News

• Datum: 5. & 6. Juni 2018
• Ort: Iwalewahaus, Wölfelstr. 2, Bayreuth 
• Homepage: https://www.narratingwaves.com
• Pressemitteilung der Universität Bayreuth

• Prof. Dr. Georg Hein (University of Essen/Germany) 
  
• Dr. Bernd Florath (FU Berlin/Germany)
  
• Prof. Dr. Onookome Okome (University of Alberta/Canada)
• Dr. Esther Posner (University of Bayreuth/Germany)
• Convenors: Prof. Dr. Susan Arndt (BIGSAS), Shirin Assa (BIGSAS), Xin Li (UBT), Samira Paraschiv (UBT), Dilan Zoe Smida (UBT), James Wachira (BIGSAS), Mingqing Yuan (BIGSAS)
  

Waves matter. In the beginning there was a wave and ever since then everything keeps performing (as) waves. For example, just as much as 80% of planet earth consist of water, the human body is run by water, too. Water is, in turn, never existing beyond waves. Likewise, the spacetime of our world’s outer spaces keeps entangling the smallest and the largest entities ever just as much as our tiny planet with the rest of our universe via (electromagnetic) waves. Just as much as, hence, waves are key to natural and life sciences, humanities keep thinking in waves, mobilizing metaphors that feature “wave” to narrate societal and cultural processes, like when talking of the first, second and third wave of feminism. Hence, waves constitute what Stefan Helmreich, a science anthropologist, considers as, “… phenomenological-technical-mathematical-political-legal objects” (2014: 273) Helmreich’s position renders waves borderless. That no discipline claims total purchase of waves, is hence timely.

Thus tuned, this workshop aims to pursue a transdisciplinary dialogue on waves. Building upon the latest discoveries in astrophysics (i.e., the Nobel Prize for physics 2017), the workshop approaches models about the cosmos asking: Which information are they based on and which voids are integral to it? Can we read models as narrations and how do they interact with those of (speculative) fiction in general and African speculative fiction in particular? In approaching this agenda, the workshop will feature Afrofuturism and its aesthetic mobilization of waves eager to address the presence of memory in futures.

The first day of the workshop is devoted to a short introduction to the basics of astrophysics by Prof. Georg Hein, theoretical mathematician at the University of Essen. In his keynote lecture, Hein will cover questions such as: What do we know about the universe, and why do we know what we know? On what basis do maps and other visualizations of the cosmos work? What do we (not) see? What do we (not) hear? What can be perceived (seen, heard) and thus, be considered in equations and represented in models – and what not? In what sense is everything connected: the big and the small, via the Big Bang and omnipresent physical and chemical processes? And how do waves come in here? How will new knowledge about gravitational waves change our understanding of the universe, space-time, big bang, and our notions about the future of the planet? How up to date are Gallilei, Newton, Einstein and Planck and what are late Stephen Hawking’s theories and warnings as well as blockbusters such as Nolan’s Interstellar all about?

Hein’s lecture will be revisited by an interdisciplinary panel discussion as well as two Afrofuturist installations by Ingrid DeFleur (USA) and Mduduzi Khumalo (South Africa), seeking to explore questions such as: (Why) Does the human mind tend to stumble while imagining the oneness of temporalities and spatialities as well as the nonlinearity and causality of spacetime? How to overcome binarisms? What is shared by planet earth and its alleged “Outer Space”? How outer is THE SpaceTime after all, and what would not be inside of it? How do waves mold (inner*outer) spaces? Does the universe gaze back? And how does “being organic” come in here?

The second day is devoted to the use of "wave" as a metaphor in disciplines such as history, economics, geology, geography, translation science, and literary studies. While looking at how “wave” has become a fascinating metaphor in various fields, this last part will also aim at identifying similarities and differences between the understanding and usage of “waves” in different disciplines.

The workshop`s interdisciplinarity is in line with the interdisciplinary scope of BIGSAS in general and its epistemic endeavor to bring African Literary and Cultural Studies into dialogue with (the conceptualizations of waves in) biology, engineering, geosciences, history, and mathematics.

Workshop Program

Tuesday, June 5th, 2018

16:00 Welcome and Introduction:
Prof. Dr. Susan Arndt (BIGSAS) & Mingqing Yuan (BIGSAS)

16:15 Keynote Lecture:
Prof. Dr. Georg Hein (Essen University) "Our Universe - modelled on Likelihood, Waves and Chaos"

Chair: Dilan Zoe Smida (UBT), Translated simultaneously into English by Dilan Zoe Smida

18:00 Panel Discussion “How Outer and Other is the Universe?”
Prof. Dr. Georg Hein (Essen University),  Raimi Gbadamosi  (South Africa/ UK), Dr. Bernd Florath (FU Berlin/Germany), Dilan Zoe Smida (UBT) & Xin Li (IPP, UBT)
Chair: Prof. Dr. Susan Arndt (BIGSAS) & James Wachira (BIGSAS)
Translated simultaneously into English by Dilan Zoe Smida

20:00 Installation “Waves`n Space”, Iwalewahaus, Foyer & Bar
Ingrid LaFleur (USA) “Portal Masks Meditation, In Paradisum, 2015”

Chair: Dilan Zoe Smida (UBT)

20:30 Dinner Party with DJ dilop

Wednesday June 6th, 2018

11:00 - 14:00 Lectures, Foyer & Oval Office, Iwalewahaus
Dr. Esther Posner (UBT) “From the Atomic to the Cosmic: The Importance of Waves in Earth and Planetary Sciences”
Prof. Dr. Raimi Gbadamosi (South Africa/UK) “An Adventure Into the Unknown”
Matthias Bräunig (Bayreuth) “Wellen, das Elixier allen Lebens”
Dr. Bernd Florath (FU Berlin/ Germany) “The Concept of Time as a Human Translation of Nature`s Rhythm”
Prof. Dr. Onookome Okome (University of Alberta/ Humboldt-Fellow)“Waves, Water, and the Figura of Mammiwata in Nollywood”
Chair: James Wachira (BIGSAS) & Mingqing Yuan (BIGSAS)

15:00-16:30 Panel Presentations I: Waves and Fiction, Oval Office, Iwalewahaus
Ifeloluwa Aboluwade (IPP, UBT) “Spatializing Translation: Thresholds of Transformations in African Literatures”
Xin Li (IPP) “Waves and the Inquiries into Silence”
Dilan Zoe Smida (UBT) “Brain Waves and Literary Plasticity”
Chair: Samira Paraschiv (UBT)

17:00-18:30 Panel Presentations II: Waves and African Literatures, Iwalewahaus, Foyer & Bar
Ingrid LaFleur (USA) “Portal Masks Meditation, In Paradisum, 2015”
Dilan Zoe Smida & Aras Hesso (Curdistan) “Strings ‘n Waves”
Chair: Dilan Zoe Smida (UBT) & Xin LI (UBT)

19:00- 20:00 Concluding Discussion: BIGSAS Talk
​Chair: James Wachira (BIGSAS) & Mingqing Yuan (BIGSAS)