Conference – Postcolonial publics: Art and Citizen Media in Europe
Ca' Foscari, Venice, 26-27th of May 2022
Postcolonial Intellectuals and Their European Publics Network (PIN) NWO
We are delighted to invite contributions to a conference paper on the topic of postcolonial publics expressed and engaged through “citizen media” (Rodriguez 2001; Baker & Blaagaard 2016) and art, in a postcolonial Europe. The conference papers will also serve as chapters for an edited volume which will be published soon after.
We want to interrogate the proliferation of digital media and global culture, and the changes happening in public intellectual engagements. From the adoration of the single (often male, often white) genius to the anonymity of diverse, affective publics, a postcolonial perspective invites contemporary public engagement to have many faces and multiple voices, and addressing new issues such as the environmental crisis and the resurgence of racism. Creativity and art can play a significant role in this development. Performance and visual expressions in the European space interpellate the situated public, but also produce transnational political dialogue and travel across digital space. Embodied performances challenge the cerebral stereotype and classical conception of what public engagement is and should be. Moreover, digital platforms have made available space for expressions that break the form and formulas of public and political speech. However, despite the expansion of public participation, social divisions based on race, gender, sexuality and able-bodiedness still hold sway and begs the question of positionality in relations to institutions, in the different fields of art and media, when it comes to political and social change.
The edited volume and conference envision postcolonial citizen media and art as practices and products encompassing a wide range of expressions: from poetry to journalism to Twitter-writing; from art to graffiti to Instagram-activism; and from celebrity activism to the uprising of “affective publics” (Papacharissi 2015).
Topics for contributions may include but are not limited to:
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Migrant social media narratives (visual, aural, performative)
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Exiled artists’ political expressions of citizenship and belonging
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Social movements’ visual tactics and digital strategies
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Celebrity activism and co-optation on gender, race and postcolonial issues
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Citizen journalism and postcolonial counterpublics
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Street art, performance and public engagement in postcolonial Europe
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Questions of citizenship, voice and witnessing, in a postcolonial perspective
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Media activism, academic activism, artivism for a postcolonial Europe
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Postcolonial media and art interventions in the environmental crisis
The publication and conference is part of the Postcolonial Intellectuals and Their European Publics Network, (PIN), which is funded by the NWO. The network brings together international and interdisciplinary scholars, activists, and artists to explore the changing face and voice of the European intellectuals in a postcolonial Europe. This publication and conference are jointly organized by Shaul Bassi and Sabrina Marchetti (Centre for the Humanities and Social Change), Bolette Blaagaard (Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University, Copenhagen) and Sandra Ponzanesi (Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University).
The conference will take place in Venice on the 26-27th of May 2022. Keynote speakers will be announced in due time. The publication based on the conference papers will follow soon after. Authors selected for the volume will be invited to the conference to present the final drafts of their papers. Final chapters will be 7,000 words all included. The volume will be published by Ca’ Foscari University Press as Open Access eBook in the Summer 2022.
May 2021 edit – Confirmed speakers: Lilie Chouliaraki (London School of Economics)
If you are interested in contributing, please submit your abstract (max. 500 words) by the 15th of June at the following email address: pocopublics@unive.it
Deadlines
- 15 June 2021 Abstracts submission
- 30 June 2021 Notification of selections
- 15 January 2022 First draft of full chapters
- 9 May 2022 Final chapters
- 26-27 May 2022 Conference in Venice
- 15 June 2022 Submission to Publisher
Previous conferences of the PIN Network:


Image credit: Lynn Avadenka, Afterword (Living Under Water, 2020)
Conference PIN, Postcolonial Intellectuals and Their European Publics
Full Programme available here
Utrecht, 5-6 February 2019

Confirmed Keynote speakers:
Prof. Kaiama L. Glover, Associate Professor of French and Africana Studies
Barnard College, Columbia University, USA.
Day 2 9:30 - 18:30
Photo courtesy of © Omar Victor Diop, Sashakara, 2016, Le Studio des Vanités
Book Launch: Postcolonial Intellectuals in Europe: Critics, Artists, Movements, and their Publics, ed. by Sandra Ponzanesi and Adriano José Habed
Among the confirmed speakers/contributors:
Bolette B. Blagaard, Rosemarie Buikema, Gianmaria Colpani, Adriano Jose Habed, Wigbertson Julian Isenia, Koen Leurs, Jamila M.H. Mascat, Ana Christina Mendez, Sandra Ponzanesi, Mehdi Sajid, Neelam Svristava, Jesse van Amelsfoort
Response: Rosi Braidotti
Creating Spaces for Other Voices: Postcolonial Student Symposium
This symposium is set up using student feedback on the Postcolonial Studies Initiative survey where we asked students to write down the topics, speakers and theoretical content they are missing or would like to see addressed in Academia. Results show that students want more diversity of speakers and broaden academic traditions and mainstream canons. Moreover, students would like to know more about initiatives in their community and how to exercise their academic expertise in a practical way.
With this valuable input, we are organizing a symposium where students can engage with local student initiatives from a postcolonial perspective, network, socialize and attend workshops. First of all, there will be a marketplace where students can gain/ask for more information about local student actions. Secondly, the day will consist of speakers from different communities in Utrecht with student panel discussions aiming at exercising the practicality of their academic knowledge/skills. Thirdly, students can sign up for two workshops where there is an opportunity to go more in depth on specific postcolonial themes in the Dutch context, with the guidance of young student professionals.
Proudly we would like to introduce the power ladies speaking at the Creating Spaces: Student Symposium: Pravini Baboeram musician & activist involved with the International Institute for Scientific Research and volunteer at the Sarnámihuis. Patricia Kaersenhout visual artist, activist, and womanist. Sayonara Stutgard organizer of the Feminist Open Mic in Utrecht and hosts two book clubs: It's LIT YA & and a Postcolonial Book Club Aphra's Book Club. Alfie Vanwyngarden the Queen of Bonaire, afro feminist, freedom fighter and RMA Media Studies student. Furthermore, there will be performances and lectures by Decolonial artist; Patricia Kaersenhout, Sarnámihuis member & Echo: center of expertise for diversity policy program manager; Pravini Baboeram-Mahes, and many others.
This symposium is for students by students and aims at creating a comfortable space for students to come together and discuss diverse affirmative actions in their communities where a diversity in perspectives and approaches is valued.
Programme
10:00 Registration: Coffee & Registration for Lunch
…………………………………………………………………………
10:45 Opening: Kick off by Emilie van Heydoorn, Research Master
Gender & Ethnicity Utrecht University & ECHO Ambassador:
................................................................................................................
11:00 – 13:00 - Creating Spaces for Other Voices: which stories
do we tell and who is listening?
Moderator: Rosa Wevers & Anne Punt
11:00 Pravini Baboeram, “Empowerment & Education: Experiences
within the Dutch Indian community.”
Student respondent: Louise Autar, RMA Gender & Ethnicity, UU
11:30 Sayonara Stutgard, “Your Story Matters,” Aphra’s Bookclub
Student respondent: Tjalling Valdes Olmos, RMA Gender &
Ethnicity, UU
12:00 Alexandra Greene, Screening of short documentary “Wave”
Student respondent: Madhuri Prabhakar, RMA Gender &
Ethnicity, UU
………………………………………………………………
Statements, Discussion with all the speakers, students & audience
13:00 – 13:45 Lunch
……………………………………………………………………………….
14:00 – 16:00 - Creating Spaces: Working through Colonial Legacies
without Re-writing the Other
Moderator: Rosa Wevers & Anne Punt
14:00 Patricia Kaersenhout, Performance; Stitches of Power, Stitches of
Sorrow.
14:30 Alfie Martis, “Decolonizing Bonaire: The Importance of Afro-
Caribbean Voices,” RMA Media Studies, UvA
Student respondents: Inez Scheerlinck, RMA Literature, UvA
14:55 Get together to discuss the workshops and divide groups.
……………………………………………………………………………….
Statements, Discussion with all the speakers, students & audience
……………………………………………………………………………….
15:00 – 16:00 - WORKSHOPS: Call for Action
With Max de Ploeg & Mitchell Esajas
15:00 Max de Ploeg; Workshop “The Importance of Autonomous Spaces”
15:00 Mitchell Esajas; Workshop “New Urban Collective”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Evaluation of the day and Closing remarks
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
16:00 – 17:00 Performance & Drinks!
Practical information:
Date: 3 February
Time: 10:00 - 17:00
Location: Casco- Lange Nieuwstraat 7, 3512 PA, Utrecht
Entrance: FreeMake a lunch reservation here.
More information, head to the Facebook event here.
With this valuable input, we are organizing a symposium where students can engage with local student initiatives from a postcolonial perspective, network, socialize and attend workshops. First of all, there will be a marketplace where students can gain/ask for more information about local student actions. Secondly, the day will consist of speakers from different communities in Utrecht with student panel discussions aiming at exercising the practicality of their academic knowledge/skills. Thirdly, students can sign up for two workshops where there is an opportunity to go more in depth on specific postcolonial themes in the Dutch context, with the guidance of young student professionals.
Date: 3 February
Time: 10:00 - 17:00
Location: Casco- Lange Nieuwstraat 7, 3512 PA, Utrecht
Entrance: FreeMake a lunch reservation here.
More information, head to the Facebook event here.
KNAW Colloquium: 'Connected Migrants: Encapsulation or Cosmopolitanism'
Trippenhuis Building, Kloveniersburgwal 29, Amsterdam
December 14, 2016, 13.00hrs
Confirmed speakers
Program
Academy Colloquium & Master Class
CONNECTED MIGRANTS: ENCAPSULATION OR COSMOPOLITANISM
Public Lecutre by Zygmunt Bauman:
Liquid Modernity
Background information
Practical Information
Date: 15- 16 December, 2016
Location: Trippenhuis Building, Kloveniersburgwal 29, 1011 JV Amsterdam
Registration: Deadline for registration is 28 November 2016. Participation will be confirmed by 1 December 2016. Participants are requested to pay a registration fee of EUR 150.
Contact: Martine Wagenaar
For more information or to register, please visit the website of the KNAW.
PCI Annual Conference
New Publications and Projects
Utrecht University, Drift 21, Sweelinckzaal
February 17, 2016, 13.00hrs
Programme
13.00 Opening Sandra Ponzanesi
13.10 Rosemarie Buikema – ‘On Transitional Justice’
13.20 Barnita Bagchi – Connecting Histories of Education: Transnational and Cross-cultural Exchanges in History of Education (Berghahn, 2014).
13.30 Doro Wiese – The Powers of the False: Reading, Writing, Thinking Beyond Truth and Fiction (Northwestern University Press)
13.40 Jolle Demmers – Theories of Violent Conflict : An Introduction (new edition 2016).
13.50 Christine Quinan – ‘Postcolonial Memory and Masculinity in Algeria: Alain Resnais' Absent Muriel’’ (forthcoming, Interventions).
14.00 Sandra Ponzanesi – Postcolonial Cultural Industry (Palgrave, 2014)
14.10 Koen Leurs – Digital Passages, Migrant Youth 2.0: diaspora, Gender and Youth Cultural Intersections (Amsterdam University Press, 2015)
14.20 Patricia Schor – ‘The Racialization of Public Space in the Netherlands’ (forthcoming).
14.30-15.00 coffee break
15.00-16.00 Presentation Special Issue
‘The Point of Europe.’ Interventions, vol. 18.2, 2016. (Guest Editor Sandra Ponzanesi)
Sandra Ponzanesi – ‘The Point of Europe: Postcolonial Entanglements,’ and ‘On the Waterfront. Truth and Fiction in Postcolonial Cinema from the South of Europe.’
Rosemarie Buikema – ‘The Revolt of the Object. Animated Drawings and the Colonial Archive: William Kentridge's Black Box Theatre.’
Birgit Kaiser and Kathrin Thiele – ‘Other Headings. Ben Jelloun, Derrida, Sansal and the Critique of Europe.’
16.00-17.00 Book Launch
Postcolonial Transitions in Europe. Context, Practices and Politics, Sandra Ponzanesi and Gianmaria Colpani (eds), London, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016
Presentations chapters:
Sandra Ponzanesi and Gianmaria Colpani: ‘Europe in Transitions.’
Mireille Rosello: ‘The Homeless, the Lawyer, and the Cardboard Sign: Charity in Contemporary Europe.’
Christine Quinan: ‘Hidden Memories: October 17, 1961, Charlie Hebdo, and Postcolonial Forgetting.’
Milica Trakilović: ‘Challenging Borders from the European Periphery’
Koen Leurs: ‘Young Londoners Remapping the Metropolis through Digital Media’
17.00 Drinks
For more information about the conference, please contact Prof.Sandra Ponzanesi, S.Ponzanesi@uu.nl
Figures, Ideas and Connections
Sandra Ponzanesi, Umr Ryad, Remco Raben,
Prof. Engin Isin
Professor of Citizenship,
![]() |
From left to right: G. Spivak, J.Baldwin, S. de Beauvoir, S. Hall N. Chomsky, C. Ngozi Adichie, P. Gilroy, E. Said M. McCarthy, Malcom X, P.Sartre, V. Woolf |
- Definitions of the (postcolonial) Intellectual
- (Post)colonial public figures and celebrities
- Transnational public sphere
- Gender and Religion
- Citizenship and identity
- Europe and cosmopolitanism
- Media representations and reception
The conference is sponsored by Utrecht University's strategic theme Institutions for Open Societies.
Muslim Public Intellectuals in the First Half of the 20th Century – A Prelude to Postcolonial Theory
Neelam Srivastava (University of Newcastle, UK).
Italy, Third-worldism, and Translation: A Reading of Letters between Frantz Fanon and Giovanni Pirelli
Bert van den Brink (Utrecht University, NL).
Representation of an Intellectual: Criticism, Exile and Interference in Edward Said's Postcolonial Humanism
The Satirical Perspective of a Public Intellectual: Hamed Abdel-Samad
Birgit Kaiser (Utrecht University, NL).
The Insurrection of Dust – Hélène Cixous and Adel Abdessemed on Affect, Art and Violence
The 80s Black/Women of Colour Movement in the Netherlands - An Unknown Source of Knowledge Production and Inspiration
Quinsy Gario (NL).
Convenors:
Sandra Ponzanesi, Professor of Gender and Postcolonial Studies (Utrecht University, NL). The Postcolonial Intellectual: Entangled Histories and Interdisciplinary Connections.
The World of Conimex: Postcolonial Voices in the Netherlands in Comparative Perspective, 1950s-1960s.
Bert van den Brink, Professor of Social and Political Philosophy (Utrecht University, NL).
Keynote speaker:
Engin Isin, Professor of Professor of Citizenship, Politics and International Studies (Open University, UK).
Presenters:
Elizabeth Buettner, Professor of Modern History (University of Amsterdam, NL).
Rosemarie Buikema, Professor of Art, Culture and Diversity (Utrecht University, NL).
The Transformative Figurative Artist as Postcolonial Public Intellectual
Quinsy Gario, Activist in the movement against Zwarte Piet and Performance Artist
Odile Heynders, Professor of Comparative Literature (Tilburg University, NL).
The Satirical Perspective of a Public Intellectual: Hamed Abdel-Samad
Nancy Jouwe, Researcher (University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, NL).
The 80s Black/Women of Colour Movement in the Netherlands - An Unknown Source of Knowledge Production and Inspiration
Birgit Kaiser, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature (Utrecht University, NL).
The Insurrection of Dust – Hélène Cixous and Adel Abdessemed on Affect, Art and Violence
Jamila Mascat, Researcher (University of Paris I - Sorbonne, France and at the Instituto italiano per gli studi filosofici, Naples, Italy).
Representation of an Intellectual: Criticism, Exile and Interference in Edward Said's Postcolonial Humanism
Muslim public intellectuals in the first half of the 20th Century – A prelude to postcolonial theory
Neelam Srivastava, Senior Lecturer (University of Newcastle, UK).
Italy, Third-worldism, and Translation: A reading of Letters between Frantz Fanon and Giovanni Pirelli
Arnoud Visser, Professor of Textual Culture in the Renaissance (Utrecht University, NL).
Public intellectuals before modernity: Renaissance humanism and the European Republic of letters
Sandro Mezzadra, Associate Professor of Political Theory (University of Bologna, Italy and University of Western Sydney, Australia).
Afterwords: Concluding Remarks
To download the programme and abstracts click here














