Berlin Southern Theory Lecture 2022 on December 15 with author and activist Françoise Vergès on the importance of the "decolonization of Europe" / Joint press release by Freie Universität Berlin and Leibniz Center for Modern Oriental Studies
What do we mean by decolonization? What does it mean to fight for the decolonization of Europe today? And what exactly could a decolonized Europe look like? Françoise Vergès will address these questions at the Berlin Southern Theory Lecture 2022. Against the backdrop of the survival of colonial ideologies, Françoise Vergès invokes, among others, the Afro-Caribbean-French writer and author Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), who once wrote: "’Europe’ is morally and spiritually untenable". It also refers to the mastermind of decolonization Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), who projected into the decolonization of Europe a comprehensive change of the world and a "program of absolute upheaval. It is precisely this upheaval and its realizations that Françoise Vergès approaches in her current works. Her lecture in Berlin is entitled "A Program of Total Disorder: Decolonizing Europe" and will be held in English. The Berlin Southern Theory Lecture is taking place for the fourth time this year. The lecture series on scholarly perspectives from the Global South is organized jointly by the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology of Freie Universität Berlin and the Leibniz Center for Modern Oriental Studies in cooperation with the Ethnological Museum, National Museums in Berlin, the Dahlem Research Campus, and co2libri. The event is open to the public, admission is free.
Françoise Vergès is a writer, an anti-racist, decolonial, feminist activist and independent curator. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of California Berkeley and has subsequently taught at Sussex University and Goldsmiths College in London. She is particularly concerned with the decolonization of art and has worked with artists and filmmakers to do so. Her recent publications include: "A Feminist Theory of Violence" (2022), "A Decolonial Feminism" (2021), and "De la violence coloniale dans l’espace public" (2021).
The lecture will be moderated and introduced by Alexis von Poser (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), Abdoulaye Sounaye (Leibniz Center for Modern Oriental Studies) and Sandra Calkins (Freie Universität Berlin). Discussants will be Fernanda Beigel (CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza-Argentina) and Henrike Kohpeiß (Freie Universität Berlin).
The aim of the Berlin Southern Theory Lecture, which has been held annually since 2019, is to highlight contributions to theory building and critique of science from the Global South. The lecture series aims to contribute to a global exchange of knowledge and to highlight postcolonial asymmetries so that theoretical debates in the social sciences and humanities gain diversity. The first inaugural lecture was given by Felwine Sarr from Senegal in December 2019. In 2020, Indian historian Prathama Banerjee spoke, and in 2021, philosopher and activist Djamila Ribeiro from Brazil. The event is organized by the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology of Freie Universität Berlin and the Leibniz Center for Modern Oriental Studies (ZMO) in cooperation with the Ethnological Museum, National Museums in Berlin, the Dahlem Research Campus, and co2libri, with support from the Berlin Center for Global Engagement (BCGE) as part of the Berlin University Alliance (BUA).
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