Monday, November 12, 2018

Conference PIN, Postcolonial Intellectuals and Their European Publics

Utrecht, 5-6 February 2019

Who are the postcolonial intellectuals? Which of them are currently the most influential? What kind of intellectual activity do collectivities, networks and movements gathering around issues of race and citizenship perform? How do postcolonial academics, artists, writers, parties and movements respond to current timely issues in the European landscape such as migration, citizenship and the legacies of colonialism? How do they contribute to a new idea of “Europe” and relate to Western categories of modernity? Are their critical tools effective enough?

The PIN – Postcolonial Intellectuals and their European Publics network, not only focuses on postcolonial intellectuals as outspoken individuals, but also challenges the traditional definition of the “public intellectual” by emphasizing the role of artists, writers, activists and social movements in shaping postcolonial publics and knowledges.
Postcolonial Intellectuals and their European Publics network    (PIN) brings together an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars to investigate the role of postcolonial public intellectuals as crucial actors in renewing the function of the humanities and of democratic participation in Europe.

We welcome abstracts that engage with the topics and questions addressed above.
Please e-mail your abstract (250 words), bio (150words) and possible questions to: s.ponzanesi@uu.nl



  • Confirmed Keynote speaker: 
    Prof. Kaiama GloverAssociate  Professor of French and Africana Studies
  • On Border and Blackness
    Barnard College, Columbia University, USA.

    Having received a B.A. in French History and Literature and Afro-American  Studies from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in French and Romance Philology  from Columbia University, Professor Glover joined the faculty in 2002. Her  teaching and research interests include francophone literature, particularly that   of Haiti and the French Antilles; colonialism and postcolonialism; and sub- Saharan francophone African cinema.. Her book, Haiti   Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon (Liverpool UP   2010), addresses the general issue of canon formation in the francophone   Caribbean and the particular fate of the Haitian Spiralist authors vis-à-vis this canon. Professor Glover has been the recipient of fellowships and awards from the Fulbright Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, The New York Public Library, the PEN/Heim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and she is a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review. Continue reading here.

  • Prof. Awam Amkpa, Associate Professor, New York UniversityTisch School of The Arts, USA.
    Political Activism and its Legibilities

    Trained as a dramatist, documentary filmmaker and scholar of theatre and film, Awam Amkpa teaches Drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Africana Studies and Social and Cultural Analysis in NYU’s College of Arts and Sciences and is global visiting professor at NYU Abu Dhabi.  Former Senior Lecturer of Drama and Television at King Alfred’s University College, Winchester, England, and Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at Mount Holyoke College. Author of Theatre and Postcolonial Desires, London: Routledge, 2003 and forthcoming Archetypes, Stereotypes and Polytypes: Theatres of the Black Atlantic. Director of film documentaries such as Winds Against Our SoulsIts All About DowntownNational Images and Transnational Desires, and feature film Wazobia! Author of several articles in books and journals on Modernisms in TheatrePostcolonial theatreBlack Atlantic Issues, and Film studies. Awam Amkpa is also a curator of visual and performing arts. He recently curated, Resignifications for Manifesta 12, Palermo, Lines Motions and Rituals in New York, Significaciones in Havana, Cuba, ReSignifications in Florence, Italy and the international traveling exhibition Africa: See You, See Me. Amkpa is co-founder and co-curator of ‘Real Life Pan-African Documentary Film Festival’ in Accra, Ghana.

     We welcome abstracts that engage with the topics and questions addressed   above.
     Please e-mail your abstract (250 words), bio (150words) and possible   questions to: s.ponzanesi@uu.nl
     More info will follow soon on our website www.postcolonialstudies.nl

    Deadlines:

    • 15 December, 2018
       an abstract of 250 words; a bio of 150 words;
    •  Notification of acceptance: 31 December, 2018
    Practical information
    Date: 5-6 February 2019
    Time: 09.00 - 19.00
    Location: Drift 21, room 0.05 Sweelinckzaal (entrance drift 27)
    More info will follow soon on our website www.postcolonialstudies.nl

    Photo courtesy of  © Omar Victor Diop, Sashakara, 2016, Le Studio des Vanités