Abs
tract:
As Donald J. Trump’s electoral victory graphically sho
ws\, walls are a hot topic. While ‘globalization’\, with its free flow of c
apital\, goods\, ideas and people characterized world politics after the en
d of the Cold War\, the twenty-first century has witnessed a reassertion of
physical\, cultural\, and legal barriers. To jam the critical discourse th
at frames the US-Mexico Barrier and Israel’s West Bank Barrier as moral pro
blems\, the essay compares twenty-first century walls with the Great Wall o
f China to explore 1) how walls are not simply material infrastructure\, bu
t are also structures of feeling\, 2) how they are not simply barriers\, bu
t complex sites of flows\, and 3) how walls are not simply texts waiting to
be decoded: they are also sites of nonnarrative affective experience that
can provoke the sublime. The goal is to use this non-Western example to und
erstand the conceptual work and emotional work done by contemporary walls i
n the West. This comparative analysis thus will ask: What can walls tell us
about the politics of borders\, identity and foreign policy? The presentat
ion will include a lecture\, and a screening of Callahan’s latest film\, ‘Y
ou can see CHINA from here’\, which examines experiences of crossing the Ho
ng Kong-Shenzhen border.
About the Speaker:
Wil
liam A. Callahan is professor of international relations at the London Scho
ol of Economics and Political Science. His most recent book is China Dreams
: 20 Visions of the Future (OUP\, 2015). Callahan is also a documentary fil
m-maker: ‘China Dreams’ was broadcast on KCET (Los Angeles) in 2015\, and ‘
toilet adventures’ (2015) was shortlisted for a major award by the UK’s Art
s and Humanities Research Council. (For these and other films\, see www.vimeo.com/billcallahan.)
