Utrecht, 5-6 February 2019
FULL PROGRAMME NOW AVAILABLE HERE
 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. Organizer: Prof. Sandra Ponzanesi (Utrecht University)
Confirmed Keynote speakers:
Prof. Kaiama Glover, Associate Professor of French and Africana Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA.
On Blackness and Borders
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 University, Tisch 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 Souls, Its All About Downtown, National Images and Transnational Desires, and feature film Wazobia! Author of several articles in books and journals on Modernisms in Theatre, Postcolonial theatre, Black 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.
Practical information
Date: 5-6 February 2019 Time: 09.00 - 19.00 Location: Drift 21, room 0.05 Sweelinckzaal (entrance drift 27) The conference is free of charge but registration is required. Please e-mail e.omerovic@uu.nl for registration. THE FULL PROGRAMME CAN BE FOUND HERE Abstracts and Bios can be accessed HERE Photo courtesy of © Omar Victor Diop, Sashakara, 2016, Le Studio des Vanités |
