances of Mothering in South Asian Diasporic Narratives and Films’.

Our thanks go to our colleagues in Muenster: Professor Klaus Stierstorfer, Annika Merk, Marlena Tronicke, Florian Klager and Leonie Windt for organising such a wonderful and thought provoking event.

Click on the link below for a copy of the conference poster:

CoHaB 2013 Conference Poster

Click on this link to read the conference programme:

CoHaB Conference Programme September 2013