News
Queer Diasporic Forms: A Reading and Discussion with Poet Logan February
Tuesday, 30 Apr. 2024, 16.15 | ES 131, English Department, Uni Münster
Join us on April 30th for an event with Logan February, who will read from their newly published collection MENTAL VOODOO. The discussion will address themes of family, religion, queerness, and translation and ask how poetry can be a form for representing and creating intersections between queer and diasporic identities, histories, and experiences.
Logan February (b. 1999 in Anambra, Nigeria) is a multidisciplinary Nigerian poet living in Berlin. A 2024 Literature Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, February has received other fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation and Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, as well as the 2020 Future Awards Africa Prize for Literature. In 2023, their poetry collection MENTAL VOODOO was published in a bilingual English-German edition (translated by Christian Filips, with the collaboration of Peter Dietze, Verlag Urs Engeler, 2023).
Date: 30/04/2024
Time: 16:15
Location: English Dept., Johannisstr. 12-20, Room 131
Entry: Free
This event is organized by the Chair of English, Postcolonial & Media Studies at the English Department of the University of Münster in cooperation with Afrikanische Perspektiven e.V.
MA NTS Open Day - Online Information Event
Tuesday, April 23rd, 4 pm
Are you interested in interdisciplinary research?
Do you have a passion for Postcolonial Studies?
Are you curious about critiques of the nation state?
Tune in to our info event to learn more about our M.A. National and Transnational Studies at Uni Münster and get the opportunity to speak to current students about their experience.
Date: 23rd April 2024
Time: 4 p.m. (CET)
Register here for the Zoom meeting.
LWL Themenjahr - POWR! Postcolonial Westphalia-Lippe
Post/colonialism, post/coloniality, and transnationalism are integral concepts to the research focus of the PTTS chair. Given this, we are excited to share LWL Kulturstiftung’s theme of this year, “POWR! Postcolonial Westphalia-Lippe.” POWR! draws its inspiration from the English term 'power' – a central concept within postcolonial discourse. It takes a critical and multi-perspective look at the colonial history of both Germany and Westphalia-Lippe, and its continuing effects, questioning and re-articulating traditional images.
POWR! forefronts everyday life and culture: where do we encounter traces of post-colonialism? What implications does this hold? Going beyond solely museum collections, the theme further highlights city images, languages, bodies, memories and questions about how we live together. In the upcoming year, 22 diverse projects spanning Westphalia-Lippe will dissect these ideas with a multitude of perspectives.
More information on the Themenjahr can be found at the dedicated website: https://www.lwl-kulturstiftung.de/de/powr2024/
Lecture Series of the Centre for Empire Studies
Over the course of Summer Semester 2024, the Centre for Empire Studies at the University of Münster will host a lecture series. Several important scholars of the field will be sharing their research with us. The lecture series aims to delve into various aspects of imperial history, offering attendees a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics, legacies, and complexities of empires across different regions and periods.
MA National and Transnational Studies – Essay task for the Winter Semester 2024/25 applications is now online!
The essay task for the upcoming application period can be accessed here. Please note that, in order to maximise the time successful applicants have to prepare, we offer two application phases. In this way, successful candidates have a maximum of time to apply for visas (which can be time-consuming) and to arrange funding, travel, and accommodation before the start of the MA NTS orientation week, likely in October 2024. Particularly applicants from outside the EU are strongly advised to apply as early as possible. Further information can be found here.
The CSADS tentative conference programme is now online!
The tentative programme for the Critical South Asian Death Studies conference is now online and can be reached here.
When Hope Is Your Home: Reading and Conversation with Stella Gaitano and Mubeen Khishany
Friday, 15 Mar. 2024, 18.00 | Stadtbücherei, Alter Steinweg 11, 48143 Münster
Writers Stella Gaitano and Mubeen Kishany, who were persecuted in their home countries, are currently part of the Writers-in-Exile program in Kamen. They will read from their texts in Arabic. The speaker Paula Berdrow will read the German translation. The conversation with Stella Gaitano and Mubeen Khishany will be conducted and translated by Sudanese literary scholar Omer Othman.
Stella Gaitano is a well-known South Sudanese writer and activist. Her works deal with the plight of displaced, refugee and marginalized women. Due to her political stance and activism, she was targeted by nationalist and tribalist circles after the split of Sudan, who called for her killing on social media. A selection of her short stories will be published in German in March under the title "Endlose Tage am Point Zero" by Edition Orient, Berlin.
Mubeen Khishany, Iraqi writer, journalist and artist, is co-founder of Maska Magazine for Iraqi poetry. He has been working as a freelance journalist for various newspapers since 2017. Khishany was involved in the Al-Basheer show, a critical satire program popular among young Iraqis for its comical denunciation of the country's ills. After receiving death threats, Khishany fled Iraq.
Admission is free, a donation is requested.
This event is organized by Stadtbücherei Münster and Afrikanische Perspektiven e.V. in cooperation with Eine-Welt-Forum Münster e.V., Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies (PTTS) at the English Department of the University of Münster and the Arabic-German literature circle ARDELIT.
Visionäre Afrikas: Reading and Conversation
Saturday, 24 Feb. 2024, 19.30 | Zukunfstwerkstatt Kreuzviertel, Schulstraße 45
Join us on the 24th of February, 2024 for an insightful evening at "Visionäre Afrikas"!
The event centres "Visionäre Afrikas," a collection of texts by forty African authors who narrate stories of African experiences, drawing rooted images of their continent, its diversity and vitality.
The editor and co-author, Dr. M. Moustapha Diallo, will delve into these narratives in conversation with Tatjana Niederberghaus. Sarah Giese will bring the words to life through readings, and the atmosphere will be complemented by the compositions of Ivory Coast's “Modern Songwriter” music ambassador, Urbain N'Dakon.
Do not miss this unique opportunity to interact, learn, and be inspired by these visionaries!
Date: 24/02/2024
Time: 19:30
Location: Zukunftswerkstatt Kreuzviertel, Schulstraße 45, Münster
Entry: Free
This event organized by Afrikanische Perspektiven e.V. in cooperation with the Eine-Welt-Forum Münster e.V. and Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies (PTTS) at the English Department of the University of Münster, funded by the Cultural Office and the Integration Council of the City of Münster.
Beyond Protest: Anti-Apartheid Writing and Visual Art Reconsidered
Guest Lecture by Prof. Dr. Pumla Dineo Gqola | Thursday, 25 Jan. 2024, 12.15 | Audi Max
Join us for "Beyond Protest: Anti-Apartheid Writing and Visual Art Reconsidered" by Prof. Dr. Pumla Dineo Gqola on Jan 25, 2024.
Professor Gqola is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies and the NMU-DSI-NRF SARChI Chair in African Feminist Imagination at Nelson Mandela University. Among her several impactful works are "What is Slavery to Me? Postcolonial/Slave Memory in Post-Apartheid South Africa" (Wits University Press, 2010) and "Rape: A South African Nightmare" (MF Books/Jacana, 2015) which won the 2016 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award for Non-Fiction.
This session is organised as a part of the lecture "Global Literatures in English" by Prof. Dr. Mark U. Stein, Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media Studies.
We are hiring!
The Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media Studies at the University of Münster is hiring a Foreign Language Secretary. Situated at one of the foremost Universities in Germany, a role in the PTTS team promises an engaging, dynamic, and diverse work environment. You can find out more about the position in the job advert here.
Queries? Drop us an email!
We look forward to receiving your applications!
World Literature and the Appeal of the National: The Case of Outback Noir
Guest Lecture by Dr. Katrin Althans | Thursday, 14 Dec. 2023, 12.15 | Audi Max
Join us for a lecture on "World Literature and the Appeal of the National: The Case of Outback Noir", delivered by Dr. Katrin Althans. This engaging session is part of the ongoing lecture "Global Literatures in English" by Prof. Dr. Mark U. Stein, Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media Studies.
Dr. Katrin Althans's research focuses on postcolonial anglophone and transcultural studies, as well as British literary and cultural studies. She is particularly interested in the fields of law & literature, Australian and Indigenous studies, Gothic and Crime Fiction Studies, and literary and cultural theories.
The lecture will be held on December 14, 2023, at 12.15 PM, at Audi Max, Johannisstraße 12-20, Münster.
Remember Bhopal: Documentary Screening
Monday, 4 Dec. 2023, 18.00 | ES 131
“At first, it smelled of LPG gas, of burning chilies,” recounts Rakesh Gupta, “The gas, it settled deep in our lungs […] seeped into our khoon (blood) and for some,” he narrated, “it never left.”
Frequently regarded as the ‘worst industrial disaster’ in recorded history, BGT was marked by the release of toxic methyl isocyanate gas (MIC) on the night of 2nd December, 1984. By the ensuing morning, thousands had succumbed to the effects of the gas, leaving lasting health and environmental ramifications for subsequent generations. (For more information, please visit: bhopal.org)
In commemoration of the 39th Anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, we invite you to join us for a documentary screening on the 4th of December, 2023. The screening will commence at 6:00 pm at ES131 (Johannisstraße 12, 48143 Münster), and will be followed by a discussion session moderated by Yash Gupta, an intergenerational survivor of the event. Given the histories of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the discussion will cover a spectrum of subjects, including dis/ability rights, postcolonial industrial violence, ecological change, media politics, and other related themes.
The screening is being organised under the research focus on "Critical South Asian Death Studies" (CSADS). Conceived by a team of students at the University of Münster CSADS situates itself in the conspicuous gaps engendered by dominant traditions in the study of Death. With a particular focus on South Asia, the research group is currently engaged with organising The First International Conference on Critical South Asian Death Studies (18th-20th April, 2024). More information on the conference can be found here: go.uni-muenster.de/csads
NTS/BAPS Reception & Graduation Ceremony 2023
What a night to remember! During the Annual MA NTS & BAPS Reception we came together to celebrate the graduation of 13 NTS students and 4 BAPS students, as well as to welcome the students of our new cohorts.
The atmosphere was filled with inspiration as we acknowledged the hard work and dedication of our graduates. To the newest additions, welcome to a journey of knowledge and growth!
A sincere thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of this event!
Literary Encounters with Africa: Reading and Conversation with Yirgalem Fisseha Mibrahtu
Saturday, 28 Oct. 2023, 18.00 | VHS-Forum of Volkshochschule Münster, Aegidiimarkt 2, Münster
"I am alive" is the name of Yirgalem Fisseha Mebrahtu's collection of poems, which was published by Wunderhorn in April. Mebrahtu wrote the poems during and after her years of imprisonment in Eritrea. They are about justice, human rights and the longing for peace. In the fall, Mebrahtu's correspondence with Tanja Kinkel will be published by Akono-Verlag. In the personal and moving correspondence, the two writers share their experiences about writing in different worlds - one from Eritrea, the other from Germany.
On October 28, Yirgalem Fisseha Mebrahtu will present some of her texts in Tigrinya. The German translation will be read by Sarah Giese. The conversation with Mebrahtu will be moderated and translated by Mekonnen Mesghena.
Noel Araya will accompany the event musically on the piano, followed by Eritrean food.
Yirgalem Fisseha Mebrahtu (*1981, Adi-Keh/Eritrea) is a writer and journalist. She has been living in Munich since 2018 and was a fellow of the PEN Germany Writers in Exile program. In 2019, she was awarded the Freedom of Speech and Expression Award by PEN Eritrea.
Mekonnen Mesghena studied journalism and history at the University of Dortmund. He heads the Migration and Diversity Unit at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin. Since June 2023, he has been a member of the German government's Expert*innenrat Antirassismus. He writes for domestic and international magazines, broadcasters and websites.
Admission is free, a donation is requested. Registration is preferred for the meal: info@afrikanische-perspektiven.de or via phone: 015772536608.
This event is organized by Afrikanische Perspektiven e.V., the Volkshochschule Münster, the Eritrean Cultural Association in Münsterland e.V., the One World Forum Münster e.V. and Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies (PTTS) at the English Department of the University of Münster, and is sponsored by the Environment and Development Foundation of NRW, and by the Cultural Office and the Integration Council of the City of Münster.
Inaugural Lecture by Prof. Dr. Corinna Norrick-Rühl and Prof. Dr. Silvia Schultermandl
Thursday, 26 Oct. 2023, 16.00 | JO1, Johannistraße 4, Münster
Prof. Dr. Corinna Norrick-Rühl and Prof. Dr. Silvia Schultermandl from the English Department of the University of Münster will be holding their joint inaugural lecture at JO1 on Thursday, October 26th, 2023 at 4 pm. The theme of the lecture will be "Reading Material/Affect/Representation: Perspectives from Book Studies and American Studies", with a reception to follow afterwards in the English Department. In order to plan the event better, please register here.
Reading Session with Fred Khumalo
Wednesday, 30 Aug. 2023, 19.00 | JO1, Johannistraße 4, Münster
Paris 1958, the waiter of an upscale restaurant is on trial, accused of murder, and remains silent. In his novel Dancing the Death Drill, Fred Khumalo therefore lets others tell: Of the First World War, of the recruitments of the British colonial power in South Africa, of the sinking of the troopship "SS Mendi" in the English Channel in 1917, of more than 600 dead, among them many Black soldiers who were to fight against the German Empire, of a man who saved himself by killing others, and of an observer of this moment.
With his gripping story, Fred Khumalo also describes a historical event of the colonial era that is significant for South Africa.
Fred Khumalo (*1966, South Africa) writes about socio-political and historical issues, identity and racism. The conversation with him is moderated and translated by Prof. Dr. Manfred Loimeier, the actor Casten Bender reads from the novel.
Entrance is free, a donation is requested.
This event is coordinated by Afrikanische Perspektiven e.V. and Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies (PTTS) at the English Department of the University of Münster, and is sponsored by the NRW Environment and Development Foundation, the Cultural Office of the City of Münster and the One World Forum Münster e.V.
Australian Studies Day 2023 #ASD
The Australian Studies Day #ASD (30 June 2023) featured 16 speakers and panellists who addressed the features of this academic discipline and what’s required to teach the field at MA-level. Hosted by the Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media Studies (PTTS), the event was part of an ongoing collaboration between the Universities of Cologne (UzK), Düsseldorf (HHU), Duisburg-Essen (UDE), and Münster. The collaboration, funded by the MKW Ministry, Düsseldorf, aims to develop a joint M.A. programme in Australian Studies. The renowned Australian writer Gillian Polack joined the event over Zoom and provided a captivating reading of her selected works, enriching the experience for participants. ASD 2023 brought together team members from all four Universities and aimed to engage with and inform different stakeholders and students at the University of Münster about the unique, innovative programme, which makes use of digital teaching tools and asynchronous teaching formats. The conference dinner on the preceding night and the main event provided welcome opportunities for attendees to interact and network.
Photos from the event
© PTTS Münster 
© PTTS Münster
SPACLALS Precarious Planet Conference
CfP deadline extended until 31 August, 2023
29 November - 1 December 2023 | University of Wollongong, Sydney Campus, Australia
The conference, Precarious Planet: Disability, Rights & Justice, will be held at the Sydney campus of the University of Wollongong and is hosted by South Pacific Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, together with Challenging Precarity: A Global Network. Suggested topics for paper presentations include, but are not limited to:
- human rights and global inequality
- the emancipatory politics of disability
- critical disability studies: private accounts vs public issues
- Pacific/First Nations/Indigenous knowledges as resistance to precarity
- vulnerability vs resilience
- reading, writing and imaging the environment
- affect/emotions, ecology and subjectivity
- environmental catastrophe and planetary crisis
- food and shelter security
- precaritisation of academia
- migration, refugees and xenophobia
- planetary ethics and aesthetics
- queer ecology: non-human queerness as planetary perspective
- citizenship, and cultural difference
- neoliberalism and (post)colonial precaritisation
- Pacific regionalism vs the ‘blue Pacific continent’
- Oceanic studies and Pacific precarity
- pandemics: science vs ritual and folklore
You can find the full call for papers here.
The deadline for sending abstracts has been extended to August 31, 2023! For further information, please visit the conference website.
Reading Session with Gillian Polack
Friday, June 30, 2023 | 11.30-12.30
JO1, Johannistraße 4, Münster
We are thrilled to welcome the acclaimed Australian writer and scholar, Gillian Polack, to “Australian Studies Day,” hosted by the Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media Studies, where she will read passages from across her vast oeuvre. Dr. Gillian Polack is an award-winning Jewish Australian speculative fiction writer. Her novels include the time-travelling Langue[dot]doc 1305, drawing on her background as a Medieval historian, the first Australian Jewish fantasy novel (The Wizardry of Jewish Women), the Ditmar-winning The Year of the Fruit Cake (where aliens and perimenopausal women are not so far apart) and The Green Children Help Out (French superheroes). She was the 2020 recipient of the A. Bertram Chandler (lifetime achievement in science fiction) award. Gillian is an ethnohistorian with a special interest in how story transmits culture. Her most recent non-fiction books are Story Matrices and History and Fiction. She is an Ambassador for Australia Reads.
Polack, who holds doctorates in both literature and history, is keenly interested in the intersections of power, and how they inform national discourses on “Australia”. Writing in a distinctly postcolonial idiom, Polack’s work constantly interrogates how speculative fiction and science fiction – perhaps her two most recognized genres – offer counter-imaginaries to Australia’s national mythmaking.
The reading will be introduced by yashka Chavan, researcher and lecturer in Australian Studies at the University of Münster. Following the reading, you will have the opportunity to delve deeper into Gillian Polack's literary world and her scholarship in a Q&A session, moderated by speculative fiction and Australian Studies expert Dr. Bettina Burger from the University of Düsseldorf.
Mark your calendars and join us on this special occasion to celebrate Australian literature! If you wish to join the event online, you can find the Zoom link here.
Australian Studies Day
Friday, June 30, 2023 | 9.00-15.00
JO1, Johannistraße 4, Münster
The PTTS Chair will host an Australian Studies Day at the University of Münster on June 30, 2023 from 9:00-15:00 in JO1. We invite all interested students and staff to this event and hope that we can welcome you on this occasion!
The Australian Studies Day follows on from the highly successful project launch of the joint online master's programme "Australian Studies" in Cologne last year. The event is designed to report on the development of the MA programme to stakeholders at the University of Münster as well as to facilitate in-person exchange between the four partner universities (Cologne, Düsseldorf, Duisburg-Essen, and Münster). The day's programme will also reflect on the research field and teaching area Australian Studies: what constitutes its core components, what ties it together, and why is it such a vital and exciting research field at the current moment? From literary to cultural studies and linguistics; from feminism to gender studies; from indigeneity to environmentalism; and from migration studies to diaspora, Australian Studies is marked by a complex overlap and intersection of concerns and methods. As such it has so much to offer to adjacent disciplines, including not just English Studies, American Studies, and Postcolonial Studies but also cultural geography, history, different philologies, and more.
We look forward to debating these ideas with you on June 30th! The programme can be accessed here.
If you wish to join the event online, you can find the Zoom link here.
"Neue Töchter Afrikas" Reading and Conversation
Wednesday, June 14, 2023 | 7.30 PM
Studiobühne der Uni Münster, Domplatz 23
The anthology "Neue Töchter Afrikas" (New Daughters of Africa) celebrates Black diversity and its literary polyphony. Together with a team of Black women from Germany, Margaret Busby has selected essays, poems, and short prose from her anthology "New Daughters of Africa" (Myriad 2019) for this edition. The volume presents 30 Black women writers from around the world with their poetic, combative, and visionary word art, written over a span of more than 100 years. The authors write about tradition and role models, friendship and romance, flight and exile, racism, gender and identity politics. Even supposedly taboo topics and traumas are not left out.
Christa Morgenrath, who is editing the German version together with Eva Wernecke, introduces "New Daughters of Africa" in conversation with Tatjana Niederberghaus. Gifty Claresa Wiafe, Peace Ebere Ozukwere, Stella Bensmann and Victory Alohanoba will read the texts.
Christa Morgenrath has been a freelance editor (for the WDR) and cultural manager since 2002. She is the founder and curator of the literature and education series "stimmen afrikas" (Voices of Africa) in Cologne, where she has established a forum for discourse on North-South relations, culture and politics in Africa and Europe since 2009.
Tatjana Niederberghaus works as a publisher and is involved in various cultural projects. She gives workshops in the fields of anti-racism and empowerment and serves as production manager of "Resonanzen - Schwarze Literatur und Lesarten" (Resonances - Black Literature and Readings) at the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen. As founder of Afrosisters MS and member of the ISD, she is particularly interested in community work and the general empowerment and visibility of marginalized groups.
Gifty Claresa Wiafe, Peace Ebere Ozukwere, Stella Bensmann and Victory Alohanoba are actresses and dancers with Cactus Junges Theater.
The anthology "Neue Töchter Afrikas" has recently been published by Unrast-Verlag, Münster.
Admission is free, a donation is requested.
The event of Afrikanische Perspektiven e.V. takes place in cooperation with Cactus Junges Theater, the English Department of the Uni Münster - Postcolonial Studies and the Eine-Welt-Forum Münster e.V..
It is sponsored by the Cultural Office, the Advisory Council for Municipal Development Cooperation and the Integration Council of the City of Münster as well as the Peter Hammer Verein für Literatur und Dialog e.V..
"Let Me Read You Roughly" Reading Session with Nástio Mosquito
Studiobühne der Uni Münster, 25.05.2023, 9.00 PM
An elucidator and a multifaceted artist, Nástio Mosquito has emerged as one of the most dynamic artists of this generation. Trained as a film director and a television cameraman, Mosquito’s work brings together poetry, performance, scenography, audio-visuals and projections. His unpredictable engagements combine the roles of a singer, actor, theatrical producer, and a presenter.
Often centring mimicry, Mosquito highlights the observed nature of human modernity, blurring the distinctions between different forms and schools of art. As such, his performances run against static concepts, merging entertainment, sensoriality and politics. Central to his art is an unwavering commitment to the “potential of language” and re-situating the audience as a source of power. This approach is visible in his previous projects, Politics of Representation at Tate Modern, Projects 104 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), T.T.T.—Template Temples of Tenacity at The Fondazione Prada, and the collective performance Westfailure, among others.
Let Me Read You Roughly presents an amalgamation of Mosquito’s multimedia approach to language, mobilising different languages to perform poetic texts. The session strives to be a subtle guide to unusual processes: how to kill a friend, effectively; how do we let go of evil spirits? And how do we free ourselves from the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves? Mit den Gespenstern leben (haunting|heritage) is funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation, supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in the funding program »Regional Culture Program NRW«, the Commerzbank Foundation and the Kunststiftung NRW.
We invite you to partake in this dynamic event on the 25th of May, 2023, 9.00PM at the Studiobühne of Uni Münster (Domplatz 23, tickets 10 €/7 € disc.) — read, see, hear, and join in.
Application portal for Winter Semester 2023/24 for the MA NTS is now open! Apply between May - July 2023
The application portal for the 2023/24 winter term is now open, and can be accessed via the university's application platform (Bewerbungsportal)! Further details, including information on the Essay task for 2023 and the necessary application documents can be found on the MA NTS Admissions page.
Queering Postcolonial Worlds - Postcolonial Narrations Forum 2023
The 2023 Postcolonial Narrations Postgraduate Forum: Queering Postcolonial Worlds will be hosted by the University of Bremen and University of Münster. The conference is set to take place October 6&7 in Bremen and is primarily directed toward postgraduates (MA and PhD students) working within anglophone, postcolonial, and queer studies. The main objective of the conference is to probe and interrogate the overlaps and intersections between queer studies and postcolonial studies while maintaining a critical approach to disciplinary boundaries and their assumptions and limitations. The conference organizers welcome papers both on and beyond topics such as predominant whiteness and Europeanness in western queer theory, the interrelation of white supremacy, capitalism, and heteronormativity, the queer decolonial body and decolonial understandings of “queering,” queering power structures in the postcolonial world, representations of the gender non-conforming and trans* postcolonial body and consciousness in text, the erasure of Indigenous and Black queer epistemologies, as well as queer Black and Indigenous futurisms. In addition to paper presentations, the conference will feature a keynote by Shola Adenekan (Ghent University) and a panel on Cultivating Solidarity Networks in Academia with Deborah Nyangulu (University of Bremen), Paula von Gleich (University of Bremen), and Felipe Espinoza Garrido (University of Münster).
Abstracts can be submitted until June 30, 2023 to postcolonialnarrations@g-a-p-s.net. More info at: https://postcolonial-narrations.net/current_conference/.
NTS Open Day - Online Information Event
Are you interested in interdisciplinary research?
Do you have a passion for Postcolonial Studies?
Are you curious about critiques of the nation state?
Tune in to our info event to learn more about our M.A. National and Transnational Studies at Uni Münster and get the opportunity to speak to current students about their experience.
Date: 19th April 2023
Time: 5 p.m. (CET)
Register here for the Zoom Meeting.
Retelling Ugandan History(s)
Reading and talk with Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
In her novels, the writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi draws on myths and fairy tales, on Ugandan oral narrative traditions. She reinterprets them and interweaves them with the history of her country. Her first novel, Kintu, tells the saga of the Kintu family, which remains under the spell of a curse for more than two centuries. And in her most recent novel, The First Woman, she depicts, from a feminist perspective, the life of a girl named Kirabo, who grows up in the countryside with her grandparents and sets out to discover her own history - in 1970s Uganda under Idi Amin's dictatorship.
Dr. Makumbi was born in Uganda in 1967, teaches in Manchester, and currently lives in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD Artists' Program. The First Woman was published in German translation in 2022 by InterKontinental, Berlin. The novel Kintu is currently only available in English. For the reading, excerpts from it were translated into German.
The literary scholar Dr. Shaban Mayanja will moderate and translate the conversation with the author, and the narrator Sarah Giese will read excerpts from the novels.
DATE
Friday, May 5, 2023, 7 p.m.
Forum der Volkshochschule, Aegidiimarkt, 48143 Münster
ADMISSION
8€/ disc. 4€
Tickets can be purchased via the homepage https://afrikanische-perspektiven.de (Paypal) or at the box office (cash).
There is a contingent of free tickets for interested people who otherwise would not be able to attend. These free tickets must be pre-ordered by mail by May 4, 2023: tickets@afrikanische-perspektiven.de
FURTHER INFORMATION
https://afrikanische-perspektiven.de
COOPERATION AND SUPPORT
An event by Afrikanische Perspektiven e.V. and the Volkshochschule Münster in cooperation with the Eine-Welt-Forum Münster e.V. and the English Department of the University, Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural studies (PTTS), sponsored by the Cultural Office and the Advisory Board for Community Development Cooperation of the City of Münster.
"Zurückkehren" - Reading and conversation with Raharimanana
Reading from the novel "Zurückkehren" in German, French and Malagasy with music and a follow-up discussion. With the author Raharimanana (Madagascar/France), the actor Axel Brauch and the translator Annette Bühler-Dietrich.
Saturday, 25.03.2023, 19.00
Tickets: 8€/disc. 4€
Host: Afrikanische Perspektiven e.V.
Homepage: https://afrikanische-perspektiven.de
Contact: info@afrikanische-perspektiven.de or Tel. 0157 7253 6608
Exhibition: "Do you take up all the space in your body?"
yashka’s artwork – “decal collage / notes on contours of i” (2021) – is currently being presented in a group exhibition titled “Do you take up all the space in your body?: Eine Gruppenausstellung, die sich mit (Un)Sichtbarkeiten in Räumen auseinandersetzt”. The group exhibition comprises of six artists working with different mediums and engages with (in)visibilities of bodies in spaces. yashka’s work specifically makes an intervention in the politics of production and dissemination of knowledge in an academic space and ties it up with (in)visibility of trans corporealities in public spaces and cultures.
Online Q&A for prospective MA NTS applicants
As we approach the application phase for winter semester 2023/24, we want to ensure that you have all the information you need to apply for the MA NTS programme. We are organizing two events:
- An open Q&A event with members of the PTTS chair will be held on Wednesday, March 22nd at 17.00 (CET) via Zoom. This session will provide you with an opportunity to ask any questions you might have about the application process, the required documents, the programme itself, and more. To participate, please register for the event here.
- We also want to inform you that we will be hosting a more comprehensive and informative online event in mid-April, which will include participation from more members of the English department. The date and registration details will be announced here soon.
We hope that you will join us on March 22nd for the Q&A session, and we look forward to providing you with all the information you need to apply for the MA NTS!
Entangled Legacies: The Afterlives of Transculturality
An International Symposium in Honour of Frank Schulze-Engler
From Abu Dhabi to Leeds, from Mainz to Sydney, from Bern to New York, from Augsburg to Münster, speakers and well-wishers from different academic disciplines gathered together at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt on 10 February 2023 for an international symposium in honour of Prof. Dr. Frank Schulze-Engler. These scholars, writers, friends, and (former) students joined convener PD Dr. Pavan Malreddy to celebrate Prof. Schulze-Engler's influential work over the past decades in light of his impending retirement.
MA National and Transnational Studies - Essay task for the Winter Semester 2023/24 applications is now online!
The essay task for the upcoming application period can be accessed here. Please note that, in order to maximise the time successful applicants have to prepare, we offer three application phases. In this way, successful candidates have a maximum of time to apply for visas (which can be time-consuming) and to arrange funding, travel, and accommodation before the start of the MA NTS orientation week, likely in October 2023. Particularly applicants from outside the EU are strongly advised to apply as early as possible. Further information can be found here.
Meet the Curator of "Zeitgemäß?"
Dr. Eckhard Kluth
Tuesday, 31 Jan. 2023, 08.30-10.00, ES 131
We are looking forward to “Meet the Curator” on Tuesday, 31 Jan. 2023, 08.30-10.00 in room ES 131. Everyone is very welcome to attend this talk & Q&A. Below there are some links with further information on the University’s infamous name patron, the last German emperor Wilhelm II. Last Wednesday the Senate was presented with the final report “Zur Sache WWU" on Wilhelm. The Senate decided unanimously but provisionally to change the University’s name. A binding decision should be taken in early April.
Tomorrow’s guest is the curator of the exhibition Zeitgemäß?/ "Up to Date? Wilhelm II. in Discourse", Dr. Eckhard Kluth (who also chaired the committee “Zur Sache WWU”).
Here's more on this topic:
- Zeitgemäß? The exhibition site: https://www.uni-muenster.de/ZurSacheWWU/en/veranstaltungen/ausstellung.html
- Zur Sache WWU-Abschlussbericht (de)/ final report, published 26 Jan. 2023: https://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/zursachewwu/zursachewwu-abschlussbericht.pdf
- A short history of the University’s name: https://www.uni-muenster.de/ZurSacheWWU/en/quellen/index.html
- Uni Münster teaching an early forerunner of interdisciplinary teaching ‘Auslandskunde & Kolonialwissenschaften’, e.g. in WS 1931/32: https://www.alltagskultur.lwl.org/de/blog/kolonialwissenschaften-universitaet-muenster/
LWL Cultural Foundation - Funding for Postcolonial Projects
The LWL Cultural Foundation is focusing on the colonial past of Westphalia-Lippe and its current postcolonial traces in everyday life and culture in a new funding priority. The coffee and tea at the breakfast table as well as street names that recall colonial actors exemplify the effects of the colonial era that continue to this day. The "Black Lives Matter" movement and debates about colonial art in German museum collections point to how deeply colonial thought patterns, images and structures are anchored in our society. In 2024, a variety of projects will present and discuss how (post)colonial perpetuations are reflected in many places and how cultural offerings encourage a critical approach to them. Cultural institutions, associations and civic organizations that deal with (post)colonial perspectives are invited to participate in the theme year with their projects.
The main application deadline for participation in this funding priority is February 28, 2023. All information on the funding principles, the funding focus on (post)colonialism and the obligatory consultation as well as the mission statement and explanations of terms related to the thematic field can be found on the website of the LWL Cultural Foundation: www.lwl-kulturstiftung.de
Hybrid Symposium: Comics, Popular Visual Culture & Colonialism
January 27, 2023 | 11.30 - 18.30
This day-long symposium aims to bring together academics, comic artists, students, and local community members to discuss how comics and other forms of popular visual culture are used to remember colonial histories, particularly in the German and Dutch contexts. Divided into two parts, the symposium will first address the colonial past in visual cultures more generally, with confirmed talks by Dr. Philipp Erdmann + Dominic Eickhoff (Münster) and Dr. Felicity Jensz (Münster). The focus will then move to the topic of postcolonial storytelling in contemporary comics with talks by PhD candidate Alicia Lambert (Louvain) and Dr. Britta Schilling (Utrecht) + Eeva Langeveld (Münster), as well as two roundtables with comic artists, including Christian Diaz Orejarena, Dido Drachman, Els Deckers, Hannah Bremer, and Peter van Dongen. The first roundtable will highlight comics in the German context and will focus on the topics of knowledge and didactics. The second will make space for reflecting on form and collaboration, particularly regarding comics in the Dutch context.
Program available here.
The symposium will be held from 11:30-18:30 on Friday, January 27, 2023 at the English Seminar (Johannisstraße 12-20) in Münster. All interested participants are welcome to join. Registration is required. To join in person, please send an email to comicssymposium@uni-muenster.de. To join via Zoom, please register here.
Inaugural Lecture: PD Dr. Silke Stroh - "Decolonising National Space: Regional Cartographies in 21st-century Black British Literature"
15 December 2022, 12.15-13.45, AudiMax, English Department
PD Dr. Silke Stroh, who has been an integral part of the English Department of the University of Münster over the past decade and a half, gave her inaugural lecture, titled "Decolonising National Space: Regional Cartographies in 21st-century Black British Literature" on Thursday, 15 December 2022 in the AudiMax of the English Department. An inaugural lecture is a rite of passage for people who have recently completed their Habilitation or obtained a professorship. It is essentially aimed at a student audience but colleagues (and sometimes friends) also get invited along, and the framework can be slightly more formal. The talk was attended by students, friends and scholars alike, and it was followed by a reception in rooms 202 and 203 of the department.
Lecture series "Black German Studies: Transatlantic Perspectives" Dec. 2022 - Feb. 2023
The lecture series “Black German Studies: Transatlantic Perspectives” responds to the question posed by Tiffany Florvil and Vanessa Plumly in their 2018 volume Rethinking Black German Studies: “Who and what do we engage with when we use the category of Black German Studies?” Co-organized by the Chair for German Literature, Comparative Literary Studies and Transatlantic Literary History and the Chair for English, Postcolonial and Media Studies in partnership with the Transatlantic Studies Network, the series seeks to offer space for exchange and reflection on the research field of Black German Studies and for engagement with scholars, authors/artists, and activists who contribute to this discourse. With a particular focus on transatlantic exchange, the lecture series consciously includes multiple, differently-located voices, drawing attention to scholarship from across the Atlantic that invigorates the study of Black German texts, as well as recognizing and centering the work that is being done in this area particularly by Black scholars, artists, and activists, located in Germany. In doing so, continuities between the transatlantic transfer that has been recognized, for example, in Audre Lorde’s impact in the Afro-German movement of the 1980s and the impact of Black US-American scholars in German Studies today are made apparent, as are the problematic implications of the tendency to look to the U.S. when it comes to discourses of Blackness in Germany. Such topics will be explored by several academic lectures, a film screening, a reading, and an evening dedicated to the poetry and transnational activism of May Ayim. In recognition of the continued potential for scholarship, discussions, and ethical practices emerging from Black German Studies to offer lessons and impulses for research and teaching beyond the emergent discipline, the lecture series makes space for these discussions at the University of Münster, inviting students, colleagues, and community members to take part.
Further information and updates can be found here.
Launch Event: Online MA Australian Studies
18 Nov 2022
Australian Studies Online is a collaborative project funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North-Rhine Westphalia that seeks to establish an inter-and transdisciplinary master’s programme within the humanities.
In collaboration with the Universities of Cologne, Aachen, Duisburg-Essen, and Düsseldorf, we at the Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media Studies of the University of Münster are currently developing, implementing, and evaluating innovative digital teaching formats and materials.
The Australian Studies MA programme, which will be offered mainly online, starting in summer term 2024, addresses historical developments, contemporary challenges, and future visions in the context of Australia.
You can find the programme of the launch event, which will be held on November 18th 2022, here.
'Generations of Dissent': Forms of Contestation in Modern Egyptian Literature and Arts
Seminar
Political and social issues have always been a major concern in modern Arabic literature. Although the debate about literary commitment (iltizām) was at its peak in the mid-1950s, the importance of literature and the arts for society was never denied by either authors or critics and readers even in later decades. However, the way how literature could and should take part in, or even initiate, political and social debates has been the subject of controversial discussions. While many writers advocated social realism, this trend was criticized by its opponents for its directly political, often ideological stances, and the importance of the freedom of the arts, its aesthetic and more subtle forms of expressing dissent was emphasized. In Egypt, the ‘generation of the sixties’, which had turned to more experimental, fragmented forms of writing, was followed by the ‘generation of the nineties’ whose often metafictional, self-reflective texts were criticized as apolitical and elitist. The 2000s witnessed a certain return to storytelling and a more panoramic view of society, and a number of texts appeared that blurred the boundaries between fictional and non-fictional writing (diary, reportage) as well as high-brow and popular literature, especially in the context of the ’25 January Revolution’ in 2011.
In this seminar, the students and the lecturer, Dr. Barbara Winckler will explore the ways and forms used by writers and artists of various generations to, directly or indirectly, express political dissent and engage in political and social debates. While the focus will be on literary texts, attention will also be paid to other forms of cultural production and media, such as popular poetry and songs, autofictional blogs and street art.
While the seminar is held by the MA in Arabic and Islamic Studies, it is also open for students of other literary and cultural studies programs (MA NTS, BAPS, Kulturpoetik and others). The texts that will be discussed are either translated to or originally written in English, thus the knowledge of Arabic is not mandatory. In case all participants speak sufficiently German, the class may be held in German.
Selected readings:
Generations of Dissent: Intellectuals, Cultural Production, and the State in the Middle East and North Africa, eds. Alexa Firat & R. Shareah Taleghani (2020); Commitment and Beyond: Reflections on/of the Political in Arabic Literature since the 1940s, eds. Friederike Pannewick & Georges Khalil (2015); Samia Mehrez: Egypt’s Culture Wars: Politics and Practice (2000); Arabistik. Eine literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Einführung, eds. Yvonne Albers et al. (2021); Arabic Literature – Postmodern Perspectives, eds. Angelika Neuwirth, Andreas Pflitsch & Barbara Winckler (2010).
Vacancy - Research Assistant (60%)
Deadline: October 14, 2022
The PTTS team is hiring a new member to join us in building the new online M.A. in Australian Studies!
Please find a detailed job description here.
For further information about the M.A. programme, please get in touch with Felipe Espinoza Garrido.
Vacancy - Research Assistant (75%)
Deadline: September 18, 2022
Are you interested to teach and research in Postcolonial and Diaspora Studies?
The PTTS team is hiring a new member to join us.
Please find a detailed job description here.
Any questions? Just get in touch: mark.stein@wwu.de.
Lecture and talk with Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin
14 JUN 2022 | 19:30 h (Volkshochschule Münster, Room 206/207)
Baraka Sakin presents his book "Der Messias von Darfur" and talks about the current situation in Sudan. Carsten Bender will read excerpts from the book.
Further information is available here.
Zeiten des Bewusstwerdens - Politische und soziale Auseinandersetzungen im Sudan
Lecture
1 JUN 2022 | 19:30 h (Zoom)
With Dr. Ishraga Mustafa Hamid and Omer Othman
Further information is available here.
Application portal for the MA NTS program's Winter Semester 2022/23 intake is now open! Apply between May - July 2022
The application portal for the 22/23 winter term to study at the MA NTS program is now open, and can be accessed via the university's application platform (Bewerbungsportal)! Further details, including information on the Essay task for 2022 and the necessary application documents can be found on the Admissions page.
Sudan: Struggle for social and political renewal
Lecture
6 APR 2022 | 19:00 h (Audi Max, English Department, Johannisstraße 12)
With Dr. Ishraga Mustafa Hamid and Omer Othman
Further information is available here.
NTS Open Day - Online information event
Are you interested in interdisciplinary research?
Do you have a passion for Postcolonial Studies?
Are you curious about critiques of the nation state?
Tune in to our info event to learn more about our M.A. National and Transnational Studies at Uni Münster and get the opportunity to speak to current students about their experience.
Date: 19th April 2022
Time: 12 p.m.
Register here for the Zoom Meeting.
Social Media Internship Position
The Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media Studies invites applications for a 150-hour internship designed to fulfil the requirements of the NTS Work Experience Module. The position will run from the end of March/beginning of April 2022 for approximately 15 to 30 weeks, depending on the weekly hours.
Please find the detailed job description here.
Any questions? Just get in touch: mark.stein@wwu.de
Vacancy - Student Assistant
Are you interested to work at the Chair of English, Postcolonial & Media Studies?
The PTTS team is looking for a new student assistant to join us at the earliest possible date.
Please find the detailed job description here.
Any questions? Just get in touch: mark.stein@wwu.de
„Dekolonisierung des Denkens“
lecture series (AUG 2021 - MAR 2022)
The lecture series is organized by Afrikanische Perspektiven e.V. and takes place in cooperation with Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies (PTTS), Volkshochschule Münster, and Eine-Welt-Forum Münster e.V. , among others. It is supported by the Kulturamt (Stadt Münster) and the Peter Hammer Verein für Literatur und Dialog e.V. .
8 AUG 2021 | 12:00 h (Studiobühne der Universität)
Der gute Deutsche: Rudolf Manga Bell
Lecture by Christian Bommarius (publicist) in German
7 SEPT 2021 | 19:00 h (Zoom)
Dekolonisierung des Rechts
Lecture and discussion with Karina Theurer (European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)) in German
27 OCT 2021 | 19:00 h (Franz-Hitze-Haus) | 8€/ 4€
Die Macht der Bilder - Die Folgen der negativen Afrika-Darstellung
Lecture by Dr. M. Moustapha Diallo in German
4 NOV 2021 | 19:00 h (Zoom)
Gedichte auf Luganda
Lecture by Dr. Susan Nalugwa Kiguli (lyricist) in German
21 JAN 2022 | 19:00 h (Plenarsaal des LWL-Landeshauses)
Afrika-Berichterstattung in der "Tagesschau" von 1952–2018
Lecture by Dr. Fabian Sickenberger in German
8 FEB 2022 | 19:00 h (Studiobühne der Universität)
Pisten
Lecture by Penda Diouf and Gifty Wiafe in German and French
Followed by a talk with Dr. M. Moustapha Diallo
21 Mar 2022 | 19:00 h (Uni Münster Weiterbildung, Königsstr. 47, 48143 Münster)
Decolonize Yourself
Lecture with Ania Faas, Zandile Darko, and Dr. M. Moustapha Diallo
You can find further information on the lecture series and the individual talks here.
Further events t.b.a.
2 Vacancies - Research Assistants - 2 PhD positions (65% and 60%)
Deadline: 9 JULY 2021
Are you interested to teach and research in Postcolonial and Diaspora Studies?
The PTTS team is hiring two new members to join us starting in October 2021.
Please find the detailed job descriptions below:
Research Assistant - 0.65 PhD position (65%, pos. 1)
Research Assistant - 0.60 PhD position (60%, pos. 2)
While most of our work is conducted in English (incl. teaching and research), a working knowledge of German is essential (e.g. for committees and administrative tasks).
We encourage applications from BIPoC scholars and from those with migrant backgrounds.
In your application, make sure to indicate which of the two positions you are applying for (pos. 1 or pos. 2).
Any questions? Just get in touch: mark.stein@wwu.de.
KONTRAPUNKTE: WISSENSCHAFT IM WIDERSPRUCH
Digital Cosmopolitanism
25 JAN 2022 | 18:00 h s.t. (Zoom)
Guest speaker: Sandra Ponzanesi (U Utrecht)
Discussants: Shola Adenekan (U Amsterdam), Stephan O. Görland (U Bremen) & Mark U. Stein
(U Münster)
Introduction and Chair: Julia Borst & Linda Maeding (U Bremen)
This Kontrapunkte-event focuses on the controversy surrounding the concept of cosmopolitanism, which faces the challenges of a present characterized by increased mobility and omnipresent digitality.
On the one hand, „cosmopolitanism“ looks back on a solid tradition and history, but on the other hand, it has changed enormously in the face of increasing globalisation tendencies and post-colonial migration flows at the beginning of the 21st century. These transformations and renegotiations in flux, which are associated with the current understanding of „cosmopolitanism“, also diverge greatly depending on the disciplinary perspective.
This event will be held in English.
Please register until January 24, 10AM.
More information is available here: woc.uni-bremen.de/events/
"Schwarzer Orpheus – Janheinz Jahn als Literaturvermittler"
Lecture, reading and discussion
2 JUL 2021 | 19:00h
Speaker: Dr. Ibou C. Diop
Studiobühne der Universität Münster, Domplatz 23, Münster
Registration required: AfrikanischePerspektiven@t-online.de
The event is organized by Afrikanische Perspektiven e.V. and takes place in cooperation with Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies (PTTS), Volkshochschule Münster, and Eine-Welt-Forum Münster e.V. , among others. It is supported by the Kulturamt (Stadt Münster) and the Peter Hammer Verein für Literatur und Dialog e.V. .
Curator Dr. Ibou C. Diop will present the exhibition on Janheinz Jahn (1918-1973) at the new Humboldt Forum in Berlin. Jahn is considered the first German mediator of literature from African countries and the diaspora. While highlighting his relevance, Dr. Ibou C. Diop also questions the images of Black people in Jahn’s writing on Africa and African literatures. Dr. Diop will be in conversation with German Studies scholar Dr. Moustapha Diallo. During the event, actress Sarah Giese will read texts that Jahn has translated into German.
For more information klick here.
"Sprache und Kolonialismus" (Language and Colonialism) lecture series (2 JUN - 23 JUN 2021)
The lecture series is organized by the Germanistisches Institut der Universität Münster & Kommission für Mundart- und Namenforschung Westfalens.
You can find more information on the lecture series and the individual talks listed below here.
2 JUN 2021 | 18:30h
Koloniale Mikrotoponyme: (Historische) Benennungspraktiken, (aktuelle) Umbenennungen
Lecture by Dr. Verena Ebert (Würzburg) in German
9 JUN 2021 | 18:30h
Die deutsche Sprache im postkolonialen Namibia
Lecture by Dr. Christian Zimmer (Freie Universität Berlin) in German
16 JUN 2021 | 18:30h
Unserdeutsch (Rabaul Creole German): Das linguistische Erbe der Hiltruper Missionare im Südwestpazifik
Lecture by Prof. Dr. Péter Maitz (Universität Bern) in German
23 JUN 2021 | 18:30h
Kolonialismus im Wörterbuch. Einblicke in die Arbeit der Dudenredaktion
Lecture by Dr. Laura Neuhaus (Dudenredaktion, Berlin) in German
M.A. NTS applications 2021: Early-bird offers for 23 students +++ applications still possible until 31 July (extended deadline)
All MA NTS applications received in May 2021 were processed in early June and the 'early bird' round of this year’s selection process has been completed. We are delighted with the results: 23 offers have been sent out to students from 14 different countries on 4 continents!
We'll be offering more MA NTS places in August. So you can still apply before July 31 (extended deadline). We are looking forward to reading all applications and your essays on trans/nationalism, COVID, and literary or cultural texts – and to working with a highly international and diverse group of students once again!
Prospective students are now able to submit their application for the M.A. National and Transnational Studies via the university's
electronic application platform (Bewerberportal) [de].
You can find more information on the application process, required documents and language skills, etc. in the "Admissions" section on our MA NTS website.
Indigenous Texts & Contexts – Reading group
If you are interested in indigenous literatures, the Indigenous Texts & Contexts reading group at the English Deparment might be the perfect fit for you. The group offers an informal setting to discuss indigenous texts in relation to their political and cultural contexts. Everyone who has a keen interest in indigenous literatures, incl. students, lecturers, library staff, ..., is welcome to join their meetings. The group meets via Zoom for the time being.
Dates: 20 May – 17 June – 8 July – 29 July 2021 from 6.30 to 7.30pm
For more info, please see their flyer or contact the hosts, Mareike Reinfandt
MA National and Transnational Studies - Online information event
15 April 2021 at 2 pm via Zoom
Faculty members will host a digital info event for BA students interested in our international Master’s programme National and Transnational Studies: Literature—Culture—Language at Uni Münster.
The information event covers the following topics:
* General introduction to the Master’s programme
* Fields of study (literary and cultural studies, linguistics, book studies, etc.)
* Application procedure and “corona concessions”
* Q&A session
Please register here to receive the login details and further information.
More information on the Master's programme is available here.
We look forward to meeting you in virtual space!
Vacancy - Research Assistant - 0.75 PhD position (75%)
Are you interested to teach and research in English, Postcolonial and Diaspora Studies?
The PTTS team is hiring a new member to join us at the earliest possible date.
Please find the detailed job description here.
Any questions? Just get in touch: mark.stein@wwu.de
Guest lecture live on YouTube
The Cemetery of the Companionless: Towards a World Literature of Undocumented Lives in Elif Shafak’s
10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World
Contingent Belonging | Un/bedingte Zugehörigkeit lecture series
29 JAN 2021, 18:15h
Lecture by Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee (Mainz University) in English
More information
>>WATCH THE TALK LIVE ON YOUTUBE HERE<<
>> Meet the curator of Hostile Terrain 94 <<
Contingent Belonging | Un/bedingte Zugehörigkeit lecture series
25 JAN 2021 | 19:00h s.t.
*STREAMED LIVE ON YOUTUBE*
Q&A with Prof. Jason de León, PhD (UCLA)
Watch the Q&A with Jason de León live on YouTube here – or the join the webinar to ask him questions.
Contingent Belonging | Un/bedingte Zugehörigkeit
Lecture series
Complementing the installation Hostile Terrain 94, the ht94Münster team also hosts "Contingent Belonging | Un/bedingte Zugehörigkeit", a digital lecture series on topics and issues related to the exhibition. The different talks approach borders from various, often intersecting perspectives: the border as material artefact and reality; border politics and border regimes; representation of borders in art and literature; border poetics; cross-border movements and encounters; migration, refuge, and belonging; violence and death.
The lectures are free, open to the public and take place online using the Webinar software. It is not necessary to download, install or log in to the software. The digital lecture room can be accessed by simply clicking on a participation link. The links for participation will be shared shortly before each lecture takes place.
Get access here
The "Contingent Belonging | Un/bedingte Zugehörigkeit" lecture series features the following talks and a Q&A with the curator of Hostile Terrain 94:
18 JAN 2021 | 18:00 Uhr (s.t.)
"From the Other Side": Grenzregime im Blickfeld der Kunst
Prof. Dr. Ursula Frohne (Uni Münster)
More information
20 JAN 2021 | 18:15h
Hintergründe und Bedingungen räumlicher Mobilität: Positionen und Perspektiven der Migrationsforschung
Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Jochen Oltmer (Uni Osnabrück)
More information
21 JAN 2021 | 18:00h
“Illegal Alien” or “Refugee”: Border Crossings Into El Paso, Texas
Vortrag von Dr. Ina Batzke (Uni Augsburg) in englischer Sprache
Lecture by Dr. Ina Batzke (Augsburg University) in English
More information
>> 25 JAN 2021 | 19:00h s.t. << *STREAMED LIVE ON YOUTUBE*
>> Meet the curator <<
Q&A with Prof. Jason de León, PhD (UCLA)
Watch the Q&A with Jason de León live on YouTube here – or the join the webinar to ask him questions.
26 JAN 2021 | 18:15h
Leben und Sterben mit der Grenze: Grenzregime, Migration und Identitäten in Mexiko und den USA im 20. Jahrhundert
Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Silke Hensel (Uni Münster)
More information
27 JAN 2021 | 18:00h
Refugees and the Right to Have Rights: From the Borders of Europe through Contingent Belonging in Münster
Vortrag von Dr. Jesper Reddig (Uni Münster) in englischer Sprache
Lecture by Dr. Jesper Reddig (Münster University) in English
More information
29 JAN 2021 | 18:15h *LIVE ON YOUTUBE*
The Cemetery of the Companionless: Towards a World Literature of Undocumented Lives in Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World
Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee (Uni Mainz) in englischer Sprache
Lecture by Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee (Mainz University) in English
More information
>>WATCH THE TALK LIVE ON YOUTUBE HERE<<
“Hostile Terrain 94: Münster edition”
From 18 – 29 JANUARY 2021, the English Department and the Uni Münster Kulturbüro will be hosting the “Hostile Terrain 94” installation at the Uni Münster Bibelmuseum (Johannisstr. 20, 48143 Münster). The exhibition is taking place simultaneously at different institutions across the globe. The exhibition will tackle questions of border regimes; contingent belonging; agency; art, activism, and remembranc e. Hostile Terrain 94 Muenster is a collaborative project.
Enter the exhibition
Hostile terrain is the term used by US Border Patrol to describe the deathly strip of land that divides Mexico from the US, encompassed by the Arizona Dessert. As a result of the 1994 US immigration policy of “Prevention Through Deterrence”, safer passages through the borderlands have been shut down so thatthousands of immigrants are forced to cross this “hostile terrain” every year. Many perish under the harsh and deadly topography of the border-crossing area.
To highlight this systematic oppression and plight of these identified and unidentified victims, “Hostile Terrain 94” is organized by the Undocumented Migration Project, a non-profit research-art-education-media collective, directed by Professor Jason De León (UCLA). The exhibition is composed of c. 3,200 handwritten toe-tags, filled out by teams of volunteers, each representing a refugee who has died trying to cross the Sonoran Desert of Arizona between the mid-1990s and 2019. A participatory art installation, these geolocated tags are mounted on a large map of the Sonora Desert, pinpointing the exact locations where remains were found.
In preparation of the exhibition, the seminar "Hostile Terrains" is offered at the English Department during the Summer term. More information can be found here.
The exhibition will be complemented by a lecture series titled "Contingent Belongings" which relates the project to historical and contemporary perspectives on migration, remembrance, borders, and belonging. The lecture series includes speakers from disciplines such as Art History, American Studies, Christian Social Sciences, Migration Research and Intercultural Studies.
Information on the project in German can be found here.
Contact:
Hostile Terrain Muenster
Annika Reketat
Prof. Dr. Mark U Stein
*PUBLICATION OUT NOW*
Ideology in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts
We are glad to announce that the edited volume Ideology in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts, edited by Katja Sarkowsky and Mark U Stein, has now been published with Brill. The volume reflects that critiques of ideological formations occur within intersecting social, political, and cultural configurations where each position is in itself ‘ideological’ – and subject to asymmetrical power relations. It further attests that postcolonialism itself has become an object of critique as ideology, while postcolonial studies’ highly diversified engagement with ideology remains a strong focus that exceeds Ideologiekritik. Its fourteen contributions focus
- (I) on the complex relation between postcolonialism, postcolonial theory, and conceptualizations of ideology,
- (II) on ideological formations that manifest themselves in very specific postcolonial contexts, highlighting the potential continuities between colonial and postcolonial ideology,
- (III) and on further expanding and complicating the nexus of postcolonial ideology, from veiling as both ideological practice and individual resistance to home as ideological construct; from palimpsestic readings of colonial photography to aesthetics as ideology.
Ideology in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts emerged from the eponymous GAPS Annual Conference hosted by the English Department at Uni Münster and it is part of the renowned Cross/Cultures Series.
Cambridge Literature & Performance Festival – Webinar Series
The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing
07 DECEMBER, 18:15h
If there ever was a time to discuss the often overlooked 400-year-long history of Black and Asian British writing in Britain and its evolution, it is now. Susheila Nasta (Queen Mary), Mark Stein (Uni Münster), and Sukhdev Sandhu (NYU) will discuss the first-ever Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing (CUP: 2020, ed. Susheila Nasta and Mark U Stein) during Cambridge's #LitPerformFest. Spanning across four centuries of black and Asian British writing from the eighteenth century to the present, the book provides contextualized introductions to a wide range of writers, exploring form, style, and genre within necessary social, political, and cultural contexts.
Join them for the webinar on 7 DEC, 18:15h (CET).
You can register for the event here.
*Corona* Important information on traveling to Germany
The DW has compiled an article which includes helpful information for students flying (back) into Germany: https://www.dw.com/en/traveling-germany-coronavirus/a-54124541.
Inaugural meeting:
Southern Lives at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing
Convened by Professor Elleke Boehmer, The Southern Lives Network at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing springs out of Elleke's Southern Imagining and Tracing Southern Latitudes research projects. The Network aims at bringing together writers and scholars in postcolonial and Global South studies, the oceanic humanities and polar studies, to discuss how the high southern latitudes are imagined through life-writing.
Research questions include the following:
- How are southern worlds constructed as interconnected or in relation to each other in memoir, biography, and auto-fiction?
- What does it mean to view the world from a southern hemisphere perspective?
- What perspectives do global southern writing and story-telling offer to northern imaginative norms, including that of the ‘Global South’?
- How might the postcolonial and world literature fields be approached from a consciously antipodean or about-face viewpoint?
- How do we build comparative and lateral links across southern spaces and lives, and what is the epistemological and environmental traction of doing so?
The inaugural meeting will take place on Zoom, 8 December, 11:00 – 12:40. The detailed schedule can be found here.
FREE ACCESS DURING BLACK HISTORY MONTH:
The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing
Starting October 1st, Cambridge University Press grants a month of free access to the first Cambridge Histoy of Black and Asian British Writing (2020), edited by Susheila Nasta and Mark U Stein.
- 'This groundbreaking book of essays is a must-have for all editors, critics and literary editors who need to know this literary history, and all university and other libraries, and writers and readers.' Bernardine Evaristo
The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing provides a comprehensive historical overview of the diverse literary traditions impacting on this field's evolution, from the eighteenth century to the present. Drawing on the expertise of over forty international experts, this book gathers innovative scholarship to look forward to new readings and perspectives, while also focusing on undervalued writers, texts, and research areas. Creating new pathways to engage with the naming of a field that has often been contested, readings of literary texts are interwoven throughout with key political, social, and material contexts. In making visible the diverse influences constituting past and contemporary British literary culture, this Cambridge History makes a unique contribution to British, Commonwealth, postcolonial, transnational, diasporic, and global literary studies, serving both as one of the first major reference works to cover four centuries of black and Asian British literary history and as a compass for future scholarship.
8th Biennial Afroeuropeans Network Conference
"Intersectional Challenges in Afroeuropean Communities"
7-10 July 2021, Brussels
The 8th Biennial Afroeuropeans Network Conference “Intersectional Challenges in Afroeuropean Communities” will take place from 7 – 10 July 2021 in Brussels, the capital of Europe. Hosted by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), this conference is the result of a long collaboration between academics, writers, artists and activists that gave rise to the International Afroeuropeans Network.
The organisers of the Brussels conference envision the event as an academic, activist, and intellectual space that engages with Blackness in Europe and in which Afroeuropeans, other marginalised groups, and their allies can meet in solidarity and critical, yet respectful dialogue. Topics to be addressed at the conference may include, but are not limited to, Black identity, Black art, Black politics, and Black struggle, and special emphasis will be placed on the intersectional dimensions that underpin, affect, and shape Afroeuropean communities and their various cultural productions.
MA National and Transnational Studies (NTS):
Deadline for Applications Extended!
Please note that the deadline for the submission of applications has been extended due to the SARS19-pandemic. Apply for our 2-year tuition-free M.A. programme "National and Transnational Studies" until 20 August 2020. All classes are taught in English.
Further information can be found on the MA NTS website and here.
MA National and Transnational Studies (NTS):
Online information event, Wed. 27 May 2020 @ 2pm (CET) via Zoom
On Wednesday, 27 May 2020, our faculty members will host a digital info event for students interested in the international Master’s programme “National and Transnational Studies: Literature—Culture—Language“ here at Uni Münster.
The event will take place in Zoom and will address the following topics:
- General introduction to the Master’s programme
- Fields of study (literary and cultural studies, linguistics, book studies, etc.)
- Application procedure and “corona concessions”
- Q&A session
We look forward to meeting you in this virtual space!
MA National and Transnational Studies (NTS):
Application portal open
The application portal is now open for the international two-year Master’s programme "National and Transnational Studies: Literature, Culture, Language" here at Uni Münster. You can find the application portal here: https://studienbewerbung.uni-muenster.de/bewerbungsportal/. Our established interdisciplinary programme is tuition-free and taught in English. Due to the corona crisis our admission procedure has been adjusted with regard to language tests, official certifications, and postal services.
Please find further details on the NTS website.
New book by Markus Schmitz
Transgressive Truths and Flattering Lies: The Poetics and Ethics of Anglophone Arab Representations.
transcript, 2020
Markus Schmitz has recently published his revised habilitation thesis Transgressive Truths and Flattering Lies: The Poetics and Ethics of Anglophone Arab Representations. This book explores the formative correlations and inventive transmissions of Anglophone Arab representations ranging from early 20th century Mahjar writings to contemporary transnational Palestinian resistance art. Tracing multiple beginnings and seminal intertexts, the comparative study of dissonant truth-making presents critical readings in which the notion of cross-cultural translation gets displaced and strategic unreliability, representational opacity, or matters of act advance to essential qualities of the discussed works' aesthetic devices and ethical concerns. Questioning conventional interpretive approaches, Markus Schmitz shows what Anglophone Arab studies are and what they can become from a radically decentered relational point of view. Among the writers and artists discussed are such diverse figures as Rabih Alameddine, William Blatty, Kahlil Gibran, Ihab Hassan, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Emily Jacir, Walid Raad, Ameen Rihani, Edward Said, Larissa Sansour, and Raja Shehadeh.
For more information and open access to the e-book please click here
Deadline extension for term papers
Due to the corona pandemic and the closure of University libraries, please note that your deadline will be extended, if you are writing a term paper in one of the classes held by the PTTS team. Once the libraries open up again we will post an update about this deadline extension.
If you wish to hand in your paper before this, please send an electronic version including the signed plagiarism form to the respective PTTS team member. In addition, please make sure to drop off a printed version either at the respective post box at the English Department once the building reopens or at any time in the white post box at the Department's front entrance.
The extension does not apply to classes taught by Mrs. Nyangulu, as the term papers were due before the closure of the libraries.
Start of teaching postponed at Uni Münster
Due to the corona pandemic, the Land NRW has closed down its schools and postponed face-to-face teaching at University. For now, these measures are in place until 20 April 2020. As things currently stand, 17 July remains the final day of teaching this summer semester.
Because of the rapidly changing situation, it’s essential to keep yourself and fellow students well-informed, especially in case you were planning return travel to the University of Münster. Please see here.
If you cannot find the answers you need on the web, you can also turn to Die Brücke which fields questions through its information desk on Facebook.
SUSPEND AND TRANSFORM THE TEACHING MACHINE
In the midst of a global pandemic, students & lecturers are wondering what the summer semester will bring for them.
Here is an open letter which generates important ideas and demands, turning the semester into a ‘Nichtsemester’. Such a 'No-Semester’ will allow us to explore new forms of teaching, study and learning, and to keep research and admin going, but crucially so without the default expectations, measurements, and constraints (including credit points, teaching hours, etc.).
Let’s suspend the teaching machine and transform it.
Think. Sign. Share.
You can access the open letter here.
Roundtable: The politics of contingent belonging in Europe - Call for Statements
Conveners: Deborah Nyangulu (d_nyan01@wwu.de) and Mark U. Stein
I am German when we win, but an immigrant when we lose – Mesut Özil
When things were going well, I was reading newspaper articles and they were calling me Romelu Lukaku, the Belgian Striker. When things weren’t going well, they were calling me Romelu Lukaku, the Belgian striker of Congolese descent – Romelu Lukaku
These are just two of many examples which demonstrate how European publics often subject people of colour, regardless of class or status, to a politics of contingent belonging – “a conditional belonging that is strategically granted and revoked, meted out by white Europe when useful to its own interests”, as we put it recently.* To say it differently, contingent belonging is (apparently benevolently) bestowed onto migrants and ‘diasporeans’ – only to be withdrawn without warning; Mo Farah’s contested Europeanness after his 2015 Lisbon Marathon win is another example to complement the above. But on the receiving end, contingent belonging can also be employed strategically, and therefore become a potential site of resistance, performing self-identification and defiance against normative grammars of belonging.
Starting out on the premise that European publics often equate national belonging with whiteness, this roundtable seeks to explore how issues of self and group identification, race, language, nationality, citizenship, religion, birthplace, and/or cultural origins are mobilized to claim, pronounce on, negotiate, or revoke conditions of national belonging. What are the connections between nativism, whiteness, identity, migration, and belonging? What sort of contradictions emerge from pursuing a politics of contingent belonging and does this open up spaces for de-essentializing identities and conditions for national belonging? Designed to promote discussion amongst panellists and with the audience, the short statements (5 minutes) comprising this roundtable respond to its thematics and questions.
If you are interested in joining the roundtable, please let us have a (working) title for your statement as well as a brief abstract (c. 150 words max.) along with a short bio. Email one single word file to the conveners by 5FEB2020. Thanks!
* “Introduction: African European Studies as a Critique of Contingent Belonging”, Locating African European Studies: Interventions, Intersections, Conversation. Eds. Felipe Espinoza Garrido, Caroline Koegler, Deborah Nyangulu, and Mark Stein. London: Routledge, 2020. Free download here.
>> What makes literature diasporic? Reflections on Like mule bringing ice cream to the sun <<
Guest Lecture with Sarah Ladipo Manyika
Tuesday, 29 October 2019
JO1, Johannisstr. 4, 48143 Münster
12 c.t.
The Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media studies is proud to host Sarah Ladipo Manyika for a guest lecture at Uni Münster’s English department titled “What makes literature diasporic? Reflections on Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun.” The guest lecture is part of Prof. Dr. Mark U Stein’s lecture “Literatures of the African Diasporas”. Anyone who is interested is welcome to join this free event.
When asked if she considers herself an African writer, Sarah Ladipo Manyika poignantly described herself as “an African writer and a British writer and an American writer and a global writer and a female writer and a black writer and a serious writer and a silly writer” in 2016, questioning literary classification and geographical fixation. An author of essays and novels, Manysika’s first novel In Dependence (2008) was originally published in London and later republished in Nigeria and Zimbabwe where it has become a set book for the Advanced-Level English Literature examinations.
In her talk, Manyika will reflect on her latest novel, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun (2016), which has recently also been translated into German. It has been endorsed by influential authors such as the 2019 Booker Prize-winner Bernardine Evaristo, who applauds the novel for expanding “the canon of contemporary African literature into welcome new territory.” The novel has also been shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2016.
For additional information in German on her newest novel and the author, please click the following download link.
Intellectuals Across Borders: Keynotes and Literature Event
The upcoming conference"Intellectuals Across Borders: Writers, Artists, Activists" (IAB2019) will include riveting sessions with prominent speakers, which we would like to introduce:
Keynotes
Johny Pitts
Johny Pitts is a writer, photographer and broadcast journalist. He has received various awards for his work, including a Decibel Penguin Prize and an ENAR (European Network Against Racism) award. He is the curator of the online journal Afropean.com part of the Guardian's Africa Network and has collaborated with Caryl Philips on A Bend in the River, a photographic essay about London's immigrant communities for the BBC and Arts Council. His photography has been published widely in international magazines and across the blogosphere. Johny’s book titled Afropean: Notes from Black Europe has recently come out with Penguin to much critical acclaim.
Further information on Johny and his projects can be found here.
John Sundholm
John Sundholm is Chair of the Department of Media Studies and Professor in Cinema Studies at Stockholm University. His research areas include memory studies and minor cinemas. He focuses on theoretical and methodological issues in memory studies; cultural trauma and national victimhood, and nationalist historiography. John has published widely in the fields of film and memory studies, including two recently published edited collections The Cultural Practice of Immigrant Filmmaking (with Lars Gustaf Andersson; 2019) and Transnational Cinema at the Borders (with Ana Cristina Mendes; 2018). John also works as a film programmer and organizes Scandinavia's only international experimental film event, AVANT, since 2002.
Further information on John and his projects can be found here.
Literature X Coffee
Karosh Taha
Karosh Taha’s debut novel Beschreibung einer Krabbenwanderung (Description of a Crab Migration) was published with Dumont in 2018. Born in Zaxo/Northern Iraq in 1987, Karsoh Taha moved to the German Ruhrgebiet (Ruhr region) at the age of ten. Her novel tells the story of student Sanaan, who grows up on a German housing estate and finds herself in conflict with the older generations in her family. This narrative of generational conflicts among a growing Kurdish diaspora in Germany and resistance against restrictive, often patriarchal, structures is conveyed with startling prose, lush literary imagery, and an at times provocative bluntness. The novel has been nominated for several literary prizes, including the German-based Ulla-Hahn-Preis.
Pictures
The pictures presented here feature the hosts and many of the guest speakers during the conference.
Photos
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English in a world of strangers: Rethinking World Anglophone Studies. Call for Papers
The 31st Annual Conference of GAPS (Association of Anglophone Postcolonial Studies) takes place at Goethe University Frankfurt (21-24 May 2020). The conference seeks to facilitate dynamic and fruitful conversations at the intersections of various disciplines, including, for instance, postcolonial studies, world literary studies, and the study of global Englishes. It also sets out to reflect on established notions of an ‘anglophone world’ by taking into consideration emerging cultural configurations such as English-language writing in the Arab world and the revival of vernacular literatures in Africa and the Indian subcontinent. By reflecting the role of English critically, the annual GAPS conference wants to explore the current state und future development of World Anglophone Studies.
Participants are invited to join this discussion about the transformation of English and the field of Anglophone postcolonial studies with their own ideas and papers.
For a specific list of what kinds of papers are desired for this conference in particular, you can view and download the CfP here.
Deadline for individual abstracts: December 31.2019
>> The Idea of South Asia and the Construct of South Asian Diasporic Literatures <<
A literary guest lectre by Prof. Nilufer E. Bharucha
Tuesday, 2 April | 12:15 s.t. | JO1
The English Department is delighted to host Prof. Nilufer E. Bharucha, Director of the Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging – Indian Diaspora Centre, for a public literary guest lecture at Uni Münster.
Prof. Bharucha is coordinator of the Indo-Canadian Studies Centre and Adjunct Faculty, Department of English at the University of Mumbai. She has published in national and international journals and anthologies and is on the advisory board of several international journals. Additionally, she has authored and edited books in the areas of Postcolonial Indian Writing, Diasporic Indian Literature & Cinema and the Writing of the Parsis.
In her lecture Prof. Nilufer E. Bharucha aims to contextualize the concept of South Asia in history, politics and culture and provide an overview of the literatures written by the South Asian Diaspora
The Poster can be viewed and downloaded here
We look forward to welcoming you to this event!
Klausurtermin
Der Wiederholungstermin für die Klausur der VL von Herrn Prof. Mark Stein findet statt am
Donnerstag, 28.03.2019 um 10.15 Uhr, Raum ES 129
Wenn Sie die Klausur am 28. März mitschreiben möchten, bitte ich Sie, sich per E-Mail (sekstein@uni-muenster.de) bis zum 22.03.2019 anzumelden. Bitte denken Sie daran, mindestens eine Viertelstunde vorher da zu sein und Ihren Studierendenausweis mitzubringen.
"Postcolonial Intellectuals and their
European Publics"
PIN Network Conference
Utrecht University/Netherlands, 5-6 February 2019
As the first of three PIN network conferences, “Postcolonial Intellectuals & their European Publics” will kick off the interdisciplinary research network (Utrecht, February 5-6). The conference addresses many vital question regarding the function and work of postcolonial intellectuals in Europe:
• Who can be considered postcolonial intellectuals?
• 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 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? And, are their critical tools effective enough?
Confirmed Keynote speakers include:
• Prof. Kaiama L. Glover
Associate Professor of French and Africana Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA
• Prof. Awam Amkpa
Associate Professor, New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, USA
Participants from the PTTS team include Felipe Espinoza Garrido, Deborah Nyangulu, Mark U. Stein, and Julian Wacker.
For more information about the conference and the full conference programme, please visit the conference page. The full programme is available here.
Postcolonial Intellectuals and their European Publics Network
PIN, the Postcolonial Intellectuals and their European Publics Network, is a NWO-funded project that brings together more than 25 European academics from 9 universities. PIN not only focuses on postcolonial intellectuals as critical individuals in the public eye, 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 knowledge. The interdisciplinary network investigates the role of the postcolonial public intellectual as crucial agents in renewing the function of the humanities and of democratic participation in Europe. Members include, among others, Sandra Ponzanesi (Utrecht University), Ana Cristina Mendes (University of Lisbon), Mark U Stein (Uni Münster), John McLeod, Graham Huggan, and Max Silverman(University of Leeds), Daniela Merolla (Sorbonne Paris Cité, USPC), Paulo de Medeiros (University of Warwick), Sabrina Marchetti and Shaul Bassi (University of Venice, Ca’ Foscari), Bolette B. Blaagaard (Aalborg University), Neelam Srivastava (University of Newcastle).
Guest lecture | "Windrush: The second generation" -
Professor Bénédicte Ledent, Université de Liège
On 14 Jan 2019, Professor Bénédicte Ledent delivered a guest lecture on “Windrush: The second generation”. In her talk, Ledent investigated the theme of unbelonging in the works of second-generation Windrush writers such as David Dabydeen, Caryl Phillips, Joan Riley, and Linton Kwesi Johnson. She showed how their texts simultaneously also claimed diasporic belongings within and to Britain, negotiating the very positionality of this transitonal body of writing as located between inside and outside perspectives. Her lecture took place in the context of Prof. Mark U. Stein's lecture series “'Remember the Ship in Citizenship’: Migration, displacement, refugeeship” and complemented the previous session on first-generationWindrush writing.
Bénédicte Ledent is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the Université de Liège and a member of CEREP (Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherche en Etudes Postcoloniales – Centre for Teaching and Research in Postcolonial Studies). She is the world’s leading expert on the work of Caryl Phillips and has published widely on contemporary fiction of the Caribbean diaspora, on Black British literature and literature of the African diaspora, as well as genres and postcolonial literature.
Prof. Mark Stein and Prof. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o during the event "World Literature in Gikuyu" on Friday, 15th of June
On June 15, 2018 renowned scholar and writer, Professor Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (UC Irvine) returned to Münster. Ngũgĩ (R) is pictured in discussion with Professor Mark Stein (L) on Gĩkũyũ World Literature, an event hosted by Afrika Kooperative e.V.
Book launch "Dekolonisierung des Denkens"
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© Christiana Diallo-Morick
Symposium | 30 Years of Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Power Relations
With Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein
From March 15-17, 2018, the Symposium 30 Years of Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Power Relations will take place at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. This event will tie back to Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein's volume Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (1988), in which they interrogated the clear entanglements of racism and changing class relations as well as the historical formation of the nation. 30 years later, the resurgence of right-wing and populist movements raises the pressing question in how far the idea that racism articulates itself through class relations and is intensified by nationalist currents can be understood today. During the symposium, a group of international theorists will engage in redefining the effects of this interrelated, sinister triad.
Along with Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, the participants will venture to understand these issues in their present configurations from a variety of perspectives.
For more information, please follow this link.
Sharon Dodua Otoo's literary guest lecture
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