How is it possible to theorize not only on the so-called Global South, but also in, from, and through it? What appears as the universal often involves a gestureduc of generalization, flattening and dominating the particular, predominantly from a Eurocentric perspective.

This workshop will discuss ways to unsettle the very distinction between the general and the particular that underlies claims to universality and simultaneously retain the claim to the universal that makes theorization generative and relevant. In this vein, it will reflect on the following questions: How are theoretical affinities transformed through contexts in the Global South? How can theoretical work be made relevant to the larger audience beyond particular region or area studies? What are possible strategies to present the theoretical impact of one’s work despite its constant peripheralization as a case study? How can one maintain a critique of the Eurocentric gaze without falling into the traps of ethnocentrism? What are the affordances that particular disciplines and institutions could offer to tackle such theoretical and methodological challenges? What methodologies can be employed to expand, if not transform, current understandings of the universal?

Scholars from a variety of fields who undertake such inquiries are invited to jointly develop novel methods, approaches, and styles of knowledge production and circulation.

In English

14:00 Introduction
by 
Özgün Eylül İşcen and Iracema Dulley

14:15 – 16:00 Panel I – Beyond Singularity

Juliana Streva
Relational Zones: Assembling Encruzilhada

Nader Talebi
Politics of Knowledge Production: Nativism in Iran

Iracema Dulley
This Has a Name: Notes on Witchcraft, Tautology, and Ethnographic Theory

Discussant: Kai Kresse
Moderator: Xenia Chiaramonte

16:00 Coffee Break

17:00 – 19:00 Panel II – Aesthetic Mediation and Collectivity

Özgür Çiçek
Challenges for Enriching Critical Thinking on the Minor Subject: 
Decolonizing Minor Aesthetics

Özgün Eylül İşcen
The Geopolitical Aesthetic of Digital Media and Theorizing Through Arts

Rosalia Namsai Engchuan
Thinking Nearby: Making and Holding Space as a Method for Collective Theorization

Discussant: Rosa Castillo
Moderator: Sam Dolbear

14:00 – 16:00 Panel III – Beyond Disciplines

Firoozeh Farvardin
Unsettling ‘the South’ in the Global South: 
Reflections from within Iranian studies

Anaheed Al-Hardan
Empires, Colonialism and the Global South in Sociology

Bernardo Bianchi
On the Meanings of Knowledge: 
Between Epistemic Authority and Subversion

Sarath Jakka
Beyond the Excluded Middle: 
Thinking Through a Plural Logic

Discussant: Kerry Bystrom
Moderator: Özgün Eylül İşcen

16:00 Coffee Break

 

17:00 – 19:00 Panel IV – Dialogical Encounters

Amina El-Halawani
Where is North? And What is South? A Reading of Derek Walcott’s 
A Branch of the Blue Nile and Frank Maguinness’s Carthaginians

Mahmoud Al-Zayed
Decolonizing/Re-Locating Theory: 
Notes from Frantz Fanon and Malek Bennabi

Burcu Alkan
Theorizing World Literature from the Threshold: 
Turkish Literature as World Literature

Discussant: Clara Ruvituso
Moderator: Iracema Dulley

Organized by

Iracema Dulley and Özgün Eylül İşcen

With
Burcu Alkan
Anaheed Al-Hardan
Mahmoud Al-Zayed
Firoozeh Farvardin
Amina El-Halawani
Sarath Jakka
Juliana Streva
Nader Talebi
Bernardo Bianchi
Rosalia Namsai Engchuan
Özgür Çiçek
KV Globalsouth

Poster design: Studio BENS based on a collage © Claudia Peppel, 2019 (detail)