Institute for Comparative Modernities partners with Tate Modern for conference

Cornell’s the Institute for Comparative Modernities will partner with the Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational and the Africa Institute, Sharjah, to host “Axis of Solidarity: Landmarks, Platforms, Futures,” a conference at the Tate Modern in London from Feb. 23-25.

The conference will bring together scholars, writers, curators, researchers and artists from across the world to reflect and discuss the international solidarity movements that emerged in the second half of the 20th century. These movements occurred during processes of decolonization in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The histories of solidarity have resulted in the rise of new resistance movements such as Black Lives Matter in the U.S. and anti-globalisation, anti-racist and environmental platforms worldwide. The conference will be  comprised of panels aimed at furthering the understanding of global solidarity movements, with a particular focus on those that originated in the southern hemisphere.

The conference is organized into three topic areas — historic landmarks; political and cultural transformations and emancipatory futures. Landmark events featured will include the Cuban Revolution, the Algerian War for Independence, as well as liberation movements in Vietnam, South Africa and Palestine, among others. Platforms will include Pan-African gatherings, the Bandung and Tricontinental Conferences and publications such as “Lotus,” “Souffles” and “Black Phoenix.” Emancipatory futures will be explored through keynote speeches from historians Tariq Ali, assistant professor in the History Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and Russell Rickford, associate professor of history at Cornell, as well as a series of nine panel presentations and a closing panel on the future of solidarity scholarship.

The conference will feature numerous other speakers, including Omar Barghouti, Eva Bentcheva, Anna Bernard, Kassahun Checole, Manthia Diawara, Kay Dickinson, Jihan El-Tahri and Zeyad El Nabolsy. Tickets can be purchased on the website.