Inaugural Postcolonial Humanities Working Group Creates Space for New Discussion and Collaboration

June 5, 2018
Homi K. Bhabha (Harvard) delivers a talk for the Postcolonial Humanities Working Group.

The new Postcolonial Humanities Working Group, sponsored by the Humanities Council, had a rewarding inaugural year. Aligned with Princeton’s commitment to service, the purpose of the Postcolonial Humanities Working Group is to generate a space for Princeton faculty, staff, and graduate students to analyze recent research from Postcolonial Studies and to collectively brainstorm possibilities for scholars of the Humanities in terms of engagement with service, activism, and interdisciplinary research on the repercussions of imperial history.

The working group, organized by Dannelle Gutarra Cordero (Princeton Writing Program), currently has 57 faculty, staff, and graduate student participants. The invited speakers of the 2017-2018 academic year were: Homi Bhabha (Harvard University), Nicole Legnani (Spanish & Portuguese), Christina León (English), F. Nick Nesbitt (French & Italian), Chika Okeke-Agulu (Art & Archaeology), Serguei Oushakine (Anthropology; Slavic Languages & Literatures), and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Columbia University). In April 2018, the working group held a graduate roundtable discussion, titled “Colonialism in the 21st Century: A Humanistic Inquiry”.

The list of invited speakers for the 2018-2019 academic year tentatively includes Jean Comaroff (Harvard University), John Comaroff (Harvard University), Reena Goldthree (African American Studies), Gyan Prakash (History), and Ann Laura Stoler (The New School for Social Research).

The working group will also hold a lunch conversation for the development of collaborative research projects and a second graduate roundtable discussion.

Faculty members, staff, or graduate students interested in joining the Postcolonial Humanities Working Group should email Dannelle Gutarra Cordero, dgutarra@princeton.edu.

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