Mandel Center for the Humanities

Gili Cohen

Imperial Encounters and Jewish Diaspora: Mapping Zionist Connected History in Montreal, Vienna and Ottoman Palestine 

I will utilize digital humanities methods to visualize Zionism as a connected political
movement. According to Sanjay Subrahmanyam, connected history is the analysis of political, intellectual, and economic variables which connect places and epochs typically studied separately. Consequently, I will use Geographical Information Systems to examine urban nexus’ of Jewish migration at the turn of the century - to showcase political and intellectual connections between numerous imperial and Jewish diasporic political models. I intend to map the density, ideological diversity, and immigration patterns of Jewish communities in contexts of imperial encounter, centrality, and periphery such as Montreal, Vienna, and Ottoman Palestine. The research funds of the Mandel innovation grant will be used to analyze my first case study - Montreal. I will situate the maps mentioned within the context of data from the Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives, the Ontario Jewish archives, and Library and Archives Canada. I am particularly interested in researching the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) - a parliament of Canadian Jewry founded by socialist immigrants from Russia, affiliated with the World Zionist Congress, and which lobbied British governors in favor of the colonization of Palestine. The CJC was a political movement that did not conform to an exclusively British, Ottoman, or Russian imperial model. Instead, it pursued its own political goals in collaboration with, against, and in contrast to these institutions.

Marie Comuzzo
Listening with Whales: Ecocentric Activism through More-Than-Human Songs 
First recorded in 1952 by accident from a U.S. Navy installation in Hawaii and then shared by Roger & Katie Payne’s album Songs of the Humpback Whale in 1970 (which went on to become history’s most popular nature recording, reaching over 30 million people), whale songs caused a dramatic reimagination of whale-human relations. A global outcry led by NGO Save the Whale emerged shortly after people heard them sing and whale songs became an anthem of environmental action against ocean pollutions and whaling. Musicians have since interacted with whales in many ways, improvising alongside them, remixing whale songs in their music, drumming and playing to them live, as well as sonically manipulating their songs to represent the ocean and space in movies. In my research I ask, is the conceptualization of whales’ sounds as song what shifts humans’ perception of their uniqueness and therefore their rights of recognition as sapient species? And what are the stakes of understanding music as a human phenomenon when birds and whales also sing? I examine the interaction between humans and whales as mediated through sound, both within music compositions, scientific studies, indigenous epistemologies, and more informal human-whale interactions that happen through singing, drumming, and real-time improvisations with whales. As part of this research, I am conducting field work in Tahiti, Hawaii, and New Zealand, to explore how whale songs as sung by humans and whales, and listened by musicians, scientists, and First Nations, continue to advance environmental action. 
Jay Ramteke

 Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Disappearing Art of Adivasi Tattooing 

I study Indigenous knowledge systems of Central India, with the lens of Medical, Ecological, and Development anthropology and I am particularly interested in Traditional Tattooing, Embodiment, and Indigenous medical systems.

In this project, I will teach ethnographic research methods to a group of Ojha young men and women in Madhya Pradesh, central India. The Ojhas are an Adivasi (indigenous) community with a tradition of tattooing called godna that is disappearing. This project will be based in a village located near the Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh, Central India.  Visiting researchers often come to this park to study Kanha’s biodiversity but are often unfamiliar with the intricate knowledge held by adivasi people living around.

To date, Adivasi involvement in research has been minimal. Sometimes, even if they get involved, they do not get proper acknowledgment for their contributions to research, and my collaborative research and skill-building project addresses this problem. This project is also deeply connected to my dissertation, which will be an ethnographic study of the traditional godna tattooing in the region.  As someone from this area, I have the necessary language skills and community connections to make this project successful. This workshop will be a step towards establishing an ‘Adivasi ethnography’ in the region, which will be – by and for the indigenous people