Since the Second World War close to a million children have been transnationally adopted. Denmark ranks among the countries with the highest number of transnational adoptions per capita making adoption a popular answer to infertility and parental desires.

A growing body of critical adoption scholarship, art, and activism has emerged in both sending and receiving countries providing new perspectives on transnational adoption in relation to subjectivity, race, affect, migration, and kinship.

This one-day seminar will focus on cultural representations of transnational adoption in literature, documentaries, tv-programmes, and news media as well as art work created by adult adoptees.

The research seminar is co-organized by The Research Programme for Diversity, Culture and Change (AU) and the research project KINTRA – (Trans)Formations of Kinship: Travelling in Search of Relatedness.

Speakers:

Anja Michaelsen (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Tobias Hübinette (Södertörns University), Mihee-Nathalie Lemoine (multi-media artist), Johanna Gondouin (Stockholm University), Lene Myong (Aarhus University)

Program

10:00-10:15
Welcome

10:15-11:00
Johanna Gondouin – Swedish Exceptionalism, White Femininity, and Global Motherhood

11:00-11.45:
Tobias Hübinette – Transracial Adoption, White Cosmopolitanism, and the Fantasy of the Global Family

11:45-12:45:
Lunch

12:45-13:30:
Mihee-Nathalie Lemoine – Talking Back: Korean Adoptee Art

13:30-14:00:
Coffee/Tea

14:00-14:45:
Anja Michaelsen – Affects of Korean Adoptee Documentaries. Sophie Bredier’s Nos Traces Silencieuses (1998)

14:45-15:30:
Lene Myong – Founded by Love: Affective and Racialized Configurations of Transnational Adoption

15.30-16:00: 
Final

Price and Registration

• Price for participation: 150,-
• Register here
• For questions about the seminar please contact Lene Myong: lmp@dpu.dk