During spring semester, DISCO (The Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU) is focusing on the theme of “In/visible Identities.” To kick-off our semester-long exploration, we invite you to participate in a World Café-style conversation.
We plan to focus on the following questions:
- How does identity matter in social relations, politics, urban planning, scientific or academic study?
- What makes identity visible or invisible? How does power and difference work through visibility and invisibility?
- Why choose invisibility or visibility?
The theme is inspired by an installation, “Invisible Identity: Mujeres Dominicanas en California,” created by Prof. Sonia BasSheva Manjon, Director of the OSU Lawrence and Isabel Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise. Manjon's work explores how photography, video, ethnography and oral history both capture expressions of identity and allow for particular identities to be expressed. Manjon suggests that identities are comforting, until they aren't; identities are situational, yet not always; and while we may think we already know what a particular identity category means, we often don't. Manjon's installation focuses on the less well-known Latina/o population of Dominican immigrants in the U.S., however, this work asks us all to consider: “The question of identity within physical space…and the perception of living silently between two worlds…and belonging to neither.”
These themes of silence, invisibility, and identity inspired DISCO collaborators to sponsor both a conversation and to link a series of events during spring semester.
For more information, please contact: Prof. J. Wu.
