Mary Louise Pratt and Contact Zones in Korean Studies: Retrospect and Prospect

2021 ◽  
Vol 136 ◽  
pp. 155-196
Author(s):  
Jihoon Park
Keyword(s):  
Contact Zones ◽  
Korean Studies ◽  
Mary Louise Pratt

Rereading Russia through the Contact Zone of HBCUs

Slavic Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-315
Author(s):  
Kelly Knickmeier Cummings ◽  
B. Amarilis Lugo de Fabritz
Keyword(s):  
Historically Black ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Colleges ◽  
Contact Zones ◽  
East European ◽  
Intercultural Competencies ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
Mary Louise Pratt ◽  
Relations Of Power

This article examines contributions Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have made and continue to make to the interdisciplinary fabric of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (REEES). HBCUs are a uniquely American phenomenon and reminders of the history of enslavement and segregation in the United States. But HBCUs are also vibrant intellectual contact zones, which Mary Louise Pratt defines as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power.” Contact zones result in intercultural competencies, multilingualism, new methodologies, and critical reassessments. Faculty and alumni have described the extent to which HBCUs function as cultural and discursive sanctuaries. As such, HBCUs are places where legally, culturally, and racially segregated communities develop(ed) alternate ways to engage, experience, and (re)envision “Russia.”

Guest Introduction: More-than-human contact zones

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-711 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny R Isaacs ◽  
Ariel Otruba
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Tidal Energy ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Environmental Research ◽  
Intimate Violence ◽  
Contact Zones ◽  
Human Contact ◽  
Mary Louise Pratt ◽  
Political Ecologies

Mary Louise Pratt used the term “contact zones” to describe those spaces where “cultures, meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today”. Building on three sessions at the 2017 American Association of Geographers’ Annual Meeting, this special section features articles which apply Pratt’s concepts to environmental research. We argue that these articles demonstrate a “more-than-human ‘contact’ approach” to (1) better account for nonhuman agency by multiplying perspectives, (2) intervene in cases of violence and injustice, and (3) decolonize knowledge/production. Included are empirical case studies which describe encounters with the nonhuman; these include a postcolonial reading of the BBC’s Blue Planet II, a feminist science study of migratory shorebird conservation on New Jersey’s Delaware Bayshore, and political ecologies of prescribed forest burns by Parks Canada and tidal energy production in the Bay of Fundy. These articles broaden the definitions of “contact” and “justice” as they direct critical attention to the politics of environmental knowledge production, technoscientific means of understanding and managing the living environment, and forms of resistance to the exclusive governance of “wild” spaces. They present sites of environmental management and exploration as places of transformation, co-presence, unpredictability, and often intimate violence. The section demonstrates how political ecologies and more-than-human geographies expand Pratt’s “contact” perspective. An afterword is provided by Mary Louise Pratt.

Brahmi legends on Umayyad Fulus: Interrogating local minting practices and numismatic transculturation in Gandhara (ca. 750 CE)

Afghanistan ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-165
Author(s):  
Waleed Ziad
Keyword(s):  
Base Metal ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Unusual Feature ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Contact Zones ◽  
Confessional Identity ◽  
Derivatives Of

This paper concerns a historically significant find of copper derivatives of Umayyad post-reform fulus from Gandhara, probably minted in the mid-eighth century under Turk Shahi sovereignty (c. 667–875). The coins share an unusual feature: two Brahmi aksharas on an Umayyad AE prototype, inversely oriented to a partially-corrupted Arabic legend. These base metal coins represent perhaps the only known caliphal imitative varieties issued by moneyers beyond the eastern limits of Umayyad and Abbasid sovereignty. They have the potential to inform our understanding of the complex relationship between political authority, confessional identity, and coin typology in late antiquity – particularly within early “Hindu”– “Muslim” contact zones. Moreover, they provide invaluable clues into the circulatory regimes of Umayyad coinage.

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