The Global Souths Conference is a three-day interdisciplinary conference discussing past, present and future concepts about the south, southern and the north/south binary around the world and in the United States. It is organized by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s English Graduate Student Association.
The 8th Annual Global Souths Conference was held from March 14 to March 16 at the Helma Constantine Forum in the Student Union at UL Lafayette.
The theme for this year’s conference was “STEAM-Powered Community.” This theme examines connections between the STEM disciplines and the arts and humanities.
Presenters and guest speakers at the conference presented topics including pedagogy and education, technology, artificial intelligence, language, literature, gender studies, identity and politics among others.
The guest speakers for this conference were Dr. Joel Rhone, Alex Johnson, Professor Amy Fleury and Dr. Jarvis C. McInnis.
The Global Souths Conference allows for diverse perspectives and voices to be heard, bringing forward crucial topics to be talked about.
Subrata Chandra Mozumder is the director of this year’s conference. When asked what the significance of the Global Souths Conference is, he shared, “Global Souths addresses the issues related to marginalized groups, it tries to give voice to the voiceless, represent the less represented people.”
As such, identity was one of the largest topics discussed at the conference.
Rhone’s primary research interests of his feature generative overlaps between literary production and the manufacture of racial knowledge in the academic disciplines. He is inspired by modernist notions of autonomy pushed past the limits of late liberalism or the commodity form.
During the conference, Rhone analyzed the essay “Princes and Powers” written by African-American writer James Baldwin. In this essay, Baldwin declared the key differences between the colonial experience and the experience of being Black in America.
Johnson was the first president of the university’s creative writing club, “Ragin’ Writers,” during her time as a student at UL Lafayette. She is also the founder and operator of Lyrically Inclined, a nonprofit organization that strives to encourage the use of spoken word poetry as a tool to express emotion.
During the conference, she shared the struggles of cultural identity and self-identity. Johnson also highlighted the struggles that youths face with self-worth due to adverse childhood experiences.
McInnis is an interdisciplinary scholar of African-American and African Diaspora literature and culture, with teaching and research interests in the Global South (primarily the Caribbean, as well as the American South), sound studies, performance studies, visual culture and the archive.
McInnis shared a paper that he wrote, titled: “Tuskegee and the Plantationocene: Toward a Theory of Eco-Ontology in Black Studies.” This paper establishes Tuskegee as an important site for interrogating the inextricability of race and ecology, black life and plant life, within Black Studies.
Other speakers that presented at the conference include independent speakers, as well as graduate and undergraduate students at UL Lafayette. There were both complete panel presentations and individual paper presentations.
As the Global Souths Conference encourages a wide range of speakers to submit their papers or research, it is an excellent opportunity for one to share their area of research interest and as well as their passions.
Alice Marie Wilson is a graduate student majoring in English. Wilson is also the President of UL Lafayette’s English Graduate Student Association. Wilson shared, “It’s a relatively small conference, it’s a really really good opportunity for graduate students, and even undergraduate students to present. It is a very good presentation and research presenting experience.”
Having a wide range of research topics to be shared, the Global Souths Conference also allowed people of different interests to come together and exchange their ideas through an intellectual discussion.
“My favorite part is socializing and the networking, getting to know people, know about them and their lives, know about their research interest and what they are passionate about.”, Wlison said.
The Global Souths Conference brought attention to scholarly works, and allowed people interested in a vast variety of disciplines to discuss how interconnections between science and art help elucidate the understanding of the Global South.
The conference was only made possible with the efforts of the students and faculty advisors from the UL Lafayette English Graduate Student Association as well as the various sponsors who funded the event.