Race, Nature, and Naturalization in Film

This seminar seeks to think about the role of nature and naturalization in the construction of statehood and racial regimes. It will involve a close reading and discussion of selected passages from writers that Jumana Manna has been engaged with, such as Cedric Robinson and Ann Laura Stoler, and watch excerpts from films by Deborah Stratmann, Omar Amiralay, and Eyal Sivan; filmmakers who unpack ideological regimes and their impacts on various communities and on the land.

Advance Registration for the seminar is required. To register and receive readings, please contact info.ictconsortium@berkeley.edu.

Jumana Manna is a visual artist working primarily with film and sculpture. Her work explores how power is articulated through relationships, often focusing on the body, land, and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. She has won several awards for her films and artistic practice, including the A.M. Qattan’s Young Palestinian Artist Award, CPH: DOX New Visions Award, and Dokufest Kosovo’s Green Dox Award. Recent solo exhibitions include MuHKA Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, 2021; Home Works Forum 8, Beirut, 2019; Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin and Henie Onstad Museum, Sandvika, 2018; Jeu de Paume, Paris and CAPC Bordeaux, 2017. Her exhibition at BAMPFA will run from December 8 – March 6, 2022. Manna was raised in Jerusalem and is based in Berlin.

Presented by the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of California, Berkeley.