Conception: Benjamin Zachariah, Potsdam
With Francisco Bosco, Rio de Janeiro; Ali Fathollah-Nejad, Berlin; Bodhisattva Kar, Cape Town; Joachim Kurtz, Heidelberg; Anastasia Piliavsky, London; Dhruv Raina, Delhi

What happens to a dissenting framework of thinking when it becomes the official ideology of states? The appropriation of postcolonial theory as a form of national self-legitimation is now a widespread practice. The BRICS group of countries provides a cluster of such examples. One can argue that there isn’t a right or wrong postcolonialism or decoloniality, only various instrumentalisations that are flexible and reusable. Is this set of usages implicit in the logic of post- or decolonial thinking, or can it be seen as distortion or misuse?

Veranstaltung in englischer Sprache mit deutscher Simultanübersetzung.

Program

20th February
16:30
Opening Remarks
Benjamin Zachariah (Potsdam)

17:00
Ali Fathollah-Nejad (Berlin)
The Authoritarians’ Abuse of Anti-Colonialism: The Case of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1979 to BRICS+

 
21st February
11:00
Bodhisattva Kar (Cape Town)
Six Theses on Decoloniality

12:00
Anastasia Piliavsky (London)
‘Decolonisation’ as Ukraine’s suicidal culture war

14:30
Francisco Bosco (Rio de Janeiro)
Decolonizing Brazil, Tense Multiculturalism, and Histories Unaccounted For

15:30
Joachim Kurtz (Heidelberg)
Decolonizing Hong Kong: Competing Adaptations of a Global Paradigm

17:00
Dhruv Raina (Delhi)
‘Other Knowledge Systems’: The Challenges for the Contemporary University

18:00
Closing discussion