Unruly Landscape(s) of Death - Symposium

Where people live is where their bodies return in death: graves in the earth, water in the sea, sky to feed birds. These resting places form a map of relationality, sacred when visited by kin, but transformed when death is marked by violence or neglect. Yet, even in such cases, an unsettlement lingers, demanding repair, refusal, or recognition.

Inspired by Hugo ka Canham's Riotous Deathscapes and the Mpondo people's resilience amid devastating loss, this symposium explores the afterlives of unruly deathscapes. Panelists will examine systemically neglected African-American burial grounds, recovered remains of Japanese soldiers in Okinawa, sanctuaries for migrant dead in the Sonoran Desert, and urban columbaria in Japan. Through these sites, we interrogate the interface between the living, the dead, and the landscape, asking what is animated of/for life.

PRESENTERS:

All have recent books on unruly deathscapes. Participants are invited to read the Introductions of all of these (Download PDFs of the readings for the event here) and the presenters will speak briefly about how their own work interacts with that of Hugo ka Canham.
Hugo ka Canham (University of South Africa) Riotous Deathscapes (Duke Univ. Press, 2023)
Adam Rosenblatt (Duke University) Cemetery Citizens: Reclaiming the Past and Working for Justice in American Burial Grounds (Univ. of CA Press, 2024)
Barbara Andrea Sostaita (University of Illinois Chicago) Sanctuary Everywhere: The Fugitive Sacred in the Sonoran Desert (Duke Univ. Press, 2024)
Chris Nelson (University of North Carolina) When Bones Speak: The Living, the Dead, and the Sacrifice of Okinawa (Duke Univ. Press, 2025)
Anne Allison (Duke University) Being Dead Otherwise (Duke University Press, 2023)

For further information, contact Barbara Ofosu-Somuah

Friday, September 27
9:00am-12:00pm
(Breakfast & coffee @ 9am, Symposium starts @ 9:30am)
Location: Smith Warehouse, Bay 4, Almadieh Family Lecture Hall

Co-Sponsors:
Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke English, African and African American Studies at Duke, the Africa Initiative at Duke, Duke Cultural Anthropology, and the Concilium on Southern Africa(COSA)