Monday, July 1, 2019

Conference: "Intellectuals Across Borders: Writers, Artists, Activists" 

University of Münster, 5-6 September 2019 

Co-hosted by the University of Lisbon


Keynote speakers:

John Sundholm (Professor in Cinema Studies, Stockholm University)

Johny Pitts (Photographer and Television presenter, author of Afropean [Allen Lane / Penguin, 2019])

Matthias de Groof (Filmmaker, University of Antwerpen)

The second PIN Network Conference "Intellectuals Across Borders: Writers, Artists, Activists" will take place in Münster/Germany, co-hosted by the University of Münster and the University of Lisbon. The opening event is scheduled for the evening of Sept. 4, 2019. The conference closes on Sept. 6, 2019.
Intellectuals Across Borders explores the dynamic formations of postcolonial intellectual work in the manifold European public spheres. The conference works with the idea that writers, artists, and activists – like migrant academics and political representatives – can embrace the role of postcolonial intellectuals through intervention and public impact. As racism works vigorously across national borders while right-wing groupings across Europe are interconnected and cross-fertilize each other, critical intellectual work is called upon to make borders porous. In fact, it is the postcolonial intellectuals’ transgressive potential in inquiring and intervening – spatially, epistemologically, ideologically – which we consider vital to their relationship with European public spheres. In both theme and approach, the conference takes the following questions as a theoretical vantage point:
  • While the postcolonial is constitutive of Europe itself, what marks out forms of public intellectual work as postcolonial?
  • Are these distinct forms of postcolonial intellectual labour characterised through biography or location, by their mode of engagement and intervention, and/or by their subject matter?
  • How can we stretch and pluralise the concept of the ‘postcolonial public intellectual’ to encompass minoritized positionalities, inflected by race, class, gender, or sexuality?
For further reading, practical details and submission instructions, download the Call for Papers on the official website here.
Practical information
Organized in the context of the NWO Internationalization in the humanities project: PIN – Postcolonial Intellectuals and their European Publics Network, “Intellectuals Across Borders” explores the dynamic formations of intellectual work in diverse European public spheres.

Conveners: Sandra Ponzanesi (Utrecht University), Mark U Stein (University of Münster), Ana Cristina Mendes (University of Lisbon)